Lesson Learned: The Negative

[casualobserver]

I found that a disappointing aspect of the competition this year was the lack of enforcement of certain rules. In particular, the 80" rule, perhaps the biggest constraint this year in design was rarely enforced throughout the competition. Teams were occasionally penalized when they fell over and ended up being far out of the limit, however some designs were, when functioning normally, outside this limit. The fact that a yellow sticker was placed on the inspection tag, alerting the refs to the fact that the robot was capable of extending past the 80" was not enough. Rules like this, which are designed to specifically create a difficult design constraint (and thus make the game more complex and challenging) should be enforced on the highest order, as they are in essences why we play the game. No one expects to get away with a 140 pound robot that has a 40"X50" base. However, once the match starts, it seems that this concern for playing the game the way it was designed is lost. A team whose robot was ~87" long by diagonal measurement during normal (not fallen-over) game play, was never once penalized during a match. This leads to a more general disappointment in FIRST.

If/when such things happen, teams who are aware of this are put in a strange situation. Is it GP to report a rule violation by another team? Is there a way to do so that is GP, as well as officially acceptable? Can it be done efficiently? How will it affect the other team? Such questions are raised which have no real answer in the FIRST community/competition. An exception, Team 190 (Team 190 Legality Thread). Their robot had a unique hurdling technique which eventually was determined to be illegal after 2 regionals of acceptable play. There was a discussion on CD about their design and legality and it was all handled with care and professionalism. However, this is not usually the case, and a fear often arises that silences teams because they may be 'black-listed', if you will, for reporting these types of things. I feel it is FIRST's responsibility to design a system where a team can raise a legitimate concern about another team's robot without fear of any tarnish on their reputation. Centrally, it calls the question, "Is it alright to not report cheating?" No one wants to be the team that is always telling on other teams, but it is simply not fair to teams who took into consideration all of the rules when designing their robot.
On that note, those are my 2 cents, take them as you will. The season was otherwise great! I look forward to next year's game, and to a time when such situations will be resolved in a gracious and professional manner.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by casualobserver

I found that a disappointing aspect of the competition this year was the lack of enforcement of certain rules. In particular, the 80" rule, perhaps the biggest constraint this year in design was rarely enforced throughout the competition. (...) A team whose robot was ~87" long by diagonal measurement during normal (not fallen-over) game play, was never once penalized during a match. This leads to a more general disappointment in FIRST.

I don't understand your point. There is nothing wrong with being more than 80" in any direction as long as the robot meets Rule R16:

<R16> Once the MATCH has started, the ROBOT may assume a PLAYING CONFIGURATION that exceeds the size dimensions specified in Rule <R11>. While in the PLAYING CONFIGURATION, the ROBOT may expand up to a maximum horizontal dimension of 80 inches (e.g. all parts of the ROBOT must fit within an imaginary 80-inch-diameter upright cylinder). There are no height limits for a ROBOT in its PLAYING CONFIGURATION at any time after the start of the MATCH.

So, if that 87" long robot was diagonal in the cylinder, it would only violate <R16> if it was also protruding through the side of an imaginary cylinder 80" in diameter. The rule specifically says that a robot has no height limit, and could therefore be 160" high if that's what the team wanted. Were you saying that the 87" robot was at a shallow enough angle that it covered more than 80" on the floor?

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

I don't understand your point. There is nothing wrong with being more than 80" in any direction as long as the robot meets Rule R16:



So, if that 87" long robot was diagonal in the cylinder, it would only violate <R16> if it was also protruding through the side of an imaginary cylinder 80" in diameter. The rule specifically says that a robot has no height limit, and could therefore be 160" high if that's what the team wanted. Were you saying that the 87" robot was at a shallow enough angle that it covered more than 80" on the floor?

I can think of at least one robot that routinely violated the 80" rule (was more than 80 long in a horizontal plane) and was never penalized. Through all of the competitions I saw, the only time the penalty was called was when a robot fell over. That means that it was never looked for.

I don't blame the refs, they were way to busy doing other things to pay attention to this rule.