What's going in your Withholding Allowance?

[MrForbes]

I guess you could ask on the Q&A....do batteries with leads and connectors attached count as part of the 40 pound witholding?

and the answer will determine how much more electrical tape we need....

[Jim E]

I think Dave's answer on page 3 pretty much sums it up. If you modify the component in ANY way, it's considered a fabricated part and counts in the 40 lb. limit.

So, hopefully everyone saved those 2007 and 2008 battery boxes and shipped the 2009 batteries in the crate.

The students will be busy attaching Anderson cables on Thursday, that's for sure. I'm sure glad we stuck with the FP motor configuration in the KOP.

Do they consider sharpie marks as a modification? What about the recommended change to the charger to add the Anderson connector? That sounds like it too is included in the 40 Lbs.

Right now, our withholding allowance is about 3 lbs.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Jim E

Do they consider sharpie marks as a modification? What about the recommended change to the charger to add the Anderson connector? That sounds like it too is included in the 40 Lbs.

Ummmm, not unless you plan on putting it on your robot

[Zholl]

We're holding on to our control board and driver station. We had some issues at this weekends scrimmage, all programming, mostly problems with watchdog. Everything else is pretty simple and doesn't need fixing

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Kim -
You need to read each question/answer carefully and take care to not insert assumptions about information that is not there.

The referenced question asked specifically about spare batteries. It did not say anything about batteries plus leads plus connectors. There is no contradiction here (and before anyone starts yelling "hey, all batteries are used with leads and connectors, so of course that was implied!" remember that all batteries should be shipped without the leads/connectors installed; so the answer does not make any assumptions about what was implied - only what was asked).


Again, be careful to read the question/answer carefully. It discussed both a potential change to a motor, and the legality of a COTS transmission. Don't confuse the two. I don't see any place in the answer that indicates a motor with a changed pinion would not be considered a fabricated item.

-dave


.

Not to be stubborn, but everyone keeps talking about the intent of the rule, and not to lawyer them... I wish the GDC could just be clear and answer questions as the TEAMS intend them. Instead of "mentoring" and "helping" the teams, they are either being deliberately vague, or just trying to keep themselves from being lawyered, and I fear that this is going to terribly confuse a lot of teams... or already has... And many of us have already posted the questions, so without answers and regionals coming up fast, we are just conjecturing as best we can. The GDC has chastised for submitting the same question over and over again before, but I have to believe that many teams right now are asking the exact same questions. It would help to at least be able to see the questions that are "in queue"...

[Vikesrock]

The GDC has spoken and batteries with assembled connectors attached must be included as part of the Withholding Allowance.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=12068

[rant]
I'm just going to come out and say it, I think this is ridiculous. I understand the need to establish a firm definition of what is COTS and what isn't for the purposes of this rule, but requiring teams to rewire all of their batteries at the event seems rather pointless to me. I can say for certain that I am done with this whole "Try to understand the reasoning behind a rule" garbage as there have been many cases this year where my best understanding of the reasoning wasn't even on the same planet as the GDC's.

My team is small and now one or more of our members will have to spend the beginning of their day on Thursday connecting lugs and covering terminals in electrical tape. Does this help even the playing field? If so between us and who exactly?

I am now beginning to wonder if we need to forfeit any awards/matches from previous years as in both '07 and '08 we brought assembled batteries to the competition by hand. We brought at least 2 batteries to each event which would be in violation of the 25 lb. limit specified by <R41> of the 2008 Competition Manual and <R31> of the 2007 Competition Manual. I guess it's time to figure out where to send these trophies back to

I have seen many veteran teams offering assistance to others (both rookie and veteran) by lending them batteries during eliminations. I sincerely hope that this ruling does not cause a single battery to be left behind because of the hassle introduced.
[/rant]

[Cory]

This is the most ridiculous rule I have seen in my 9 years of FIRST robotics.

For the last 9 years I could walk into the event carrying 10 batteries with leads attached and nobody cared. Now this year suddenly this is different and we need to cut all our heat shrink off our terminated batteries, remove the leads, weigh them as part of our 40 lb witholding allowance, and then spend 30 minutes and $10 of heat shrink on Thursday morning in the pits to re-terminate our batteries?

I fail to see any universe in which this makes sense. It's a complete and total waste of time for a rule which is basically unenforceable anyways. How am I supposed to explain to my kids that they can't practice until they re-terminate all their batteries (unless we ship all our batteries event to event...which means we can't practice, and costs a ton of money).

Now we're all screwed anyways, as the crates are already gone and there's no way to even comply with the rules without de-terminating all our batteries (Let's not even mention the fact that based on the GDC's response to use the "would I want to return this item and get my money back if I bought it and it looked used" test, our batteries would not be COTS even with the leads removed).

There's really no way that teams are gaining a competitive advantage by coming in with pre-terminated batteries. This ruling is absolutely baffling to me.

Give me the old rulebook back with 100 more rules any day. At least you could understand them without a law degree.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Cory

Give me the old rulebook back with 100 more rules any day. At least you could understand them without a law degree.

I'm not fond of the forced guessing games.

Why do we have to ask for clarification for the most basic things, it took a lot of pondering and discussion before anyone even realized batteries might fall into this category, and then it was QnA'd and determined to be illegal.

It makes me never want to QnA anything, and just go with Plausible deniability. If this were never brought up and never QnA'd would we have been stopped carrying batteries in? Was this already in documentation/training for volunteers? If so, why were teams never informed? If more explicit rules aren't going to be enforced unless someone asks about them, why even have the QnA system? It seems nothing is illegal until you ask about it.

Why does the GDC seem to try to be coy? If their intent had been from the beginning to do this, why not tell us? Why weren't we informed day one what covering a corner with bumpers meant, as it was clearly ambiguous? Why are most QnA's answered in the most noncommittal way possible? Dave, why do you publicly comment on discussion on QnA's warning how they "might" be interpreted, then say that it's of course non-official as it's not a QnA. Why not just say that in the QnA?

[Racer26]

Yeah, I'm getting relatively infuriated at the sheer number of stupid rulings this year. This one moreso than most others, but for years of being chastised not to "lawyer" the rules, and just go on the intent, it seems to me the GDC has gotten very lawyerish this year, and when someone brings up a question about things teams have been doing since basically 1992, why are they suddenly illegal when they clearly DONT give ANY competitive advantage.

[Brandon Holley]

I think its fairly safe to say that this is probably one of the most ridiculous rules FIRST has come up with...ever.

It looks like everyones got something to add to their list for thursday morning

[JesseK]

Ha, it's a good thing we didn't use the high-voltage soldering station where I work to solder the leads to the batteries.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I think its fairly safe to say that this is probably one of the most ridiculous rules FIRST has come up with...ever.

It looks like everyones got something to add to their list for thursday morning

More importantly, I hope FIRST sends out an email blast ASAP. While it's irritating to take off our connectors, it will be 10,000x more irritating to watch all the teams who don't keep up on the Q&A walk in with fully assembled batteries and not even get spoken to...

An email blast will also serve to increase the number of complaints FIRST will receive for an absolutely pointless and potentially robot crippling ruling. I think they're trying to be consistent, but I'd rather them be realistic.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

More importantly, I hope FIRST sends out an email blast ASAP. While it's irritating to take off our connectors, it will be 10,000x more irritating to watch all the teams who don't keep up on the Q&A walk in with fully assembled batteries and not even get spoken to...

I'm pretty sure they'll all get spoken to. What will be a pain to watch is when teams try to disassemble their battery connections in the lobby or on the sidewalk of a venue. Good luck if it's raining outside, or if it's cold... I 2nd the email blast about it.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

Not to be stubborn, but everyone keeps talking about the intent of the rule, and not to lawyer them... I wish the GDC could just be clear and answer questions as the TEAMS intend them. Instead of "mentoring" and "helping" the teams, they are either being deliberately vague, or just trying to keep themselves from being lawyered, and I fear that this is going to terribly confuse a lot of teams... or already has... And many of us have already posted the questions, so without answers and regionals coming up fast, we are just conjecturing as best we can. The GDC has chastised for submitting the same question over and over again before, but I have to believe that many teams right now are asking the exact same questions. It would help to at least be able to see the questions that are "in queue"...

I can't help but wonder if someone answering these Q & A's gives out a really long hard evil laugh everytime an answer is posted because they are having so much fun messing with our brains. There always has to be a rule that spoils the season. They are lawyering, not us.

[JesseK]

I just learned that we dodged a bullet by putting the majority of our batteries in the crate right before it shipped off, so we'll be available to help other teams with their batteries in DC. Come grab someone in a purple shirt if you need an extra hand Thursday morning.