Batteries Carried Into Competitions

[IndySam]

This may be the dumbest ruling in GDC history!

[eugenebrooks]

Come on guys and gals. The GDC has ruled that batteries (alone) don't count against the withholding allowance. If you shipped your batteries and cables in the crate you have to assemble them in the pit, and if you didn't you still have to assemble them in the pit. There isn't anything to complain about on this front. It is a good idea to go over all those connections anyway, there are a lot of loose battery connections at competitions.

In my opinion, a lot of these rules adjustments result from pressing the GDC to clarify, and then clarify some more, instead of just letting common sense guide the interpretation of the rules. I wouldn't accuse the GDC of lawyering. It would appear that teams force them into corners with the constant challenges, and many of the responses are guided by the need to avoid the next corner.

The only rub here is that the unplanned impact of the weight of the cables on the withholding allowance is unfortunate. If you are impacted by this, you can solve the problem with COTS battery cables, they are available from AndyMark. You can also have a team that is way under the allowance bring the battery cables in for you. We would certainly do it for you, and we are way under our allowance because we shipped our entire robot, battery set, and cables in the crate. No doubt someone will worry about the legality of teams helping each other in this manner, and will ask the GDC about it. More power to you...

The most amusing thing about all of this is the fact that batteries and cables don't count towards the weight of the robot!

Eugene

[ZakuAce]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

In my opinion, a lot of these rules adjustments result from pressing the GDC to clarify, and then clarify some more, instead of just letting common sense guide the interpretation of the rules. I wouldn't accuse the GDC of lawyering. It would appear that teams force them into corners with the constant challenges, and many of the responses are guided by the need to avoid the next corner.

Completely agree. This is the same reason I always get mad at people asking teachers how long a paper has to be, then whine because they say it is too long. You should not have asked in the first place!

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

Come on guys and gals. The GDC has ruled that batteries (alone) don't count against the withholding allowance. If you shipped your batteries and cables in the crate you have to assemble them in the pit, and if you didn't you still have to assemble them in the pit. There isn't anything to complain about on this front. It is a good idea to go over all those connections anyway, there are a lot of loose battery connections at competitions.

In my opinion, a lot of these rules adjustments result from pressing the GDC to clarify, and then clarify some more, instead of just letting common sense guide the interpretation of the rules. I wouldn't accuse the GDC of lawyering. It would appear that teams force them into corners with the constant challenges, and many of the responses are guided by the need to avoid the next corner.

The only rub here is that the unplanned impact of the weight of the cables on the withholding allowance is unfortunate. If you are impacted by this, you can solve the problem with COTS battery cables, they are available from AndyMark. You can also have a team that is way under the allowance bring the battery cables in for you. We would certainly do it for you, and we are way under our allowance because we shipped our entire robot, battery set, and cables in the crate. No doubt someone will worry about the legality of teams helping each other in this manner, and will ask the GDC about it. More power to you...

The most amusing thing about all of this is the fact that batteries and cables don't count towards the weight of the robot!

Eugene

That's all fine and dandy, but don't tell us not to lawyer the rules when they turn around and lawyer them themselves (regardless of the reason they are doing it). Especially when its happening now - there are teams getting ready for competition next week and now they have this stupid rule (that has no good reason to exist) to contend with.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

Come on guys and gals. The GDC has ruled that batteries (alone) don't count against the withholding allowance. If you shipped your batteries and cables in the crate you have to assemble them in the pit, and if you didn't you still have to assemble them in the pit. There isn't anything to complain about on this front. It is a good idea to go over all those connections anyway, there are a lot of loose battery connections at competitions.

What if you spent a few days making sure every one of your batteries is done correctly? This ruling is absurd.

[Mike Soukup]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

In my opinion, a lot of these rules adjustments result from pressing the GDC to clarify, and then clarify some more, instead of just letting common sense guide the interpretation of the rules. I wouldn't accuse the GDC of lawyering. It would appear that teams force them into corners with the constant challenges, and many of the responses are guided by the need to avoid the next corner.

Considering that the Q&A is meant to clarify rules, not create them, the ruling that batteries with cables are non-COTS has always existed, so if we used our common sense to infer that batteries with cables were COTS we were unknowingly breaking the existing rules. The questions that teams have asked building up to this ruling have been attempts to clarify that our original common sense understanding was indeed correct and there were inconsistencies with the Q&A's responses, not the other way around.

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

You can also have a team that is way under the allowance bring the battery cables in for you. We would certainly do it for you, and we are way under our allowance because we shipped our entire robot, battery set, and cables in the crate. No doubt someone will worry about the legality of teams helping each other in this manner, and will ask the GDC about it. More power to you...

I don't understand how this could be legal. If it were, three teams could bring in three separate parts of a new robot, bolt it together, then have one team compete with it. My common sense tells me that's not what the withholding allowance is for. Since your common sense tells you one thing & my common sense tells you another, it looks like we need a clarification.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup

Considering that the Q&A is meant to clarify rules, not create them, the ruling that batteries with cables are non-COTS has always existed, so if we used our common sense to infer that batteries with cables were COTS we were unknowingly breaking the existing rules. The questions that teams have asked building up to this ruling have been attempts to clarify that our original common sense understanding was indeed correct and there were inconsistencies with the Q&A's responses, not the other way around.

The GDC doesn't just interpret the rules they write them. They could easily say that this is the letter of rule but it will be changed in the next update.

What they have ruled is totally insane.

[GUI]

What they have ruled is reasonably logical given that the Q&A is solely for clarification of rules, and as the rules stand a battery with cables attached is a modified COTS item. There is nothing to say that there won't be a team update excluding batteries from the withholding weight. If the GDC doesn't limit itself to only interpreting rules in the Q&A, and leaving changes for team updates then the whole system breaks down. The various channels have their purposes, and the Q&A's is to clarify existing rules.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by GUI

What they have ruled is reasonably logical given that the Q&A is solely for clarification of rules, and as the rules stand a battery with cables attached is a modified COTS item. There is nothing to say that there won't be a team update excluding batteries from the withholding weight. If the GDC doesn't limit itself to only interpretting rules in the Q&A, and leaving changes for team updates then the whole system breaks down. The various channels have their purposes, and the Q&A's is to clarify esisting rules.

I would tend to disagree.

I don't believe this is reasonably logical. It flies in the face of years and years of competitions and what has been legal in the past. This is rules lawyering at it's worst - literal interpretation of the rules without regard to intent.

I also disagree with your statement of "the whole system breaks down". This is FIRST's, and by extension the GDC's, game and rules. They have the ability to do ANYTHING they want to do. If they make a ruling in the Q&A, then pass it on in the Team Updates, then that's just fine. It would certainly save the chaos and confusion that this is creating.

Now, very hopefully, the GDC clarifies this in an update today. If not, I'm certainly going to regard their decision making process in a whole new light.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I would tend to disagree.

I don't believe this is reasonably logical. It flies in the face of years and years of competitions and what has been legal in the past. This is rules lawyering at it's worst - literal interpretation of the rules without regard to intent.

I also disagree with your statement of "the whole system breaks down". This is FIRST's, and by extension the GDC's, game and rules. They have the ability to do ANYTHING they want to do. If they make a ruling in the Q&A, then pass it on in the Team Updates, then that's just fine. It would certainly save the chaos and confusion that this is creating.

Now, very hopefully, the GDC clarifies this in an update today. If not, I'm certainly going to regard their decision making process in a whole new light.

FIRST and GDC can only make rulings if teams exist to be ruled upon. I am with you on waiting it out for today. If this decision making process continues, then I am not sure if it is even worth competing since all of us are going to be busy attempting to comply with ridiculous rules anyway. On another note - Shipping lots of batteries in the crate can be EXPENSIVE and break the budget. Isn't there any regard for that?

[Rich Kressly]

No "system" is going to be broken one way or the other here. However, last week I had two students spend 3 hours getting all of our battery cables to the right length and bolted properly and securely in the correct orientation, then insulated appropriately. I'm really not "feeling the vibe" for having to take them apart before our week one comp and putting them back together, just for the sake of walking through a door. It would indeed have been nice to know this sooner, I would have shipped all batteries with the crate and paid the overage. Wouldn't it be safer having teams show up with properly connected and insulated cables using the Andymark plastic plugs instead of having all teams needing to connect cables on batteries ... some fully charged ...in the pits???

I imagined that the 40 pound allowance might cause a few issues getting into an event and because of that we shipped the robot and controls in the crate. However, this is not something I anticipated at all. I hope there's time for folks to revisit this one.

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

I imagined that the 40 pound allowance might cause a few issues getting into an event and because of that we shipped the robot and controls in the crate. However, this is not something I anticipated at all. I hope there's time for folks to revisit this one.

This is an understatement and I am really glad that Oregon is not a first week regional this year. This will have to be fixed.

I also can only imagine the lines of teams trying to get in on Thursday morning while everything they bring in is checked... Imagine standing in line waiting to have your stuff weighed as it is brought in... If you are lucky you will be first in line... and have 59 other teams waiting behind you... at 1 minute per team that will take an hour... with two weigh stations it would be 30 minutes.....minimum... and that is based on 1 minute per team which will never happen.

I would hope that we are allowed to act as gracious professionals and police ourselves...

By the way, yes assumptions were made... but there have only been a few years when the batteries had to be in the crate.

The question to ask here is this:

We were encouraged to keep our control systems at home to work with them.
How were we supposed to use them without batteries?

One of the major points of the COTS and other rules from the past are to ship the whole robot... and not keep assemblies...however the rule this year didn't specify what we could keep. If the GDC had wanted ONLY the control system retained (and that was the purpose of the 40 lb rule..) because it was new... then it could have simply stated that..

Frankly i am getting pretty tired of trying to guess why a rule was instituted.
I have worked with federal regulations my whole life and intent was specified in a separate document along with the process of why the rules were made and what they were supposed to cover. If we understand the intent of a rule... we can design and specify systems to comply...

It seems that we are having to guess at the intent of rules this year.

In the past, many, many teams have been outside the allowed rules if we are now saying that the rule has always said that batteries with cables attached were not allowed to be brought in to the venue with the team.

I guess that in the end, my question to the GDC would be:

What is the purpose of making us reassemble our battery cables at an event?

Everyone has batteries... Everyone has to use them during the build season...
Why should we have to purchase more cable and connectors?

To say that you have to because its "in the rules" is a cop out..

We will see what happens tonight in the update.

[kborer22]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

Come on guys and gals. The GDC has ruled that batteries (alone) don't count against the withholding allowance. If you shipped your batteries and cables in the crate you have to assemble them in the pit, and if you didn't you still have to assemble them in the pit. There isn't anything to complain about on this front. It is a good idea to go over all those connections anyway, there are a lot of loose battery connections at competitions.

In my opinion, a lot of these rules adjustments result from pressing the GDC to clarify, and then clarify some more, instead of just letting common sense guide the interpretation of the rules. I wouldn't accuse the GDC of lawyering. It would appear that teams force them into corners with the constant challenges, and many of the responses are guided by the need to avoid the next corner.

The only rub here is that the unplanned impact of the weight of the cables on the withholding allowance is unfortunate. If you are impacted by this, you can solve the problem with COTS battery cables, they are available from AndyMark. You can also have a team that is way under the allowance bring the battery cables in for you. We would certainly do it for you, and we are way under our allowance because we shipped our entire robot, battery set, and cables in the crate. No doubt someone will worry about the legality of teams helping each other in this manner, and will ask the GDC about it. More power to you...

The most amusing thing about all of this is the fact that batteries and cables don't count towards the weight of the robot!

Eugene

For teams like us (and im sure there are many out there) who will be attending our first regional literally 1.5 miles from home (boston) this is a huge pain. Were certainly not going to ship out batteries a mile and half when we could just drive them over. Not to mention we have already cut our terminals to length and heat shrunk them. Why should we have to buy more terminals from andymark? Also you want to minimize the 6 AWG wire on your robot so if were were to connect a full length terminal we would be really stressing the wire and connections on the battery and at the connector end.

[martin417]

The real pain here is that this came out AFTER the bot was shipped. We had our allowance planned already, and it didn't include the batteries. If we had known, we could have packed the batteries into the crate and saved the pain. I don't understand the logic here. Regardless of the wording of the rules, based on past experience, this is a rule change, not a clarification.

[Chris is me]

This rule doesn't make any sense to me. Why would GDC want us to perform the somewhat trivial task of disassembling and reassembling all of our batteries just so that we can bring them in to the competition? What's the "intent" of this ruling? What positive impact does it have on the FIRST competition?