What's going in your Withholding Allowance?

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by 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.

Jesse, have any of these batteries had leads attached since before kickoff? If so they would have to be taken apart and reassembled to comply with <R27> as they would be a Fabricated item created before kickoff.

[IndySam]

ooopps







stupid wrong thread.......

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Why does the GDC seem to try to be coy?

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

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.

This is the part that really grinds my gears. Not to dig on my childhood hero Dave, but every time I read something like "the answer does not make any assumptions about what was implied", I hear a voice in my head going "HAHA GOTCHA!", and each occurrence is more infuriating than the last.

Instead of simply saying "Additional batteries do not need to be considered part of the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE", why not add "unless your batteries have been assembled into a MECHANISM"? It's not like this is an obscure scenario... when it's obvious that the blanket "yes" answer is incorrect for the device that many teams would consider to be a "battery", it's insane for the GDC to withhold the complete answer until somebody strings together a more precise set of words. It's a huge hassle for askers and answerers alike. If that's the rule, then just lay it on the table. Let's not play games.

(Hm, maybe I should see a doctor about those voices...)

[Racer26]

i've noticed the GDC for many years tends to give very non-committal answers, but its been especially bad this year. They always say "we can't make comments on individual robot designs" well, make a comment. Say something like "for this to be legal, you would have to..." or what have you. I'm sick and tired of the guessing game they've led us on. Is this the bumper rule? no. is this? no. why not just say "no. THIS is the bumper rule". Admittedly, there are Q&A askers out there who just refuse to ASSUME some things about the way the rules are written and go based on INTENT. Those people ask so many questions about every permutation of interpretations of the rules and force the GDC into a corner, but the GDC needs to say No, you're being silly. Stop asking questions that you should automatically know the answer to. and when they get backed into a corner like that (say, with this battery issue) they need to say Oh, well, the way the rules are written is NOT what we intended, so here's a modification that FIXES the rule to be the way we intended it.

EDIT: I've been around FIRST since 2003, and every year, they tell us to stop lawyering the rules and go based on intent, and every year the problem seems to get worse and worse.

[Uberbots]

we are actually bringing -6 pounds of stuff and putting it all on the bot when we get to ct regional.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by jgannon

it's insane for the GDC to withhold the complete answer until somebody strings together a more precise set of words.

To look at this from a different perspective, stringing together more precise sets of words is a very important skill. Many of the complaints with the manual, Q&A, etc. have to do with this very thing - and the GDC could be providing an opportunity for team members to practice this skill.

I do understand the frustrations occurring right now and am not trying to be glib or flippant.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

To look at this from a different perspective, stringing together more precise sets of words is a very important skill. Many of the complaints with the manual, Q&A, etc. have to do with this very thing - and the GDC could be providing an opportunity for team members to practice this skill.

I do understand the frustrations occurring right now and am not trying to be glib or flippant.

I've seen tons of extremely clear Q&A questions that the GDC totally blows off and gives some noncommittal answer to because it wasn't worded in exactly the right way or something.

It's like it's a big game where the GDC members are sitting in a room laughing with each other about how clever they are for giving cutesy little responses that are totally useless

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

Jesse, have any of these batteries had leads attached since before kickoff? If so they would have to be taken apart and reassembled to comply with <R27> as they would be a Fabricated item created before kickoff.

Good point. At first when I saw this I said 'uh oh'. In reality, I believe any of the batteries that were used on our 2008 bot (there were 4) had to be re-oriented to work with our 2009 bot. We swapped from parallel connectors to angled connectors, and by doing so probably just saved ourselves some time in the pits. Those plus the 2009 batteries should suffice.

There are a couple of others that I don't know if we did or not, but I don't know if they were put in the crate -- they're our 'test' batteries from our 2006 season, used for things like charging pneumatics, etc. Therefore they shouldn't fall under the game manual's jurisdiction.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

To look at this from a different perspective, stringing together more precise sets of words is a very important skill. Many of the complaints with the manual, Q&A, etc. have to do with this very thing - and the GDC could be providing an opportunity for team members to practice this skill.

Communication is indeed an important skill, so much so that FIRST gives out a very prestigious award to celebrate it. We can act like this is a great exercise in learning to be more like Dr. Flowers, or in learning the real world engineering difficulties that result from differing imaginations between contractor and contractee. However, regardless of how the optimistic among us frame it, at the end of the day these problems are creating a lot of very unhappy customers for FIRST, and addressing them properly is critical to sustaining the program.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by jgannon

Communication is indeed an important skill, so much so that FIRST gives out a very prestigious award to celebrate it. We can act like this is a great exercise in learning to be more like Dr. Flowers, or in learning the real world engineering difficulties that result from differing imaginations between contractor and contractee. However, regardless of how the optimistic among us frame it, at the end of the day these problems are creating a lot of very unhappy customers for FIRST, and addressing them properly is critical to sustaining the program.

Communication is very important. Perhaps the organization that gives us such an award should practice it themselves by letting us know about such absurd rules at the beginning of the season and not after ship.

[Racer26]

The problem is that someone asked a question of the GDC which pointed out how our batteries as we've brought them to the competitions for years are NOT COTS. The GDC then responded based on that knowledge that we can't do it that way based on the way the rules are written. The problems with the rules only make themselves known when people point them out. The thing that has caused all this outrage, is that instead of FIXING the rule to match what the INTENT was, by excluding batteries with anderson connectors attached (like in the battery + its half of connector is NOT part of robot weight rule), from the COTS/Withholding business, the GDC has decided to just respond based on this as is. They could have responded to the effect of: "Oh, you're right, the rules as written DO make that illegal, however, that was not our intent, and as such, we will be releasing a team update in the coming (hours/days/decades) that fixes this, so that the letter of the rule more closely matches our intent." But they didnt.

EDIT: Note: I'm not saying I don't think they will release an update fixing this, but they shouldn't have made a Q&A response which says "Yes, this is Illegal", knowing full well that they're going to release an update that fixes it.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

Communication is very important. Perhaps the organization that gives us such an award should practice it themselves by letting us know about such absurd rules at the beginning of the season and not after ship.

They technically did let us know about this at the beginning of the season. The wording of the rule hasn't changed in 3 years, actually. So theoretically we've all knowingly broken the rules about it for two years now. It's not the GDC's fault that niether the teams, GDC, or inspectors thought to put everything together into this specific scenario with a question and this specific ruling. The GDC ruled correctly, and stayed within the realm of what the Q&A is for ... so dear God let's hope for an update out later today, as those are the only things that can change a rule rather than interpret it.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by JesseK

They technically did let us know about this at the beginning of the season. The wording of the rule hasn't changed in 3 years, actually. So theoretically we've all knowingly broken the rules about it for two years now. It's not the GDC's fault that niether the teams, GDC, or inspectors thought to put everything together into this specific scenario with a question and this specific ruling. The GDC ruled correctly, and stayed within the realm of what the Q&A is for ... so dear God let's hope for an update out later today, as those are the only things that can change a rule rather than interpret it.

The update should, to keep status quo, say that batteries with leads are exempt. Like that'll happen.

And this is precisely the reason I most likely will not continue in FIRST if the manual continues this way. After Kickoff next season is when my team will be deciding if we switch to another competition or stay here.

[artdutra04]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fFoEYiM7lQ