Batteries Carried Into Competitions

[Racer26]

just look at the speed the post count on these few threads is increasing at. Enough of us are sufficiently irritated about this to keep talking about it, and no doubt more than one of us are screaming to the GDC about it. I fully expect them to back down.

[Corey Balint]

Originally Posted by Cory

To all those saying "well teams backed the GDC into a corner", I say not so. The GDC backed themselves into the corner when they chose to introduce a manual that was woefully inadequate in how it explained major portions of the rules. When this many experienced mentors cannot even agree on what the rules actually say, something is wrong. The Q&A should have solved that. Instead it made it worse-Q&A rulings that conflict with one another and make no sense, rulings like this, etc. Each new Q&A response further muddles both the letter and intent of the rule and teams are forced to ask further questions about everything under the sun to make sure they are in compliance with the rules.

I agree with most of what has been said. Cory's post basically sums up exactly how I felt on all fronts. The problem I see is that this is an annual thing. Each year the Q&A has had muddled answers that have only further confused/complicated the rules.

-Aside- I remember a question from 2005 that was referred to the triangular HDPE from the Automatic loading station. The question asked if we needed to be touching the plastic (or some other material) of the triangle in order to lift the tetra.
The response was something along the lines of "The triangle is made of HDPE, not plastic". -Aside-

Yes, we probably ask too many questions.
Yes, we lawyer the rules.

Why shouldn't we though? If we show up at an event, and they tell us this is illegal per rule XY, how do we fight that if we didn't ask a question about it. Yes we can plead ignorance, but will that benefit us in any way? We will be told that we should have posted it to the Q&A, and that we will have to redesign to compete. No one should take that chance, unless they have a simple redesign in mind already, and they know they could pull it off.

The Q&A does not seem like it is working to its potential right now. It can be a great system, if used properly.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Enough of us are sufficiently irritated about this to keep talking about it, and no doubt more than one of us are screaming to the GDC about it.

While this is true, and frustrations are showing themselves clearly here in CD, I truly hope no one is screaming at the GDC.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

just look at the speed the post count on these few threads is increasing at. Enough of us are sufficiently irritated about this to keep talking about it, and no doubt more than one of us are screaming to the GDC about it. I fully expect them to back down.

I don't know if ChiefDelphi post counts are the deciding factor in any rulings the GDC makes. It's said that the GDC doesn't even read CD, though we know that one particular member does.

All we can do right now is vent and wait until 5pm. If we don't get the ruling we want, we'll have to come up with new plans of priority for Thursday. I'll be damned if I'm going to let an ill-constructed battery connector ruin any of the matches for my team or my alliance partners. All teams have a responsibility to have an opinion about this issue, because if you don't care either way then you better be prepared to have an alliance partner sit in front of the opposition because of a bad connection.

[Racer26]

Corey's got it exactly. Neither us, the teams, NOR the GDC, are using the Q&A correctly. If you ask me, I think our OVERUSE of the Q&A stems from the GDC's tendency of late to make ludicrous calls, like this one. They've always told us to follow the intent, and not the letter of the rules, but yet, when we grill them on it, they seem to respond based on the letter of the rules and not the intent. We need to stop asking questions like the one that caused this whole debacle about whether a battery + cables = NON-COTS. Every team I've ever seen bring batteries to a competition had connectors on their batteries. You have to put a connector on the battery in order to use it, and presumably you used them during build to practice with. The rules explicitly state that you're ALLOWED to bring your batteries to competition with you, so why would you EVER consider taking the connectors off of them, it just doesnt make sense.

EDIT: I meant screaming in a metaphorical sense, not literally

EDIT2: The post count comment was purely meant to be used as a measure of how upset people are about this topic, not that the GDC would use that, just to demonstrate that there are lots of people upset, and understandably so.

[Corey Balint]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Corey's got it exactly. Neither us, the teams, NOR the GDC, are using the Q&A correctly. If you ask me, I think our OVERUSE of the Q&A stems from the GDC's tendency of late to make ludicrous calls, like this one. They've always told us to follow the intent, and not the letter of the rules, but yet, when we grill them on it, they seem to respond based on the letter of the rules and not the intent. We need to stop asking questions like the one that caused this whole debacle about whether a battery + cables = NON-COTS. Every team I've ever seen bring batteries to a competition had connectors on their batteries. You have to put a connector on the battery in order to use it, and presumably you used them during build to practice with. The rules explicitly state that you're ALLOWED to bring your batteries to competition with you, so why would you EVER consider taking the connectors off of them, it just doesnt make sense.

I wouldn't say ludicrous, but we are forcing the issue on the GDC. We've done this before (see 2005 again), and we should definitely be monitoring our own questions a bit more.

However, that's a whole 'nother conversation. The GDC will do what they think is best and fair for all teams. I just hope these issues arise earlier in build next time.

[Zflash]

Originally Posted by squirrel

I think you misunderstand the problem....as long as you have enough weight allowance to bring your terminated battery cable assemblies in, separate from your batteries, you should not need to do any of that.

Unfortunately I believe I do understand the problem. We kept our bumpers and various items back and we did it not thinking that batteries would be an issue. We have not yet wieghed our items that we are witholding yet, however I do not believe that the six battery cables that I spoke of will help our effort very much unless we cut them extremely short. I am hoping for the best and we will make it work, we always do.

[Killraine]

The problem with this whole system is the fact that the rules aren't written in a way that their intents are obvious. Never would I have imagined that the intent of the withholding allowance was to make us practice wiring batteries, but that is clearly what the GDC is trying to tell us through Q&A.

In addition, I don't think the whole GDC even has a clear agreed upon intent for every rule (see: muddled Q&A posts that disagree with each other.) If the rules are supposed to be about the intent and "spirit" of the rules, why not just release those intentions? Doesn't seem to complicated to me...

for example:

<R10> Robots entered into the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition shall be fabricated and/or assembled from COMPONENTS, MECHANISMS and COTS items that are constructed from:
A. Items provided in the FIRST-supplied Kit Of Parts (or their exact REPLACEMENT PART)
B. Allowed additional parts and materials as defined in the rules, and in quantities consistent with the Budget Constraint rules (found in Section 8.3.3).

<R10> Intention: This rule is intended to ensure that all teams have a more equal opportunity in the construction of their robot.

Each and every rule should have a reason to be in the rulebook. FIRST should just include those for us. We're all mature, gracious professionals, how about we get treated as such?

[Racer26]

I think the reason they don't explicitly put the intent IN the rules is because they don't want to stifle teams creativity when it comes to solutions to the game. Explicitly stating their intentions for how the game plays out will corner teams into one of a few designs, which is NOT what FIRST is about.

[Liz Smith]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

We need to stop asking questions like the one that caused this whole debacle about whether a battery + cables = NON-COTS.

Unfortunately, I don't think asking questions to the Q&A is the problem.

I can see how a battery with a connector attached to it could be a fabricated item.

I can also see how a battery, commonly used by every team with it's connector attached could be an exception to the rule.

With both interpretations "valid" and "logical" ways of thinking, this allows for variation across the regionals. As aggravating as it is to have the more literal and less common sense (IMO) interpretation of the rule as the GDC's ruling, I think it would be twice as bad if it was left to each individual regional volunteer crew to make that decision as teams are walking in the door. Without it defined, you have more of a chance of one regional saying one thing and the other saying another.

[EricH]

I have one question. This is aimed at the members of the GDC who commonly appear on these forums, but it is not exclusively for them. In fact, I'm also looking for input from electrical engineers.

Are the batteries COTS after a build season of testing, assuming nothing is done other than to charge/discharge them, clipping leads on for that purpose with, say, alligator clips (yes, I know that isn't safe, but bear with me)?

You're asking, "Why did he ask such a stupid question?" 1) I'm a mechanical, not an electrical, and haven't had my one required electrical class yet. 2) I understand that there is a distinct difference between new batteries and ones that have been through a few dozen/few hundred charge cycles.

You heard me. (EEs, feel free to correct me on the above statement.) If there is a difference, and it's reasonably obvious, you wouldn't pay full price for a battery had been used before, right? You'd ask for a discount, right? So the batteries (by the GDC's version) are NOT COTS if they've been used a bit, like any normal team would do!

This changes the entire game plan. Now, you can only get 2, or if you're lucky, 3 batteries in your withholding allowance. So you have to buy new batteries for every event, or else only use 2. Guess how many batteries is enough in an event? Hint: it's almost certainly more than 2.

Somehow, I don't think this is what the GDC intended. I am lawyering a bit here, but if the GDC has defined COTS to be, effectively, "you'd pay full price for it", instead of "Commercial Off The Shelf" as it is intended, then it's a case of "you started it".

To everyone, the best thing I can say is to quote Dave Lavery from a few years ago: "Stop being LAWYERS and start being ENGINEERS!"

Edit: After looking at the Q&A more thoroughly, the GDC says that the batteries are COTS without the leads whether or not they've been charged/discharged. Double standard here? I.E., a gearbox, purchased from a vendor, can be used as is, and be worn to have a lot of slop, or some other characteristic that isn't immediately available, through normal use, and it isn't COTS, but a battery can get the same treatment and it's COTS?

[Pavan Dave]

The GDC has their reasons. I'm all for criticizing them for their flaws and their stupid rules**, but until I hear a justification for why they decided to this I really don't think its fair to give them a flare of the "magic finger" or spit out some "magic words" as many of your posts carry in either purpose or tone.


Pavan Davé

**Many of you know this about me.

[johnr]

Well, that's two rules IRI can change this year.

[sanddrag]

FIRST is supposed to make the teams want to be a part of this competition. Without that factor, what do we have?

In my opinion, this is a ruling that not even a single team could want.

In a global economy, engineering these days is often about efficiency. This ruling is not efficient. It needs to be reversed.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

The GDC has their reasons.

Are you sure you don't mean "the GDC works in mysterious ways"?

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

I really don't think its fair to give them a flare of the "magic finger" or spit out some "magic words"

I haven't seen any magic fingers or words pointed at them yet, so you must be upset about something else. I have a great deal of respect for the GDC and its members, but they are just as human as the people posting in this and other related threads. There's no reason to act like their mysterious reasons are gospel, or that lacking faith is blasphemous. I don't understand the worship when so many well-respected people think this is as wrong as the GDC thinks it is right.