Lessons Learned - The Negative

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by BurtGummer

Second.....rules. First off, regionals need more control. We fit easily into the measuring box at the LA Regional, but somehow our robot grew 3/8 of an inch between then and Atlanta, and the frame was not bent. In fact, I cut off a piece that was a little too high on Thursday morning just because I didn't like it sticking up. It fit that way into the measuring box at the LA Regional, but after cutting it off, it didn't fit in the boxes at Atlanta. If you are going to be so specific about something, the equipment measuring it needs to be precise as well.

Wiring colors? I'll be honest, I had no idea because I didn't have the time to sit down and read a rule book, and other students assigned the task did not complete it. But with that aside, why does it matter what color a wire is? Gauge is of course understandable, but the color? I've been working with electrical 'stuff's for years. IMO, it's a rule that is not necessary. Rules are normally for controlling the robot entries from having extra advantages (Size, Weight). But wire color? Come on. Don't pull the safety card on this either. Knowing a wire is ground or hot shouldn't decide how you work with it. You treat every wire like it's hot, just like you always treat a gun like it's loaded. On top of that, our wire coding was not correct at the LA Regional either, but none of the inspectors noticed. It would definitely help if we knew about it then, rather than at the Championships.

I will say that I am glad I went to Atlanta and had the opportunity to experience it, because it will be much harder to get there after our rookie year. It had the fun parts.....and it had the parts that made me steaming mad. Some improvements can definitely be made though.

Originally Posted by BurtGummer

I'm not blaming the volunteers, I'm just saying that some of the ruling is unnecessary. I am an individual who uses whats available. If I had the option of buying red and black wire at home depot in the correct gauge sizes, then I would have, because I do understand wiring codes. I used blue for black (not an uncommon practice for common/ground). They didn't have the red or even black wire (both surprising and not surprising in a way for Home Depot), so I used what I could buy. Having wire is better than none at all. Home Depot was not our only stop either.....electrical specialty shops no longer exist in our area.

First of all, the opinions that I am about to express are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect that of any other inspector, or of FIRST...

Let me start by saying that I'm glad you enjoyed the fun parts in Atlanta. It's a fantastic experience and I wish everyone could go. It's almost impossible to go there, especially with a rookie team, and not have your team improve next year just from the exposure to other teams, robots, and ideas that they receive there.

I'm very sorry that you made it all the way to the Championship with a problem that should have not passed inspection at the regional. Having to tell teams at Atlanta that their robot is not legal, after they have passed at a (or multiple) regionals is certainly not the enjoyable part of the job.

We try very hard to make the inspection experience uniform between the 43 regionals, and the Championship. However, as it involves 300+ volunteer inspectors and at least 10 different sets of inspection equipment, sometimes there are variations and things slip by. In addition to the manufacturing variation in the boxes, they take a lot of abuse. We try to make sure at setup that the boxes are square, and the dimensions are correct. Teams are constantly bumping (or worse) them with the robots, and they may get knocked out of proper size. If you think there is something wrong with a box, please ask to have the box checked!

Others have done a good job of providing reasons why imposing some sort of color code requirement makes sense. All I will add is that I am often asked to help try to assist teams with problems. It's hard enough to figure out the wiring in many robots as it is, without adding in having to deal with some random color code. (Or even worse, having it all be Pink or Moe green )I'm sure Al can provide many more reasons, and horror stories.

From the rules document that you did not have time to read:

<R47> All active Power Distribution Board branch circuit wiring with a constant polarity (i.e., except
for relay module, speed controller, or sensor outputs) shall be color-coded as follows:
A. Use red, white, brown, or black with stripe wire for +24 Vdc, +12 Vdc and +5 Vdc
connections.
B. Use black or blue wire for common (-) connections.

I did not personally inspect your robot, but my understanding is that the problem was not with the use of blue wire, which is acceptable for use as the negative connection (in agreement with the practice you refer to above), but with the use of a color for positive that was not on the above list in item (A). Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

As far as not having time to read the rules: If we are trying to expose students to engineering, then they might as well learn now that reading the requirements is not an optional activity. The requirements documents at my job run to several hundreds of pages for any given product. Not being aware of what the requirements are can lead to many unpleasant consequences, ranging from additional costs to my employer, to the loss of my job, all the way up to the loss of life on the part of my end user. It only takes a few minutes to skim thru the rules so that you are at least aware that there is a requirement for wire color, or bumpers, or the size of the robot, or size and placement of team numbers, or a bill of material, or ....... Then at least you can go back and find it later when you need to.

Please do not take the above personally. One of my biggest frustrations during build seasons is trying to get the team members on my own teams to read the rules. They seem to think it is easier to keep coming up with stuff and asking me if it's legal than to read the 32 page manual section containing the robot rules And sometimes I just let them show up for inspection with stuff that I know will not pass. And I make sure that whoever is going to do their inspection knows exactly what to look for

I hope you had an overall positive experience, and I hope to see you and your team back in Atlanta soon!

[BurtGummer]

We did have an overall good time. Just many things got to me........I've been able to cool down after resting today and getting some decent food. My prior posts have been rather malicious after reading them. And as I've said, if I had the time, the rules would have been read. I've already done 98% of everything on the robot and coding, and having to do yet another thing as big as the rule book myself was not possible. I was hoping the assigned student could complete it, but the task floated away. At the time, we didn't even know how important the rules were/are. Now we know, eh?

[Dale]

This is the first game I can recall where robots are scoring on other robots. Normally the robots are all working with a neutral game piece and scoring with it on some disinterested structure. By scoring on other robots, the team you just scored on gets hit with the double whammy of you scoring points and doing it at their expense in an in-your-face way.

I saw many matches where a powerful alliance had obviously decided in advance which robot they thought was the weakest of the opposing alliance and then proceeded to take turns filling their trailer to capacity. I over heard one strategy session where they called this a gang bang! Yikes!

I would suggest in an environment where we are looking to increase the self confidence of weaker teams, and have them leave the competition feeling good about themselves, that game structure is counter to what we're trying to accomplish.

We're all used to having some alliances with a weak member and that's fine. Often the stronger robots can make up for that member. Lunacy put too much pressure on weaker teams. That, plus the boring traffic jams, is why it's my least favorite of the last six FRC games I've watched.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Dale

This is the first game I can recall where robots are scoring on other robots. Normally the robots are all working with a neutral game piece and scoring with it on some disinterested structure.

1999 might count, though I don't really remember the rules. The robots' job was to raise scoring objects over 8' in the air. That was the only way to score them. But, they weren't usually putting the objects on the other robots themselves.

[AustinSchuh]

This is the first game I can recall where robots are scoring on other robots. Normally the robots are all working with a neutral game piece and scoring with it on some disinterested structure.

Originally Posted by EricH

1999 might count, though I don't really remember the rules. The robots' job was to raise scoring objects over 8' in the air. That was the only way to score them. But, they weren't usually putting the objects on the other robots themselves.

I would have to say that 1999 doesn't fall in either category, since you weren't scoring on the other alliance's robots, and you weren't scoring the floppies on a structure.

If you want to be particular, you could say that 2007 counts as robots scoring on other robots, since you climbed on top of another robot to score bonus points at the end of the match.

[Chris Fultz]

There are lots of "comments" on G14, but if you paid attention to it in your strategy you were rewarded.

In every division, the final rankings were determined by RS, average losing alliance scores.

In Newton, all top 8 teams were 6-1, RS determined the order.

In Archimedes, 2 - 8 were 6-1, RS determined the order.

In Curie, 2-5 were 6-1, RS determined the order.

In Galileo, 1-2 were 7-0, 4 - 10 were 6-1, RS not only determined the order, but if you were even an alliance captain.

Use the rules in your strategy and to your advantage.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

There are lots of "comments" on G14, but if you paid attention to it in your strategy you were rewarded.

Use the rules in your strategy and to your advantage.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about RS. It has nothing to do with score differential, only with the losing teams score. If the losing team only gets 36 points, that's all you get, regardless of your own score. If you win 38-36, it is no better for RS than winning 135 to 36. The G14 doesn't enter into RS.

On another note though, your average score is the tiebreaker for two teams with identical W/L records and RS. It was the strategic goal of my team to receive a G-14 every match. If the real time scoring had been accurate, we would have boosted the other team's score by scoring on our own trailer, but having seen 70 point swings from real time to final score, we decided that we needed to score as much as possible.

[Chris Fultz]

Originally Posted by martin417

There seems to be a misunderstanding about RS. It has nothing to do with score differential, only with the losing teams score. If the losing team only gets 36 points, that's all you get, regardless of your own score. If you win 38-36, it is no better for RS than winning 135 to 36. The G14 doesn't enter into RS.

On another note though, your average score is the tiebreaker for two teams with identical W/L records and RS. It was the strategic goal of my team to receive a G-14 every match. If the real time scoring had been accurate, we would have boosted the other team's score by scoring on our own trailer, but having seen 70 point swings from real time to final score, we decided that we needed to score as much as possible.

i disagree -

if you are winning 135 - 36, you should start scoring on yourself to push up the other alliances score, so that it is 135 - 100. You get the win, you get of RS.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

i disagree -

if you are winning 135 - 36, you should start scoring on yourself to push up the other alliances score, so that it is 135 - 100. You get the win, you get of RS.

The important point was that real time scoring was so incredibly inaccurate that there was absolutely no way that I as a coach would tell our team to start scoring on ourselves for fear that the score was inaccurate and that we would mistakenly lose. When real time scoring is off by 70 points, there is a serious problem. We were going for at least 1 G14 per match after deciding how ridiculous the rule was.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

i disagree -

if you are winning 135 - 36, you should start scoring on yourself to push up the other alliances score, so that it is 135 - 100. You get the win, you get of RS.

And how would you know you were winning 135-36? It has been demonstrated that the real time scoring is often not even close.

Hypothetical match: RTS shows you winning 135-36, so you score 30 points in your own trailer making the RTS 135-66. Then the real score appears and the final score is 136-135 and you lose. This is not an exaggeration. I witnessed at least one match where the RTS was off by more than 70 points. It was not worth the risk.

[MrForbes]

You could look at the trailers.

[sdcantrell56]

Unfortunately looking at the trailers and determining the number of balls in each is also not reliable particularly in the heat of the match. I think FIRST needs to do away with these supposedly "leveling" rules. Some teams will inevitably be better than others and they should not be punished for building a more effective robot. For me it is inspiring to see a team go out and truly dominate a match with superior driving, strategy, and robot. I must say this year watching 217 and 67 in various matches was a wonderful experience.

[Steve_Alaniz]

First of all, congratulations to all the teams for their achievements. I don't want to take anything away from the winners but I do have some concerns about the way the judging went.
I think the most obvious example was the All Star Rookie award. There were some really fantastic rookie robots out there and a lot of people who struggled to make it to Atlanta. But this DOES feed into the definition of a rookie team and more specifically... WHEN you become a rookie team.
Team 3091 is an excellent team and They have given enormous support to FLL and FTC... However, when Woodie was chronicling their activities and reasons they were selected, one line stood out to me. They had done fund raising for FLL/FTC over the summer and sponsorship of FLL/FTC teams before the start of the 2009 season. In my estimation, you become a rookie team on Jan 3 2009 and should be judged by your rookie season IF it is indeed a rookie award. I must have missed something because I have never seen a guide detailing what you should do the year before you become a rookie team. Normally, a rookie team is not expected to have extensively promote the FIRST family because they are... well... new. (I don't think you are even ALLOWED to submit a Chairman's Award bid as a rookie.)
I have no problem with the award being given to 3091. But I have a problem with the reasons the judges chose to give it to them. There seemed to be a bias due to their involvement with FLL and FTC and it made for an uneven playing field for the other rookie teams. Not all areas have FLL and FTC, and FRC is often the first competition that arrives (though I think that may be changing) so the opportunity to help isn't even there.
Still, I'm sure the judges had their reasons but I hope prior involvement does not become a requirement to win a rookie award at the championships.

My 2 cents

[Brian C]

Originally Posted by Dale

This is the first game I can recall where robots are scoring on other robots. Normally the robots are all working with a neutral game piece and scoring with it on some disinterested structure.

2002 comes to mind. Playing pieces were soccer balls. 3 trailers started in the center of the field and were approx 180lbs (empty). Most teams chose to either tow or clamp to the trailers. Others chose to harvest balls and then dump into the trailer.

[AndyB]

I have to second everything Jeff said above. As an inspector, it is so frustrating when we run across issues that should have been noticed at previous competitions. We don't want to fail anybody. Our job is to make sure everyone followed the rules correctly and to help teams succeed in doing so. But nobody is perfect and in the end, all of the inspectors are volunteers. If they were perfect, there wouldn't need to be a second inspection.

I can't stress enough how important it is that teams read the manual. Seeing teams fail inspection for simple things that could have been avoided is very frustrating. You spend at least $6,000 on the season. That just isn't worth risking.