FIRST Robotics Wish List

[ChrisH]

First and foremost, a game that is the same in the qualifying rounds and the finals. Like 2000. Actually 2001 had that feature too, but it was a performance not a game. This year's game could have been there with a few minor mods.

I like the idea of "strategic disengagement" encouraged by the end zone scoring. I'd push it further and require a robot to be touching the ground ONLY in the end zone to score. This would eliminate the entanglement controversy.

I like the robot rules the way they are. We do need to come up with an alternative to the SPI catalog if they're not participating next year.

Some different kinds of actuators and sensors would be nice.

The only thing I really want to add is commercial springs. Spring design and manufacture is beyond me and do-it-yourself springs can be dangerous. But commercial springs are OK as long as used within their limits. If we could use any commercial spring, then there would be less temptation to use an inadequate spring. Every tried to make a compression spring with surgical tubing?

I think we had a couple of problems with the shipping, but they were schedule driven, ie back to back regionals. Hopefully it won't be an issue next year.

Closing ceremonies need to be shorter, or at least keep to schedule. Of course, at least this year there was no "problem" filler material

Dump the FRCTECH group, it just caused more confusion. Mostly because decisions tended to be effectively reversed when "clarified". The Team Updates need to be the definitive document for clarification. I will say that it was a worthy attempt to solve a difficult problem, I just think it didn't work as well in practice as it needed to. One of the big problems was certain people (often rookies, but not always) asking the same question repeatedly in different ways, seemingly hoping for a different answer. (What part of NO did you not understand?)

Tech inspectors need to come from the teams. Preferably they should be experienced people from teams not competing at the event. (Hi Andy!) We might want to consider different inspection teams for different aspects of the robot. An electrical inspection to verify the wiring is right, mechanical to verify the motors and actuators are OK, and materials to verify that all materials used are legal. While the judges we had tried hard, there are too many subtle ways to violate the rules and get away with it. Volunteers from outside the team community are just not familiar enough with the rules. I know of one team that passed using a van door motor.

I'm sure I, or my team will think of more later. I'm planning to be at the San Jose forum.

ChrisH