Need for Inspections Rules Changes

[Bob Steele]

We have no details as of yet but it appears that in order to attempt to get more qualifications matches for everyone..(ie 10 qual matches in regionals)..
qualification matches may be starting on Thursdays for the standard regionals.

This is not a thread to discuss this proposal....

This thread is a discussion of possible inspection changes that may make this work.

As an aside.... I have decided to stop complaining and start producing positive ways to make these things work....positive changes that we can propose here now to make these new potential rules changes work more smoothly at events and for the teams...

If we start quals at noon on Thursday it will present problems for many teams, especially rookie teams.... to get finished, inspected and out on the field. This could result in many of these Thursday matches not having 6 robots on the field because they have not passed inspection (assuming past rules). Those of us that have been to a few regionals all recognize that inspections can last all the way until Friday morning for many teams...so this could be a very big problem.

I propose the following changes to the inspection rules to help make Thursday run more smoothly:

1. Two kinds of inspections: 1. The MINI inspection

The Mini Inspection or PRE-Inspection is primarily a size and weight inspection with a cursory look at a robot safety only....

2. A FULL inspection : complete compliance inspection...
to determine with full compliance with the rules....

On Thursday afternoon, any robot that completes the MINI inspection would be able to compete with the caveat that they MUST complete the FULL inspection to be eligible for FRIDAY Qualifications.

2. At a team's 2nd regional... they would only be required to do the MINI inspection....unless, of course they had substantially altered their robot in their opinion.

At the Championships, the standard inspection process would still take place.


By utilizing this process I think that regionals would have more time to work with the teams who are attending thier initial regionals and things could run smoother.

I know that there are differences in inspections from Regional to Regional...
but we are facing a real bottle neck on Thursday morning and something is necessary to deal with the time dilemma....

Nothing would stop inspectors from making spot checks at any time...

In a regional like our Microsoft Seattle Regional was last year...
The teams that had already competed could have moved through inspections quicker this way and given the inspectors more time to work with the new teams.

Thank you for your considerations and your thoughts in this matter.

Good luck to EVERYONE!! GO FIRST!!

[EricH]

I would also propose that team mentors volunteer to be inspectors, if possible. More inspectors=more inspections at the same time=less time to get everyone through (theoretically).

OR:

Every team brings a pre-filled inspection form, indicating that they have self-inspected. The inspector checks through it, catching any lies. The official form is then signed by the inspection team when complete. (Hmm... this might also help the less work time on Thursday problem, as teams will need to have something close to running...)

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by EricH

I would also propose that team mentors volunteer to be inspectors, if possible. More inspectors=more inspections at the same time=less time to get everyone through (theoretically).

OR:

Every team brings a pre-filled inspection form, indicating that they have self-inspected. The inspector checks through it, catching any lies. The official form is then signed by the inspection team when complete. (Hmm... this might also help the less work time on Thursday problem, as teams will need to have something close to running...)

Having served as an inspector, I have proposed just that in the past. Either a team mentor, or a mentor from a nearby team could perform the preliminary inspection. Questions of interpretation could be raised, to be settled by the Inspection Team at the competition. This would be particularly important for rookie teams, where despite all the best intentions, rules were not followed or mis-interpreted. If we could implement this system, we could get all teams competing earlier, and for more matches.

Great ideas, Bob & Eric!

[Mark McLeod]

A big problem last season was verifying multiple software versions and proper setups. We ran a full software inspection on Thursday to alleviate later issues on the field that would be much harder to troubleshoot.
It worked great for avoiding field problems, but backed up the inspection process.

Some things, such as the Driver Station version could be told at a glance, and by Championship the WPA settings were much more timely, however, it was not terribly easy to check the cRIO, LabVIEW, WindRiver versions that could cause hard to diagnose issues later on. I'd like to see at least the cRIO version displayed on the Driver Station along with the DS version, so we can tell at a glance, instead of requiring setting up a special laptop connection. It'd be nice too, to embed an easily accessable development environment version ID in code downloaded to the cRIO that can be automatically displayed on the Driver Station as well.

Your suggestion of a mini vs full inspection worked pretty well last season to get teams onto the playing field on Thursday. I like the idea of validating a robot for multiple Regionals, with the caveat that I did see many questionable passes I would attribute to inspectors just getting their feet wet on Thursday morning. The mini-inspection should also spot the need for re-doing full-inspections.

[JesseK]

A tiered or assembly line approach to inspection in general may help train new inspectors and help move towards complete nation-wide consistency while also reducing inspection time. That way people could become experts in (e.g.) pneumatics or electronics and can easily inspect a given area.

How many inspectors are typically a part of a regional competition?

[Greg Needel]

I like the idea of another team's mentor doing the inspection.

I propose, Each team provide 1 mentor who will get trained prior to the event and take an online test, which certifies them to give a "first pass" inspection. When the team checks in there is also a badge in the packet for that mentor/inspector. During the day when a team is ready to start the inspection process they find one of these people form another team and they can do it. This could take care of about 90% of the inspection. Then you could have a small number of inspectors/lead inspectors do a 2nd pass or follow up to finish the process. They could also spot check any of the previous work at that time and if wrong do a full inspection.


I mean with every team bringing someone you could even have 2 people do each inspection.

The major requirement for this system is to have a set of rules which are clear and easy to understand, which might be a stretch, although those more complex rulings (bumpers) could be held till the lead inspectors take a look


I have experienced a few inspectors at events including the championship who do not know the rules, or what elements of the inspection mean. At one point I even had to explain what different wire gauges were. While most are good there are some that are not and I would argue that there is atleast 1 person on each team which would be qualified enough to inspect at a regional and their intimate knowledge of the game and current rules might make the inspections MORE consistent then in the past.

[Cory]

I feel like the problem is rarely that there are not enough inspectors. Normally there's a whole bunch sitting around with their hands in their pockets because teams refuse to start inspection until 5 or 6 PM Thursday night.

From my experience inspecting it takes the head inspector being very insistent with teams that they NEED to start the process early, even if they aren't even close to being done. There's always some things that can be checked off while assembly/repairs/changes are being done.

[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by Cory

I feel like the problem is rarely that there are not enough inspectors. Normally there's a whole bunch sitting around with their hands in their pockets because teams refuse to start inspection until 5 or 6 PM Thursday night.

From my experience inspecting it takes the head inspector being very insistent with teams that they NEED to start the process early, even if they aren't even close to being done. There's always some things that can be checked off while assembly/repairs/changes are being done.

Cory,

I totally agree with your point. I have been lead inspector for a few years now and this issue is very real. I could site specifics but that path would lead this thread in a non-productive direction.

Suffice it to say that most teams could start the inspection process much earlier than they usually do.

And before I get flamed, I should note that, last year, a few teams were prevented from starting an early inspection because my inspectors were tied up with the software verification process on Thursday AM. There can be no doubt that streamlining improvements will need to be made this year.

Regards,

Mike

[buildmaster5000]

for our team, the problem has been weight in the past. We have had trouble getting an accurate scale at our build location, and thus have had to do a lot of drilling at regionals to meet the weight limit. as far as the inspection goes, we have not have many problems other than the weight

[Tristan Lall]

Like others, I think it's definitely a good idea to separate out the WPA configuration and troubleshooting. (Last year, it fell to inspectors to handle this when there weren't enough other knowledgeable staff available to assist.) For 2010, inspectors will need to be devoted to passing robots in time for the start of qualifications, so superimposing these responsibilities won't be ideal.

The cRIO firmware check was a bit annoying, because it requires console or network access to a cRIO, and a computer (not always together in the same place). There's no good reason why that Classmate PC can't do that, so we should probably have a simple set of rules for the operator console that can be checked by someone with computer networking experience, rather than direct mechanical/electrical knowledge. Put that on a seperate checklist, and send that operator console inspector out to teams' pits to check those items in parallel. (This might be facilitated by organizing robot rules, operator console rules and inspection rules as separate parts of Section 8.)

But the elephant in the room is really the issue of certain rules that take far too much effort to comply with and enforce, proportional to their actual value. These often greatly lengthen the inspection process, and are directly responsible for the occasional acrimonious discussion that takes place between inspectors and team members (usually mentors).

Since the pneumatics were vastly improved for 2009 (no brand and quantity limits), bumpers are the biggest sticking point. In retrospect, the bumper rule did improve from 2008 to 2009, but suffered during the season from a series of interpretations in the Q&A and updates that introduced new issues and didn't quite account for some difficult cases in a clear and uncontradictory way.

The simplest and most productive way to fix this is to specify a reference bumper configuration that is by definition legal, and ask inspectors to qualitatively evaluate teams' actual configurations in comparison to this standard. As long as the bumper meets some very basic dimensional and functional criteria (e.g. bounding size, weight and tactile qualities), there's little value in making a regulatory distinction between things like Ø2.5 in pool noodles and Ø2.0 in pool noodles—because realistically, they both do almost the same thing. Now of course, this makes the rule subjective rather than objective, and will mean that we'll be depending on the inspectors to say "close enough", rather than follow precise criteria. In this case, I think that's fine, because bumpers have one fundamental purpose: to reduce damage to robots. If we see a mix of robots that are each—according to the inspectors best guesses—between 75% and 200% effective, relative to the reference design, that's not a problem. And if so, who really cares whether they used foam rubber bricks, pool noodles or hippopotamus tenderloins? Also, teams can't complain much about subjectivity if they're offered a perfectly good reference design to emulate, and choose not to—the reference design should be teams' first choice, unless they have a good reason to deviate.

If the bumper rule is too well-entrenched to rewrite, then FIRST should consider taking some preventative action to cut down on other time-consuming things like illegal motors. I saw between 25 and 30 illegal motors last year, at 5 events—each of those necessitated a discussion between one or more inspectors and the teams involved, explaining why they couldn't use 2006's Fisher-Price motor, or why one BaneBots motor was different from another (and hence illegal). (Not to mention the time it takes to actually switch a motor out—from a few minutes to hours, depending on the design.) FIRST can error-proof this with a chart in "The Robot" containing pictures of every legal motor, the maximum quantity and model number, and a rule "If you don't see it in the chart, it's illegal." (I know, that information is already in the manual, but many team members don't read "The Kit of Parts" closely enough to realize this, and the photos there are too small to identify fine details in some motors. And many, many teams don't realize that there are about a dozen RS-540/RS-545/RS-550/Fisher-Price/BaneBots/Mabuchi/Johnson/off-brand motors that look very similar, and have at one time been legal in FIRST, but are not equivalent.)

Another way to mitigate the issues with teams who need more time before their first match is to formally sanction the idea of letting a team temporarily disable an illegal component, rather than totally removing it. (This sometimes comes up as a solution for teams that have illegal motors installed, but can't get them off without missing a match; strictly speaking, it's still illegal, but there's not too much harm in letting them disable it and fix it properly during the first evening in the pits.) By giving formal guidance on the degree of leeway permitted here, it will encourage that as an option for inspectors, because they can be sure that everyone is aware that this is a FIRST-sanctioned resolution, rather than an ad hoc decision (that might not have been permitted at another event).

Originally Posted by JesseK

How many inspectors are typically a part of a regional competition?

If my memory serves me correctly, Waterloo (being at the small end with as few as 24 teams) has had as few as 7, while Toronto (at the large end with up to 74 teams) has had up to 12. These figures do vary a bit, from year to year, depending on the difficulty of the rulebook and the experience of the volunteers.

[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by JesseK

A tiered or assembly line approach to inspection in general may help train new inspectors and help move towards complete nation-wide consistency while also reducing inspection time. That way people could become experts in (e.g.) pneumatics or electronics and can easily inspect a given area...

Jesse,

Typically, only lead inspectors receive any training. In fact, last year, I met with my inspectors for the first time at breakfast on Thursday morning.

An integrated training program for all inspectors would be most welcome.

Regards,

Mike

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Mike Betts

Jesse,

Typically, only lead inspectors receive any training. In fact, last year, I met with my inspectors for the first time at breakfast on Thursday morning.

In integrated training program for all inspectors would be most welcome.

Regards,

Mike

As a corollary to this, the inspector test was far too basic. I'm not sure how it was created, but it really needed to be more detailed. If it wasn't creating too much work for people who already giving up their time, maybe the head inspectors could come together and create a test that focuses on areas they have noticed newbie inspectors to not be very strong at.

[edit] Really the best answer to this is to somehow find more experienced team mentors to volunteer to be inspectors.

[Mike Betts]

Bob,

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

...The Mini Inspection or PRE-Inspection is primarily a size and weight inspection with a cursory look at a robot safety only...

Most regionals already do this. Last year, our MINI inspection consisted of the software verification followed by a quick safety inspection (battery secure, 120A CB and PRV (if necessary)).

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

...On Thursday afternoon, any robot that completes the MINI inspection would be able to compete with the caveat that they MUST complete the FULL inspection to be eligible for FRIDAY Qualifications...

This invites abuse. Some teams could have (intentionally or not) a competitive advantage in their Thursday matches.

More importantly, many teams would intentionally delay starting their inspections until Thursday matches have concluded. Why? Because they would run the risk of being prevented from competing if a problem is found.

At issue here is that "most" rules have a basis in safety or in competitive advantage. We inspectors would now have a greater chance of being the "bad guys". Do we allow a known non-complying team to compete while their fellow teams continue just because they have not started inspection?

I hope you see the potential problems...

I really think that all teams must pass inspection before starting qualifying rounds if the field is to be level.

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

...At a team's 2nd regional... they would only be required to do the MINI inspection....unless, of course they had substantially altered their robot in their opinion...

I like this suggestion...

I see no difference between this and the "honor" system we have now that any changes made after inspection is completed (Friday and Saturday) is brought to the inspector's attention and the change is re-inspected.

Like the Saturday re-inspection, I would add size, weight and a spot check or two to the MINI (for these teams) and let 'em go...

Regards,

Mike

[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by Cory

As a corollary to this, the inspector test was far too basic. I'm not sure how it was created, but it really needed to be more detailed. If it wasn't creating too much work for people who already giving up their time, maybe the head inspectors could come together and create a test that focuses on areas they have noticed newbie inspectors to not be very strong at.

[edit] Really the best answer to this is to somehow find more experienced team mentors to volunteer to be inspectors.

Cory,

I see your point but more severe testing without training would likely result in fewer inspectors.

I would rather see mandatory training and no test.

JMHO,

Mike

[Mr. Pockets]

If you wanted to merely ensure that there is enough time for people to get their inspections done why not simply have a list of teams (ordered based on their match timing) requiring say all teams in match one to report for inspection by X o clock. Likely issues would be falling behind, stress on rookie teams, and enormous reliance on nothing odd happening. On the other hand the further into the process you proceed the fewer teams that will require inspection (as teams start getting put into their next matches), and ideally it would mean that all teams would be fully inspected in time for their matches...
Just my $0.01 idea.