2010 Lesson Learned: The Negative

[Tom Ore]

It looked to me like some robots at the championships had issues (weight, electrical, pneumatic) that needed to be fixed but passed inspection at the regionals. I don't think they're doing teams a favor by letting them through regionals this way. Maybe they can issue conditional inspection approvals to let teams compete but all issues need to be corrected before the eliminations. That way teams earning their way to Altanta would be confident they are good to go.

[billbo911]

A picture paints a thousand words. Here are two pictures that express my biggest negative this year.

There was a lot of this........




shortly followed by a whole lot more of this........



Hurry up and wait....and wait....and wait.......


Maybe we can have custom built for FIRST WiFi next season.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Tom Ore

It looked to me like some robots at the championships had issues (weight, electrical, pneumatic) that needed to be fixed but passed inspection at the regionals. I don't think they're doing teams a favor by letting them through regionals this way. Maybe they can issue conditional inspection approvals to let teams compete but all issues need to be corrected before the eliminations. That way teams earning their way to Altanta would be confident they are good to go.

I completely agree with you. There were several inspection "faults" that should have been caught and corrected at the regionals. These problems were identified and corrected at CMP at the cost of considerable stress to the teams and the inspectors.

I also don't think teams should be held off the field at regionals for minor discrepancies, but the teams should be forced to correct such problems before the elimination rounds. The pre-elimination round weight check should indeed include a check for any conditional "passes" and verification that the problem(s) are resolved.

[steelerborn]

I agree that a no bonus autonomous period was a big problem. Teams that work hard to write great autonomous code should get some benefit for it. I was upset to see so few autonomous codes being played this year, many robots would stand still then clear their zone.