Rules - to follow or not to follow, that is the question

[Don Wright]

I just have a general question.

We (469) are very strict when we design and make our robots to make sure we follow each and every rule to the letter.

However, it gets interesting when we go to competitions and we very clearly see robots (even by very well known and admired teams) that violate this rule. Most of the time it's rules that really don't have an affect on the game play. For example, from the rules this year:

<R7> F. The fabric covering the BUMPERS must be solid red or solid blue in color. Visually, the red or blue must be as close to the corresponding color in the FIRST logo as reasonable (i.e. to a reasonably astute observer, they appear similar). The only markings permitted on the BUMPER fabric cover are the team number (see Rule <R15>).

This year it was particularly difficult to display team name, sponsors, etc other than the top of the robot. In the past, we have made our bumpers with our team name, sponsors, etc. However, we followed it to the letter this year and just had our team number on it.

But, at all the competitions we went to, we saw teams with their team name, sometimes even with sponsors on it. Yes, this doesn't hurt or affect the game play, but, it is a clear violation.

So...when can you ignore a rule? When should you say something? What is the general consensus?

For example (not to point out a team in particular, but it's a good example of a very good and respected team with their team name and number on the bumper):

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35688?

[Chris is me]

My take to the rules is that they are there for your own use and your own robot. Following the rules to the letter is its own reward as you blaze through inspection and know in the end of the day you passed with a clean robot.

It's often unfair to see other robots that break multiple rules that eventually get through inspection without all of them corrected - and that sucks that they got away with it - but having it any other way wouldn't be very inspirational to the students on that team...

In the particular example above, I think that the rule is not "okay" to ignore, but if people missed it, it's not exactly a big deal at all. It's just words.

[gvarndell]

Originally Posted by Don Wright

We (469) are very strict when we design and make our robots to make sure we follow each and every rule to the letter.

Sorry, my intent is not hijack your thread.
I just wanted to say that, given the machine you guys fielded this year, that almost seems like a too modest statement.

[Yoel2630]

Our team(2630) discussed this matter in the past. And we strongly believe that you must stick to the rules. Most rules have good reasons, and we may question some of them and try to change them, but we will respect the official rules.
It's a competition, and as professionals we can't break the rules.
It's also kind of a mission to set an example to others.The fact is, when you look at great teams that succeeded(doesn't have to be a winner, but as a well formed team that enjoys it self and does there best) , you realize that it's a lot more satisfying to achieve things in the legal method.

I'm not sure how it goes in the USA but I'm sure it's not that different.
When you look at the road, you may notice a lot of illegal things that people do. One of the more common ones iv'e seen and upsetting one is that people don't fully stop for a stop signs, they will slow down enough not to cause any danger but, a lot won't fully stop. I think that people bending this rule isn't that bad, but when you later see people passing speed limits you understand that bending rules isn't okay, because not everybody is fully capable of doing it in a logical way. Therefore, sticking to the rules must be done any where, you get used to it eventually.

To conclude, I think the mentors on the team should push the kids to knowing the manual perfectly, we have a kid on the team, that his job is to know the manual, and we use him a lot. (we all read it, but he's the expert)

please excuse me for any mistakes or wrong use of term. My native language is Hebrew.

And off the record, I've broken rules in my life,not perfect,sorry. But I truly believe these times didn't harm or effect anyone in a bad manner. But when it comes to FIRST,you must stick to the rules.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Yoel,
Very well stated, and I fully agree.
From an inspection standpoint, you as team mentors and students need to know that our responsibility is to help you by making all robots compliant. It is what is fair for you in competition and what helps the students realize that there are specification and design reviews in the professional arena. As hard as the inspection team tries, some things are missed during inspections. The example you linked to Don, is one of those things that should have been caught in inspections. It may have been and the regional inspection team and other staff may have approached the team. In this picture, it is easy to see the team name is painted in place. What could be the immediate fix for this? A piece of blue fabric, some tape, or something more ugly like paint remover? It is possible that the decision to let them play for that event and correct the problem prior to their next event was made.
I would like to make a request now that any experienced mentor who works on a robot, think about volunteering for inspections next year. Many of the regionals have to rely on other volunteers to help fill out the inspection staff. Although they are good and dedicated alternatives, some may not work on a robot. By having experienced mentors, we start with someone who is already familiar with the robot rules and what components look like when assembled. These people may not be totally sure if a particular item is legal or not, but they can recognize something that is out of the ordinary and bring it to the attention of the LRI. I and all the other LRIs depend on our staff to be our eyes in the pits. The more trained the eye, the better the compliance.
I don't want teams to fear the inspection process but they should be happy that all robots are held to the same standard and not worry that some team has an advantage because an inspector missed something.

[JesseK]

If the inspector passed it as a compromise, then let it live.

It's easy to forget that teams are comprised of humans who proficiently err by overlooking a couple of the 1000+ details in the rules. Over the course of a team's history, I seriously doubt any team is immune to that type of error. From my experience, inspectors are there to not only ensure a robot is safe and ensure it's within the rules, but also assist a team in correcting errors. If the error is practically not correctable by the time Qualifications start and the error doesn't effect game play or safety then why should we, the other teams, complain and try to deny the reward to all of the rest of the hard work that the offending team did?

To further the point, I'll stir the pot a bit. There are teams that use the same exact custom-milled parts year to year, with no change in dimensions or material whatsoever (even an admittance here on CD that there's no point in even re-creating the CAD or g-code for the parts). While this tends to more grossly effect play (more time to focus on other things), if the judges/inspectors/etc have ignored it over the years then there's not much we can really do. Our time is really better spent focusing on our own teams' efforts.

[JaneYoung]

We had some beautiful work done on our bumpers, screen printing the numbers - and - the team name. A lot of work went into getting everything lined up perfectly before submitting the fabric to the company for screen printing. When the fabric was given to me to make the bumpers, the mistake was realized and the decision made to cut off the team name and replace it with plain fabric. The bumpers were finished with just the team number on it.

If the rule is written - read it, learn it, follow it, and fix it when you are not in compliance. If the team overlooks or misses the rule, fix it when it is pointed out to you and you are not in compliance. There's a lot about these robotics competitions that creates opportunities for individuals, teams, event organizers, and those responsible for the program - to hold themselves accountable. It is a definite move in the positive direction of driving culture change for the better.

--
Side note - we had drawn up a design for making a cover with the second color but I ordered an AndyMark skirt on the side - just in case. The AndyMark skirt was the one that was screen printed and used in Dallas. (Fabric was sewn over the team name to cover it on the skirt leaving only the team numbers.) Somehow, between Dallas and Lone Star, it got 'lost' and when the team uncrated in Lone Star, there was no bumper cover. A team member and a parent made a mad dash for fabric and paint and made a bumper cover from scratch with the use of a sewing machine at a relative's house somewhere in the Houston area. It worked out but was a fun challenge for the them.

Jane

[Peter Matteson]

Don,
You summed up a conversation that my team has every year. We follow a rule exactly the way it is written even if it is our to our own detriment. We make a point every year to teach this to the new kids on the team.

Without fail every year I see teams that clearly don't follow rules and in some cases get rewarded for it. There always seems to be a few rules that teams just ignore and get away with. I'll leave it at that.

At the same time, when inspecting, I have seen teams that miss something simple that doesn't effect the robot's performance like using green wire for negative wiring because it's what they had. I hated telling them they had to re-wire the negative on their robot, but they realized they made a mistake and fixed it. These don't bother me that much, it the ones where an advantage is gained that bother me.

[Carolyn_Grace]

<R7> F. The fabric covering the BUMPERS must be solid red or solid blue in color. Visually, the red or blue must be as close to the corresponding color in the FIRST logo as reasonable (i.e. to a reasonably astute observer, they appear similar). The only markings permitted on the BUMPER fabric cover are the team number (see Rule <R15>).


I did not pay as much attention to the markings on the bumpers so much as what color the bumpers were! It bothered me that there were teams with light blue bumpers or very dark blue bumpers and almost orange or maroon for the red.

Of course, this is nit-picky of me to be concerned with it, but it is annoying when our team has always made it a point to create a bee-utiful bot, down to the bumpers that we create, and this year we had to sacrifice a bit of our black and yellow (with a touch of purple and green) to go with the blue and red bumpers like everyone else.

Perhaps because this is just the first year for specified bumper colors they were a bit lax on the rule, and maybe they'll be more strict next year. After all, how a robot looks doesn't affect the game play, and inspectors should be more concerned with things that will affect how a robot performs.

[Madison]

For what it's worth, we absolutely had no intent to ignore or break any rule and are fortunate that the people in Oregon and Seattle worked with us to let this mistake slide. Simply, I didn't read the bumper rules well enough and overlooked the restrictions on content.

Interestingly, we must've painted those bumpers three or four times to get them to look decent. They're not even good.

The inspectors in Oregon pointed out our error and showed us the rule we violated. We were prepared to to replace the fabric or strip the paint off again, but they were understanding about it and let it slide with the caveat that, should we attend the Championship, we'd need to be in compliance.

I hope that other teams were not annoyed by this transgression or by the leniency we were shown and can assure everyone that we don't expect to get away with anything, ever. It's flattering that someone would ever think of us as very good or respected, as we work very hard at being the best we can be. This time, we screwed up. I screwed up and I'm upset that it reflects poorly on my team. In retrospect, despite our inspector's generosity, we should have changed the bumpers anyway.

Sorry, guys. We'll be better.

[Jack Jones]

To abide by the rules, or not to abide: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous inspection,
Or to take arms against a sea of rules,
And by opposing end them?
...
Be all my sins remember'd.

IMO - No Pass - No Play - No Exceptions!

[IKE]

<R15> Teams shall display their team number on the BUMPERS in four
locations at approximately 90-degree intervals around the perimeter of the ROBOT. The numerals must be at least 4 inches high, at least in ¾-inch stroke width and in a contrasting color from its background. Team Numbers must be clearly visible from a distance of not less than 100 feet, so that judges, referees, and announcers can easily identify competing ROBOTS.

So, we used "2" colors for our numbers. We spent a great deal of time looking at fonts and and different color schemes in order to make sure the numbers "popped" and were able to be clearly distinguishable from 100 feet. We also wanted them to match our team fonts and imagery. In order to get the font we wanted with the outline on proper character height without it curling over the edges and loosing readability, we cheated. The yellow portion of the font was 5/8" thick in spots. The black outline reaches the 3/4" width in most places. Even with this thinner font, our numbers were quite legible from the top of the stand at the championship. Other teams that followed the letter of the rule and used "a color" namely black on dark navy or dark red, were often nearly illegible from around 20 feet. As a scout, I would like to thank the teams that broke the rules and added a white outline to their black numbers. That was a huge help. Some "legal" bumpers were almost as bad as trying to read numbers on the FIRST screens (seriouly FIRST, you couldn't pick a worse font for distinguishing 2s, 3s, 5s, 6s, 8s, and 9s. Even the 1s&7s are almost impossible to distinguish).

We felt the "intent" of this rule was to have easy to read numbers and thus we were OK with "cheating". We did have a yellow paint pen on hand just in case we were asked told we were not in compliance. Hopefully the inspection crews at the off-season events are OK with this.

P.S. Print your numbers to scale on Red and Blue background, and then pace off at least 30 steps. If you can't read them, then you really should fix them.

[Jon Stratis]

As others have said, every team should focus on the rules during build, and do their best to ensure every one of them is met.

That being said, we're all human. Sometimes we miss something. When you get to competition, I would urge everyone (except the inspectors!) to take a small step back from the rules. If you see someone violating a rule in a way that doesn't affect game play, why bother making a fuss about it? It's only going to make both parties look bad. On the other hand, if you see a team with 10 CIM's on their robot, it could be great to send a few people over to help them fix the problem.

So in short, follow the rules in your build space as best you can, and let the inspectors handle the rules at competition - you don't need to be policing every other team there.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by IKE

In order to get the font we wanted with the outline on proper character height without it curling over the edges and loosing readability, we cheated. The yellow portion of the font was 5/8" thick in spots. The black outline reaches the 3/4" width in most places. Even with this thinner font, our numbers were quite legible from the top of the stand at the championship. ...
As a scout, I would like to thank the teams that broke the rules and added a white outline to their black numbers.

The GDC did allow outlines late in the competition season...
From 3/16/2010 answer in the Q&A...
Rule <R15> requires that the body of the number (the part that is ≥4 inches tall and with ≥3/4 inch stroke width) be of "a" (single) contrasting color. Adding small borders of a highly contrasting color around the external perimeter of the number for the purposes of increasing the contrast and clarity of the number would not violate the rule, as long as the addition of the contrasting border does not reduce the size or stroke width of the body of the number.

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Don Wright

I just have a general question.

We (469) are very strict when we design and make our robots to make sure we follow each and every rule to the letter.

Personally, I find the issue of "rules enforcement" to also be very frustrating at times.

This thread has kind of focused upon the specific issue of the bumpers that you mentioned, but for me (and, I speculate for you, as I think you were just using the bumpers as a benign example) the real issues of your question have to do with whether or not a team chooses to follow rules that may or may not end up being enforced at tournaments but which DO have a MAJOR impact on competitiveness. For more years than not, our team has had to specifically grapple with limiting our robot design in order to ensure rule compliance, knowing that if we didn't limit our robot design in that way, we could have a much better robot. After making such design limitations, it is extremely frustrating (and often even unfair) to observe other robots on the field that did not make these robot design limitations but are subsequently allowed to regularly break the rules as written while gaining what is often a very significant competitive advantage from doing so.

For us, in 2007, the big rule along these lines was remaining within the robot volume requirement. In order to have an arm design which was guaranteed to always remain within the volume requirement yet still be able to reach all three levels of the rack, we went to a three-jointed arm which could be guaranteed to always comply with the rules. However, that year, about 25% to 50% of the robots we saw regularly violated the rule during matches. Our robot ended up being too complicated to really work, while simpler designs that we discarded because of robot volume rules were very successfully used by other teams, despite the fact that they regularly exceeded the robot volume but received no penalties since the rule was nearly impossible for referees to enforce. My complaint for the rule problem that year rests not primarily with the inspection committees or the referees, but for the GDC in writing rules which would end up being nearly unenforceable, or instituting game penalties which require the referees to have to make highly subjective judgment determinations multiple times every match.

In 2006, the regularly debated hard-to-enforce rule was the maximum ball velocity limitation.

In 2008, the hard-to-enforce or at least inconsistently enforced rule was the "interfering with a hurdler" rule. In order to make the right design tradeoffs, knowing whether or not such rules will be enforced is very important. If hurdlers are granted almost no protection in that zone, it makes the relative importance of running laps much more significant, making a lap-bot more competitive. However, if the hurdlers are granted essentially "no contact" protection in the hurdling zone, a lap-bot will have to be very careful to watch out for hurdlers in that zone and will thus need to expect to complete less laps during a match. The "crossing backwards over a line" penalty was similarly frustrating.

In 2009, I was VERY PLEASED that the game featured almost no "subjective penalties" -- with the removal of penalties for pinning, ramming, and no common game-related penalties, I don't recall as much debate over rules-related issues. (I may be forgetting something here; if I have, please chime in!) In general, I would like to commend the GDC for coming up with a set of game rules in 2009 that didn't have subjective penalties or hard-to-enforce rules.

In 2010, however, there were multiple rules that were in the category of "subjective enforcement" that greatly impacted our robot design. The most significant of these, however, was G43 that "ROBOTS may POSSESS only one BALL at a time. Violation: PENALTY." Initially, knowing that ball possession would be one of the keys to this years game, we wanted to maximize opportunities for ball possession by having a very wide ball possessing system. Such a system could accidentally or unintentionally possess more than one ball at a time. We had the debate about how strictly this rule would be interpreted -- would a robot that *could* possess more than one ball at a time be deemed illegal? Would the "two ball possession" be given an "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" perspective, or would it be the case that if the referee wasn't sure whether or not two balls were being possessed, the team would be given a penalty -- ie, was it the team's responsibility to ensure that it was abundantly clear to the referees that the robot was not possessing two balls?

To get down to details, we weren't sure whether we could make a ball-possession mechanism that stretched across an entire side of the robot, or did we need to make it narrow enough such that it couldn't possibly possess two balls at once? Would a "software solution" be sufficient where we could have a split-roller from side-to-side, and turn off one side when the other side had a ball in it? We considered and discussed such options.

Then, when Team Update 2 came out, the GDC added an explanatory box to the rules stating "It is important to design your ROBOT so that it is impossible to inadvertently or intentionally POSSESS more than one BALL at a time." Furthermore, it said, "Since referees may find it difficult to determine if additional BALLS in contact with the ROBOT are being herded or POSSESSED, it is imperative that teams avoid ambiguity."

This made it sound to us that it was the team's responsibility to actively demonstrate compliance with this rule -- if the referee wasn't sure whether or not multiple balls were being possessed, a penalty would be called, as it was the team's responsibility to avoid ambiguity. As a result, we designed ball possession mechanisms which could not possibly possess two balls. We explicitly discarded simpler, more effective mechanisms which would be ambiguous as to whether or not multiple balls were being herded or possessed.

In this year's game, having a 20-inch wide ball acquisition / possession mechanism which can accidentally or unintentionally possess two balls is a HUGE ADVANTAGE over an 8-inch wide ball acquisition / possession mechanism for which it would be "impossible to inadvertently or intentionally possess more than one ball at a time."

Jumping to the end of the story, there were at least four robots in the elimination matches on Archimedes which regularly (an average of at least once per match) possessed more than one ball at a time. Some of these teams would immediately release the possessed balls when this happened. Others would go ahead and possess both balls. In the matches I watched on Archimedes (which was admittedly only a few matches), I saw many occurrences of multiple ball possession, at a significant game advantage, yet saw no penalties called in any of those cases. This gave a significant competitive advantage to the offending robots.

However, my frustration is not with the referees as much as with the game designers. It was clear to our team from our initial reading of the rules that G43 would be very hard to enforce, nearly impossible to enforce consistently, and that the specific degree of enforcement implemented would have a significant effect upon game play and match outcome. I would highly encourage the GDC to work very hard to implement games where the referees are not given the impossible task of having to try to enforce such rules.

I've rambled on a long time; maybe I should step off the soapbox now and let somebody else have a turn...

PS: G45 is another rule where the referees had to make such a judgment call. 469's primary robot strategy would succeed / fail depending upon the interpretation of that rule. I believe that despite being under intense scrutiny, 469 stayed on the legal side of that line. However, their success points out that it is extremely important to teams designing robots to know where these regulatory lines are drawn, as the success / failure of a robot strategy is often highly dependent upon the exact rulings that will be made. Often times, there is a huge advantage in being able to come up right to the border of rule legality (without stepping over) as contrasted to instead choosing a design which stays well back from the border of rule legality. It is extremely frustrating to teams to make a design to come up right to the edge of the written rules (but no farther) and then to see other teams that stepped completely over the written rule, enjoying a significant competitive advantage because of their transgression.