Modifying robot at competition?

[IKE]

Originally Posted by DanCreed3692

T08

snip....
I want to see what peoples take on this rule is. To me I read this as that each robot has to be presented at initial inspection with all components of each mechanism for any configurations that are planned to be used during the "ENTIRE COMPETITION EVENT".... snip...

Dan,
I cut out a lot of your statement and bolded a couple of areas of concern. You have interjected your opinion and added an assumed "initial" to the actual rules. This happens a lot in life and in FRC competitions. Small assumptions like this can cause a lot of upset feelings.

At the events where I am LRI, I let teams know that they need to be re-inspected before they can compete. The 3 areas I look for are starting inside the frame perimeter, weight, and then overall height. Once I know the height, and that they are legal, they are free to compete, and then I can relay the height to the referees so that they know that the bot is 59.5" instead of 60.5".
We had a lot of such modifications occur at 1 event with a few full field shooter, and then vitrually no additions at a venue that had only 1 full field shooter.
We also had experienced teams making tweaks to their rookie partners to improve infeed of frisbees from the players station, more robust battery hold-downs, and clean-ups of loose wiring.

[Brandon Zalinsky]

I definitely think you should be allowed to add a frisbee blocker. I think it's kinda just sour grapes from teams with full-court shooters to say you can't. The same kind of tacked-on defense could be played against a ground-fed robot- a cardboard snowplow could could hoard all the discs in one end.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Flak-Bait

I definitely think you should be allowed to add a frisbee blocker. I think it's kinda just sour grapes from teams with full-court shooters to say you can't. The same kind of tacked-on defense could be played against a ground-fed robot- a cardboard snowplow could could hoard all the discs in one end.

Realize that this could pull at lot of G24 fouls, though. Hoarding to one end is by definition "herding" rather than "bulldozing".


As to the OP, this is not a case in which interpretations are valid. The question isn't open to interpretation: your contention that T10, T11 and robot-rule compliant additional are illegal is simply false.

[DanCreed3692]

Originally Posted by IKE

Dan,
I cut out a lot of your statement and bolded a couple of areas of concern. You have interjected your opinion and added an assumed "initial" to the actual rules. This happens a lot in life and in FRC competitions. Small assumptions like this can cause a lot of upset feelings.

I'm not trying to create hurt feelings.. and I didn't assume the inital versus actual rules.. I pointed this out.. the same rules states that these mechanisms etc.. must be inspected etc.. "for the entire competition event"... Does that not imply from start to finish e.g.. from first inspection to the closing ceremonies?

Everyone in this thread has a valid point... I think one other person hit the key issue in that some of the rules are conflicting with each other..

I see both points of the argument... in that it's cool to see teams get creative and to respond to a powerful robot and figure out a way to combat it once the competition has begun. I also however see the argument for the rule of T08... and the thought that then they should modify their existing mechanisms to defend the robot, not build a completely new mechanism to defeat the robot.. (and the argument they should have thought about that style of play BEFORE the regional)..

Like I said I see both sides, and arguments... I just wanted to see what others opinions are..

[Jon Stratis]

Teams are allowed to make changes... otherwise you would have a lot more teams with issues than the few that have added blockers during the competition.

Further, any inspection supersedes any previous inspection. If a team builds a blocker to add to their robot on Friday, they are no longer legal, until they get reinspected. At the point of that reinspection, all mechanisms that are and were a part of that robot are required to be present. If you're sitting right at 120lbs, you can't remove a 30lb shooter in order to add a 10lb blocker - both the shooter and the blocker would be included as part of the overall weight. However, if you were under 120lbs, and could add the shooter without taking anything off, how is this different (from the point of view of the rules) from a team modifying their shooter to make it more accurate? The rules don't say anything about robot capabilities, or intended use of mechanisms, or anything like that.

In my mind, the grey area here is when a team is right at the weight limit and makes a change that includes removing something and adding something else. What happens when the team disassembles the old mechanism and uses the parts to construct the new one? Is this a swappable mechanism at this point, or is this a permanent change? What happens if a team spends an hour swiss-cheesing their robot in order to drop enough weight to add something to their shooter to make it more accurate? Do we need to collect all the metal shavings and weigh them with the robot too?

These are just some examples where teams can really try to lawyer the rules, instead of looking at the intent of the rules.

The intent of T08 is to ensure that robots designed with swappable mechanisms follow strict weight rules. It's not intended to prevent teams from making modifications to their robot.

[Amy_LeadFerret]

As the team with the full court shooter about which this discussion started, 4212, I wanted to post my thoughts on how things played out at Wisconsin.

We're a second year team still learning how everything works. I read the competition manual and updates religiously during the Build Season and did not see the last-minute-pool-noodle extension coming. Because we shoot at a height of about 54 inches and saw that most bots were re-makes of the much shorter Robot in 3 Days prototype, I assumed our biggest obstacle would be making it to the feeder station and lining up. I thought through the possibility of an opponents' climber mechanism reaching above 60 inches to block our shots but also thought that wouldn't be a smart usage of time unless the mechanism couldn't produce a viable climb for the bot.

But, after watching matches in Weeks 1 and 2, I knew our full court shooter would be toast at some point but was just hoping to get as far as we could before that happened. We were ecstatic to make it to semi finals and somewhat proud of the fact that we sparked fear in the hearts of our opponents

[buchanan]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

At the point of that reinspection, all mechanisms that are and were a part of that robot are required to be present. If you're sitting right at 120lbs, you can't remove a 30lb shooter in order to add a 10lb blocker - both the shooter and the blocker would be included as part of the overall weight.

I think this is a reasonable interpretation that ought to be explicit in the rules. Once a mechanism has been used in competition, replacing it with another shouldn't allow you to reinspect as though it never existed. What you've really done is added a new interchangeable mechanism to your robot in addition to the previous one.

We noticed this at the WI regional too, but from a different angle. We brought to the competition a robot with significant shot-blocking capability to begin with. When the improvised blockers started appearing, we didn't see anything wrong with it, but they did dilute what was once a competitive advantage for us. Ad-hoc engineering feels right and in the spirit of what the competition is about, but a line needs to exist somewhere, and the interchangeable mechanism weight limit seems a sensible place to have it.

[Tristan Lall]

This has come up before. (The relevant rules were similar in 2005 and 2006.)

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by buchanan

I think this is a reasonable interpretation that ought to be explicit in the rules. Once a mechanism has been used in competition, replacing it with another shouldn't allow you to reinspect as though it never existed. What you've really done is added a new interchangeable mechanism to your robot in addition to the previous one.

You say you think it's reasonable, but I don't understand your reasoning. Inspection is to verify that the robot follows the rules. There are no rules that say a robot part must remain a part of the robot in perpetuity.

If you remove an ineffective floor pickup system and add a simple bucket for manual loading at a feeder station, the floor pickup is no longer part of the robot, and should have no bearing on the inspection. If you completely replace a pneumatic catapult with a motor-driven spinning wheel, I can't see how anyone can seriously argue that the now-obsolete catapult is still an optional part of the robot and has to be counted in the robot's weight when the modified robot is inspected.

[buchanan]

Maybe I'm just "borrowing trouble", but this looks to me like a loophole through which a team could bring two alternative mechanisms to the competition, present only one for initial inspection, then swap in the other if they decided the first wasn't as effective as they'd thought, effectively giving two shots at picking the best design.

I guess at some point you have to just trust people to adhere to the spirit of the rules, but it seems to me it's better to get as much into the letter as reasonably possible to forestall temptation. The "add but not subtract" approach would do this, albeit at the cost of loss of modification flexibility being the price of squeaking in under the weight limit initially. This does not seem like such a bad thing.

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by buchanan

Maybe I'm just "borrowing trouble", but this looks to me like a loophole through which a team could bring two alternative mechanisms to the competition, present only one for initial inspection, then swap in the other if they decided the first wasn't as effective as they'd thought, effectively giving two shots at picking the best design.

This sounds like a brilliant example of planning ahead.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by buchanan

Maybe I'm just "borrowing trouble", but this looks to me like a loophole through which a team could bring two alternative mechanisms to the competition, present only one for initial inspection, then swap in the other if they decided the first wasn't as effective as they'd thought, effectively giving two shots at picking the best design.

I don't see why this is a bad thing? The opportunity cost is if they are at weight with one mechanism, the decision to switch to another mechanism is permanent (for that regional). In terms of "fairness", it's not functionally any different from building two designs and deciding which to use at home.

[andya]

Hi,

I'm the drive team mentor for team 4212.

Since I'm a noob, I was asking a lot of questions of everyone I talked with, both competitors and officials. I want to thank everyone I talked to for the tips you all gave me.

I asked the inspectors what we can change on the robot. The few inspectors that were there replied as long as we did not go over the set limits, we could make any wanted or needed changes anytime you are allowed to work on your robot as long as you come back after every change and get re-inspected. One inspector was adamant, any changes no matter how small or big needed to have an inspection after said change.

This was as specific as the inspectors got with me on changes, and appears the rules are subject to the officiating staff’s interpretation and implementation of the rules. I thought, by the rules, what parts you came to the competition with is what you had to compete with as long as the total robot weight did not go over 120lb regardless of the parts.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by andya

I asked the inspectors what we can change on the robot. The few inspectors that were there replied as long as we did not go over the set limits, we could make any wanted or needed changes anytime you are allowed to work on your robot as long as you come back after every change and get re-inspected. One inspector was adamant, any changes no matter how small or big needed to have an inspection after said change.

This is what the rules call out. If you make a change, reinspect. (There are some changes that that does not apply to--if you had a 10-lb shooter, a 10 lb blocker, and a 100 lb robot, and you showed up and inspected with both but could only carry one at a time, you wouldn't need reinspection--but those are fairly rare.)

... and appears the rules are subject to the officiating staff’s interpretation and implementation of the rules. I thought, by the rules, what parts you came to the competition with is what you had to compete with as long as the total robot weight did not go over 120lb regardless of the parts.

Yes and no, and not quite. You're raising two points here that are both very good questions to raise.

First, the rules are implemented by the officiating staff. You've obviously read them, so you've seen the part about the Head Ref's decision is final. However, if you can show, say, the regional director, that the official is in direct violation of the rules, or of the standard interpretation, then someone from higher up will have a talk with them about correcting their interpretation and implementation. It's happened before. To take the Head Ref as an example, he can get input from any FIRST officials at the event, including any members of the Game Design Committee that happen to be present. LRIs and Head Refs and FTAs all have contact info for their leaders--and I haven't seen the Lead LRI comment here yet, but I know he's around somewhere. If that lead disagrees with the ref or inspector, the lead wins.

Second, to address the "parts you come with is what you have to compete with as long as the total weight does not go over 120lb" part: You did not read this part of the rules thoroughly enough, I'm afraid. You come in with your robot in the bag, up to 30 lb of fabricated items (not counting batteries, bumpers, and the operator console), your team members and your spirit items. But, I'm leaving something off of this list, because it's not restricted anywhere. And that is, raw material.

You can bring in as much raw material as you can carry, typically in as many trips as you need. I know that's not explicitly called out in the Manual; it used to be, but some rules seem to disappear or become vague every now and again as they become ingrained in the various teams' mentality. It takes somebody asking questions to wake people up and confirm the rule. It used to be not uncommon for teams to come in with a couple aluminum tubing pieces or PVC pipe.

I could go into an example, but I think you get the point. Keep asking questions; we're here to provide answers, even if they aren't official ones.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by EricH

First, the rules are implemented by the officiating staff. You've obviously read them, so you've seen the part about the Head Ref's decision is final. However, if you can show, say, the regional director, that the official is in direct violation of the rules, or of the standard interpretation, then someone from higher up will have a talk with them about correcting their interpretation and implementation. It's happened before. To take the Head Ref as an example, he can get input from any FIRST officials at the event, including any members of the Game Design Committee that happen to be present. LRIs and Head Refs and FTAs all have contact info for their leaders--and I haven't seen the Lead LRI comment here yet, but I know he's around somewhere. If that lead disagrees with the ref or inspector, the lead wins.

There's a reason the rules state "At each event, the Lead ROBOT Inspector (LRI) has final authority on the legality of any COMPONENT, MECHANISM, or ROBOT." (Section 5.5.2)... Very often individuals like the regional director aren't fully versed on the rules or how the GDC has interpreted them, and they haven't been through the same training as the LRI. Additionally, they may not be as familiar with robot design or construction as the inspectors are. As a result, attempting to circumvent the LRI in order to get a more favorable ruling is generally bad for everyone. All of the LRI's have phone numbers for both FIRST and the Chief Robot Inspector, and we certainly feel free to use them if anything extremely difficult comes up. Even if the situation isn't extremely difficult, if the ruling could be at all considered controversial, you can bet the LRI is going to include the Head Ref and the FTA in making the decision. I know I would.

If a team shows up with a difficult situation, the LRI's know how to go about obtaining additional opinions and interpretations before issuing a final ruling... That said, the LRI's ruling is final, per the rulebook. It may not seem fair if a ruling is going against you, but keep in mind that the LRI's are all doing their best to rule fairly and to help every team there.