"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[Don Wright]

Thanks to everyone for the support and understanding of the issues.

[dddriveman]

I think that this was a very informative thread. I also think that there was a little too much finger pointing, name calling, and crying. WE are all on a F.I.R.S.T. team for a reason. Alot of people are getting blind sited by what our primary goal is. I think that in the future we should continue to disscuss these issues but should should be a more carefull woth the accusations that we throw around. Many people were blaming this whole situation on one or two teams when actually it was a simple miss-understanding. We have all done it cut them a break PLEASE. I'm sure that they feel bad enough.

[KenWittlief]

I agree with the last post.

If you see someone doing something you think is against the rules, you have two options:

1. get a judge and confront them - straighten it out right there- 99% of the time it will be a misunderstanding on someones part, corrective action will be taken, someone will learn the rules better, and that will be the end of it

or

2. if its not a big deal, then let it drop - and that means let it drop everywhere and forever.

Coming on this forum or anywhere else and making induendos, or accusing a team of cheating without backing it up with names, dates, team numbers, witnesses, does nothing but get people upset, and gets other people angry at teams who may or may not have been doing something wrong.

If you saw a team doing something and you want to know if its against the rules, you can simply ask: is it ok to bring a practice bot to the event and use it on thurday?

is it ok to use assemblys from a practice bot on your real machine?

there is no need to say that you saw someone doing this - because the event is over and you cant do anything about it now - but with the rules clarified you can do something about it WHILE its happenings at a future event.

[10intheCrunch]

Even if you do have names, team numbers, dates and witnesses, I'd say don't post unless you confronted the offending team, or asked a judge to, and they continued with whatever upset you. Misunderstandings should be off the table before the entire community is brought into it.

[Jessica Boucher]

I am really proud of you all for handling this thread so awesomely

Sometimes stuff happens at regionals that you need to question, but may not have time to do so during the competition. I understand that if you see something that may be a violation that you should talk to an official immediately, but sometimes things happen that won't allow you to take the time out. We all know how crazy regionals can be. But what happened happened, and we can't go back and change it. But we can set a precedent for the rest of the regionals, and we can only do that by talking about it.

Try as we might, CD is sometimes the only contact we have together concerning FIRST issues. I am personally frustrated with the lack of updating on the FIRST site, and I am really happy with how the CD community has pulled together to make sure that as much information as possible is distributed. I feel that if a question needs to be brought up, that it is done as respectfully as possible, and that we all work to come up with a solution and a way to deal with any other issues that will come up later at regionals. As long as it is done in a respectful manner, I see no problem with bringing up an issue that occurred at regionals.

I was talking to my class dean last week concerning an issue that happened with another group I'm involved with at Babson. We had a raffle drawing, and they all said that they would show up at the radio station for the drawing, but it ended up that none of them showed up and they didn't make any effort to contact me and explain their actions. It really hurt me because it turned out that the winner was a member of the committee, and said he would show; so when the radio hosts called him to tell him he won, he said he wasn't doing anything...even though he lives two floors above the station.
She knows of my invovlement in FIRST, and I told her that I would never expect that issue to come up if the students involved were FIRSTers, because FIRST teaches responsibility. If something sketchy happens, we're not afraid to bring it up - not because we like to witchhunt, but because it shows that we care about the community and believe that in making the competition fair for all, that we will make sure that every student is getting something positive out of the experience.

So, I hope you all don't think Im just blabbering on about something off-topic, but I am seriously proud of how this thread was handled and of the community as a whole for working out this issue...you guys rock!

[FadyS.]

I think this thread brings out a very important issue. What can you bring and what can you upgrade on that Thursday? Can we add additional sensors? Can we replace a sprocket? I assume we can drill holes. What are examples of things we can't bring or do?

[Gary Dillard]

Seems like I'm always playing devil's advocate on these threads.

Why is it a problem to bring a practice robot to drive on practice day?

What is the advantage this team gained? One day of driving a practice robot on a real field? If they had modifications to make to the competition robot that took all day thursday and made the decision to do that, that's all they would have sacrificed if they didn't have an extra robot.

I'm not aware of any requirements for the robot you field on practice day, other than they check to make sure it can't damage the field. You don't have to complete inspection prior to practice - how many teams put a robot on the practice field that was overweight, outside the size limit, didn't have 4 team numbers, etc.? Are they equally as guilty?

They had an extra TWO WEEKS since the robot shipped for driving practice and tweaking at home - is that fair to the teams who didn't have the resources to build 2 robots?

What about the teams who go to 2, 3, or 4 regionals - they get all those extra practice days, is that fair to the teams who only go to 1? (we've beat that question to death in other threads but it's a similar point).

At the Central Florida Regional they didn't have a practice field setup - just carpet - so we couldn't test modifications to our lift mechanism until we were on the field. If teams bring practice fields to other regionals to try things out, is that fair to us?

The intent of the rules is to try to level the playing field, but there is no way it will ever be fair. We all know that, Dean admits that, and we accept that. Somebody early in this thread said they should have known it wasn't right - I disagree. As they stated, they followed all the rules in regards to spare parts. Don't make up other rules just because someone else is taking advantage of their strengths, in this case the resources to build a second robot.

Team SPAM is probably a middle tier team as far as available financial, engineering and manufacturing resources - sufficient to be competitive but nowhere near enough to build 2 'bots. I don't begrudge anyone who can - I envy you and applaud you, because the bottom line is, it's not about the robots. It's about inspiring the students, and when my students say "WOW" about what your team has done, it's a good thing.

[KenWittlief]

Why is it a problem to bring a practice robot to drive on practice day?

Its unfair because in engineering you always have to make tradeoffs

if your bot needs work then you cant pratice

if you decide to start making changes to your bot that will keep it from running on thursday then your team will get no practice

if you shipped a bot that still needed work then your team will get no practice

allow a team to build a second bot, and continue to work on it after the ship date, and bring it to the regional on the bus, and use it on the field to get practice

while the other teams have to decide which is more important, modifying the bot or meeting the practice schedule

Its clearly an unfair advantage to more heavily financed and supported teams - I know FIRST is unfair on some levels, but we dont have to make it worse by letting well funded teams do whatever they please, taking every possible advantage over the little guy.

besides, FIRST has a very clear definition of what you teams 'robot' is and what its not - your practice bot is NOT your teams robot

why would you think you can bring something else to drive around on the playfield? can we drive our bus on the field? why not? its not in the rules either?

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Its unfair because in engineering you always have to make tradeoffs

if your bot needs work then you cant pratice

if you decide to start making changes to your bot that will keep it from running on thursday then your team will get no practice

if you shipped a bot that still needed work then your team will get no practice

allow a team to build a second bot, and continue to work on it after the ship date, and bring it to the regional on the bus, and use it on the field to get practice

while the other teams have to decide which is more important, modifying the bot or meeting the practice schedule

Its clearly an unfair advantage to more heavily financed and supported teams - I know FIRST is unfair on some levels, but we dont have to make it worse by letting well funded teams do whatever they please, taking every possible advantage over the little guy.

That's all really nice Ken, but it has nothing to do with the rules - you can't make up your own just because you don't like it.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

why would you think you can bring something else to drive around on the playfield? can we drive our bus on the field? why not? its not in the rules either?

I would guess that your bus would damage the field, and as such the ref's wouldn't allow it on the field.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

besides, FIRST has a very clear definition of what you teams 'robot' is and what its not - your practice bot is NOT your teams robot

You did actually make one valid point in that post that caused me to look and answer my own question - from section 7.1 in the rules "The purpose of the Practice Rounds is to allow each Team a chance to run its Robot on the Playing Field prior to the start of the competition matches." That's the answer - I would agree that there is a clear definition on what your robot is, and the practice round is for that robot. Therefore, the rules state you must drive your competition robot "THE robot" in the practice rounds.

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by dddriveman

I think that this was a very informative thread. I also think that there was a little too much finger pointing, name calling, and crying. WE are all on a F.I.R.S.T. team for a reason. Alot of people are getting blind sited by what our primary goal is. I think that in the future we should continue to disscuss these issues but should should be a more carefull woth the accusations that we throw around. Many people were blaming this whole situation on one or two teams when actually it was a simple miss-understanding. We have all done it cut them a break PLEASE. I'm sure that they feel bad enough.

There was no finger pointing. No one accused anyone. There was no mention of team numbers. 830 came forward and admitted wrong doing themselves. Kudos to them; however, this thread when originally started with other teams in mind. It was about swapping mechanisms from the pratice robots, which supposedly some other team have done.

[Ken Patton]

We brought our mostly-assembled practice robot to GLR. It sat in my truck. On multiple occasions we went out to the truck and "harvested" parts from the spare robot. In every single instance the parts we used were (1)fabricated before the ship date or were off-the-shelf components, and (2)used only after they were fully disassembled down to individual pieces.

In one match, we blew a tire innertube. We took a complete wheel/tire assembly from the spare robot, fully disassembled it down to individual parts, and used the tube and tire tread on the competition robot. Even though the wheel/tire was identical to that on our competition robot, and it had been built up before the ship date, I stood there and watched our students tear it down to the individual parts.

I think in doing this we followed the letter and intent of the rules. Was there a bunch of non-value-added-assembly-and-disassembly? Yes.

I don't think there should be a problem with bringing a fully assembled spare robot to the comp, as long as the parts are disassembled for use.

Ken

[Matt Adams]

Team Update 15
http://www2.usfirst.org/2004comp/tmup15.pdf

Don't bring the robot in the facility with you.

[edit]If you're going to be entering a grey area... ask someone at FIRST. Don't risk your team and hard work by reading too far into this update.[/edit]

Matt

[Don Wright]

Yep. If you are reading this message and haven't read Update 15, go and read it before posting. It's pretty clear cut.

[KenWittlief]

hey if Im reading TU15 right, if someone brings a machine shop trailer, or if someone opens their machine shop up to all teams

then you can work on parts from 8am thursday until the pits close of saturday

in otherwords, a local team could host a 72 hr machine shop marathon at their facilites

THATS pretty cool - in the past I believe we were not allowed to take parts out of the building an work on them overnight in the hotel - does TU15 indicate a change to that policy now?

(they close up one can of worms and open another one! :^)

[Don Wright]

Yes, I think by wording it the way they did, it's a can of worms. I don't think they meant you can take parts out and work on them if a machine shop opens it's doors for 72 hours. It would be cool, but I don't think it's what they meant.

I'll be doing all my work in the pits...