Fit to be Tethered: New Rule

[FRCOps]

aka: The Trouble with Tethers, or Rules of Entanglement

Starting with the answer to the question:
Yes, the rules on tethers have been loosened. And, we apologize. Why? We had to. Please read on.

Is this unfair to teams that correctly and strictly interpreted our rules updates as posted during the season? Probably. We know it, and please believe that we don't feel great about the way it went down. We're sorry.

Now, the details. We loosened up on the tethering rules, as a result of VCU. Want to know why? We asked a certain Pappalardo Professor of Engineering at MIT for his guidance. Maybe you’ve heard of him - Dr. Woodie Flowers. Dr. Flowers' comments to us at VCU were basically that if the teams have put time and effort into engineering a tether or tethered device, let them demonstrate it. We also thought back to the kickoff and Dean's approval of being able to be in 2 places at once.

So what the rule has become is that unless it's a piece of string or flimsy unprotected wire, it can be deployed. With Woodie's estimable guidance in place, the situation changed. (Please, don’t contact him.)

As a result, we are allowing the less egregious tethers to be used, because that is what we must do. It is unfair to the teams that avoided them expecting a strict rule interpretation up until now. But it is clearly worse to allow the current angst over this issue to continue.

Know that below the noise level here, we really are disallowing some mechanisms that clearly would cause entanglement. Also, the lack of resolution on the webcasts -for the 99% of you without a dedicated 1GB/second web server available - makes some decent tether designs appear as loose wire, when in fact they are protected, encased, hinged units.

That's a wrap. Sorry about the change in direction. Those team members that are extremely angry about this: please believe that the 15 people who make all of this happen are not trying to make everyone's lives miserable; we are as committed as you are to an excellent FIRST, and we want everyone's experience to be as positive as possible.

[Joe Matt]

Thanks, we were once DQ'ed for one of the goals being pushed on top of our teather durring a mis-fire.

[bigqueue]

Too bad you pull something like this. We totally disregarded tethering because of the tough interpretation of the rules being published. Now, they are loosened when it is to late to do anything about it.

When I saw a couple of the regionals, I was shocked to see so many tethered devices....all seemed to have some potential for "entaglement"...at least as it was defined in some of the rules clarification.

The rules clarification are supposed to put more clarity and focus on the rules, not "throw people off the scent".

Too late to worry about it now....but this really needs to be handled better in the coming years. (ditto for the clarifications around how to grab the goal and what you can and can-not react against)

[srawls]

Thank you! I know a lot of people may be upset, but I'm happy that a ruling has come out that will be consistent from regional to regional. I think it was a tough decision you guys had to make, and I commend you for it. Sure, it may be unfair to some teams (including ours), but that's life. Let's play the game, and have fun.

Stephen

[VampyrNoireGoth]

Well said my brotha Outstandin display of gracious professionalism right there people.....listen to the man. Anyways.....I do agree that all we can do is move on and forget about it. Life isn't always fair and....well....on the bright side.....our team was originally going to have a tether then decided against it..and it ended up we didn't have room within the weight restriction for it anways. Our team hasn't been to regionals yet......i can't wait until next week I'm SO excited. Well, thats all i have to say, Vampyr out.

[Matt Leese]

While I dislike this decision, it's not because it's unfair. Unfortunately, FIRST is backing down in this case. This seems, to me at least, to set a rather bad precident. Given this year's experience, if there's a rule that teams (and not all, just a significant majority) just don't like, they will think that they can simply ignore it and FIRST will eventually change it. And I'm afraid at this point that FIRST will change it. Inconistensies in rulings are something that's not new, FIRST backing down is.

Matt

[Matt Reiland]

Can First now post on the way they will rule with interaction with all of these send home devices. We still don't have the weight to go and add one of these devices but we want to know what the refs will be instructed to do when teams start interacting with them.

[Gary Dillard]

The post from FIRST (both here and on Yahoo) only addresses the point that tethers are not considered an entanglement issue; I believe they previously ruled that if a goal were pushed over a tether then the tethered robot would be DQ'd as a violation of the "no part of the robot under the platform" rule. I assume this hasn't changed, or are we just going to throw out ALL the rules?

BTW, next year if we spend "time and effort into engineering" a kill-saw in clear violation of the rules, will we be allowed to demonstrate it? Sorry FIRST, (and Woody) - you blew it on this one.

[Matt Reiland]

BTW, next year if we spend "time and effort into engineering" a kill-saw in clear violation of the rules, will we be allowed to demonstrate it? Sorry FIRST, (and Woody) - you blew it on this one.

Hey if you guys are building one then we are too

[Curt Henderson]

So what was just stated by First allows those teams with questionable Home devices to go from the Gray area in which they were playing in to become White which many of us started in!

I think this change in the rules penalizes all the teams that TRULY stayed within the rules, both written and verbalized by First. Our team allocated 22Lbs of the 130Lb limit to be sure we were clearly within the rules and all interpretations of them. Now we are competing with teams that used less than half that weight and intentionally chose to play in the Gray area by not being fully compliant to the rules.

So much for Gracious Professionalism!

[natalie]

Hi Matt and all the other teams coming to the West Michigan Regional this week. No, I am not Natalie,but Natalie graciously allowed me to respond to this very controversial issue through her user name. I will be the Head Referee at the West Michigan Regional this week and I would like to take this time to inform all the teams coming to the WMR how our Ref team will be intepreting the rule of interaction of robots with tethered send home devices. First, the Head Refs have had two teleconferences about reffing this year. Carpet damage and entanglement have been the two most discussed areas of concern. We update after every regional and try to tweek the process to improve the consistancy in the calls. We have been very concerned with making our decisions consistant from regional to regional. BUT, we are human and mistakes are made and, I know, some of them hurt bad. Believe me, Refs also agonize over missed/bad calls but the game goes on. I can tell you that we try our absolute best to make what we feel is the right call at the moment. I know every Ref at the WMR has a passion for this program, and wants to see every team succeed. I believe every Ref crew in every Regional feels the same way. Got off on a tangent here. I'll get off my soapbox and get back to the point. The interaction between robots and send home devices will be treated the same as the interaction between robots. After all, the device is just an extension of the robot. This means that a team is allowed to block, push, pull, and this year FIRST is allowing robots to lift another robot and carry them to their own scoring zone if they so desire. But, remember, that if you decide to lift another robot/send home device that your team has taken on a special duty of care for that robot that you are carrying. It will be a ref's call if there is damage to the robot on whether they feel the damage was intentional/malicious or a weak robot design (grey area-tough call). Generally, with this type of call, the refs will get together and discuss the situation and make a call based on the conference. Anyway, the tethered mini-bots will be considered an extension of the robot and will be treated under the same rules as the robot. I hope that this explanation of the rules interpretation helps and doesn't just add more confusion to this controversial area. If you have any further questions pertaining to this issue or any other rules interpretation, do not hesitate to contact me, Larry Lowell, at the regional this week and I will be glad to answer your questions. I will be at the event all day Thursday helping with inspections, so look me up if you have any questions/issues. Good Luck to all and I look forward to seeing the action at the West Michigan Regional. I'd like to add, as a spectator at the Motorolla Midwest Regional last week, some of the most exciting parts of the match were when the minibots and tongues were trying to get to the end zones to score 10 points!!

[Amy Beth]

Originally posted by FRCOps
aka: The Trouble with Tethers, or Rules of Entanglement Also, the lack of resolution on the webcasts -for the 99% of you without a dedicated 1GB/second web server available - makes some decent tether designs appear as loose wire, when in fact they are protected, encased, hinged units.

Maybe not all tethers that appear to be loose wire are, but i saw several "mouse bots" at the San Jose regional that clearly were attached by nothing but an extension cord-like wire. And never once were they called for it.

~~~
Trying really hard not to be bitter over this

[srawls]

attached by nothing but an extension cord-like wire

You think that's bad? One 'bot in Philly had a metal ball attached by fishing wire! This 'bot wasn't dqed in Philly (I don't know if it ever used the extension), but by these new rules it would be. So, at least take satisfaction that the tethers that are blatently illegal will be dqed.
Stephen

[Matt Reiland]

THank You Larry for reply, this has been a sore issue with our team and I think a bunch of others also. The more things that can be defined the better.

Matt

[Chris]

I agree with everyone else that My team didn't put a tether on our bot out of fear of being DQ'ed. However through some miracle of the robot gods we ended up 7 pounds underweight. So if you are going to UTC swing by out pit and see what we are cooking up. We think we can rig up a mouse bot using spare pieces from our transmission, kit parts ,and a little creativity. All built there of course to be legal. Either way UTC is shaping up to be the hardest competition yet. So hopefully we can get our mouse working. Either way i think its time to let this issue go and just relax and have some fun.

Chris
Team 151 The wildcards
Nashua High/BAE Systems