Lessons learned 2005: The negative

[Shu Song]

I biggie that I've noticed was inconsistent inspection standards between regionals and championships. Here's why:

At FLR and GTR, our robot was weighed without backup battery and LED's. The inspection people specifically told us, as far as I know, to NOT include those two items. But at championships, our inspector told us the exact opposite, that everything had to be on the robot while being weighed except for the battery. Although that the added LED and backup battery didn't put us over the limit, it frustrated me to know that there was this much inconsistency.

Secondly, at both FLR and GTR, we were allowed to precharge our pneumatic cylinders with a non-kit, non-FIRST, air tank. No one at those two regionals told us not to do so and we even saw other teams doing the same thing. But when came to championships, we were told that we can only precharge with the pneumatic equipment already on the robot. We were told this after other teams complained about our having done so.

Our inspector told us that this might have came about because there were inexperienced inspectors at those regionals. That might explain the LED and backup battery issue, but how can any inspector miss our team taking a giant air tank to our robot and filling it with air?

I hope that we are not the only team that had problems with the inconsistency, if we are, then I guess the inspectors at regionals DID miss those things. If anyone knows differently, please correct me.

[UlTiMaTeP]

Originally Posted by TierraDelDiablo

I biggie that I've noticed was inconsistent inspection standards between regionals and championships. Here's why:

At FLR and GTR, our robot was weighed without backup battery and LED's. The inspection people specifically told us, as far as I know, to NOT include those two items. But at championships, our inspector told us the exact opposite, that everything had to be on the robot while being weighed except for the battery. Although that the added LED and backup battery didn't put us over the limit, it frustrated me to know that there was this much inconsistency.

Secondly, at both FLR and GTR, we were allowed to precharge our pneumatic cylinders with a non-kit, non-FIRST, air tank. No one at those two regionals told us not to do so and we even saw other teams doing the same thing. But when came to championships, we were told that we can only precharge with the pneumatic equipment already on the robot. We were told this after other teams complained about our having done so.

Our inspector told us that this might have came about because there were inexperienced inspectors at those regionals. That might explain the LED and backup battery issue, but how can any inspector miss our team taking a giant air tank to our robot and filling it with air?

I hope that we are not the only team that had problems with the inconsistency, if we are, then I guess the inspectors at regionals DID miss those things. If anyone knows differently, please correct me.

There is NO section in the mannual that says you need to have the compressor on the robot to use pneumatics!

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by UlTiMaTeP

There is NO section in the mannual that says you need to have the compressor on the robot to use pneumatics!

As an inspector, I can attest to the fact that there were many confusing rules and demi-rules concerning pneumatics. In fact, with 639 at the GTR, I came very close to making the same call as the Championship inspector, right before a match--I went so far as to notify the referee on the field that I was going to cite you for it. I didn't do it, though, because I could only firmly remember the requirement that the off-board compressor (if any) be the kit unit. <QA1672>, which spells all of it out more clearly, was a little shaky in my mind, because I couldn't see the justification for disallowing an off-board reservoir (assuming the two Clippards were on-board, and no dubiously legal arrangements such as pistons or tubing as a reservoir existed). In other words, you were lucky that I wasn't absolutely sure of what to do about a system without a compressor, and similarly fortunate that I didn't want to burden you with something about which I wasn't quite sure. Furthermore, I suspect that the notion that you weren't doing any harm, nor gaining an unfair advantage might have crept in there.

Now as for some of the other pneumatics rules, of which I was sure, I didn't like some of the rulings I had to make (pressure switches, coiled hoses and pistons come to mind). The pneumatics rules need fixing; maybe later I'll have a more comprehensive list.

As for 639's weigh in at GTR, it's possible that they were handled by one of the less-experienced inspectors; we had three experienced inspectors full-time, and several more first-time inspectors also working full-time.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by UlTiMaTeP

There is NO section in the mannual that says you need to have the compressor on the robot to use pneumatics!

The game manual clearly states <R86> that you may choose to NOT put the compressor on the robot and instead pre-charge the tanks before going onto the playing field.

We had difficulty in passing inspection at the Nationals because we did not have the pressure switch on the robot (even though we didn't have a compressor). The inspector agreed that the switch had no function without the compressor, but, if we used any pneumatics, it was required in the rules. Not putting the switch on the robot meant we could gain a weight advantage. So, even though we were almost two pounds underweight, we put the pressure switch on the robot. It was not connected to pnuematic tubing or electrically, just held onto the frame with a zip-tie! Inspection: Passed!

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Things that did not go so well this year were..
- The penalties. The 30 point penalty is perhaps a bit excessive considering it's harder to score this year.

I agree with Ed on most of his points, but I disagree with this one, even though penalties bit our alliance HARD twice in playoffs (Pittsburgh Regional and Galileo Division).

For the past 3 seasons, I have witnessed teams building Battle Bots to play defense. It didn't matter what you broke on the opposing robot, what only mattered was how hard you could hammer them. I think that FIRST wanted to get back to a more elegant method of playing the game, and these penalties became a serious punishing stick. I commend FIRST for not reversing their decision on enforcing the penalties.

We veteran teams need to emphasize with the newer ones that "playing the game cleanly" is the proper method of winning. Do we suffer for these infractions, of course, but rather than complain to FIRST about it, we need to encourage our allies and competitors to eliminate the actions that cause these penalties.

In an alliance, you win as one, you lose as one, and you commit penalties as one. Any other viewpoint indicates that three individual robots may have played the game, but an alliance truly did not exist.

[Termite233]

about the awards done during opening ceremonies...
if they were going to do things so important like these, should they not show them on all fields? not just 3? my team was not allowed to leave the archimedes field (except for a few people who had to scout at galileo) so they didnt see the opening ceremonies. they didn't even know when they started or that awards had been given. They only heard part of the National Anthem. so I think that could have been improved.
-Chris

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

- The return of Sir Charles. 'nuff said.

Agreed - he did a few matches on Curie. I thought the announcing on Curie was alright, I really couldn't understand what anyone was saying though. Anyone else have this problem??

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Agreed - he did a few matches on Curie.

It is disappointing the biggest problems you all can find is within one volunteer. I am very disappointed....did you have a problem with one of the other volunteers also? possibly a field reseter? a judge? or maybe an inspector? I find it very upsetting that rather than be happy someone is here volunteering, you all would rather disparage the man's performance.....how sad....

[kulisb]

I think that the one thing that could have been better at this year's FIRST competition was consistency of penalty calls. Penalties were worth so much, compared to what the average match scored out to be. If these penalties have such a huge impact (especially when losing one match can possibly knock you out of the top 8), calls should be as consistent as possible, so that teams know how to play the game.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

It is disappointing the biggest problems you all can find is within one volunteer. I am very disappointed....did you have a problem with one of the other volunteers also? possibly a field reseter? a judge? or maybe an inspector? I find it very upsetting that rather than be happy someone is here volunteering, you all would rather disparage the man's performance.....how sad....

If you would have taken 2 more seconds to read the rest of my post, I clearly said that I thought all of the announcing on Curie was just alright (at best). I could not understand what people were saying most of the time.

And about Sir Charles - don't get on my back just because I don't like the way he announces. He's very repetitive and it really gets on my nerves. I'm sorry but "going for the hook up" is not a valid phrase in this year's game. This isn't FIRST Frenzy.

That's about the only negative thing I could find from this year's National event.

[Starke]

Another part that could be changed was having to leave the pit 4 matches ahead of your teams match. Although a long walk, you could make it in 3 or even 2 matches before.

One time 340 had to change a transmission. We got most of the work done in the pit but had to leave to go to our match. This resulted in putting kids on the cart and finishing the job on the way to the arena. All that was needed was 2-5 more minutes, but we had to go.

Overall, I think the Championship Event went well and ran relatively smoothly.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

It is disappointing the biggest problems you all can find is within one volunteer. I am very disappointed....did you have a problem with one of the other volunteers also? possibly a field reseter? a judge? or maybe an inspector? I find it very upsetting that rather than be happy someone is here volunteering, you all would rather disparage the man's performance.....how sad....

well a few other of the volunteers on wed. night where we could uncrate the robot were NOT very GPly and were just plain rude. we were told "trying is not good enough". "Get out", "Go away". i can understand it if we were there longer then scheduling permits us but no we were hearing all of this before they closed at 9. isn't a point of FIRST GP?

[Aaron]

I think all the negatives about the nationals have been said ( i especially agree with the Vex FLL safty glass issue). As for this entire year, i think that three teams was great, but the field should be a little bit bigger (maybe a square?). I also think some of the regionals need to get bigger venues, instead of just splitting them up into more regionals. I also like the e stop idea. its been four years since a team could 'punch out' in an emergency. The last thing would be to allow teams to challange calls if they have sufficient evidence, such as cued up video tape, and can present it to the refs in a short amount of time (3 min or less).

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

7. Bring back Robot stop buttons... make sure every team has a disable button, and disable buttons are easily accessible to refs. In toronto, a robot threw a tetra at our drivers, and was not disabled until 30 seconds later, when the ref pulled their human player off the pad. At our scrimmage, we had two people with three shut off switches (one for each team) watching each allaince, and if there were any times that safety came into question, they were to shut the robot off immediately. (matches can be rerun, people take much longer to be fixed!)

Originally Posted by Aaron

I also like the e stop idea. its been four years since a team could 'punch out' in an emergency. The last thing would be to allow teams to challange calls if they have sufficient evidence, such as cued up video tape, and can present it to the refs in a short amount of time (3 min or less).

I don't understand what you're saying. Every alliance station has three E-stop buttons that team members can press at any time. These have been there the last four years. My complaint is that referees now have to use these buttons to disable a robot, instead of the scorekeeper disabling them through the scoring software.

Sorry, but FIRST will NEVER allow referees to review video. It would be an absolute nightmare. It would take a week to run a regional. Will never happen, for good reason.

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Briefly about penalties. Teams didn't have 4 months to figure out what would and wouldn't be penalized.

Teams absolutely did have 4 months to figure out that if you hit a robot that is in a loading zone, you will be penalized.

[Paul Copioli]

Since all the negatives I have come up with are already here, I will not list any. However, the liquid rules are a HUGE problem.

Cory,

Here is your response in this thread:

I still don't understand why people are complaining about penalties. How hard is it to stay the heck away from a robot that's in a loading zone?

It absolutely baffles me that after four months of knowing that you WILL get a penalty if you hit someone in the loading zone, people still haven't figured out that you don't push a robot that's loading.

As I said before, and I'll say again, it's really not that hard to avoid penalties

I think you are toting the company line a bit too much here. Let me tell you that in order to avoid penalties, you must understand what gets you the penalty in the first place. The definitions of "in the loading zone" and "in the process of receiving a tetra" changed several times this season. They even changed after the regionals were over. They even changed at the driver's meeting at the Championship.

Did you know that at the driver's meeting Benji actually said that a robot could sit in the loading zone and score tetras and if another robot hit them, then it would be a penalty. I was there, I heard it and couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Did you know that a team could sit in the loading zone and not be in the act of loading a tetra (obvious to everyone) and draw a foul from a team obviously going toward a far goal to score? This happened several times at the Championship and changed the way my team played the game. If you don't believe me, look at the tapes of elimination rounds in Detroit where 245 and 217 were on the same team and we went across the field a lot. Then look a the tapes from the Championship where 245 and 217 didn't go across even once due to the fear of penalties. My team's behavior was changed by the "liquid" rules of FIRST and it is my #1 priority to help fix this problem next year.