Withholding limits and GP

[XaulZan11]

Personally, I wouldn't take the chance on wasting 6...I mean 10... weeks I spent building a robot on whether or not FIRST understands and would enforce their rule. But, its your time, not mine.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Hold on there guys. The change to 65 pounds of withholding was announced in the Team update dated February 16. That is less than ten days ago. The GDC answers in the Q&A were dated the 16th and the 19th. It was the answers from the 19th that you are upset about and according to my watch that was a mere 5 days ago if you include the 19th. You can't make me believe you were planning to keep your robot and ship some parts based on something you knew in your heart wasn't the norm. Considering it occurred just a few days ago as opposed to kickoff, this should not affect your plans or your robot construction. 65 pounds is a lot of stuff to be able to bring with you. That alone is a gift for teams that have been able to work on their robot continuously during the build season and to help teams that have been locked out of their shops due to weather and school closings. Of all the things that have changed over the years, ship date has meant ship your ROBOT. Quite frankly I am going to view the majority of this thread as end of build exhaustion and nothing more. Get some sleep.

[GaryVoshol]

It was clear from the start that you had to ship a robot:

4.1 OVERVIEW
FRC teams ship their robots to ensure that all teams have an equal amount of time to build, test and modify their robots. Robots are shipped to the drayage site for the first event that your team will attend and then shipped to any subsequent events.*
This section provides information regarding shipping and associated requirements, the drayage system, crate specifications and an introduction to the FedEx® shipping donation. Please make sure those persons responsible for shipping your team’s robot understand and follow the rules in this chapter. Following the guidelines will ensure that your robot arrives where it needs to be on time, so that your team can focus on the important thing – participating in the event!
*Please note
4.2 ROBOT SHIP DAY : Teams planning to attend a Bag and Tag Event will have specific requirements – please read this entire chapter!*
All Robots must be out of the teams’ hands before midnight local time on ROBOT SHIP DAY.

Section 8.2 defines ROBOT:

ROBOT - A FRC ROBOT is a remotely operated vehicle designed and built by a FRC team to perform specific tasks when competing in the 2010 competition “Breakaway.” The ROBOT must include all the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game – power, communications, control, mobility, and actuation. The ROBOT implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play the 2010 FRC game (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD, or a ROBOT designed to play a different game, would not satisfy this definition).

The withholding allowance permits a team to not ship parts of their robot. But nowhere does it say you can retain the whole robot:

WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE – A limited amount of FABRICATED ITEMS that are withheld from the ROBOT shipping requirements (specified in Section 4) and retained by the team following the shipping deadlines. These items are then hand-carried to a competition event by the team. The OPERATOR CONSOLE is automatically included in the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE. Beyond that, the incoming material maximums specified in Rule <R38> limits the amount of FABRICATED ITEMS included in the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE.

People are basing their opinion of withholding the whole robot on this Q&A: http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=14653 Answers on 2/16 and 2/19. The problem is the GDC never completely answered the first question, "Could the team ship just the bumpers? and keep the robot under the withholding allowance?" Instead, their answer was that teams could decide which parts of the robot they chose to withhold. I believe this is an unfortunate case of the GDC knowing what they wanted to say, but not saying it clearly. Edit: My initial reaction was, "Oh, 'any parts' means it could be the whole robot." But that's not what the GDC had in mind, and Bill's blog reporting on Update 13 corrects that misunderstanding.

As I understand it, you have to ship a robot, but you don't have to ship a whole robot. What parts of the robot you choose not to ship are up to you. But you can't bring a complete robot into the event with you. What you bring with you must be missing at least one of the parts listed in the ROBOT definition.

[IndySam]

Because of the really bad weather Bill and the GDC try to help teams out by throwing them a bone and as a result this $%#& storm erupts.

I hope you folks don't expect them to be so magnanimous in the future.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

As I understand it, you have to ship a robot, but you don't have to ship a whole robot. What parts of the robot you choose not to ship are up to you. But you can't bring a complete robot into the event with you. What you bring with you must be missing at least one of the parts listed in the ROBOT definition.

So if a team brings a 64lb. robot without its wireless gaming adapter (thus missing the communication aspect that defines a ROBOT), they would be legal? It seems like it's easy enough for these teams to do basically what they want while satisfying the rules, so what's the problem?

[Bochek]

Originally Posted by jgannon

So if a team brings a 64lb. robot without its wireless gaming adapter (thus missing the communication aspect that defines a ROBOT), they would be legal? It seems like it's easy enough for these teams to do basically what they want while satisfying the rules, so what's the problem?

Exactly what we are doing, a robot isnt a Robot Untill it has the bumpers, digital sidecar and Signal Light installed.

[Steve W]

If you wonder why people like myself get fed up and leave it is because certain people, you know who you are, continually try and find ways to beat the system. Breaking the rules, and the spirit of the rules, seems to be an OK thing to do. NOT!!!

FIRST tries to help out teams that do not normally have the issues with weather that many of us are used to. Others then try to take the advantage that they are given and expand it even further. The rules state that you must ship your robot. Period. you are allowed to withhold 65 lbs of fabricated parts. Period. The first rule that you must ship your robot is still in effect. Basically a robot has a frame, wheels/tread, motors to drive. As you are allowed to keep your CRio then that would be a base robot. Anything less and, in my opinion, is not shipping a robot.

'nuff said.