I am wondering if teams have used 3dprinters in their pits or hotels with prints running through the night. The rules say that your team can’t work on the robot after hours. Is printing considered your “team working” on the robot? Have teams done this before?
R304
During an event a team is attending (regardless of
whether the team is physically at the event location), the team may neither work on nor practice
with their ROBOT or ROBOT elements outside of the hours that pits are open, with the following
exceptions:
A. exceptions listed in R302, other than R302-E-c and
B. software development.
Seems pretty clear cut to me. I’d say something you print is a “ROBOT element” and the hours the pit is open are very clearly defined.
The only possible way I see around this rule is if you set a program to start printing prior to pits close and don’t touch it at all until pits are open again. But even so, this feels like a loophole attempting to circumvent the intent of the rule and I’d be hard-pressed to find benefit of the doubt in this situation.
Events that don’t turn power off overnight are technically allowing batteries to be charged overnight. Should teams not be allowed to use those batteries the next day?
I’m not sure what the benefit of disallowing printed parts printed in the pit overnight is. If the event leaves power on, I see no reason it should be ruled illegal, and there’s definitely an argument that it is legal. And before anyone tries to use the fairness argument, any team could bring a 3d printer to their pit.
Bottom line why does FRC/FRC community continue to feel the need to police things that don’t matter?
I suppose my cursory definition of “work on” the robot (or its elements) is adding, modifying, or repairing existing functionality. Charging batteries isn’t that.
As a bonus point, OP brought up work at the hotel, which I think there is an even less supportive case.
Not sure if your policing comment was directed me, but I definitely don’t care. Not trying to create additional hurdles here, nor am I advocating for the rules as they are currently written. I’m suggesting that if you read the rules as they are now, I don’t believe this is permitted. Maybe I’m wrong. And maybe I’m right, but it’s a superfluous rule.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Not a completely unreasonable QA if you’re uncertain.
Teams should also be prepared to be asked if their 3D printer is certified to the appropriate electrical codes for the jurisdiction where the event is taking place.
You’d THINK that anything for sale in Canada (or the USA, or…) would meet local standards, but in an Amazon age with shipping containers zipping around the world, many vendors have found a way to save a few bucks by skipping the inspection and approval process.
Personally, I have no intention of inspecting every piece of electrical equipment in every pit… but it is quite possible that the Judge to whom you are showing your wonderful 3D printing process just happens to be an expert on electrical code, enforces it for a living, and recognizes your power supply as being the same as the one that caused three fires in Upper Patooty last week. They would be professionally obliged to act to ensure electrical safety standards are met at the event.
I’m not an expert on this field. There are certain exemptions that allow some uncertified equipment to be used in certain applications, but I have no idea whether they might apply here. This is just a friendly reminder that there are rules that apply to electrical devices that supersede the FRC rulebook!
Some of the UL Safety people may be the ones who get to inspect the products and witness the testing required for them to get the right to apply the UL logo on the product…
R304 specifically exempts R302’s exceptions (except E-c, the “30-minute modification”). R302 exemption C is the battery assemblies from R103B, which is the batteries and their wires and Andersons… and the chargers MUST have Andersons.
Therefore, battery assemblies CAN be worked on (in this case, charged), when pits are closed.
We now return to the 3D printer discussion.
I would say that this would be a pretty good Q&A. The question being: A team starts a 3D printer located in their pit with 30 minutes to go before pit closing, and it is still running when the team leaves. Pit power is not turned off overnight. The team comes in the next morning and removes the now-completed part from their printer. Is this a violation of R304? The team did no work on or with the printer between pit closing and pit opening, the printer just ran.
I second the suggestion to go to the Q&A.
I suppose it would depend on if you see the printer as a member of the team - if it’s a tool, I would argue that it can be left running similar to lights or a battery charger, as long as it poses no safety risk.
However, if you believe it is sufficiently advanced enough to be a functional team member, the answer would definitely be no.
As I don’t know of any 3D printers out there that have any AI at all, or if they do, AI far below that of a Tesla, I don’t believe the second applies… Yet.
The bigger concern I’d have is the fire hazard. If a print gets knocked off overnight and filament builds up and ignites then it’s a safety concern. I know it’s a low chance thing given most desktop printers can cut power depending on situation but no one is there to supervise it
Well, the blue box in R304 says that an example of the rule is that it prohibits “working on Robot parts at night at the team’s hotel,” and is intended to “increase equity between teams with significant travel to an event and those nearby”. I think I’ve also heard discussion somewhere (though I can’t quote chapter and verse at the moment) that it’s also that they want to be discouraging teams from staying up all night working on improving their robots such that they would be tired in the morning causing unsafe conditions.
But I think the question is whether letting a printer run with minimal-to-no supervision counts as “working”, which I agree Q&A is probably needed if one wants an “official” answer (or at least as official as one might get).
Right, and having a printer running overnight in the pits:
Does not pose a safety risk as it is no different then the same printer sitting anywhere else running overnight
Is not outside the venue so parts are not being brought in after load in
Does not effect equity between teams as any team could bring a printer if they so wanted.
No human on the team is “working”, so it is legal. If some inspector or something tried to tell me it was illegal to use a part printed overnight, I would take it to the LRI immediately, and if they had issue as well, I would ask for them to check with their superiors. I would be curious to hear an inspector/LRI chime in here.
But my biggest point is why would anyone feel the need to nickel and dime a team on this? This can be applied to FRC more broadly; why do some people feel the need to call ticky-tack infringements based on a particular interpretation of a rule when supposedly breaking that rule (which most times can be argued and is likely correct that they are not) doesn’t actually negatively effect anyone else and the only effect is a negative one on the team committing the so-called infringement.
FRC needs to be de-regulated, or at least some of the people surrounding it need to be.
The difference is if it catches on fire or fails in a room near say myself I can turn it off/extinguish it. At an event no one is in the build in the pits at 3am and likely is not setup in a permit config in a shop with sprinklers rigged, or some other safety feature. For reference I’m not against printing in the overnight for teams and think if it runs at an event it’s ok, I just have problem with the safety side of it.
I have worked at and have personally operated lots of printers where they are left overnight to run with no one in the building. I’m sorry but this is just nonsense. Any desktop printer that a team would be able to bring to an event is not a significant enough safety risk to matter in this conversation. The battery chargers teams use would be a bigger safety risk left running overnight then desktop printers (not that battery chargers are any kind of real risk either.
This feels like you’re advocating for a rule change, not answering the question of how the current rules apply. I’ve seen vid justification in this thread for how the rule could easily be interpreted either way. It could be possible that every single person in this thread thinks that printing overnight should be permitted, but a current reading of the rules doesn’t totally support that as legal.
I’m all for your deregulation of these robot rules. But that’s an argument for human behavior. The much better answer is to have clear cut rules, not tell people they shouldn’t make their best attempt at enforcing the current ones.
I would agree with you, except that the Anet A8 was known to catch fire randomly some years ago. I hope that it’s fixed now, but a team could absolutely cause a fire in the pits after hours with a printer. Other than that specific (albeit widespread) example I’ve never heard of printer fires happening often.
All of my events shut off pit power at night so it’s moot for me.