The email, for those interested:
Hey teams,
A change is being made to the flooring under the FRC field.
As you know, we had our first Rapid React events last weekend at Clackamas and Glacier Peak. This turned out to be a great game. It is exciting to play, exciting to watch, and a great challenge.
We also gained some experience running the event. At both events, we saw a remarkable increase in the power and speed of our robots. Many teams have switched to Falcon motors. A lot of teams have also switched to Swerve drive modules with placation tread material. That combination had an unfortunate side effect in that we had a lot of “burn through” incidents by a large number of teams. That means that robots broke friction with the field and were spinning their wheels. (My own team 4089 had this happen). The net result was the robots dug through the carpet, and in a couple of cases also burned through the protective tarps on the floor. It happens VERY quickly. A Falcon driven placation wheel can go through the carpet in less than a second. Spinning your wheels is bad. This happened a lot at the hub and on the driver station walls.
We call your attention to rule R201 in the manual:
- No digging into carpet. Traction devices must not have surface features that could damage the ARENA (e.g. metal, sandpaper, hard plastic studs, cleats, hook-loop fasteners or similar attachments). Traction devices include all parts of the ROBOT that are designed to transmit any propulsive and/or braking forces between the ROBOT and FIELD carpet.”
Please keep an eye on your treads. Keep an eye out for rivets or screw fasteners becoming exposed due to wear on your treads. We also encourage you to torque limit your drive bases, especially if you are using high friction placation wheels with Falcon motors.
The net resulting damage was minimal this week, so we lucked out. We (FIRSTWA) are responsible for damages to school gym floors. This is a shockingly expensive repair to pay for (think > $30,000). We can’t afford to do that!
Our plan for the remaining events, including DCMP, is to run with a .125in layer of hardboard under the carpet to hopefully catch the case where a robot inadvertently digs through the carpet.
Starting this weekend with Wilsonville, all events on basketball courts should expect to be playing on a hardboard underlayment. SunDome and Oregon State Fairgrounds are on concrete. All other venues are on basketball courts. What could this mean? The underlayment usually lays pretty flat, but not 100% always across the field. We have used this technique in the past . There may be places where the floor has what appears to be some give to it. That is the underlayment not being 100% flat. The weight of your robot will push the hardboard to the floor and you will get a solid connection to the floor. The carpet is the same thickness as it has always been. We will do our best to keep the floor as flat as possible. Experience tells us there will be some variation. Please be understanding.
Be forewarned, spinning your wheels and burning the carpet will get your robot E-Stopped during a match. Drivers need to be on the lookout for spinning wheels. Burn through seemed to happen most often while pushing on the hub or the walls of the arena. It was also seen once with two robots pushing on each other. The hardboard will help with the floor, but your robot can even burn through the hardboard. Please don’t spin your wheels on the carpet! You will get disabled.
We wanted to let you know about this change and why we are implementing it.
Please direct questions to me about this.
See you on the carpet!
Kevin Ross
PNW District Chair
