Please note the following has been added to the preamble to Section 10 (Inspection Rules):
“The inspection process may progress in blocks, i.e. it may pause for a team’s Practice MATCH, slot on the practice field, lunch break, etc. The process may employ various INSPECTORS throughout the process based on availability. At the team’s discretion, they may request a different INSPECTOR or invite the Lead ROBOT INSPECTOR to participate in their ROBOT’S inspection.”
Considerable discussion was had on the wording and nuances to the word “blocks” in particular. The intent was to convey that the inspection process does not have to be done all at one time in one inspection session. It can, and may very well be, conducted in “blocks”, “chunks”, “sections”, “parts”, or however you would like to consider separate subsets of time. Note also this does not imply any particular sequencing nor does the official inspection checklist. It is perfectly ok for “pneumatics” to be inspected before “electrical” or for “bumpers” to come near the end of the inspection, etc. The robot does not need to be “completely ready” before inspections can begin. Even though the weight is recorded near the top of the inspection checklist, this is a clerical distinction and does not imply the robot must be weighed in it’s final configuration before robot inspection may begin. The final inspected robot weight could just as easily be recorded last just prior to placing the inspection sticker if needed. All that is required is the inspection team keep an accurate record of the robot’s weight as it is in various legally inspected states throughout a competition. That robot weight is expected to change as teams modify their robots. The inspection staff just need to be notified of those robot modifications and note the changes in weight over time and make sure the robot remains compliant with R103.
If you have volunteered and been assigned as an RI you should have received an email with instructions on taking your RI certification test in BlueVolt.
Just passed mine. For anyone at FLR, NY Tech Valley, Pittsburgh, Buckeye, NEFIRST Hartford, or NEFIRST Champs, please feel free to say hi! I’ll either be CSA or RI (or both).
According to my VC you have to be assigned a role to take the associated training/cert.
Which is kinda too bad, I would have gladly done the RI training/cert and then they’d have options if something unexpected happened and they were short RI’s or something.
Can confirm. And lots of us still have some assigning left to do
Also noting that if you were not already assigned on the day a training goes live, there’s an email blast sent twice a week to newly assigned volunteers. So it may take a few days and not appear instantaneously from the time of an assignment.
An important point–there are many students, mentors and RIs who will struggle with this advice through no fault of their own. FIRST might be well advised to train LRIs on how to handle these situations.
A small bit of feedback here. I was looking for the inspection checklist to share with someone considering volunteering and concerned they didn’t have enough FRC context to be a successful RI. The most recent I found was the 2020 so things may have changed.
Given the context of this conversation making a point to state there’s no order of inspection, it may be worth renaming “Initial Inspection” to something that doesn’t include an implication of “here’s where you start” especially as it’s at the start of the checklist. The words and training say “there’s no order.” The document used by RIs says “this is at the start of the checklist and it’s called initial, this is where you start” from context clues. The best idea I could come up with are something to the effect of “Game Specific Design Limitations” or “Dimensional Restrictions” I’m sure you all will have much better ideas.
Do you know if there is a link to it, somewhere besides in the Game Manual itself? It does not show up on the Game Manual page on the FIRST web site, and searching for it on the web site search does not find it easily. Google does find it easily, but does not show where it’s linked.
That’s odd. Both the Inspection Checklist and the Abbreviated Inspection Checklist for 1 day events is listed right under Section 10 on the game manual page. Is anyone else not seeing it there?
It’s likely a UX thing. I’ll share the method I used to find a checklist as I started this mess.
I googled “FRC Inspection Checklist” and the top hit was the 2020 list. After that, it was some FTC things. I didn’t see the 2022 and for the use case I had, the 2020 was sufficient. “See, these are things you’re more than qualified to help with. Also, you’ll have a LRI there if you’re unsure. You’d be a huge help”
I did check the FRC page quickly. Though, I tend to scan over that long list of chapters on the game manual. I went down to the subcategories below to look in that because I was pretty sure I had seen the 2022 list linked at some point. I didn’t find it there. I gave the technical resources link a quick visit to see if that had it (this leads to an awkward place regardless).
At that point, I was spending more effort than I’d get for my purposes. I likely would have kept looking if I was trying to help a team pre-check themselves. And likely would have found it.
For me, it makes sense to have it nested where it is - it’s right alongside the robot rules and the inspection section of the rulebook, the stuff it’s based on. And it’s been posted there for many years!
As a volunteer I personally loved that things like this are stressed in training. My goal is always to produce the best experience for everyone involved, but it’s up to all of us volunteers and those of us at an event to hold each other accountable and make sure everyone’s being GP and acting in a positive manner—not because of this quote here, but because we should.
I’m always a big endorser of community feedback. In this case, most volunteers are given some sort of team list catered to their needs (I’ve never personally been an RI or LRI so I don’t know if such a list exists; I assume RIs have some sort of list to keep track of who they need to inspect still), so perhaps beforehand teams can submit in some sort of portal a simple “yes” or “no” on whether they would like feedback (defaults to “no”). As a scorekeeper, we already print out a bunch of paper anyways so if that could be an extra column in the setup of the FMS I know I personally wouldn’t mind helping out the RI team.
This is a great addition, and to add it to my suggestion above, actual robot rule violations would supersede team advice preferences and constitute input no matter the team’s preference.
As a note to teams, all KVs are trained and willing to help with situations that escalate beyond one volunteer’s/team’s involvement and are willing to step in if asked.
I think the problem here is it isn’t consistent. It makes sense, in part, because that’s what you’re used to. Take another look at the page.
That’s the only item contained in the outline of the chapter links.
Playing field assets likely belong in the outline as well, if that’s the right decision. (etc) If you’re not actively reading through all of the chapter links, it’s easy to miss (and really, how often do folks actually read those instead of grabbing the entire manual at once?
Having read this thread last week, and again just now after everything had time to settle in, I have to say that I must have been fortunate in my past RI roles, because I’ve never personally experienced the negative aspects that were aired out in the initial thread.
I give credit to the LRIs at the events and how they prepared us. There were teams that had issues, but the LRI and RIs as a collective did everything we could to get those issues resolved as quickly as possible.
Thank you for taking the time to provide this guidance and thoughtful way to approach the upcoming season and beyond. I’m excited for Week 1!
