Team 3360 is proud to introduce our 11th robot . Meet RECON
Are the bars on the side used for anti defence?
Or maybe a buddy climb somehow?
What are they used for?
You can see us use it to buddy climb in the video. robots attach a static hook on their frame and just drive to us
The part itself doesn’t allow a robot to complete a game task by itself, nor does it help align for an endgame task. I’m 95% confident it can’t be ruled as a major mechanism, but only the LRI could say otherwise
Edit : the hook can be so simple that teams could build it themselves at the event, that then wouldn’t be even close to cheesecake.
I have to agree with @jonathano on this one. It seems pretty obvious that hooks like these directly violate I1.b., since they do position a robot for an end game task. It is, after all, substituting for climbing mechanism, which is without question a major mechanism. I’ve seen a couple of other team that are doing the same kind of thing and brought this up already. I think this needs to be a Q&A question, given that it shouldn’t be left to individual LRIs to have to resolve such a thorny point.
Now, if another team can fabricate the hooks themselves at an event and get them inspected, that would, of course, be legitimate and not violate I1.b. at all. It’s not the concept of the buddy climb that’s the problem here, it’s the use of cheesecaking that makes it problematic.
Would you agree that a hook made from a single piece isn’t an “assembly”? And that a static piece of metal bolted on a robot isn’t a “mechanism”?
Also the update clearly states “without the assistance of an other robot”
I’ll ask the QA
Without the buddy climb bars its still a great robot.
They can’t complete any part of the game with those hooks. Not a major mechanism without that.
The only way those hooks add anything another robot but weight is when your team happens to be on the field too.
You’re right to ask Q&A. What you’ve quoted above seems to directly contradict what I1.b. says. This is something that needs an official ruling that can then be cited during inspection or other challenges. If it’s ruled legal by Q&A, you’re fine. But leaving it to the discretion of individual RIs or LRIs (or refs or judges) just seems to be asking for problems later on. Better to have it hashed out now and have one uniform rule for the season. As I said above, you’re not the only team that’s been looking to do this, so it will come up during events in several places. As long as everyone’s on the same page, it’s all good.
Go for a Gracious Professionalism award: have boxes of COTS materials that can be used to make the hooks along with printed instructions, and hand them out to teams you happen to be allied with. Avoid any tricky I1 issues and make a lot of friends in the process.
I’m less concerned about the buddy climb and more about the decision to use #25 chain to lift balls to the shooter. Have you seen any examples of this chain causing damage to the balls in a jamming or indexing situation? I feel like this may give both inspectors and referees pause.
Nice catch, the chains were a last minute solution to our previous belts being too sticky and damaging the balls when they got stuck. The chains have a smooth low friction interaction with the balls, signs of damage are yet to be seen
I’m confident the buddy climb is legal, because the hooks cannot accomplish any game task on their own. The definition of a MAJOR MECHANISM in the 2020 manual is:
A group of COMPONENTS and/or MECHANISMS assembled together to address at least one (1) game challenge: robot movement, game piece control, field element manipulation, or performance of a scorable task without the assistance of another ROBOT.
Emphasis mine.
Very simple, clever solution. The shooter looks phenomenal as well!
Some teams attending our events are already contacting us to get information on how to integrate a compatible hook so it’s ready once they show up… so that’s easier for us I guess
Please understand us asking these questions is not an attack on your creative design, it is stunning and I hope it is allowed. As a 15 year vet of FIRST I am not sure how this will go over in some events, so I am just concerned.
I would still take the safe step and ask in Q&A, because an assembly can be one item, and one can easily define this hook as addressing one game challenge in a major way.
The reason I bring this up is because there is a loophole statement, hanging requires what I would define as a major mechanism, and receiving mostly complete hooks or mostly complete detailed drawings at an event may be viewed as using a loophole.
thank you for your input. Don’t worry we don’t take it as an attack, we love getting input and critics on our designs, as it may help us improve in the future. I’ve also seen a lot in my 9 years in FRC, and i’m pretty confident about my stance on this being legal.
The rules definition of a MAJOR MECHANISM clearly state that it completes a game task without the assistance of an other robot, so we’ll take it to the Q&A from here
I believe it will be ruled in your favor. Your bot looks really solid, best of luck in your competitions!
100% the buddy climb is legal. Rule I1 only blocks cheesecakes that address a game task without another team’s help. Team update 3 explicitly allows “an assembly used to position a ROBOT for an end game task” https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2020/Manual/TeamUpdates/TeamUpdate03.pdf
Unless i’m mistaken, it specifies that “an assembly used to position a ROBOT for an end game task” is considered a MAJOR MECHANISM. MAJOR MECHANISMS are illegal to cheesecake. Ours would not be considered major because it requires the asistance of another robot to be useful, as per my previous posts.