unfolded
that is one of the coolest devices I have seen…I didn;t even think of locking into the rail…not only do you block the ramp but the whole field…I Hope those arms are strong…and can you get there in auto mode? and how fast can you get there?
That 'bot makes me smile. I look forward to seeing you at nats. The only problem I could possibly see is that the metal poles touching the ground are, um, well, metal, and the rules state that “hard” materials cannot come in contact with the playing surface, but that should be easy enough to fix using some timing belt and some screws.
Good Luck, Roger
This bot is amazing! let’s just hope we never have to face you…
*Originally posted by RogerR *
**The only problem I could possibly see is that the metal poles touching the ground are, um, well, metal, and the rules state that “hard” materials cannot come in contact with the playing surface, Good Luck, Roger **
yeah, you cant see it from the pictures, but there is a nylon fitting in the bottom of all the “Legs”
Truck Town has made a bold statement with this machine.
I hope you have build it “Like a Rock” because I imaging the beatings Beatty took last year will look like child’s play next to full force knocks you can expect if you trap 2 unfriendly robots on the wrong side of the field.
I have a question for the general audience here. Notice that the limbo blockers are in a sense designed not just to block limboing but also to prevent other robots from spinning the Truck Town robot.
Does this run up against the complex rule of what you can and cannot design your robot to react against? I confess I don’t have my rules handy but I think there was some prohition against using the limbo bar in certain ways, the specifics of which I don’t recall.
Comments?
Joe J.
after thinking about Joe’s comments, and taking another look at the picture… how high is it to the bottom of the wings you guys have? It seems like some limbo bots may be able to scoot right under you in this position…
Tom
Man, that robot looks awefully like last year’s bot, with a few modifications 
Anyways, I’m almost certain that mechanism would be used to push against the limbo bar, which is illegal this year. Even if a team has to push the blocker into the barrier, T3 would still be at fault. It looks like the limbo-blocker touches the ground, which violates the metal-to-carpet contact rule. They’ll eventually get DQ’ed sooner or later.
A lot of rule violations with this robot. BAAAAAD design concept IMO.
Awesome Robot, it should work great as long as:
It follows the rules
The arms don’t get broken
It gets to the top of the ramp and perfectly
aligned in auto mode
Good luck,
AustinT3 already clarified in another thread that there is a nylon fitting on the bottom of the ‘limbo-blocker’, so no metal is touching the ground. I’m not sure about the contact with the limbo-bar rule, though …
Overall, awesome concept! I hope everything goes well for you! Between your robot, and 179 … yikes! I hope we can withstand the competition! 
- Katie
Those arms are awful long, a robot running into either side of truck town could generate a lot of stress on the end of the arm pushing against the bar. Should be interesting to see in action.
nice. great concept. hope you guys can pull it off.
Unless there is some thing that is not visible in the picture it looks like you do not have a method to adjust your position laterally. So if you are not exactly centered on the ramp, or you get knocked off center it looks like that would create space to fit a robot by on one side or the other.
I myself think that Truck Town took a bold stance into thinking they may have found a loop hole in the rules. I hope FIRST takes their own bold stance as well- Truck Town is in clear violation of the FIRST rules and must change their design, or face disqualification via DQ1 (“DQ1 An alliance may not gain points by breaking a rule, even accidentally.”)
Rules Violations:
GM28 - “Attach themselves to the railings/walls of any field structure.”
I believe the wings do attach themselves to the railing.
GM31 - “The outer field barriers are safety features of the playing field and robots should not be designed to react against them. Reacting is grabbing or using the top of the field borders,
the top of the driver stations, the top of the pipes at midfield, and the top of the platform/ramp polycarbonate sides with the intent of supporting a robot or robot part.”
The wings on truck town are meant to react against the side of the midfield barrier. I italicized side, because the rule states “top”. This is the only gray issue.
You may think this post is a little harsh. In some ways it is, there is a clear infraction of GM28 and possibly even GM31. My concern is if FIRST allows teams to cross into the gray area to much we will have the majority of the teams in the gray zone. My team decided against a design that would interact with the playing field, because we play by the rules. Often we must use our judgment when we enter the gray zone, FIRST likes to call it gracious professionalism. The bottom line is that FIRST will make the final call if this robot is legal. I just hope they make the right call because there will be a lot of pissed of teams who threw away designs just to see the rules allowed to be broken by one courageous team.
*Originally posted by MikeDubreuil *
**I myself think that Truck Town took a bold stance into thinking they may have found a loop hole in the rules. I hope FIRST takes their own bold stance as well- Truck Town is in clear violation of the FIRST rules and must change their design, or face disqualification via DQ1 (“DQ1 An alliance may not gain points by breaking a rule, even accidentally.”)Rules Violations:
GM28 - “Attach themselves to the railings/walls of any field structure.”
I believe the wings do attach themselves to the railing.GM31 - “The outer field barriers are safety features of the playing field and robots should not be designed to react against them. Reacting is grabbing or using the top of the field borders,
the top of the driver stations, the top of the pipes at midfield, and the top of the platform/ramp polycarbonate sides with the intent of supporting a robot or robot part.”
The wings on truck town are meant to react against the side of the midfield barrier. I italicized side, because the rule states “top”. This is the only gray issue.You may think this post is a little harsh. In some ways it is, there is a clear infraction of GM28 and possibly even GM31. My concern is if FIRST allows teams to cross into the gray area to much we will have the majority of the teams in the gray zone. My team decided against a design that would interact with the playing field, because we play by the rules. Often we must use our judgment when we enter the gray zone, FIRST likes to call it gracious professionalism. The bottom line is that FIRST will make the final call if this robot is legal. I just hope they make the right call because there will be a lot of pissed of teams who threw away designs just to see the rules allowed to be broken by one courageous team. **
You were right, alittle harsh, but glad to hear your take on things. As you stated FIRST will have to make a ruling on this, however I feel that it will have to be done each match, since you have not fully see what the arms are for. I am not sure if it was in your post or an earlier one, but someone mentioned they were to prevent us from spinning, which is incorrect. The amount of traction that we will gain on the top surface should be enough. I hope that you can make it to one of our competitions so that you can see the robot in action.
Again thank you for the comments, they will not go overlooked.
“Attach” per the American Heritage Dictionary online is
“1. To fasten, secure, or join: attached the wires to the post.”
(See http://www.bartleby.com/61/73/A0507300.html)
Those arms don’t look fastened to the midfield pipes.
“Support” per the American Heritage Dictionary online is
“1. To bear the weight of, especially from below.”
(See http://www.bartleby.com/61/66/S0906600.html)
I don’t see the pipes holding any of your weight.
(There are other definitions for both words, but I think those are the ones that apply to the context in the rules.)
Personally I think that you have come up with a brilliant solution to this year’s competition. I have to admit to being a little annoyed–not with you–but with myself for not thinking of this possibility.
We thought that we had a real jump on the game by swinging our telescoping arm from the starting position to knock down the bins. You have given us a lot to think about.
Great job. Hopefully we will make it to the Nationals and be on your team.
I defended team 68 in the other thread, and I will do it here. There is no clear violation of the rules. I agree it is something that needs to be looked into by the judges. However, if the first in match it is decided that Team 68’s arms are not illegal, then that ruling should apply for the entire competition.
Team 68’s design is meant to contact the carpet and that is all. We all know that if a robot hits them, then the bar is going to back them up. It’s the same thing though if one robot is trying to push a weaker robot out of the way. If the stronger robot backs the weaker one into the bar. The weaker robot isn’t going to be DQ’d because their bot is taller than 14".
The game of Football is over 75 years and each year, they STILL argue over rules. A complicated game like FIRST is going to have these little gray areas. FIRST is especially vulnerable to this kind of thing because the game changes every year. As members of FIRST, we should expect that the officials will take every precaution so that there are no gray areas, but we also have to have a realistic and mature attitude about it.
FIRST is about pushing the envelope, and coming up with the best ideas and strategy to win. It’s obvious that Team 68 put a lot of thought into this design, and I think they deserve to be allowed to use it.
this is similar to the “entanglement” issue last year with the tether bots, flagboles, tape measures, etc. As long as the wings aren’t pushed against the bars, it should be legal.
*Originally posted by Rook *
Team 68’s design is meant to contact the carpet and that is all. We all know that if a robot hits them, then the bar is going to back them up. It’s the same thing though if one robot is trying to push a weaker robot out of the way. If the stronger robot backs the weaker one into the bar. The weaker robot isn’t going to be DQ’d because their bot is taller than 14".
Your analogy is severely flawed.
What if a robot is pushing their arms on the HDPE? There’s no reason for the limbo blockers to be there in this case, but it will put them at a severe advantage because their arms can’t move (let’s forget about the thick treads… pretend the TechnoKats are pushing against them). We all know the arms will react with the playing field in TWO places, one for each arm. Therefore, they are reacting with multiple playing field surfaces, which is a clear violation of the rules.
Remember, there are 2 arms on the robot, so both are going to react with the field, that’s what I’m trying to point out. It violates the “pushing against multiple surfaces” rule.
If they only had one arm, it wouldn’t be so bad, because you could easily use it as a lever and rotate them out of the way. In their current form, it looks as if it would make them nearly impassible.
I’m not saying their mechanism is definately illegal, because I don’t know how exactly it’s going to work. If it will slide into the bar, then it can be considered illegal. However, if they are able to hold their ground and not contact the bar… so many “what ifs” that you can’t decide until the first match.
*Originally posted by Jnadke *
**Your analogy is severely flawed.What if a robot is pushing their arms on the HDPE? There’s no reason for the limbo blockers to be there in this case, but it will put them at a severe advantage because their arms can’t move (let’s forget about the thick treads… pretend the TechnoKats are pushing against them). We all know the arms will react with the playing field in TWO places, one for each arm. Therefore, they are reacting with multiple playing field surfaces, which is a clear violation of the rules.
Remember, there are 2 arms on the robot, so both are going to react with the field, that’s what I’m trying to point out. It violates the “pushing against multiple surfaces” rule.**
I believe if you read your rules again you will find that you are mistaken when they discuss touching multiple surfaces. How about a robot that is both on the wire mess and the carpet? Touching more than one playing field surface. There is a ruling on multiple surfaces, I will give you that. I am not in front of a set of rules however I believe the way the rules are stated is that you may not touch more than one surface of the midfield barrier. You can argue how to define a surface however since the pipe is round, if we were pushed into the bar, the arm would be tangent to the round bar and this is what I would define as one surface. You can only argue this point if you blam us for what other robots do to us. Read this set of rules carefully and I think you will find what I am getting at.