Laptops/Palms

Competition Rules/Strategy
#1

What exactly are the rules about having laptops and/or Palm Pilots for Scoring purposes while in a match?

There would be the driver, secondary driver, the ball shooter, and the scorer/strategy guy.

Can we have laptops that run programs that help keep track of score ( by pressing a button it will display a number that adds 10, subtracts 10, adds one point, minus 1 point etc) And also possibly a timing program.

Is that allowable?
Can someone please elaborate!!!

The laptop would have nothing to do w/ the robot itself.

#2

i have heard that a scoring program is illegal, although it wasn’t from a source i can remember. a timer, unless your timing something on the robot, no need, as there are timers across the field. if it becomes a problem, have your less important driver double as a mathematician. if they’re not doing as much anyway, let the try to keep track of the score at the same time. heck, make the mentor keep track of score. i know when i was the driver, i practically had to scream at the 3 other guys in the player station, “What’s the score!?!”, about 20 times in a matter of a few seconds. :stuck_out_tongue: having all the technical people driving doesn’t work, when NONE OF THEM KNOW HOW THE GAME PLAYS! :smiley: sorry, had to get that out of my system. in the end, you might find it simpler to just have a hapless human do the scoring. :slight_smile:

#3

Than why does several teams say they developed scoring programs if it was not going to be used during competition?

Does anyone know yet still? Whether palms/etc. can be used

#4

I used a scoring program on the field last year to get the opposing alliances score before the offical one was displayed. That extra time was used by our alliance to determine which play we were going to use. I don’t think that I was breaking any rules. I’m almost positive that a laptop or palm etc. is allowed on the field except that it cannot feed back into the inputs on the control board. Doesn’t Wildstang’s StangSense have a palm set up on the field for the driver/operators to see?

~Tom Fairchild~

#5

Speaking from the insight of someone that works with FIRST for both the scoring development and other IT related items.

They allowed Motorola to develop and release a scoring Application for anyone with a Nextel phone that support Java. This application is even on the phones the FIRST Staff are carring so I think they will allow this within reason.

My suggestion is contact them before you bring it and make sure it is legal and not going affect your teams preformance.

JN

#6

So long as it dosn’t require a power source or feed data back to the robot it is allowable. I think I recall something saying that sound was not allowed, but am not sure on the sound.