Like others, I think it’s definitely a good idea to separate out the WPA configuration and troubleshooting. (Last year, it fell to inspectors to handle this when there weren’t enough other knowledgeable staff available to assist.) For 2010, inspectors will need to be devoted to passing robots in time for the start of qualifications, so superimposing these responsibilities won’t be ideal.
The cRIO firmware check was a bit annoying, because it requires console or network access to a cRIO, and a computer (not always together in the same place). There’s no good reason why that Classmate PC can’t do that, so we should probably have a simple set of rules for the operator console that can be checked by someone with computer networking experience, rather than direct mechanical/electrical knowledge. Put that on a seperate checklist, and send that operator console inspector out to teams’ pits to check those items in parallel. (This might be facilitated by organizing robot rules, operator console rules and inspection rules as separate parts of Section 8.)
But the elephant in the room is really the issue of certain rules that take far too much effort to comply with and enforce, proportional to their actual value. These often greatly lengthen the inspection process, and are directly responsible for the occasional acrimonious discussion that takes place between inspectors and team members (usually mentors).
Since the pneumatics were vastly improved for 2009 (no brand and quantity limits), bumpers are the biggest sticking point. In retrospect, the bumper rule did improve from 2008 to 2009, but suffered during the season from a series of interpretations in the Q&A and updates that introduced new issues and didn’t quite account for some difficult cases in a clear and uncontradictory way.
The simplest and most productive way to fix this is to specify a reference bumper configuration that is by definition legal, and ask inspectors to qualitatively evaluate teams’ actual configurations in comparison to this standard. As long as the bumper meets some very basic dimensional and functional criteria (e.g. bounding size, weight and tactile qualities), there’s little value in making a regulatory distinction between things like Ø2.5 in pool noodles and Ø2.0 in pool noodles—because realistically, they both do almost the same thing. Now of course, this makes the rule subjective rather than objective, and will mean that we’ll be depending on the inspectors to say “close enough”, rather than follow precise criteria. In this case, I think that’s fine, because bumpers have one fundamental purpose: to reduce damage to robots. If we see a mix of robots that are each—according to the inspectors best guesses—between 75% and 200% effective, relative to the reference design, that’s not a problem. And if so, who really cares whether they used foam rubber bricks, pool noodles or hippopotamus tenderloins? Also, teams can’t complain much about subjectivity if they’re offered a perfectly good reference design to emulate, and choose not to—the reference design should be teams’ first choice, unless they have a good reason to deviate.
If the bumper rule is too well-entrenched to rewrite, then FIRST should consider taking some preventative action to cut down on other time-consuming things like illegal motors. I saw between 25 and 30 illegal motors last year, at 5 events—each of those necessitated a discussion between one or more inspectors and the teams involved, explaining why they couldn’t use 2006’s Fisher-Price motor, or why one BaneBots motor was different from another (and hence illegal). (Not to mention the time it takes to actually switch a motor out—from a few minutes to hours, depending on the design.) FIRST can error-proof this with a chart in “The Robot” containing pictures of every legal motor, the maximum quantity and model number, and a rule “If you don’t see it in the chart, it’s illegal.” (I know, that information is already in the manual, but many team members don’t read “The Kit of Parts” closely enough to realize this, and the photos there are too small to identify fine details in some motors. And many, many teams don’t realize that there are about a dozen RS-540/RS-545/RS-550/Fisher-Price/BaneBots/Mabuchi/Johnson/off-brand motors that look very similar, and have at one time been legal in FIRST, but are not equivalent.)
Another way to mitigate the issues with teams who need more time before their first match is to formally sanction the idea of letting a team temporarily disable an illegal component, rather than totally removing it. (This sometimes comes up as a solution for teams that have illegal motors installed, but can’t get them off without missing a match; strictly speaking, it’s still illegal, but there’s not too much harm in letting them disable it and fix it properly during the first evening in the pits.) By giving formal guidance on the degree of leeway permitted here, it will encourage that as an option for inspectors, because they can be sure that everyone is aware that this is a FIRST-sanctioned resolution, rather than an ad hoc decision (that might not have been permitted at another event).
If my memory serves me correctly, Waterloo (being at the small end with as few as 24 teams) has had as few as 7, while Toronto (at the large end with up to 74 teams) has had up to 12. These figures do vary a bit, from year to year, depending on the difficulty of the rulebook and the experience of the volunteers.