I posted a QandA question, but wanted to get a feel from the community while I await an answer.
Why is hands off put in quotes in rule [R20]?
Does it mean that as long as the bot is in the bag, and you’re not actually touching/interfacing with it you can still align final fabricated parts with it? …or does it imply that it must remain undisturbed by humans and animal alike until transporting it to the regional?
Your experience with and insight into this matter is greatly appreciated by a 2nd year team that has never bagged’n’tagged before.
Treat the robot as if it were crated and sitting drayage. Don’t gauge new parts on the robot. Don’t measure anything on the robot. Treat a bagged robot as if it is invisible, untouchable, and immeasurable. I am sure that this is the intent of the rule.
I agree, they do not mean literally that you must keep hands off of the robot, but you must keep “Hands Off” in the sense that you can’t interface with the robot at all, through the bag, or whatever. Like CH95 wrote, treat the bagged robot as if it were inside a sealed crate, somewhere else.
In other words:
Hands Off means Hands (the appendages at the end of most human arms), but "Hands Off’ means also paws, feet, hooves, fins, flippers, talons, eyes, ears, fingers, toes, legs, noses, wings … you get the idea.
We really don’t need to touch the robot through the bag. We withheld our shooter mechanism(s) and will bring the COTS and any fabricated parts to the regional and figure out how to attach them.
Measurements were made before bagging.
I really do want to keep the students honest and not bend any rules… but we did check to see if our red bumper cover (just got from a sewing maniac) “fit” over our bagged bumper today. I’ll make sure nothing else illegal takes place!
I said you “shouldn’t do it at this point”, because that’s breaking the rules. If they had taken the parts off before bag and tag, then it would be legal… but obviously its too late for that.
Oh, that point. The post that sparked this sub-conversation began in past tense, making the obvious ‘point’ a future recommendation of what to do during the darnit-I-need-that-part-right-before-bagging point. Surely I agree that this thread doesn’t need to be told the alternate. Ok then.
Though in full honesty, the parts I’m referring to were post-bag day for us, but only because we’re a MAR team.
Yeah. When my friends told me that Einstein was wrong, and particles could travel faster than light I replied, “Give it a few weeks…”
On a more FRC-ish note, we were dead in the water last year for a match because someone plugged the ethernet cable into the wrong cRIO port. Result: velocity << c
Okay now what I don’t get here is the definition of “hands.” What if the hands are gloved? We got gloves in the kit of parts. Is the definition of “hands off” up to the interpretation of a reasonably astute observer? What if our observers are not astute, or are unreasonably astute? Or can the reasonably astute observer touch the robot with gloves, or does he or she need to be wearing gloves, or is this person only allowed to watch someone else touch the robot through the bag, since he or she is an observer? If this reasonably astute observer enters an argument with another student over the legality of touching the robot through the bag, does that mean the observer is becoming unreasonable? And therefore, if not he or she is not reasonable, would he or she also no longer be astute, thus invalidating the whole operation?
And I’m hearing we need a “Lock Up” form. What if our robot is locked down rather than locked up? And what exactly is the definition of locked? Can we open the lock? Does it need to be a padlock or door lock, or will a simple clasp suffice?
