Observed at NYC, FEEDERS have been removing the “slides” on the FEEDER SLOTS. Referees do not seem to have been calling penalties or cards on it. Anyone have any idea what’s going on here?
http://i.imgur.com/ynSwcJk.jpg
Q&A has been asked.
I noticed this too. Are they removing the top cover, or the whole thing?
I always assume that the field is supposed to remain set up the way it is described in The Arena, so I don’t think it should be allowed:
Each slot has a slide attached to it on the FEEDER side of the plastic. These slides are 8 in. long and are at a 30-degree incline.
I can’t find a foul that specifically relates to humans changing the field though. The closest I can find is G14, although that appears to be directed at robots, not humans.
They’re removing the colored plastic cover, which is held on by velcro. The clear plastic slide is staying in place
Good opportunity for lawyering. The FIELD is on the inside of the wall, not the outside.
I’ll be interested to see how the management deals with this. I assume the generic “do the right thing” and the “no lawyering” rules would kick in.
In this case it seems pretty clear cut:
FIELD: the area bounded by and including the GUARDRAILS, ALLIANCE WALLS, LOW GOALS, and FEEDER STATIONS.
Emphasis mine
Maybe G7 by delaying the game by modifying the field.
Maybe by not allowing frisbees to be fed into incomplete feeder stations. G35
Maybe a red card for egregious behavior for not following directions of field officials when asked not do that.
UPDATE: We were contacted by a FIRST representative and she said that question was answered before it could go through the internal channels and if anyone had seen the unofficial answer, it should be taken as such. Considering this, I’ve deleted the below quote, which was their draft of an answer to it. To fully redact their answer, they had to delete the question as well so we can ask it again if we wish, though I think Siri below answers it pretty well. The GDC’s thinking in the unoffical answer was that it would be against G14 to modify the field.
No 5.5.4 cards; we explicitly allowed them to remove the velcroed-on corrugated covers under certain conditions. I’ll let higher powers speak to how and why, but before the frenzy starts, it was fully sanctioned by the all relevant local field authorities.
Ah, so G14 does apply to people as well as robots. I don’t have a problem if it was allowed by the NYC event officials, but now that there is an official ruling it should not be allowed in the future.
At the drivers meeting at the end of Day 2 they told us we could remove them if we wanted to. But then at the start of today they told us that we can only remove the cover if the cover was damaged and a referee OKd it. By the mid-end of the day lots of the covers were falling off from bent too much/velcro not working etc.
I don’t know if there is an official ruling on it anymore. When I quoted Q&A, the question was there. I just checked and they deleted my question (along with the draft answer), so maybe there will be a team update. Very unusual.
Update: A FIRST representative called our main team contact and told her that the answer given was unofficial and they had to delete the entire question thread to fully redact the answer. She said we were welcome to resubmit the question but I don’t really see a reason to, as Rebecca and Siri answered it.
The issue of course is that the covers are made out of flimsy corrugated plastic and they deteriorate over the course of the regional till they end up blocking the chute and making it extremely difficult to get frisbees out. It’s kind of sad that a practice feeder station made out of plywood would work better than the official field.
I noticed the issue becoming more of a factor as the competition went on in Palmetto. The covers were not taken off there and teams seemed to be capable of performing well. I know our feeder had a few issues here and there, but when do you not have to overcome things in FIRST.
Also note that the feeders don’t help the situation. In my personal opinion the frisbees should not be stacked on top if the feeder slots. I think several things should happen: FIRST releases a ‘beefed up’ feeder slot cover, FIRST issues an update stating the covers cannot be removed, and the frisbees are no longer allowed to be stored/kept on top of the slots.
Just my opinion.
In general modifying the field would be against the rules. If it is being done with the knowledge & consent of the officials then you really cannot penalize the teams for doing it regardless of the ultimate decision. Sounds like this was the case.
An official has already be made about NO changes to field in a Q&A so time ago.
I had to find it and here it is…
Game - The Arena » The ARENA » The PYRAMIDS
Q356 Q. Can you confirm that the orientation of the crossbar in the pyramid cap relative to the field as shown in figure 2-2, will be the orientation we can expect at all Ultimate Ascent competitions?
FRC2935 on 2013-01-28 | 4 Followers
A. The FIELD will be laid out in accordance with official FIRST drawings, which are visualized in Section 2 - The ARENA.
Even though the question was about just one part of the field the answer is for the entire field. So, It seem very clear to me that the covers must remain in place.
For what it’s worth, the covers seemed to fit differently (damaged?)/crushed/bent/lower even early Day 1 at NYC than my memories of Horsham last weekend. (Granted, I didn’t pay as much attention at Horsham, and stacking was banned.)
Even if Q356 spoke to the issue–intrinsically it only speaks to how FIRST will present it, not what teams can do to it–it’s possible they were actually out of spec and thus violated A356. I don’t know. It was good enough for the powers that be (don’t know who all/how high up) to exercise some leeway in a ruling intended to facilitate gameplay as they believe it was intended. I’d let Manchester sort it out from here, particularly since they pulled down the new Q&A.
Also for what it’s worth and as NYC teams can explain, removing the cover has the downside of significantly increasing your risk for committing a G37.