TLDR: Can we bring our cart on the field so we don’t have to carry the robot?
I attended my first competition with 8096 this past weekend and this is the first time I’ve ever had to carry a swerve drive robot onto the field. I’ve always been of the mindset that carrying the robots onto the field is the biggest safety hazard in FIRST (maybe just behind hearing damage) and I try to roll the robot as much as possible.
First match comes along and we roll our robot onto the field on a furniture dolly (we don’t own a trailer and had limited vehicle space bringing two robots to this event so we went without a traditional cart). We were rather quickly told no carts allowed on the field by one of the field volunteers (field reset or queueing). We had a short discussion about how I think this is safer than carrying it a long distance, and I say we won’t do it again. After the match I found the EC for the event and he agrees that he doesn’t see an issue with it. We go to have a discussion with the FTA and Head Ref and they said they did not want carts on the field for safety reasons and mentioned ‘past HQ guidance’ regarding carts on the field. The EC deferred to them and while I disagreed with the conclusion everyone was professional about it and I said I’d take the issue up with HQ and respect their decision for the weekend.
I know of several teams that brought carts on the field all season and had no issues with it. My spine isn’t what it used to be and I don’t want to select drive team based on which students have the muscle to carry the robot (I’m not actually going to be drive coach this season, but that’s not really relevant to the bigger discussion).
Many good points were made in Sean’s thread about carrying / loading the robots onto the field safely and the size of the gates, but what I want to know is if any HQ guidance actually exists on this issue and if not how do we get a public decision we can point to so we don’t need to have these interactions with field staff.
We’ve unfortunately have had to do this before, our kids tend to lean on the small side as well as have a 50/50 split of girls to boys, sometimes leaning girl heavy as well as having an all girls drive team, so it’s occasionally an issue. We’ve also told kids that if they wanted to be on the drive team that they have to start going to the the gym.
Jokes aside, I might recommend making a question on the Q&A form once the season starts. That way there is a public official ruling that you can point to.
107 a few years back made a cart that would overhang the field to load the robot on. I would compare it to a sliding tail gate. The robot cart was never on the field and this didn’t clog up the gate with moving the robot on and off. They were told not safe to use.
Rulings aside, I wonder if making a low caster cart (basically a moving dolly) in addition to the main cart might be a safe way to reduce the lifting to (up-over-down) —roll—(up, pullout,down). The standard move of “put it down inside the gate and roll it to position” doesn’t work anymore.
I can’t see anything the the 2022 rules or Q&A that would explicitly forbid a team from bringing a cart onto the field, providing that it does not cause delay (H301), is not used during the match (H303), does not cause teams to bring the robot onto the field tethered (H302), does not damage site flooring (S5.1), is safe and easy to use (E601), and isn’t too big (E602).
Having said that, of course, the volunteers have the ultimate on-the-spot say about safety issues, so I can’t recommend relying on being able to bring your cart onto the field. The field gets busy with six robots coming off and six robots going on (especially at smaller off-season events that only allow robots through two gates), and most carts are significantly bigger than the robot, so there is a congestion issue.
Isn’t this at least partially what technician is for or what often human player can be for? I know I’ve used 3 people to get a bot off a cart when it was tall, but a team of 5 high schoolers should be able to get it down and shuffle it onto the field right? My previous team’s fix was to pick the best 3 for driver, operator, and coach, but then have technician and human player be a bit more physically active of people so they get the robot down if needed.
I had this thought a few weeks back at a competition and asked the local FTA. He said there was no rule against it, although other FTAs have told me I’d get in trouble for it from other people. Personally until I get a ruling that says no, I’m going to plan around bringing a small cart into the field to aid with robot placement.
As the EC listed above, I think it’ll be really helpful if FIRST makes a decision on this one way or the other in a publicly available document. I can understand some folks seeing this as a safety issue in both directions, so in this case it helps reduce hurt feelings if HQ just makes a call one way or the other on it.
Personal preference from a team perspective – I’d rather we let carts on the field. Will always defer to HQ’s rules though, though unfortunately this one probably needs some clarity.
Ideally yes, but what happens when you have a full team of students that aren’t physically capable? Or can…but not in a very safe way, plus competitions are long and draining, towards the end even the physically capable ones get tired.
I’ve heard a few reasons over the years.
My understanding of the root of the issue was two fold - safety and space, with even the safety issues mainly being related to space. It’s tough to maneuver 12 robot carts on the field in what is a relatively tight space with field reset crew moving around, 6 teams trying to load on, 6 teams trying to load out, etc etc etc.
There’s also the issue of carts not being standardized. Some teams have huge carts with toolboxes and battery storage and the like installed underneath - making their carts basically rolling workbenches. I can definitely see why they might not want these types of carts on the field.
That being said, with robots coming in around 150lbs (125lb weight allowance + battery + bumpers) the drive team’s ability to safely lift and carry the robot onto the field is a big concern for our team, and we have had to make some tough drive team decisions as a result. We don’t feel like that’s terribly fair to the kids to say “sorry, you’re not strong enough” when this isn’t a physical sport like football or basketball, and it disproportionately affects our female team members.
There’s not an official rule against carts on the field, though they’ve never been allowed on the field by volunteer crews at any of the events we attend (in fact, one of my students who wasn’t aware tried to bring the cart on the field at one point last year and got barked at by a field resetter).
I would love to see an official ruling from FIRST on this, and perhaps the solution is a small, standardized cart option (like a moving dolly) that isn’t much bigger than the robots?
Either way, it’s not too hard to design in a few simple things that can make lifting a robot much safer and easier. And, good technique and teamwork can be important considerations as well. It’s worth focusing on this, even if some type of cart is allowed. This becomes even more important if there may not be a lot of margin on the lifting.
It’s a good question, and clarification would be good. But it’s kind of a belt-and-suspenders thing, if that makes sense.
Also, anyone else jealous of 4481? I always feel like all their students are all like 6ft something, makes my students look like their in 5th grade, makes my 5’6 self very jealous
Its a decent topic, I wouldnt want my foot to get rolled over while getting a robot on the field, but I would love to make it easier to get the robots on the field. Maybe cart size restrictions? but i doubt thats a good idea…
It sounds like it’s time for FIRST to define a maximum robot cart size (this would be helpful in many queueing situations as well) then allow carts and robots on the field.
I can see it being a problem in years like steamworks where you enter the field and have a large static item in front of you, but rolling them onto the field it STILL safer than having kids try to carry them across the bump.
I can’t think of a single event I’ve been to where someone hasn’t fell carrying robots onto the field. This is one of those items where FIRST needs to act to prevent possible injury.
Currently while on field, the robots often serve as their own carts. The “pushability” is lost with swerve, which is where this problem really manifests. An under-brace with caster wheels would effectively remain within the footprint of the bot until the brace is pulled out, picked up, and carried back to the robot cart.
I think that this is somewhat of a two part problem. One, safety concerns with having to carry robots on-field instead of rolling them. Two, not being able to roll (increasingly common) swerve bots.
