In addition to some (I think minor) safety concerns, there is some uncertainty over the Pandora’s box that has been opened by these Q&A answers. This might actually be game breaking, if any of @Jared_Russell 's apocalyptic prophesies come to pass. That’s yet to be seen.
But FUN must be drooling over all the “HANGAR bowling” clips of the week we might get!
If you want to avoid being knocked off the rungs, remember you can get your bumper all the way above the high bar now to get yourself out of the way.
I feel like there’s a lot of negative comments here in a thread that should mostly be be people commending 2412 on a super creative solution. Perhaps the topic should be split, with a new topic about how and when people think rules should be implemented?
I’m so confused by this post, but don’t disagree in splitting the threads.
I can’t find anyone in here attacking 2412, everyone is focused on how FIRST has historically botched rulings like this via QnA and then played it both ways (allowing 2010 469, disallowing 2012 bridge climb, 2012 under bridge, 2016 tower shot blocker, etc…). We’ve had a recent time period of 2017-2020 where we haven’t had such loopholes, but FIRST is definitely on trial now for this one.
No one is accusing 2412 of doing something illegal, and nor do they need anyone to come to vouch for their character. They were bold enough to push in an area where FIRST historically has sometimes rewarded, but often punished teams who dared to push the limits.
Exploitation of FIRST’s bad QnA answers here enable an arms race for champs that is clearly not in the spirit of the rules from kickoff day, and is really a diversionary direction for team’s programs at this point. I’m not stoked that teams now need to balance how much they want to divert funds and resources from their current champs prep, to a climb that might potentially be made illegal while they’re traveling to champs.
I think what 2412 is doing here is awesome, and team’s at large should rush into every misstep by FIRST in the QnA system and/or rules as a means of getting the program to a point where such loopholes are nonexistant and teams can just play the game.
Great work 2412, I’m stoked to see you hit this climb in PNW Elims.
I think the point is less that there’s negativity focused on 2412, and more that there’s a lot of negativity showing up in the post. When all of the criticism for FIRST shows up in a team’s thread it implicitly puts the fault on them for bringing it up (even if none of the people criticizing FIRST would place any fault on the team).
I feel the more thoughtful choice would be to start a new thread where the focus is exclusively on the q&a’s choice to answer as such, but of course its very relevant in this thread.
What’s the chance that this was an intentional side effect this year? (just the post-match overheight climb, not the rest)
FIRST (seemingly intentionally) did not make height extension an inspection item this year. Inspectors do not have to check a team’s ability to limit height extension, and are not allowed to prevent a team from playing if they are extending above the height extension limit, even if it is intentional.
I may be wrong, but I think this is not how it was done in previous years, and it appears to have been an intentional choice, from my discussions with other inspectors and volunteers.
It seems like that rule is most about the geometry and mechanics of some of the more common traversal climb mechanisms that consist of climbing hooks on some sort of pivoting arm. For some designs, the robot will be overheight with hooks fully extended and arms vertical, but will never reach that configuration in a normal match (since the hooks are only fully extended when the arms are tilted forwards or backwards).
That is checkable in inspection, and it is checked for similarly troubled mechanisms that may extend outside the frame perimeter, but have software, driver, or other nonmechanical limits to prevent breaking the rules.
In fact, inspectors should be checking the tilted and fully extended arm, to ensure it doesn’t extend outside the 16 inch limit.
For some historical context, here’s some CD reactions to other Q&A issues. I’ll let the readers judge which of these Q&A responses ended up impacting game play or FRC robot design.
Also to a lesser degree, with enough time to develop on this meta, teams would try to cram as many actions post-match as possible, which makes the job VERY hard for refs judging the T+5 time - I believe this was part of the original rationale that led to T+5 rules instead of T=0.
Exploiting the lack of robot rule enforcement in the 5 second period after the match is now a yellow card level offence according to the new line F in the blue box under rule H201.
Oh well, its been fun. I look forward to seeing everyone in Houston!
