Tethered Drive Team

Competition Rules/Strategy
1

Is anyone looking to having a fully mobile drive team that simply moves to a spot in the drivers box where they can best see their robot. In talking with some teams that are already in the drivers practice stage it sounds like viability is a major issue with shorter robots (it sounds like ~90% teams fit into this category). I know there are some teams that did it in 2012 with extended Ethernet cables connected to the field and simply having the laptop mounted to the chest of one of the drivers (its been years since I’ve seen the film, so I can’t recall which teams).

Does anybody have input on this concept? Is anyone considering it?

Peter

2

Read T11 before you proceed any further.

3

Yeah I believe that T11 states that this is illegal.

4

Q&A 730 clarified this.

5

I think the non-complicated way of solving this is to assign the 3rd HP to be a spotter for teams who are having visibility issues.

6

Interesting… Does anyone else remember the Los Angeles regional a couple of years ago? A team (can’t remember who) had a long USB cable going across the driver stations because they were in station 1 and couldn’t see well, and had a driver in the far side of station 3. Refs allowed it then. Rules change so quick these days.

7

A team did it last year–ref gave permission, but even then the rules said you couldn’t do that. Afterwards it was clarified.