How can you abide by an ill defined rule? FRC rules are already overly complex. Stop trying to make them more complex by adding unenforceable rules.
They become more complex BECAUSE people try to circumvent them. If you want less complicated rules, stop trying to sidestep the spirit of a rule without violating the letter.
Moreover, many things in the FRC rules are essentially on the honor code already. If teams chose to violate that honor code and lie about their compliance with those rules, so be it. I would be perfectly fine with this being another “honor code” rule.
Abiding by rules and picking them apart are not mutually exclusive. It’s part of the fun. I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying this.
Spend some time and actually write out a complete rule to start with.
Aside from offering you that, I can’t find a way to do what you are asking me to do. I do not know of a way to make this rule workable to benefit everyone. It hurts my own team at a minimum. More likely it hurts a lot of teams and it doesn’t seem to be workable to begin with given the plethora of loopholes I can find with it at a single glance.
If I were to even remotely attempt to write a rule like this (and I wouldn’t) then I would start by strictly defining the meaning of “announced” and mandating a list keeper for tracking those things that satisfy the requirement. I’m not sure that’s remotely viable to start with.
When people propose rules, be it in passing or otherwise, my brain goes to work about how to find a loophole or a way that it doesn’t work and then I try to patch the rule… at some point in that process, and it doesn’t take long for some things, I come to a conclusion that I can’t patch it and the rule is broken and needs to be fixed or removed.
More often than not, I blame crappy rules and regulations for things being the way they are and I make my living helping others fix their crappy rules and regulations (processes and governance around IT systems specifically) and turn them into something that works better (automation of those items).
My two cents:
(1) rule regarding using only parts available before a certain date - bad idea
(2) when new products should be issued - perfect answer is to make new products available in October for teams to evaluate before Build Season.
(3) November would be almost equally good.
(4) December - IF the products are immediately in stock, would work and not cause problems.
(5) Announcing in December and product not available until mid to late January - bad idea.
(6) New products available after Champs - no reason to do that over October/November. Most teams want a break after Champs - the market for new stuff in May will not be very big, so why rush it?
Thank you for asking our opinion.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
As long as there is a competitive advantage to be gained by finding a loophole or circumventing a rule there will always be teams who do this. One of the first things we do when we get a new manual is look if there is something we can do that would guarantee wins regardless of what the other team does. First has been decently good at not having stuff like this in recent years. but we still look because this is a competition, If you find something that gives you an advantage, is legal, and is within your teams ability to do, why wouldn’t you do it? First’s rules are written in a very open way to allow for creativity of solutions.
Also I am personally for as open a rule set as possible and allowing teams to do what they are capable of and see no problem at all with products that are released after kickoff. I haven’t been on a team that could really take advantage of that but I look at other teams who do and get ideas for next year and work to improve. I don’t like adding restrictions to lower the level of overall performance I’d prefer working on raising the floor to help match the performance increases instead of kneecapping the teams who have the ability to take full advantage of their resources. I don’t think that limiting legal components to stuff that was Released/announced prior to kickoff is something that helps with that goal.
There’s a difference between looking for atypical ways to play the game itself (including looking for chokehold strategies) and looking for loopholes in the robot or tournament rules that bypass the intent of the rule. Finding chokehold strategies and analyzing how to tackle the game challenge itself is part of the engineering process, and a positive exercise. Looking at designs like 71 from 2002 or 469 from 2010 are perfect examples of finding new ways to engineer the game challenge to your advantage. Trying to find a way to exploit edge cases in the COTS component rules (or pneumatics rules or bumper rules etc) to use a component that would otherwise be deemed illegal is fundamentally different. That’s not good engineering, that’s lawyering the rules.
I, too, wish we had a simpler rulebook. I wish we didn’t need a set of four rules laying out that you cannot throw matches or coerce other teams to throw matches. Yet teams acted in that fashion, and we got stuck with those rules. For another example, Marshall openly jokes about how the actions of him and his team have added rules to the rulebook. If we want a simpler rulebook, we should stop trying to find ways to break the rules that already exist.
How is that not good engineering. I’m an LRI and I can’t say for sure I know the “intent” of every rule in the manual, the manual should be clear about what it wants allowed and what is illegal and the edge cases are given to the Q&A or left to LRI discretion (safety, etc). To say teams shouldn’t try something because maybe the rules meant to make it illegal but that’s not what the rules actually say seems ridiculous. Pushing the rules comes with some inherent risk but as long as teams know that they may have to change it if the Q&A comes out with something different that is fine. I don’t have a problem with pushing the boundaries that is how we get innovative ideas.
No there’s not. Getting an advantage is getting an advantage. It’s not wrong for teams to try and act in their own self interest. If the rules don’t clearly prohibit something, it is allowed. This isn’t a problem fixed by more or less rules, it’s a problem fixed in game design. Design a game where you don’t have a strong enough incentive to push the stated limitations in the game manual and you’ll find that teams won’t waste their time on it.
Use of the Q&A is a wonderful first step, but unfortunately one that not all teams employ (either through ignorance of the Q&A system or sometimes because they intentionally don’t want something made public). If more teams actively used the Q&A system, we’d likely have less issues (minus the inevitable CD overreaction to Q&A answers). I’m much more concerned with the teams that would rather “beg forgiveness than ask permission.”
Do you think it was fine for teams to coerce other teams into avoid giving co-op ranking points to 1114 and 2056 at GTR in 2012? It wasn’t explicitly against the rules at that point. All those teams were doing was “pushing the stated limitations in the game manual,” right? The teams lobbying against 1114 and 2056 were very clearly acting in their own self interest. They were getting an advantage.
Similarly, when the FRC game designers DO put in counter-incentives to pushing the limitations, we end up with threads about why penalties are too harsh.
Further still, not all of this is game design. The definition of COTS components isn’t game design, it’s an admisitrative rule. It can be an evergreen rule. Same with pneumatics, bumpers, electrical rules, etc.
The bottom line is that it shouldn’t take rules to encourage ethical behavior.
The problem is using COTS parts designed to play a game in season isn’t unethical or getting an advantage by building your bumpers in a way allowed by the rules but not shown in the pictures. I don’t think very many possible robot construction practices are unethical. We can have ethical rules like not trying to damage your opponents or turn off their robots by hitting the breaker. COTS rules and bumpers rules, aren’t really where I think ethics applies.
Just some background on why at least sometimes I’m more on the asking forgiveness side.
The intent of this manual is that the text means exactly, and only, what it says. Please avoid interpreting the text based on assumptions about intent, implementation of past rules, or how a situation might be in “real life.” There are no hidden requirements or restrictions. If you’ve read everything, you know everything.
The manual has this statement about it regarding intent of the rules (pending 2019 manual but this is there every year in some flavor). We can’t guess as to what First means by any of the rules in the manual. That is why the Q&A exists. In theory the Q&A would help resolve everything but a lot of the time it’s a lot of effort to actually ask a question that will get answered instead of getting the “We cannot rule absolutely on hypothetical ROBOT designs, and the final decision as to legality of a particular ROBOT lies with the Lead ROBOT Inspector (LRI) at each event” answer. So if you find something that is an advantage and you aren’t certain as to its legality it can be hard to phrase the question in a way that would not be a robot design and also not give away your idea if you think its a huge competitive advantage. If you look through the Q&A there is generally one aspect that gets asked about a lot (eg 2018 supporting robots and climbs, 2017 is Velcro a rope). Sometime the Q&A is harder to use and get the information you want if you don’t find the exact combination on nonspecific but not vague questions to get an answer that answers if your design idea is legal and would get the intended points. With how the Q&A is used it can be a lot easier to “ask forgiveness” (rules lawyer) with the LRI rather than permission from the GDC because the Q&A doesn’t answer most of the “asking permission questions”.
Fundamentally I have no issue with any products released after kickoff or stuff that’s not in stock until later into build season. I feel like the original discussion has gotten a bit side tracked here from the original point of this thread. I’m not saying this discussion isn’t worth having but this thread isn’t the most ideal place for this because this is starting to significantly distract from the original purpose of this thread which is to talk about best time to release COTS products for the FRC market.
That’s because this stopped being about that and started being about how others break the rules and that means we can’t have nice things when it was pointed out a while back that it wasn’t a great rule to begin with. If you can’t argue your point then change the subject, amirite?
Let me do my best to get this thread back on track. I’d like to see two things happen with product releases. The first I’d like to see happen is that the FRC-specific suppliers stop doing big product releases in December (resulting in unrealistic expectations all around) and instead release products organically as they are developed and become available. I feel like this would be better for business too. It might not be a fancy reveal but I bet you get get more customers.
I’d also like to see us move the beta testing for many products out into the open a bit more. I’m a bit torn on how to best do this and keep conversations focused and meaningful for the people who are building software and devices but I think there are ways to do it and also release some of this stuff earlier to more teams.
I think there is something workable there if the intent is to stop delivery of game-specific COTS items. My version of that rule would go something like this:
(1) COTS items on the robot must be available for any team to purchase prior to January 5th, 2019 with the exceptions:
(a) Functional equivalent parts or upgrades to earlier parts
(b) Game-specific items listed in this document
(c) Exempted items on a case-by-case basis listed here: (See updates).
Basically, it pretty much goes away from any COTS game-specific design released after kickoff (debate continues), it acknowledges both game-specific items, and also allows the FIRST vendors to petition to add certain products during the embargo time, hopefully with some understanding that they are items that will benefit many teams and be immediately available.
It does fall short in there may be some items that would not be simple to tell if they were a new type of item available after kickoff. If the team can’t tell however, I’d guess they’d be some leniency (I’m assuming that would mean it isn’t a clearly major functional part of their robot in that case). I also think functional equivalent (1a) could be lawyered to death but I think maybe with a blue-box note that it is about COTS items specifically designed to play the game (and also I think about certain new types of sensors and devices that stand away from what was available pre-kickoff). Questionable also is how the update allowance works, especially concerning things like new Limelight versions.
So I don’t really know how all that would play out, but it is an option and I think it would be mostly followed, but I’ll let some of the rules hawks look over it and edit it if they like.
Look at the posts I was responding to. It was a natural progression of the discussion. I simply wasn’t interested in engaging in further argument with someone who doesn’t discuss in good faith (you).
I think we can both agree that if a team were to rewind their motors to gain an advantage, that would be unethical of them. But aside of scenarios in which teams (either brazenly or covertly) attempt to sidestep the rules, I largely agree with your point here. That’s why, if you follow the conversation upwards, I mentioned that attempting to solve the game challenge in a novel way was different from attempting to sidestep other rules. The comment you’re quoting came as a response to an individual who disagreed with that statement and claimed that “getting an advantage is getting an advantage.”
I’m going to attempt to summarize my thoughts on this subtopic, and reserve further conversation for other threads (as I attempted much earlier in this conversation). The bottom line is I’m not particularly concerned with the wording of the rule or the loopholes created by the rule. I’m not particularly concerned with how inspectors and LRIs would enforce the rule, either. I would want them to treat the rule just like they treat the rest of the COTS rules and many other robot rules, by trusting the signature of the student and mentors on the inspection sheet. This isn’t intended to be a “GOTCHA!” rule to hammer teams at inspection time. I’m perfectly fine with it being an “honor code” rule instead, that rests upon teams (to the best of their knowledge) following the rule book. We already have plenty of other rules like this. I’ve never once had an inspector open up a CIM motor to inspect that we didn’t modify the rotor.
Even though the rules are only enforceable to teams, they can absolutely impact the ecosystem of the FIRST supplier market. If suppliers know that releasing purpose-built components after kickoff aren’t legal, I trust that they won’t do release them knowing that there will be little market for them.
Sean, I’ve tried repeatedly in this thread to have a discussion with you in good faith despite your accusations and bullying.
I have literally no idea how this thread turned argumentative. I’m going to close it overnight so folks can take a quick break. 
Please take individual back and forth conversations off line.
This discussion forum is intended to share ideas with the community of users, and 2 person arguments simply take the fun out of reading what others have to say.
Thanks,
Mike
Respectfully disagreeing with this. The public discussion being had here is valuable, even if we don’t have a great diversity of views. Please don’t shut it down.
To the participants: please don’t give people (mods especially) the justification to shut you down.
I was on business travel on Wednesday during this year’s Vexmas. As my phone battery dwindled to nothing, I was struck by this visceral fear of being outclassed by competitors who will be able to leverage awesome new COTS products because they’re better connected and in-tune with the latest releases, and they have their fingers over the ‘order’ button all the time. Does this rule proposal come from a sense of inadequacy?
If you’re looking for a reason to read this thread: It goes to what I think is a pretty fundamental open question in this community: is it honorable to play the game of FRC at many levels, not just on the playing field. If we accept that teams compete in other arenas (e.g. in the COTS marketplace), then which behaviors should be governed by our ethics and which behaviors should be encoded into our imperfect ruleset.
Of the teams I’ve been involved with in my FRC career, 2363 takes the VENDOR rules the most seriously. It’s only recently that I can see how broken they are.
Note: my post below is getting slightly off-topic, and might be worth splitting off into a side Chit-Chat thread.
Well-regulated (neither over-regulated nor under-regulated) free markets are insanely powerful at solving problems and effectively allocating resources. The podcasts Planet Money and Freakonomics often delve into great examples of these working, even in small and very niche environments:
Episode 665: The Free Food Market : Planet Money : NPR <- very similar system to FIRST Choice, but for food banks.
…as well as examples of “failures” of the free market:
The only problems with free markets arise from under-regulation: e.g. when negative externalities of a particular good or service are not properly priced into that item (causing their true costs to be borne by non-participants in that transaction), and/or when monopolies and business cartels are allowed to artificially control and coerce the markets.
… Or with over-regulation. Examples of over-regulation include both government-originated actions like strict capital controls that put undue stress on free enterprise, as we as business/lobbyist-originated actions, such as those aimed to prevent newcomers from infiltrating their market, such as 27 states + Puerto Rico requiring you to have a interior design license to advise others on what colors they should paint their walls or what home decor accent pieces go best with their couch.
I’m completely convinced that as long as a free-market has a balanced set of regulations and all negative externalities are priced in to the good or service in question, then it’ll solve anything that we need. Even climate change. A carbon tax with 100% return dividend approach would be cost an average person $0 per year, but would financially incentivize them to aim to use less carbon than the average person in order to profit off the system.
Even more locally, FIRST Choice is a great example of using free-market principles to efficiently allocate donated goods: given weighted costs and equal starting “capital”, individual teams know what they need best.
I think we should also be factoring into the removal of stop build day as that extends build season which does alleviate the issue this thread is discussing.