I believe the maximum weight of the robot should be 130 Lbs without battery. I have heard that some teams “Cheat” at weigh in… They dump the insides of the battery and weigh in with a dummy. I believe the standard weight should be 130 W/O battery. I will have a poll on this, please tell me what you feel and maybee it will come true.
Should weigh in be with or without battery?
Yes.
No.
Doesn’t compute.
I know… Im going to have it fixed… I realised it when I hit submit.
Well, for now… Yes means With and No means without.
Through my experiences I deffinately believe a team should weigh in without their batteries. Without going into detail, it keeps things on an equal playing field.
Well just to put things in perspective the type of team that would weigh in with a ringer battery, is the same type of team that will weigh in with a subassembly missing from their robot and then add it after they make weight and hope no-one notices or has to re-weigh. There will always be people who try to cheat the system, the battery is but one of the ways.
…and if teams weighing with an illegitimate battery is an endemic problem, FIRST can set up guidelines for acceptable battery weight – say, 12 to 16 lbs. or so, and check the battery for compliance.
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It saddens me to think that anyone in FIRST would ignore GP and cheat in this manner. It is one thing to accidentally break the rules or push the limits on their interpretation. It is quite sad when it is done so blatantly.
Raul
as of being a FIRST volunteer, and having worked with some of the inspectors, i am going to have to say weigh in with the battery, and to show you all the truth, no one can get away with a hollow battery in an inspection, unless the inspector misses or forgets to do half the inspection. See the battery is not really placed in there to add weight, it is in there to work as a BATTERY. I know this may be hard to fathom for some of you but the battery is an operational device of the robot, plain and simple. With out getting into much detail, when you go through an inspection, the robot should be turned on, this is to check for any wiring that may be done incorrectly and cant be seen by our eyes. Also it is to make sure all the parts (including the pneumatic pump, with an empty accumulator) turns on to fill it and turns off with the pressure switch when it hits around the correct PSI. Now i am not saying that you may think, OK then just place the battery in after the weigh-in, and that might work if bots were inspected properly, but as it is now, the battery is the robots weight so its included in the weigh in. Also i would not recommend people to try and fool inspectors with hollowed out batteries, because these batteries are filled with a caustic gel that i have seen eat through metal, due to a team member on an unmentioned team trying to shave weight off the sides of a battery and causing it to leak while in shipment… Now imagine that on your skin!
~Mike
I think that the current weight limit is appropriate in that it provides enough room to have plenty of features, but still provides a challenge. In terms of teams that use dummy batteries, I think that any team caught weighing in with a dummy should be disqualified from that entire regional (or nationals as the case may be). I know it sounds extreme, but IMHO dummy batteries are among the sleaziest thing a team can do.
I think that the current weight limit is appropriate in that it provides enough room to have plenty of features, but still provides a challenge. In terms of teams that use dummy batteries, I think that any team caught weighing in with a dummy should be disqualified from that entire regional (or nationals as the case may be). I know it sounds extreme, but IMHO dummy batteries are among the sleaziest thing a team can do.
Not to mention it is one of the easiest ways to get caught cheating.
I think the weigh-in should be with the battery, since that is the form in which the robot is competing. It’d be as if the length, width, and height minimum measurements were in a different position than the starting position.
Although it would be good in that there would be fewer ways for teams to cheat at weighing-in. But this is FIRST; should we really be concerned about that?
Although it would be good in that there would be fewer ways for teams to cheat at weighing-in. But this is FIRST; should we really be concerned about that?
Well it really isn’t that hard to give a tug to a battery now is it?? It shouldn’t take a rocket science to figure out that if your lifting that battery with ease then there is something wrong.
*Originally posted by dez250 *
…a team member on an unmentioned team trying to shave weight off the sides of a battery and causing it to leak while in shipment… Now imagine that on your skin!
Like drilling holes in the battery to save weight? I recall some threads where we expressly warned rookies not to do this, and that it was all a joke. Someone seems to have missed the point…
Also, at some events (possibly most), due to the scheduling constraints, weigh-in and the power-on tests were conducted separately. This means that the inspector would not accompany the robot from the weighing station to the pit, where the powered tests were conducted. Instead, he/she or another inspector would return later to complete the inspection. It would be very possible for a team to replace the modified battery with a functional one in the intervening time.
*Originally posted by dez250 *
…no one can get away with a hollow battery in an inspection, unless the inspector misses or forgets to do half the inspection.
So you see, it’s not a matter of the inspector forgetting, it’s a matter of the offending team making a discreet switch when nobody’s inspecting.
-Tristan Lall
When I was inspecting last year, I had several ways of making sure the battery was “real”. Generally I just had the team turn on the robot to check that the light operated correctly and the other controler settings were correct. Then we’d run over to the scale and weigh the robot, without removing the battery.
Sometimes this was not possible, like during a partial inspection. We would often go through the control system and pnuematics before a team was ready to weigh or while they were working on dumb things like numbers.
If the control system had already been inspected, we’d weigh the robot and then take the battery out and weigh it seperately. There was some variation between batteries, but it should be pretty obvious if a battery was tampered with in a major way. As I recall they varied between 13.5 and 14lbs. Anything outside that range would definitely arouse my curiosity.
There are many ways to “fudge” the rules. But messing with the battery won’t help, it will just get you caught. Because the inspectors are looking for it.
If anyone has reliable information about a team that did cheat this way last year, and got away with it. I’d like to hear about it. Especially if it happened at Sacramento, LA, or the Championship.
By what you’re saying, it seems there are teams out there using cardboard batteries during weigh in. 
I don’t think a team would get to the point to use a dummy battery, in the sense of a hollow one or something like that. What I have read here in the forums is that some teams use really old batteries for inspection, as it is a known fact that they actually get lighter with time. It is a cheap shot, nonetheless, but you can always blame it on the freshman member for putting it in place, in case you get caught. :rolleyes:
So, yes, I think the robot should be weighted without the battery in place, or at least some “official” one, standardized to every team.
*Originally posted by Manoel *
**So, yes, I think the robot should be weighted without the battery in place, or at least some “official” one, standardized to every team. **
I think the latter part of this quote is an excellent idea. Have one, brand new battery (or other consistant weight) at every regional event. You take your robot to the scale without the battery and this battery is placed on the scale with your robot (and everyone else’s). The weight limit remains the same. How about that?
Oh, and don’t try to place your toe under the scale and lift up while your robot is being weighed. They look for that too. (although it is helpful and okay to fudge with it a little up and down before the acutal reading is taken to ensure an accurate measurement.)
*Originally posted by sanddrag *
**Oh, and don’t try to place your toe under the scale and lift up while your robot is being weighed. They look for that too. (although it is helpful and okay to fudge with it a little up and down before the actual reading is taken to ensure an accurate measurement.) **
That may be a good idea. 
Last year we were weighting the robot in Seattle and the scale would range from 130 to 130.5, so someone (was it me? :)) had the brilliant idea to empty the air tanks to see if it would help - heck, the air above us weights a whole lot .
Well, the scale actually went half a pound up… Go figure
“And the robot got some nice speed holes…”
If we were close at weigh in, we would weigh all of our available current year batteries and choose the lightest one. This helped us a little and also fell well within the spirit of GP and FIRST.
*Originally posted by sanddrag *
**Have one, brand new battery (or other consistant weight) at every regional event. You take your robot to the scale without the battery and this battery is placed on the scale with your robot (and everyone else’s). The weight limit remains the same. How about that?
**
Why not simplify a little bit and just figure out the average battery weight and subtract it from the total allowed weight, and allow teams to weigh in without the battery? Net result should be the same…
For example, if the official battery is deemed to weigh 14 pounds, just make the weight limit 116 pounds, and have everyone weigh in w/o the battery.