2021: “Welcome to the 2 greatest minutes of robotics!”
2025: “Welcome to the 2 most controversial minutes of robotics!”
Petition to change or remove R25, R19k, and SG2
this doesn’t even come close, remember BO3 to BO1 ? or the limit to number of pneumatic air reservoirs ? (used to be unlimited).
rules change, we have had many changes that, at the time, were unpopular and are now just the norm.
Honestly this is my biggest problem with the manual. I’d be all for the 22 inch expansion limit. Even if in like one plane (front/back), 22 in box is also fine. I assume they just took the old verbiage from like back when the limit was 32/48 horizontal diagonal and didn’t realize. Personally I hope they just make it a 22 in box and leave it. I will just say that small bots might be the play given the size of the parking zone.
Is vex talking about the backlash from the rule changes mainly R25? Do you think vex may revert or redo the rule?
Another weird contradictory rule that I haven’t seen anyone mention is SG3.
Vertical expansion is limited. Once the Match begins, Robots may expand vertically beyond the 18” starting size limit within the following criteria:
a. No part of the Robot may exceed an overall height of 22” at any point during the Match.
b. This limit refers to the vertical distance from the Field (or the structure of the Park Zones, while moving across them) to the highest point of the Robot, and does not rotate with the Robot.
The wording implies that this photo from the game manual would be illegal, since the top robot is much more than 22 inches off the ground. This one is probably also a mistake like SG2 though, since it doesn’t make sense given this photo is in the game manual.
Yes. And this has been the trend of advanced teams for some time. The smallest bot is often the best play, and the blocks are fairly small, so it should be easy to manipulate them with a small bot.
One tell that you are looking at a developing bot is that they built the maximum size base. Maybe this is the GDC encouraging the move to smaller builds? Hopefully the message is clearly conveyed such that new teams don’t show up with a 17.5"x17.5" base at a tournament.
Rule R5 and SG2 are not exactly in conflict, but it would be easy for a team to read R5 and miss the subtlety of how it interacts with SG2. Might be worth a red box in R5 to clarify – or even change the top line of fit in 18" cube while not breaking SG2.
Or they could just bump it to 26" so the rules don’t quasi conflict.
Why did they ban IQ pins? We’ve been holding number plates on with them for years…
at this point i find the rule changes amusing more than anything, especially since they don’t affect me anymore.
I recall a tale of a boiling frog that might fit in this context…
Does anyone know when the hero bot is coming out?
I suppose my question is this: If the rule is unpopular enough to cause 3000+ people to sign a petition against it, why keep the rule? Lots of custom plastic promotes students learning how to use CAD software needed to design such parts. I unfortunately struggle to see how severely (and I say severely because many teams used 100+ pieces of plastic this past season) limiting the amount of plastic that teams use will help to better the engineering experience for students. Most pieces made from plastic could also be made without the use of plastic, although resulting in a much heavier robot. This argument goes both ways, because while you could argue that since teams don’t need to use plastic to achieve certain geometries, you could also argue that because this is possible, why not let teams use the plastic and be able to add their own designs and save weight while they’re at it? If the vast majority of the community is against changing a rule, then there is reason to suspect that it was already adding to the enjoyment of the game.
Hi there Doug, As starting out in VEX this year I am really interested in what alternatives there are for drives as they are pretty essential! When you said, they often inadvertantly create X drives which are, from what it sounds the path of least resistance in terms of driveability, what alternatives are there and how can I direct my team to consider them, especially as our current plans require a pretty high torque/resistance robot! Thanks for the help in advance
Well a few things come to mind:
- James Pearman is not on the Game Design Committee.
- Petitions do not reach GDC - here is from Q&A page " * For game questions, suggestions, or concerns outside of specific and official rules questions, contact [email protected]."
- 3,000 is less than 10% of the 30,000 teams in High Stakes.
- It is early, and you are having knee-jerk reactions - change happen to fundamental rules (remember when Drive Team members could include an adult coach?)
So give it time. June 26 is when 1.0 of Game Manual will be released. I would focus energy on analysis, design, proof-of-concept mechanisms etc.
Two good starting points
They look cool! I think making the ball out of wood would look even cooler.
I would like to see an alliance fit both of their robots on top of each other in the parking zone. I don’t see it happening.
I presume the correct geometrical name(I just made up) would be semi-endo-truncated cyllinders
He wasn’t even saying teams either, 3000 people is not a lot out of 30,000 teams, where each team would probably have an average of 3-5 people on the team. Like others, I would like to keep using poly like how we were able to in high stakes and games prior. But if this change is meant to level the playing field and make inspection easier than I am fine with having some stricter plastic constraints.