There’s no need to guess. The robot, as used in the video was clearly illegal. I have seen enough details to quickly reconstruct the components key to the sizing discussion in LDCad(*), while using a transparent sizing box (the blue rectangle is 20x15", two 2x20 beams for comparison below).
(* Trying to put together a short “LDCad for VEX IQ” video tutorial since I have installed and configured it for the teams at our school, following a great setup guide by Philo…)
Thanks for the CAD, Nenik! So what now? We have established that this robot is illegal. Quite sure the other one is, too. I don’t really care to get their scores changed or anything, but it is unfair to see teams that follow the rules and max out it’s potential beaten by teams who got to cheat because they weren’t inspected properly. They obviously shouldn’t be allowed to compete at any more events with this robot, but besides that, is there anything in particular that VEX or IFI does when it has been made clear that a team is cheating?
Not much love for the Hawaiians here. Keep in mind that the video everyone is referring to was taken in September, before many of the rule clarifications. With minor modifications the design is legal, in fact it works even better if the basket bottom (the piece that extends the farthest) is shorter. They had a great design idea, everyone is copying it, but they deserve the credit.
Jrp, http://youtu.be/kMprd8GTMvQ this video was published Jan 9, 2016. This is the one nenik based the cad after, which seems to look very accurate. And I can tell you that this design does not work better if the arc beam is shorter. Because of restrictions, it is nearly impossible to make the dumper reach the actual basket, so the robot becomes taller so that hopefully the balls have enough momentum to make it the rest of the way. I agree with you that this is a very clever, very unique rule bending idea that they deserve 100% credit for, but with their geometry, it doesn’t work.
I agree with Jrp, that’s why I claimed the robot was illegal in the video (and also in the picture at https://islandpacificacademy.org/vex-iq-robotics-season-opener/, but that’s dated 4th September too).
But I believe there is a rep from the school in this forum, even in this very thread, he can certainly comment on whether the teams were aware and have addressed the size issue of the design since the picture-intro was taken. If you check the supposed finals video mentioned in this thread, it looks like the robots don’t have that large top-backward protrusion anymore, for example - that simple and cheap modification alone would earn them half of the necessary size reduction. So my analysis of a video and a picture is just that, it doesn’t say it was ever illegal in an official match.
I don’t think it matters if the robots were legal, or not. Last year, robots could expand. This year, they can not. That may not have been clear to teams & judges at early tournaments.
However, I’m 100% sure a robot with the arc demonstrated by nenik will not be allowed to compete at Worlds.
Steve
