… I really need to stop reading this thread, but I can’t help myself.
The fact that most people don’t know or don’t care doesn’t make the decision any better or worse. I could just as easily say “the lack of people aware of screwgate proves that nobody cared about this so called problem to begin with, and you’re just making part of the community angry for no reason. Just because the GDC is in a majority agreement on something, it doesn’t mean the majority of the community agrees too”
IKR…
Here’s an alternative, possibly less-charged example:
Consider that non-standard motor cartridges exist (or can be made, and are(?) used in VEXU) but unknown by 95+% of the VRC community. The GDC has decided these are not allowed for VRC. One can make reasonable arguments in favor of allowing these, and reasonable arguments in favor of banning these. The GDC decided (under whatever rationale they may provide, or not provide) that they should be banned from VRC competitions.
Karthik hit the nail on the head (and is probably the most-qualified person commenting in this thread on this subject, having sat on that side of the fence for at the 2 largest high-school robotics competitions):
EDIT: We may not like all the decisions. And the GDC may not get them all right. I’ve seen at least some evidence (the walk-back on BO3 for Finals at “major” events) that the GDC has some humility to admit when they are wrong and take corrective action.
The response from Jon Jack further illustrates the problem- the GDC has no idea what they’re doing. First, Jon tried to use the custom plastic parts rule to show that teams can learn about material properties without nylon screws. Then, he said that banning nylon screws only affects top teams, and this is somehow demonstrated by the low number of EPs that were familiar with the rule change.
Does anyone see the contradiction here? Only top teams use nylon screws, but we can learn about material properties with custom fabricated plastic parts? This may come as a surprise to the GDC, but brand new teams are not focused on custom fabrication of plastic parts and the resulting material properties! Crazy, I know. Off-the-shelf nylon screws are a lot more accessible than custom lexan anything.
Also, does anyone really believe that the number of EPs familiar with a rule change a few weeks after it happens is representative of the number of students affected by the rule change the following year? The EP summit is not even open to students.
But it is open to more bad logic, and that was on full display this week. Like Foster said, Grant explained the “reasoning” for the screw ban at the summit. A handful of teams were trying to abuse the rule by finding threaded parts that introduced additional functionality. The example he gave, as Foster said above, was of a team that tried to use a spherical block with a threaded portion on the end. Somehow that warranted this decision.
The red box under rule R11 said, even before the manual update, “The intent of the rule is to allow Teams to purchase their own commodity hardware without introducing additional functionality not found in standard VEX equipment.” In the example that Grant gave, the team wanted to use a part that introduced additional functionality. That part was already illegal.
The part Grant described can easily be found online in steel. Banning nylon and aluminum screws does not change the legality of the part. The part Grant described is not a shoulder screw. Banning large shoulder screws does not change the legality of the part. If the goal of the rule change was really what Grant says it was, the GDC literally does not know the definitions of the materials and types of screws they have now banned.
So I’m going to ask my question again. I don’t know why the GDC made this decision. Other students and mentors don’t know why the GDC made this decision. Does the GDC even know why the GDC made this decision? I kind of doubt it.
I would recommend people review the videos when they are posted. Grant Cox explained that the nylon screw situation as identified something that really needed to be addressed this past season. They had intended to include limiting screws to steel/stainless steel for the first Game Manual for the new season. Unfortunately, it was not. When it was noticed, they included it in the latest revision. I believe they thought it was not a big deal making this update as it had little impact to vast majorities of teams.
Foster and I have articulated our positions, but it appears that this decision will not be peddled back. Sometimes decisions don’t go your way and at some point you move on to the next issue.
What is clear is there is a very engaged community of roboteers offer a wealth of differing perspectives, and that is a sign of a health community.
I’m pretty sure the GDC knows why they made the decision, I’m pretty sure I know after interacting with Grant on why they made the decision.
Jon_Jack (who I met) summed it up pretty well and he was at the same session.
If you (the hive mind) continue to think this is a big deal, then your escalation path is via your Mentor / Coach. I wasn’t in the Coaches session, so I don’t think it was brought up. So there isn’t traction with the coaches. I’m not on the FB coaches site, so I don’t know if there is / was any talk there. So get traction that way.
I’m not happy with it, but I understand and I’m going to move on. Not a hill worth the climb.
But continuing to throw virtual sticks at the GDC isn’t going to make you any points with anyone.
Not going to rehash things that have already been said and reiterated, but I just wanted to chime in that this specific example is a mis-quote. Eyebolts and ball caster screws were explained as the impetus for adding the “additional functionality” line years ago, not examples of things that were being used after that line was already added.
Based on the good conversations I had with people like Foster and Pascal at the Summit, I don’t think this was misunderstood during the conversation on-site, but I think it may be getting a bit turned around during the conversion to secondhand text.
Grant, could you do us a favor and explain in one sentence your primary reason for not allowing Nylon and Aluminum screws in the VRC ecosystem?
So, you are fixing a problem that never happened? Just some curious mind wondering out loud what-if?
If someone tries to fix all the things that I asked what-if, the world would be a mess.
Indeed - have you seen some of the questions in the Q&A? The “on-line” community (myself included) needs to take some ownership for driving the GDC to some of these decisions. While @Sylvie 's question about at what point in the cooking process does pasta qualify as “rope” was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the fact that it made it to the official Q&A, which the GDC tries (and does not always succeed) in addressing seriously, only serves to highlight the “This is why we can’t have nice things” meme.
I applaud the community for asking questions, some may be borderline ridiculous. It demonstrate outside the box thinking.
And I like that students are challenging the status quo, rather than playing it safe - this is how American innovation comes about. Innovation doesn’t come around because 95% of the population think of them.
I really don’t get it - GDC is fond of referencing “common sense” and “depends on the context”. Where is the “common sense” in this case? Isn’t it common sense that a screw is a screw when used as a fastener? Why dropped a big hammer on a non-existent issue?
These are fair points. I’m sorry for picking on Taran here, but I do think the pasta question highlights the point.
Consider - absent the Q&A and response about pasta - a team shows up to a competition with a functional, non-decorative component on the robot made from (cooked) pasta. This is potentially pretty provocative. Some reactions (even from the same person) may range from:
Should the head inspector or head ref allow pasta-bot to compete? If no-one at the competition perceives the intent as making a mockery of the event and everyone agrees it represents pure good-natured humor, then sure, pass the robot. If teams are insulted, however, what should happen? And what if reactions at 2 different events are different? Perhaps it was allowed at the first, but then feelings/perceptions changed and is not allowed at the second. Now, the provocative roboteer claims that there’s no consistency - the robot is the same, why was it allowed in one event but not the other?
Here we go again.
Here, Grant says edge-case interpretations and loopholes are the reason nylon and aluminum screws were banned.
Here, Grant says that that eyebolts and ball caster screws, examples of edge-case loopholes, are actually not why nylon and aluminum screws were banned.
I’ll say it one more time for the people in the back. The GDC does not know why they banned nylon and aluminum screws. How can they answer Taran’s question? How can they explain it to us? They can’t even explain it to themselves.
Honestly, at this point, instead of fighting against a stubborn force (the GDC) who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, you might as well just turn to better robotics programs like FTC or FRC.
Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I still acknowledge VRC as a good robotics program for many students, I just think that alternative robotics competitions can offer much more freedom for students who want to try things outside of VEX’s limitations.
Not many VRC teams have 100k+ at their disposal for FRC though…
True, but I think most VRC teams can find FRC teams nearby. And plus, it’s quite unrealistic to have a 4-6 person FRC team - the size of your average VRC team.
But if you do want to start your own FRC team, there are numerous ways of raising money. In fact, fundraising and gaining sponsors are a huge part of FRC culture.
As Karthik noted above, one of the main differences between VRC and the FTC/FRC is one being a relatively “closed” system and the other being “open”. Each style has their own merits and detractions.
Indeed. This can also work against the appeal of FRC in some instances.
It’s pretty clear that they do know what they are talking about if you look a little beyond the gaffs on this forum. While I don’t really agree, I do understand the decision. I would say that instead of fighting against the “stubborn force,” the simplest solution is to buy some screws and build better bots.
You could also do VEX AI.
Yes, the unaffordability is an essential part of the culture. Great point!
Nope. There are about 5x the number of VRC teams compared to FIRST. Not really an option for most students.
Also, for FIRST…
3,898 Teams
97,450+ Youth Team Members
29,325+ Mentors/Adult Supporters
So that’s…
97,450 / 3,898 = 25 members per team
29,325 / 3,898 = 7.5 mentors per team
If you leave VEX and go to FIRST to be the 26th person on the team, I don’t know what all you’re going to able to do. My 20 VEX IQ teams have one mentor, me, which is 0.05 mentors per team.
I’m leaving out FTC, which used to be called First VEX Challenge… Some size robots and fields. And the consensus I’ve read that VEX is preferred between the two.
The best way to serve the most students with the resources you have will always be VEX. FIRST is always better but you have unlimited money, and in a community with a lot of supportive mentors and donors. But I’d guess that’s less than 0.1% of students will ever even have access to anything like that. RECF is trying to go beyond the 0.1%, and they are doing a much better job at it than any other robotics competition.
As well as the general culture (I believe my limited experience with FRC is “typical”) where mentors do substantial amounts of the work - from the design, building, and coding of the robot. The only area where it is clear that FRC is “student-oriented” is that the actual drive team of 3 may contain at most 1 mentor. So 2-3 students out of ~25 have a “required” role in the program. Certainly some FRC teams are all-student participation, but I suspect the “elite” FRC teams have “strong” mentor involvement.
Because they made a decision, ok, live with it . No big deal. I have used nylon for 3 years, and it isn’t a big deal. Only people that make it a big deal are a minority of people that would complain no matter what the ruling was.
What about the people who spend all of fall working on their robot, only to go to a competition and not be allowed to compete because they didn’t know that the entirety of their club’s screws are aluminum?
Sure, not EVERYONE will be affected by it, but those who are (and even those who are not), would AT LEAST like to know why the GDC made the decision that they did. We can go in circles for hours and hours on end discussing hypothetical situations and poll people to see the ruling’s overall effect, when in reality the best thing to do is accept the GDC’s rationale (they are the “end all be all” on things like these after all) and continue on with our lives. No need to say that “you are fine so we should all be fine”, not gonna really help a confused populace here : ) .