As always, this is not the place for official statements, etc.AlterNSO wrote:So, I’ve submitted a clarification on this but haven’t heard anything back yet. I think Rule 6.g.vii is going to be a little bit of a headache. (In fact if give me flashbacks to being an event supervisor for mission possible, which is not a good thing). I think the intent of the rule and what the rule says do not really match up. Correct me if I’m wrong but having done Science Olympiad for a while I think the rule is intended to make using a hook to drag pennies closer, then dropping the hook stop the run. Also dropping any tool on the field. However, after my students disagreed with my interpretation I asked the English teachers at my school and they agreed with my students about the wording. The example is it is not correct to say a pencil detached from my hand if I drop it. By the same token it is not correct to say a piece held by the claw detached if it was simply released. So detached implies a more permanent connection than simply grabbing. There are also going to be teams tying hooks or tools to their base and saying that those pieces are still attached so they didn’t become detached etc.
Also on a more philosophical note this rule makes me a little sad as a coach and proponent of Science Olympiad for two reasons.
1. In many ways robot arm is the poster child for the science Olympiad is expensive and you need money to do well arguments for a school not doing it. Reach for a robot arm is expensive not matter how you construct it. The counter argument that has always been true was a team can do very well by using an arm with less reach that could use a hook to drag pieces in so that their shorter arm could manipulate them. Eliminating that really does drive up the expense of being able to reach all the pennies this year and gives am even bigger advantage to teams with more resources.
2. My students were fighting me about this because they had lots of good ideas about flipping the pennies using tools they could set out on the surface. They had some very creative engineering solutions to the problem of flipping the pennies. They elimination of being able to set things down on the field basically limits teams to grabbing the pennies and flipping them by turning over the claw.
Anyway if anyone knows why this change was made I’d love to know to make myself feel better about it. Thanks.
A couple comments:
1. You need to look at the rules in their entirety, not just 1 particular line. Rule 1 refers to "1 robotic device". Rule 3 defines the components of the device. It's pretty clear that everything that the students bring to the competition that fits inside the device square falls under the generic definition of "device". As such, within the scope of the rules any 'tools' (which isn't a term utilized in the rules at all) is part of the "device".
2. Your semantic argument about the word 'detaches' isn't really a good analog, as it doesn't pass the "lay person" test. Take a random person off the street and ask them if a pencil is part of a human - nobody would say they are one and the same, and hence using the term 'detach' with regard to dropping a pencil isn't correct (as you pointed out). However, ask that same person if a tire is part of a automobile, and most would say yes it is. Hence they would agree that you 'detach' a tire from a car - nobody would say the car 'dropped' the tire. I'd propose the average lay person would say the same thing when presented with a SO Robot Arm they know nothing about but could observe that includes a tool that can be separated from it, regardless of the 'permanence' of the design.
3. I'd propose that allowing for detachable tools actually drives the cost up to be competitive. We've seen extremely creative devices in the past that use very sophisticated tools that get swapped in and out. Part of the reason for this rule change was to restrict those a bit and hence reduce some of the costs.
4. Another reason is because as you indicated, your students are thinking about using a claw that can grasp tools. In many situations, that means students will buy an off-the shelf robot claw and not make any modifications to it, which is not something we want to encourage. I'd propose that most of the ideas they've come up with could still be accomplished with non-detachable tools / modifications to the robot arm.
I'm sure some of the other regular suspects on here that were involved in the rules creation will provide additional thoughts on this, but please be assured our intent was NOT to drive up the cost, but rather to make it easier on teams and event supervisors.
. Also a rules clarification would be good soon as teams are probably going to start building soon.