Human Players Only?

[Genome17]

What would happen if in Autonomous Mode OR ANY mode for that matter, you managed to get the robot to drag the goal to where the ball pile is ( high off the ground with the purple balls) and let all the balls drop into the goal?? Is that allowed? I know the robots can't drop in the balls, but essentially gravity is, it's just that the Robot is positioning the Goal under the Balls to get points in.

Do those points count?
Is there a rule??

[Trinora]

What would happen if in Autonomous Mode OR ANY mode for that matter, you managed to get the robot to drag the goal to where the ball pile is ( high off the ground with the purple balls) and let all the balls drop into the goal?? Is that allowed? I know the robots can't drop in the balls, but essentially gravity is, it's just that the Robot is positioning the Goal under the Balls to get points in.

Do those points count?
Is there a rule??

I was trying to think of the same thing.
The goals don't have any way for the robot to find it with a sensor.
You'd have to grab it by the metal, not poles.
Plus, the goals have caps.

[Joe Matt]

But if part of your auton was to knock the ball off, can you do it? It's not the robot scoring directly. If I'm not mistaken, the robot cannot score, not that the human player can only score.

[Trinora]

But if part of your auton was to knock the ball off, can you do it? It's not the robot scoring directly. If I'm not mistaken, the robot cannot score, not that the human player can only score.

Your robot can only touch the yellow balls, so I say you're safe. :)

[Lisa Rodriguez]

I was thinking the exact same thing, the only problem, if another team knocks you ball off before you can get the goal there, but, hey its a new strategy, i really want to know, it could change a lot of strategies

[Mr. Ivey]

I think the same. You can't drag the goal under the drop so that when you knock the activator ball off you drop the balls into the goal. Because the human player is not involved in the act of scoring. So, you probably can not do this.
ivey :yikes:

[Genome17]

Everyone, look at G20 and G19 and G17. What do you think? it's on same topic.

[Don Wright]

I think it's totally legal to move the goal under the falling area of the small balls, remove the covering ball, then go and knock the bonus ball off causing a lot of the balls to fall into the scoring cylinder.

I think what they are are to get away from with the "No robot can assist a ball from entering the goal" is a robot that opens up a huge back stop or something behind the goals and "funnel" any throw balls into the goals.

Again, everyone is going down the path of very literal meanings of the rules, which is what Dean asked us to get away from. It's just like if your robot grabs the goal and moves it closer to the human player making it easier and quicker to get the balls in. The robot assisted by moving the goal closer, but didn't actually asist in putting the ball in.

[Trinora]

Everyone, look at G20 and G19. What do you think? it's on same topic.

Bah humbug.
It only looks good if you want to throw the match, or get the other team points...
It was a good try.

[gsensel]

I think it's totally legal to move the goal under the falling area of the small balls, remove the covering ball, then go and knock the bonus ball off causing a lot of the balls to fall into the scoring cylinder.
This is not possible if done in auton becsaue as soon as the ball is moved the balls are released so the bot would have to be in 2 places at once.

Again, everyone is going down the path of very literal meanings of the rules, which is what Dean asked us to get away from. It's just like if your robot grabs the goal and moves it closer to the human player making it easier and quicker to get the balls in. The robot assisted by moving the goal closer, but didn't actually asist in putting the ball in.

This should not be a penalty becasuse like is stated above the bot is not asiting the balls in the are going there

[sevisehda]

A robot could easily drag the goal under the chute. However there are 2 catches. 1, You'd either have to have a teammate who could activate the bonus, or you'd have to wait 45 seconds for the auto release. 2, The goal is a relatively small target in comparison to the width of the chute. Before any kind of test I'd say that maybe 4 balls would actually end up in the goal.

Could someone clarify if the 45 second wait is from the start of the match or from the end of autonmous?

[Ashley Weed]

I don't think it would be that strong of a strategy to follow for two reasons -
1. you wouldn't get that many
2. chances are your opponent or partner would activate your side before you got the goal back.
:rolleyes:

[Joe Matt]

I don't think it would be that strong of a strategy to follow for two reasons -
1. you wouldn't get that many
2. chances are your opponent or partner would activate your side before you got the goal back.
:rolleyes:
1.) You would have more than if you didn't do it
2.) Not really, add in a delay in the auton

[Stephen P]

Here's another autonomous idea: the robot reaches up from the starting point and grabs purble balls from the big tray. Just an idea, but is it legal? Maybe first didn't think of it.

[Arefin Bari]

What would happen if in Autonomous Mode OR ANY mode for that matter, you managed to get the robot to drag the goal to where the ball pile is ( high off the ground with the purple balls) and let all the balls drop into the goal?? Is that allowed? I know the robots can't drop in the balls, but essentially gravity is, it's just that the Robot is positioning the Goal under the Balls to get points in.

Do those points count?
Is there a rule??

we were thinking about it till we found out that we are not allowed to do it... i might be wrong... but read the rules...

[Greg Needel]

Could someone clarify if the 45 second wait is from the start of the match or from the end of autonmous?


from the start of the match... the penalty is only 30 secs of driver mode

[KevinB]

Well this might seem crazy ... but how are they going to prevent this from happening?

Surely they arent going to count the number of balls that "accidentally" enter the goal and subtract that at the end -- theres no way!

[353Pobots]

Another problem with doing that is, how are you going to do this all within 15 seconds. You have to figure your robot will move much slower in reverse(since after you do grab the goal[if you do] there is no room to turn around) and knock the ball off while backing up....and if you do get it there, how do you know your partner will knock off the bonus ball...if not, you have a problem. The problem comes in which if you don't knock the bonus ball off in auton...you wait 30 seconds for the auto release. You can't get the balls down anyother way after the auton mode. And the idea of taking the balls down yourself is not allowed. In the manual it says somethinga bout not being able to do that.

[RoboCoder]

<G17> SMALL balls may only be SCORED by the HUMAN PLAYER’s direct throw.
<G19> If an alliance ROBOT assists any SMALL ball into either of their goals, the referee will throw a red
penalty flag and the alliance’s final score will be decreased by twice the value of that SMALL ball.

We were actually strongly considering this as a strategy. Re-reading the rules, I dont believe that this would be going with the spirit of the rules, as they pretty clearly satate that they want all the smalll balls scored to come from Human Player throws. Granted, I think this is an issue that deserves clarification from FIRST to confirm/deny this.

IF it is allowed, then first of all you'd have to have a high level of coordination with your alliance partner as far as timing goes, and fitting it within the 15 seconds would be.......tight, but ultimately it is possible. However, as mentioned before, I dont think that you would get too many this way.

Looking purely at rule G19, I can see how it could be argue either way reasonably well, but if you also consider G17, then I believe it makes it pretty clear that this is not allowed. *shrugs*

Here's another autonomous idea: the robot reaches up from the starting point and grabs purble balls from the big tray. Just an idea, but is it legal? Maybe first didn't think of it.

As far as this is concerned, I believe this would violate the spirit of the rules, and would ultimately go against the intentions of the game........ if FIRST wanted robots to reach high to get scoring balls, then they probably wouldnt have had them drop.

I honestly cant find a rule that really says one way or another. If it is congradulations for coming up with a really creative solution ;) However, I would definately get clarification before I designed for this.

[Bduggan04]

Rule 17 was misquoted in the last post. It goes on to explain that if it is thrown by any other team member other than the human player it will be a violation. It doesn't prove concretely that you can or can't use this strategy. This should be clarified through FIRST.

As for reaching up into the 18 ball hopper, I would say that FIRST could declare these out of play and grabbing them is in violation of rule G22.

[RoboCoder]

<G17> SMALL balls may only be SCORED by the HUMAN PLAYER’s direct throw. If any other team member throws a SMALL ball into the field during a match, that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the
team will be disqualified.

Theres the full rule, sorry for the partial quote, tried to condense it a little too far :-P. Personally I still take it as being that the small balls must be scored via Human Player, not chute dump, although I realize it is really open to one's interpretation. *shrugs* heck, I know I've been wrong in the past about plenty of things, I think this is one of those issues that FIRST needs a little bit of clarification.

Two teams have already asked this question for clarification in the FIRST Q&A section of their website. Like the others it is currently unanswered, but I am sure we will see an answer soon

[Elgin Clock]

I love this thread.

Here are my thoughts on it. I want to wait and see if scoring with gravity as an assist will be legal first, but I do have a few thoughts none-the-less.

Ok, time factor.. You can uncap a goal and drag it to your station and wait til the 45 second mark to let the balls fall in.

Or if you want it done in autonomous, try just ramming the goal at max speed and knocking the ball off the top that way (Silly Newton's law) and then just driving it in front of YOUR OPPONENTS corrall thus having all "their" balls fall in your goal!!

Remember people, this year we are not expected to drag the goal to our side for it to be counted as our points. So, you ram the colored goal that your side is, thus making the ball come off the top, and without turning around, just drive the goal to under your opponents corall. If you can pull this off in autonomous, and FIRST says this counts, then you are golden!

Remember, once little balls are scored in a goal, there is no way they come out!

[RoboCoder]

Team update #1 has been released! I suggest everyone reads it.
It turns out that scoring by balls fallling directly from the overhead bins into the mobils goal has been cleared as a valid way to score (the rule was modified). so yay for anyone who was planning on using this strategy :p

[TomWx]

Here's the most current ruling:

<g17> SMALL balls may only be SCORED by the HUMAN PLAYER's direct throw or by SMALL balls falling unabated from the Ball Release into a Mobile Goal. If any other team member throws a SMALL ball into the field during a match, that team's ROBOT will be disabled and the team will be disqualified.

Which translates to: Robots still cannot touch the small balls to get them into the goal. So while the mobile goal may be placed under the Ball release, the robot may NOT act as a funnel or conveyor for the balls.

[Arefin Bari]

just like somebody pointed out before in this thread that it might not be possible to get as many balls at a time. you have to work it out with your alliance too. the idea of grabbing the goal and bring it underneatch the 18 balls doesnt seem to be a bad idea. but still i am not sure about how the balls will react once it hits the goal (probably the balls will bounch out of the goal). :ahh:

[duckshepherd]

I don't see how dragging the moving goals under the ball dropper would be advantagous. There are too many tasks for the robot to perform during the autonomous period in order to successfully employ this plan. First, the goal must be dragged back, then the capping ball must be removed, then the robot must home in on the target ball. There are too many variables to play with, and the chances for success are small. Besides, how many balls would really end up falling into the goal anyway? Maybe two or three. I say go for the target ball first, then see if you can get the robot to drag the goal into your zone as to render tossing balls into the goal more facile. If you go for the target ball first, but fail to drag the goal back, no problem. But if one manages to complete the first task of dragging the goal back, but then fails to hit the target ball within the time limit, one will be penalized with the ball deployment time delay.

[pras870]

Straight from the FIRST website.

Q: Can you move a mobile goal under the ball dump so that when the dump is triggered some balls go into the mobile goal?
A: Yes. See revised Rule G17 in Team Update #01.

Q: Can we put the moveable goal under the ball drop?
A: Yes. See Team Update #01 for the modified Rule G17.

[rangersteve]

I do not think they would penalize you if a ball went in the goal. A ball may bounce into a goal if they teams anautimous strategy was to prepare by removing the 2x ball. The balls are very bouncy. So if you move the goal under the shout and balls enter it I do not think they will deduct points or hurt you in any way. I am not sure if they will award you points but they should not deduct any.

sorry posted before reading all of post. Ignore above

[Gadget470]

I do not think they would penalize you if a ball went in the goal. A ball may bounce into a goal if they teams anautimous strategy was to prepare by removing the 2x ball. The balls are very bouncy. So if you move the goal under the shout and balls enter it I do not think they will deduct points or hurt you in any way. I am not sure if they will award you points but they should not deduct any.

sorry posted before reading all of post. Ignore above
You can delete your post.

On the subject of getting the mobile goal under the chute.. it doesn't have to be in autonomous. If the balls are not released during autonomous (intentionally or not) you have 30 seconds of driver time to get the goal and put it under the chute before release.

I think autonomous movement of the goal will be much harder (because of 3 other robots able to open your chute while you move the goal) but it is a formidable back-up strategy if the balls are not released.