Penalties - which ones are most common?

[CrashTestPilot]

So to those who participated or watched first week matches, what penalties are most commonly issued? Are they mostly due to human error, inferior robot design or rather bad luck?

What I gathered so far from reading week 1 notes, ball protruding more than 3" into frame perimeter is most common. Is this mainly because of fault with basic robot design (frame not built with provisions to stop the ball from getting under the chassis) or is it rather an effect of game play (less obvious design flaws that may not have been discovered during testing? For example, should a driver of a robot with roller type ball magnet be concerned about approaching a ball pinned against wall or another robot? Will robot momentum and ball magnet roller have the unexpected effect of robot driving on top of the ball? How many balls are getting dropped and stuck above the bumper perimeter?


Next frequently quoted penalty is for robot violating size restrictions if they start elevating before the finale period starts and have an unsuccessful attempt, try to reposition and loose contact with the tower.

Also, kicking out of bounds and tipping other robots. What else?

TBA and official FIRST site shows final match results and overall team ranking, but I can't find info on penalties assigned per match. Is that tracked anywhere?

[ay2b]

In San Diego, the most frequent penalty was G46 (a ball more than 3" into the frame, most frequently getting trapped under the robot). This occurred approximately 65 times in 57 matches (though I don't remember the exact numbers). The next most frequent penalty was for stepping outside of the alliance station (G49 & G50 -- the stats I saw combined these) with approximately 30 calls in 57 matches. Mostly this was the human player with the trident stepping back outside of the box while trying to load the ball onto the ball return. Beyond that, the total number of times each penalty was called dropped off rapidly.

[Eugene Fang]

In San Diego, the most frequent penalty was G46 (a ball more than 3" into the frame, most frequently getting trapped under the robot).

How long does a ball have to get stuck before the ref calls it "trapped?" Does landing on a ball after driving over the bump, but getting off of it in a reasonable amount of time (like 2 seconds) count as a penalty?

[waialua359]

I just cant believe how many teams were hitting/impeding/blocking other robots from doing the end game configuration and scoring in the last 20 seconds of the match, while getting red carded.
Havent they read the rules?:mad:

[waialua359]

How long does a ball have to get stuck before the ref calls it "trapped?" Does landing on a ball after driving over the bump, but getting off of it in a reasonable amount of time (like 2 seconds) count as a penalty?

This happened in EVERY match in my opinion, but it wasnt getting called.
Teams were trying to push the ball over the bump and at least 100+ times, teams were getting on top of the ball quickly, then jumping off. No penalties were being called. Shouldnt it be?

[Eugene Fang]

This happened in EVERY match in my opinion, but it wasnt getting called.
Teams were trying to push the ball over the bump and at least 100+ times, teams were getting on top of the ball quickly, then jumping off. No penalties were being called. Shouldnt it be?

Was there a ruling on this? If it isn't intentional I hope the refs aren't calling it. Now if a team designs a robot where a ball can go under it on normal flat ground, that's a different issue and should be penalized.

[waialua359]

Was there a ruling on this? If it isn't intentional I hope the refs aren't calling it. Now if a team designs a robot where a ball can go under it on normal flat ground, that's a different issue and should be penalized.
Personally, I just go with what the refs are calling/not calling. However, the refs were saying how it is very very difficult to judge whether to call penalties or not in those situations.
How do you decide?

[Eugene Fang]

Personally, I just go with what the refs are calling/not calling. However, the refs were saying how it is very very difficult to judge whether to call penalties or not in those situations.
How do you decide?

True, ruling can be very difficult. I don't know how I'd decide. I was just wondering if anyone has made a specific ruling about if landing on a ball while going over the bump is a penalty.

[robodude03]

I just cant believe how many teams were hitting/impeding/blocking other robots from doing the end game configuration and scoring in the last 20 seconds of the match, while getting red carded.
Havent they read the rules?:mad:

Yes I noticed that on Friday. The scariest one I saw was a team nearly breaking 1717's swerve drive as it ran into it.

[Koko Ed]

I didn't expect hanging to have so much potential for trouble with the possibility of getting carded for getting caught up in the ball return.
It's starting to become quite the risk/reward proposition.

[Billfred]

At Bayou, the big penalty has been riding up on the balls. A couple of matches have been DOGMA'd into oblivion (30-some penalty points for not returning a ball). Contact with protected robots during the Finale is rarest, if only because very few teams at Bayou are even attempting to hang (I can think of about four or five teams out of 38 doing so).

[Daniel_LaFleur]

At Bayou, the big penalty has been riding up on the balls. A couple of matches have been DOGMA'd into oblivion (30-some penalty points for not returning a ball). Contact with protected robots during the Finale is rarest, if only because very few teams at Bayou are even attempting to hang (I can think of about four or five teams out of 38 doing so).

Ditto at BAE

[BJT]

STAY AWAY FROM THE OTHER TOWER IN FINALE!! The winning alliance at portland outscored their opponent 12-1 in the second match of finals and thought they had won the whole thing, Not so fast! one member had tapped the opponents tower and got the red card. luckily they also won the third match and the championship.

[Radical Pi]

G46 was definitely the most common in FLR. Early matches is was just poor design, but in later matches the ones I saw the most was an offensive robot trying to herd a ball into the goal and jumping on top of it when theyhit the bump ahead of the goal. The other bumps caused a few penalities

The 2nd most common here was actually G30 for early hangers. A few spring-loaded hangers have gotten big hits and gone up early, getting penalty and yellow card. A similar problem was found with ramp bots, getting hit a bit too much or just releasing early and breaking frame perimiter.

Another G30 was caused a few times from robots touching the tower to do an early arm raise and being pushed around (quite entertaining when one flips off the bump). Usually it was a mecanum bot trying to hold on the tower but not having enough traction to stay in one place. Sometimes the bots that lift from the bump were too unstable and slipped off one side, breaking g30 by not touching the tower and occasionally flipping

[Grim Tuesday]

Another common one at FLR was people kicking out of bounds. And, surprisingly, two peoples batteries fell out, giving them a penalty too!

[Tomatosoup]

Another common one at FLR was people kicking out of bounds. And, surprisingly, two peoples batteries fell out, giving them a penalty too!

At Kettering penalties weren't really issued for this, but we all got to know our good friend <G46>, he shows up once or twice a match to remind us where our balls belong.

[Grim Tuesday]

@tomato soup:
...must not make joke about balls...


However, its not really fair not to issue penalties for some teams, and not others (nationally).

For example, in Rochester, a powerful kicker that sometimes kicked out of bounds was unacceptable due to the amount of penalties given. It sounds like the opposite at your regional, since kicking out of bounds gave no penalties.

[Tomatosoup]

G46 was so common that I just started to tune it out, and I guess our ref figured if it wasn't intentional then it wasn't a penalty, and it's not like anyone was doing that. A few other common were G36, and a rule that escapes me about not touching a robot while they're entering finale

[Grim Tuesday]

The funny thing was that FLR, the MC, every time he heard about a G46 would yell BALL PENETRATION VIOLATION! It got seriously annoying after a while...

[Radical Pi]

Another common one at FLR was people kicking out of bounds. And, surprisingly, two peoples batteries fell out, giving them a penalty too!

I actually think all of the kicking out of bounds was unintentional, so no penalties on that

also, please do secure your batteries well. As the poster above me said, we had a robot drop their battery and break the field. Very literally too. The blue alliance got a negative score on the live update and we waited 20 minutes for the actual final score. Also, it's not very fun when a robot breaks down, blocking your goal (boringest gave for human player ever)

[Jimmy K]

Peachtree was no different in that <G46> was by far the most frequently called penalty. The other significant penalties were <G35> finale protection, and the back-bot rule <G29>.

I did not see any DOGMA penalties by anyone. Of course, most matches were rather low-scoring, so it is hard to incur such penalty.

Our team probably was one of the more penalized teams (We got red carded for <G35>, and had at least two 3+ penalty matches :facepalm: ), and thus, were not selected for an alliance.

[alicen]

at peachtree, there were 98 <G46> penalties called.
evenly distributed, that's exactly two per team
(i have access to these numbers cause i live with the head ref :p )

there was only one match i recall that was DOGMA'd really bad, and that team got 22 penalties because the ball fell off the ramp onto the field without going through the ball counter

the only other big one i can remember at peachtree is after autonomous, a lot of robots' kickers remained outside the frame perimeter, and so were penalized

[JamesCH95]

I think the G46 penalty was applied with good rationale at the Granite State regional. Teams that landed on top of balls that they couldn't see while going over bumps were not penalized. Other times a ball or two would get shoved under one robot by another one, and those didn't seem to be penalized either. It all seemed pretty fair.

[Isaac501]

The most common penalty from my viewpoint was the G46-ball under bot penalty, which, "thanks" to our "refs" at the BAE Granite State Regional, one ball apparently counts multiple times if other robots are shoving you back onto the ball while you're attempting to drive off.

Awesome job, GDC and refs! WEEEW! :rolleyes:

[JamesCH95]

Haha, apparently we were watching different matches... I'm sure some refs took the rule a little too literally. :eek:

[Jimmy Cao]

The most common penalties I saw (as a referee) were G30 and G46. G30 penalties had a few main causes.
1) Expansion to hang too early without touching the tower. That's awfully silly and easily avoided.
2) Machine Gun Kicking. A surprisingly high number of teams didn't know that just because their kicker could fire 4/second, they can't actually fire it that fast. Most of these were Friday penalties, and teams learned by Saturday, which is good.
3) Not retracting kicker. Most of these were in automode. A few teams would kick, and leave their kicker out. Few teams got this more than once, I think.

G46 had a handful of causes.
1) Mechanium robots with a piece of pneumatic tubing/wire/latex tubing/some joke like that to keep balls out from the side of the robot. Once the strafe into a ball, it pops right under the robot. If you can drive sideways, you'll want to really keep balls from just going under the robot.
2) Pushing balls up the ramp. How often must you try to push a ball up, get a penalty, and try again, just to get another penalty, before you give up? If you need to get a ball over a bump, you almost must shoot it.
3) Balls that somehow randomly popped under a robot as they drove around. No clue what did it, but it somehow happens and they just drive right over it. Strangest phenomenon.

Other penalties are violations of hanging protection. If you're redbot stuck in blue zone with 5 seconds left, do yourself a favor and don't try something funny like driving through the tunnel/over the bump without good reason. You're asking to get in trouble that way.

Just my observations.