Rubbin' is Racin'
 

The pile surrounding robot to robot interaction is getting so deep and so convoluted that I am ready to scream. Instead, let's have one rule:

Any robot to robot contact that involves any thing other than bumpers is illegal and will be punished severely and equally to both robots.

Here, we bow to the reality that six of these big machines running around on a basketball court are going to touch occasionally. But we are intolerant of the past behaviors that inspired rules G-20 to G30-1, And remove the arbitrary human element of G44.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

???

There were no past behaviors that inspired these rules.

G-30-1 was created to allow for creative robot designs and strategies involving bridge balancing, it allows for more than it prohibits.

G-20 was created, I surmise, was created to make the game more exciting (since a wall isn't very fun to watch) and to prevent accidental damage that can result from high-speed rebounds off of a blocking robot.

Both of these rules have nothing to do with past egregious conduct, as far as I know.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

For the two you mentioned, those are game-specific.

For the intentional tipping, there is past behavior. There are some teams from the early 90s that were known for sending opponent robots onto their backs--I number no numbers.

For contact with a downed robot, I've had that happen to one of my team's robots. Knocked down, at least somewhat on purpose. While we were trying to deploy an arm to get upright, we were hit, tipped onto another side, and shoved from midfield to the player station. Disabled us for the duration of the match.

The one problem with the rule suggested is that it opens up pinning, blocking the field, and possibly some other strategies that would take offense out of the games.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

I think your sentiment has merit, but that proposed rule amounts to a suicide pact, if by "severely and equally" you mean cards.

Now all I have to do is convince an alliance partner that they should go and interact as vigourously as possible with an opponent. Offer them candy, or money, or safety tokens (and don't tell the referees about the bribe). Anything of value to offset the card they're about to earn. For the rest of the qualifying round, that opponent will have to think twice about coming near any other robots, for fear of getting carded again (and dropping in the standings).

Even discounting subterfuge, this rule would probably offend our collective sense of justice. "You're punishing me for what they did to our robot?"

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

They still do not have this rule right. Another team that has intentionally tipped you three matches in a row can merely claim that your robot's design was flawed and that it was not on purpose but they were just playing the game.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

I was not proposing disallowance of any contact. That is the extreme of the North American Yacht Racing Union, the first group's competition rules I was blessed to deal with (and lost a junior world championship by touching a non-competitor).

The subject line is a NASCAR reference, and a reality. 40+ NASCAR Sprint Cup cars on a half mile track do not fit. Six FRC robots on a basketball court just barely fit. Thus, the proposition that bumper to bumper contact is expected. One practice day of intolerance of other forms of contact should rearrange the mindsets of most teams.

To an earlier poster, you have not watched enough YouTube. [G27] could easily have been numbered [G<team number>]. Every year, every team has students show up looking for "Robot Wars"; sometimes they make it onto the drive team.

There has been a silly amount of lawyering about contact for a set of rules released three weeks ago. Let's learn from the experience of others (NAYRU, SCCA, many more). The point of the exercise is to Cooperatively do good, not destroy the opposition so We can go to St Louis.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

The ONLY lawyering that I've seen has been on [G28], [G44], and [G45]. Mainly, it's been because people just don't understand [G28]'s intent.

So, let's make the intent of [G28] perfectly clear: If your opponents are shooting from their key, collecting in their alley, or working with their bridge, stay FAR, FAR AWAY! [G44] only protects against other penalties; [G45] protects against misuse of [G28] to win matches--to a point.

Trust me, those areas are a whole lot easier to see (well, other than the very edge of the key maybe) than the Loading Zones we had in 2005. (Is that robot in contact with that triangle or not? Oh, crud, they just got hit--we don't call that, someone's gonna be annoyed to no end.) If a robot was in the loading zone and got hit, the penalty was so severe that the rest of the match usually didn't matter: the hitter would lose to the hitee. A really good alliance could overcome that penalty. Most alliances? Uh, not so much.

Regarding your comment about students looking for Robot Wars: I don't think that's quite as prevalent as a few years back. The questions about that are now being asked as questions, not statements disguised as questions. And this is where one of the rules you don't like comes into play: [G26]. You come onto the field with a strategy to play battlebots, the refs are going to call you. And bumpers aren't going to stop someone from tipping another robot "accidentally" if they really want to. They just make it a whole lot harder and therefore a whole lot more blatantly obvious.

What we really need, instead of a single rule that doesn't cover all the elements needed to have a decent game, is a highly consistent, knows-the-game-manual-like-the-back-of-their-hands ref crew. And before anybody says I'm dissing the refs, I'm not. We have those already (and they have to relearn the entire manual every year!). I'm saying what the next logical thing is.

What we actually really need is competitors who know the rules and their interpretations as well as the refs. As well as the inspectors. As well as the GDC, if that's even possible. And then those competitors need to play by those rules. (And I think I've made my views on easy-to-earn penalties clear already--like 2008's <G22> and to some extent the expected prevalence of [G28].)

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

I think that one of the other things that we need is a new feature in the manual. Let's call it a green box. In the the green box, the Designers put out a plain English statement of why they think we need the rule. Intent then becomes obvious. Lawyer-ing aught then become a thing of the past. And finally, GP (or lack of it) becomes Penalize-able.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

And I have had this happen to my team. An intentional flip that wasn't called during a practice match by a team that was playing highly aggressively. And afterwards they wanted to shake hands and act like it was all in the spirit of the game.

Here here and amen!

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

We've knocked over a couple of robots in the past, but never ever intentionally -- once was a straight up pushing match, once involved defense on the ramp in Aim High. (We were also knocked over intentionally our rookie year, and then had our drive-train rammed. The opposing team was not penalized).

If a robot is knocked over from pushing within the bumper zone, it probably *is* a design flaw. Designing for low CG is extremely important! Our 2010 robot would literally bounce back to upright if knocked over violently, like a Weeble (tm), and just in case we had outriggers (that we never ended up using).

This is a physical game, and robots need to be designed accordingly... I imagine a lot of crushed ball intakes this year, just from people fighting over the balls on the floor.

...that said, the rules for contact should be enforced if they exist, and shouldn't exist if they're not enforced -- no matter what they are!

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

While I do agree with this as the rules are written don't teams that have only there corners covered by bumpers have some what of an advantage?

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

No -- contact in the bumper *ZONE* is permitted, regardless of whether or not the contact is with the bumpers.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

I much preferred the old'n days of yore when a robot didn't have to have bumpers, could expand to any size during play and collisions were accompanied by a great **SMASH** audible from anywhere within the venue and was often accompanied by bent aluminum and shattering plexiglass! :D

A kit chassis wouldn't have lasted 10 seconds in those games.

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

In those days, our chassis were steel! (And we had to walk uphill both ways to get to the venue. In the snow.)

Re: Rubbin' is Racin'
 

Can you point me in the direction of this rule? I do not see any rule this year that permits such contact.

[G27]

Deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent Robot on or inside its Frame Perimeter is not allowed.
Violation: Technical-Foul and potential Yellow Card

Deliberate contact as in purposefully defending or hitting a robot ON its frame perimeter with or without bumpers sounds like a Technical-Foul.