Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Could a robot block the path to the feeder station by just sitting there?

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Just eyeing those shots, they seem enough to the point of at least making the 2 pointers.

But, as is popular, "assuming makes an $@#$@#$@# out of you and me". At least for my team, this warrants a couple of runs through our prototypes.

- Sunny G.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

I forget which rule, but your robot can't purposefully block an area of field and then they aren't allowed to touch your robot when they are at the feeder station.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

One thing that I will warn, and this is something my fellow mentors at 2473 keep emphasizing, is that just because a human can or cannot do something does not mean that a robot can or cannot do it. There are many of examples where robots can do things humans cannot, and where robots cannot do things humans can. We and robots are two very different organisms - it is wrong to compare the two.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Yes, I also recall that rule. It states that a robot cannot intentionally block and prevent the "flow" of the match. But this rule has been in the manual for quite some time, as I remember. Like in Logomotion, bots patrolled the middle of the field and blocked bots from crossing. I don't remember penalties every being called against this. The only defensive penalties I've seen is contact in a protected zone (which would be the feeder station and when a bot is touching the pyramid in this case). So this leads me to believe, either the refs aren't calling these penalties, or this isn't considered blocking the "flow" of the match. And if that isn't blocking the flow, I don't know what would be considered so.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

I get the feeling that this is going to be the biggest argument of the build season.

I personally think that our second-year team is better off not trying to get them off the floor, and instead concentrating our efforts on building a feeder-fed bot in three weeks and practicing with it for the next three weeks.

That will allow us to be consistent scorers, so we won't be littering the field with frisbees. It will also get us ranked highly in the qual matches, which is where we want to be.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

G25) ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE may not blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction.
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

So, it would be a penalty to, say, park in front of the opposing alliance's feeder station. But it's ok to prevent them from crossing the field to get to their feeder station. Is this correct?

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

No - it is a penalty to have multiple robots block the entire opposing alliance from crossing. A single robot can play defense without any penalties, unless they touch an opposing robot who is touching either the pyramid or the loading area.

The key parts from

G25) ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE may not blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction

are "ROBOTS" plural and "no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction."

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Right. Using the pole and the edge of the canopy as guides, you can get a pretty good idea of the precision.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Tape... :-D

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Addressing two points in this thread:

1. A "Hammer" or "Tomahawk" is thrown exactly as the name would suggest, over the head. This is not the direction a disc would travel in a flat path. The purpose of this type of throw is to travel at a greater height than distance. This is why human players would use this to throw over the alliance wall. Robots could possibly throw this way. As every new year comes, some team somewhere will make it happen if they try hard enough.

2. The rules state that you may block people at any point as long as they are not touching their pyramid, their safe zone next to the feeder station, and you do not pin them for more than 5 seconds. Although it would be against the spirit of FIRST and stopping the flow of the game, it is legal at this point in the season before any rule updates to block the feeder station. This is something that if seen at a competition, would most likely be changed for the rest of the season.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

The main reason I see for bothering with a floor pickup system, is for the advantage in autonomous. Last year it was a game decider for some teams that could get extra game pieces to score in autonomous.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

I'm not sure that Autonomous would be the only advantage. Even if all the 'bots were able to score at an 80% average, that could leave ~25 game pieces on the floor if they stayed on the Field.

Re: How to pick up a frisbee
 

Autonomous would not be the only advantage, but to me it appears to be the main advantage. Thinking of how many game pieces can be scored during a match, it's going to be a challenge for an alliance to use up all 45 in two minutes