Gamepiece Cycle
 

I've been looking through the manual, and I'm still missing a couple of parts about how balls are reintroduced and what happens to them after being scored. I understand that the general flow is:
1. The pedestal lights up once there are no balls already in play
2. The ball is retrieved from the pedestal
3. The ball is introduced into play from the side of the field
4. The ball is scored by a robot
From here, things get a little foggy. G39 specifies that team members must remain in contact with their alliance station or human player area. If balls are being scored onto the opposite side of the field of the pedestals, then how are the balls getting to the pedestals in the first place? Is that being done by the field crew, or is the human player given an exception to run across the field and retrieve the ball and put it on the pedestal? It's not too big of a deal, but I figured it was something that should have been covered.

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

From what I understand, balls are placed on the pedestal by the field crew, and only when the pedestal is lit up may a team retrieve the ball and place it in play. After a ball is scored, I would guess that the field team retrieves it (being that it will end up in the alliance station) and place it on the pedestal (or out of play if there's already one there).

My interpretation of G39 (obviously far from official) is that people may not switch places during a MATCH. In other words, you can't exchange your HUMAN PLAYER and your DRIVER in the course of a MATCH.

One thing that I don't see mentioned is where the COACH must start. Presumably, if they started in the HUMAN PLAYER AREA (not sure why you'd do that, but there seems to be no rules against that), they would be prohibited from moving to the ALLIANCE STATION by G39.

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

Take a look at the Field tour video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERuueIzr9IM&t=1m32s

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

Try G8:

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

D'oh! Sorry about that, I haven't done my super-careful read-through yet obviously.

However, the interaction of this rule and G39 is interesting. It states that the HUMAN PLAYER can start in the HUMAN PLAYER AREA or the ALLIANCE STATION. G39 seems to indicate that they cannot move from one to the other in the course of a MATCH. However, the pedestal is located in the ALLIANCE STATION, so how is one to legally insert balls into play?

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

I guess you'd better be sure to have at least one of the HP's from your alliance in the ALLIANCE STATION, huh?

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

The endwall area is the alliance station, there is no human player area there. Or, if you prefer, the entire alliance station area is also a human player area. See 2.2.7 Figure 2-15.

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

Basically, one human player stays in the ALLIANCE STATION, and grabs the BALL off the PEDESTAL to start a CYCLE. If you look at the field diagram, you'll see that the ALLIANCE STATION is shaped such that this human player can walk up the sideline of the field a little bit, so they can inbound the ball from a corner of the field.

Re: Gamepiece Cycle
 

Have each robot in each of the 3 zones. Pass the ball from one zone to the other. This way one robot will always be on defense, and one always on offense.