Re: G40 change?
 

Something that I think is significant about G40 violations that doesn't seem to be discussed much is that the definition of the plane that incurred the penalty was changed significantly in the 2/18 rule update. Originally it was the edge of the field, a pretty well-defined feature that was 22" away from the edge of the HP zone box. The HP barrier was constructed to further emphasize the need for HP's to stay a safe distance away, and I suspect the 22" was chosen based upon keeping them both sufficiently far away and at a distance that would be difficult to unintentionally violate.

The 2/18 update decreased the distance to penalty from 22" to 12", a 45% reduction, without also moving the HP zone back to compensate. Ironically, the change was made to reduce penalties from G21, robots extending out of the field. On a related note, it bugs me that a G21 violation of a robot extending into the safety zone is only a foul, while the G40 is a technical foul - to me the risks, and ease of mistake are identical, and so these penalties should match.

Finally, it seems like the taped safety zone is difficult to judge. I have not seen a field firsthand, or stood where the referees do, but it seems like their perspective would be poor for assessing small incursions unless they stick their head into the safety zone. The only way to clearly watch for G21 and G40 incursions is to look down the edge of the field, with your eye in-line with the yellow tape, which can only be done safely from the ends of the field, not where the refs stand. There will always be judgement calls to be made by refs, but this one seems especially difficult from their vantage point.

I fully understand the way the rule is written, and I think all human players ought to know this rule clearly and avoid violating it at all costs, but I also think it is too easy of a mistake to make, is too difficult to judge based on markings and perspective, and far too costly in foul points assessed.

Why is it no one is saying " hey the rule is what the rule is and if I screw up and get hit with a G40 I will own it and learn from it"

As for the 50 point penalty... It needs to sting to get the point across. And for those of you that feel it "isn't fare" fare is what you pay to get on a bus. Life isn't fare accept it and move forward

Re: G40 change?
 

I lost count of the number of times a ref or field reset volunteer reached into the safety zone to retrieve a ball for a human player at GTRW. Also, I frequently saw refs position themselves as you suggest, looking down the safety zone line to assess incursions, thereby putting their head in the safety zone, AND taking their attention off the action on the field (making them miss possessions).

[Sarcasm]But its OK as long as the kids are kept safe...[/sarcasm]

Seriously. I think the best way to fix it is to nuke G40, and let G21 play with the safety zone, and G41 cover human interactions. That would give the refs far less to pay attention to with HPs and allow them to score possessions better.

Re: G40 change?
 

One of my biggest concerns this past weekend was the possibility of our Human Player, and/or one of our alliances Human Players being assessed a G40 Technical Foul, and thankfully it only happened once, and it was by a partner, but it still hurt.

To actively counter the overall bad situation that is G40, I instructed our HP to sit the ball on the safety rail and then 'tap' it off the rail into the robot, making it pretty obvious that he wasn't anywhere near the yellow safety zone line. When not doing that, all other in-bounding was done by standing back and doing a short toss over the field wall, which again, made it obvious that he wasn't anywhere near the safety zone border. If the rule isn't changed, we'll probably keep this up until something better presents itself - although it's kind of annoying to have to do something in such a way that makes it obvious that you're doing it 'right'.

On the subject of possible changes, I don't see why the entire safety zone isn't taped out in yellow and/or caution tape, rather than the current 2" wide line. If the entire safety zone were marked out on top of the rail, I think it'd be much easier to keep track of, and actively avoid any intrusions into that zone.

It'd also be nice if the each of the HP boxes were a bit wider, since their current depth severely limits movement inside, and you've got to be very, very aware of where exactly the rear most limit of the box is. Part of this is strategic, it'd obviously be easier to work with the ball (specifically catching it) if the box were a bit bigger - but another part of it is safety. I told our Human player (and drivers) that if they felt like they were going to get hurt, injured, hit with a ball, etc, to step out of the box - but I don't know if anyone else made it so obvious to others that the boxes limits go out the window when personal safety is involved... Thankfully the refs at our event understood this logic, and didn't comment on any actions that were taken to avoid a ball or robot, so I can't complain much more here.

Re: G40 change?
 

In past games human players were closer to the field and had smaller,more difficult places to stand. There was a rule that another robot could not interfere while loading. This is another way of helping us with the safety issue. I did not see (doesn't mean that it oesn't happen) robots over the barrier when loading. To have the HP load a robot that is not being bashed by another to prevent them loading the safety factor is huge. Just think, even with the existing rules HP's can get hurt by flying pieces from robots being hit and parts breaking. Put in a no touch loading zone. This will increase on field action with more robots being loaded and fix the safety issue. Remove safety zone for HP's but retain the no reach over field barrier.

Re: G40 change?
 

As a concept... How about changing the penalty to a foul (20 points) for encroachment into the safety zone, and adding a severe penalty (yellow or red card?) for actual contact with a robot?

Re: G40 change?
 

There needs to be some change. Right now the boundary is a bit fuzzy. Sure it's a definite line 12" from the edge of the field, but space is hard to judge without a plane. I know the rule is there for safety, but it should be safety within reason.

While attending CIR, our team took a tour of the Cat plants. They have massive robots to reduce the workload on humans and increase accuracy. The employees work right alongside the robots, but still have clear boundaries, rules, and regulations. If you haven't been to a Cat plant, they plaster safety all over their buildings.

Re: G40 change?
 

Homophones. Getcha every time :rolleyes:

While I agree that it should be on the human player to know the rules and behave accordingly, no matter how obscure the boundary is, I don't mind admitting that it is kind of ridiculous how many matches are being affected by these extreme penalties instead of how the robots actually perform on the field.

Re: G40 change?
 

I am surprised that there wasn't much hullabaloo over the rule change in the first place. I'm sure SOME robots were designed specifically to COMPLY with the rule as originally written, AND to be fed by a human in compliance with the original rule, and will now have much more difficulty getting properly "fed" (because the human can no longer extend arms as far) because the rule was changed to help those who didn't plan and design properly in the first place.

Annoying. I'm not sure whether this is going to be a problem for our team - we've just finished our practice bot, since we don't compete until 3/27, but I'm sure it must be a problem for some (witness all the fouls).

How was it fair for the GDC to make this change so late? Apparently they wanted to avoid the robot fouls and figured it was easier to change human behavior than robot behavior. (Not so sure, now...) But I still think it's unfair for the robots designed not to extend past the field edge, but who (therefore) need their players to be as close as they were originally allowed to be, to load right.

Re: G40 change?
 

I would say two things on this topic:

1) Its week 1 therefore all these silly penalties get fleshed out on CD and by other means. Now every HP is going to be very aware of these rules by those teams that choose to be well informed and the number of times this is broken generally goes down.

2) As for the Technical Foul being 50 points. The reasoning in my head is that with technical fouls there needs to be almost no incentive to break these rules. In my head and in the head of every good coach there should be a quick list of rules that I am ok with breaking if you can gain points in the end or gain a strategic advantage. There should in theory be no way to net positive points in one cycle while incurring a technical foul. So the 50 points is very deliberate and if anything is too small (with a 60pt perfect cycle). Safety being one of the most important aspects to such a large organization dealing with students there needs to be no way that a good coach/mentor/student can see a reason or incentive to incurring a G40 violation.



That being said lets see if we can make it easier to see the safety zone please ;)

Re: G40 change?
 

If G40 is about safety, then make it so that it is nearly physically impossible for a human player to go outside of the safety zone. Put the safety feature in the field, not in an invisible wall that you shouldn't go across. The best solution would be a physical barrier, but this is most likely not possible, so just move the human player zones back 8 - 12 inches. 90% of the fouls would not occur. Done.

When we used to have to stand behind a line during autonomous, the rule was "stand behind the line" meaning the places where you contacted the floor were behind the line, not that the line defined an invisible plane that you could not cross. This is the case with just about any sport or other "rule" like this that I can think of. Just move the player boxes back.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: G40 change?
 

One of my issues (and probably FIRST's) issue with this is that there isn't that much room to move already near the FTA/Scorer's Table (unless it manages to get a good distance from the field barrier) and in some venues, especially some district events, it will be nigh impossible to extend them, GSDE being one.

Re: G40 change?
 

Or human players could just not cross into the safety zone. Seriously, it's not that hard.

Re: G40 change?
 

Agreed, there aren't more than a few inches of free space that can be added to the those specific boxes, if there's any space at all - but in the case of the driver's station boxes, (specifically the part that wraps around) and the boxes opposite the scoring table, I think we could get away with another 6-12" of depth without hurting things too much.

Another possible solution is to rewrite the boxes constraints to something like "A human player must be in contact with the floor of their box at all times, momentary contact with the floor outside of the box will not be penalized as long as some part of the HP's body is in contact with the floor in the box" - which would allow an HP to move a bit more within the confines of their box, without necessarily having to extend the boxes limits.

Re: G40 change?
 

As purely a safety issue is it not more safe to rely LESS on the person not to cross the line? Also in terms of safety, how many of those students who got a penalty were in direct risk of injury? How many were injured? Are the penalties about a rule or actual safety?

Solution: Move the red/blue piece of tape a foot back. Then your air wall protecting you from the robot is a foot bigger.

Obviously people crossed it quite a bit regardless of this penalty, and by the way a lot of FRC teams don't use CD and won't be too aware of this. I bet many will tell their guy, "stand in the red box and throw the ball in, don't touch the robot" less than 10min before their first match. So if the tape is farther back that guy is that much more safe.