Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

You got points for part of your robot being on a certain part of the field. Most teams thought that extending a tape measure across the field and into the end zone wasn't legal, until a Q and A response changed things.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3868
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3696

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

Nope. Worse than that. The Q & A stated "tape measures are not legal" but the team update never said anything about it.

Week 1 comes and teams had tape measures ... ruled legal. Those of us that read the Q & A took ours off.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

On a tangential note (after reading those threads), I'm personally glad that FRC teams are no longer so supplier restricted.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

So then this part of the kickoff video was illegal gameplay under this rule:
http://youtu.be/hTyCIYZQ_1s?t=1m56s

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

The game animation is known to have illegal robots. Also, this robot looks like it might be defying the laws of physics more than the laws of the game. IT looks like the noodle fully enters the field, hovers there for a fraction of a second, and is then grabbed by the robot.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

Back on the original topic, there was a good follow-up Q&A posted by 2122. If the tote gets stuck or jammed in the chute, is a robot or a human player allowed to dislodge it? FRC Hasn't answered yet, but per G6-1, drive team members may not use any object to prop the chute door open. A tote qualifies as an object, therefore the human player must continue to hold the door open to avoid it being "propped" by the stuck tote. G6 specifies that the HP cannot be in contact with both the chute door and the tote simultaneously. The human player cannot legally dislodge the tote in this situation.

Therefore, if a robot is not allowed to contact a tote to dislodge it, this situation must be declared a field fault. I don't know how likely that situation is, but it's easy to prevent if robots are allowed to at least contact objects that are still in contact with the chute.

The question of defining "control" is a very slippery slope, especially with having human players deposit litter in the recycling container. Per G27, if the robot controls a container, and the HP is inserting the litter into the container, at what point does the robot then have "control" of the litter? If this is before the HP releases it, that would make HP loading of litter nearly impossible, which basically means litter will go untouched.

This ruling opens up not only a lot of additional questions, but a very slippery slope in determining what are and are not legal ways to interact with human-inserted game pieces. Given that 30 of the 70 available totes to teams (including the 12 totes available to both teams and 10 upside-down totes), limited interaction with HP loaded totes will be a HUGE hinderance to teams.

We were sooo close to having easy to read rules without massive judgement calls for the refs and everything being self-consistent. It's upsetting to see that undone.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

This QnA response is ridiculous.... It really breaks the game from what was clearly intended.

That being said, FIRST has been pretty reasonable with this stuff recently... I'm confidant they will fix it soon.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

OK so looking at the rule as written, even without the Q&A clarification, these actions are, by the letter of the rule, illegal. Here is the Rule as copied from the manual:


In order to allow for the ROBOT to Can to LITTER contact, they just need to make an exception for LITTER partially through the hole.

In order to allow for the ROBOT to grab the TOTEs once the CHUTE door is open, they need to make an exception for TOTEs in the CHUTE provided no other rules are violated (particularly G6 and G6-1)

The reason I believe the intent was for field personnel safety is the blue box, quoted below:

I am certain the GDC will clarify this and make it perfectly acceptable to grab the TOTE from the chute as long as no other rules are violated.

Paul

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

Off-topic, but be careful with that. It seems that they do in fact like to land on their side, even on the official fields.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

After a single day away from CD, I come back to find my team's main strategy technically illegal. GDC pls...

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

Heh. My reaction was a version of that too :)

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

So if the walls are part of the field, catching a tote as it slides out of the chute should be OK. The only question is the litter loading - and the way I read it (and I often read it differently than GDC) is that the robot isn't controlling the noodle if the human player is actively inserting it into the bin - the human player is.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

The chute is currently considered to be behind the alliance wall, so it counts as being outside the field.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

This has been posted twice in this thread, but I can't find why teams can't just print this and show it to the inspector or refs.
https://frc-qa.usfirst.org/Question/...-held-by-robot

Can somebody explain why this Q&A is misleading? It seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.

Re: G28, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

Because the totes are a WAY bigger issue than the litter...plus "held" is not the same as "controlled", which has not been defined by FIRST.