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

My real concern is that we will handle the totes from the feeder station and will comply with a strict G27 interpretation. It will be almost impossible for a human being to judge if we did or did not violate G27 and incur a penalty. We will be able to show compliance in a static inspection. On the field it is next to impossible. This will be a complex engineering challenge and the students and mentors are really going at it. If we pull it off it will be an exciting mechanism. Only to be subjected to the subjective opinion of a ref. Back to last year. Would a definition of passive or active help? Semantic definition of control? This is a problem and it has to be thought out and dealt with soon.

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

G27 goes beyond powered devices. The following minimally competitive process also appears illegal.
- Grab tote in a simple claw and drive to human player chute.
- While still holding the tote in your claw, drop another tote on top of the first. (This would be something similar to the BuildBlitz claw attached to the front of a robot with no elevator.)
- Push the stack of two to the platform
The second tote in the chute contacts the tote in control of my claw. You could let go and re-grab the bottom tote to be legal. I’m not seeing a hazard with either process, and I doubt a ref would call a foul.

Attach the simple claw to a tote elevator using the same procedure. In this case, it is possible to lift the bottom tote while the 2nd tote is exiting the chute. What’s the call? Always called a foul because it could happen? Is it a no-call if my robot doesn’t move?

My assumption is holding a tote is control. Having refs judge intent won’t work.

Dropping litter through the wall into the container held by a robot needs a separate ruling from totes.

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

Some of the follow-up Q&A might answer the question, but another nuance is whether the litter is allowed to touch part of the robot (a passive part, an active part or even accidentally) on the way to the RC.

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

I don't think it is that cut and dry.

It is totally reasonable to interpret that the TOTE CHUTE, being part of a "polycarbonate and metal protective wall" is part of the ALLIANCE WALL and therefore part of the FIELD. I suspect this ambiguity is part of why the Q&A question was asked.

Besides the rear door suggestion, I suspect it would be fairly easy to fashion any number of simple one-way mechanisms in the chute to ensure that it is an "exit only". But I think that the injury risk here is actually very low...next to some other things in FRC in recent memory (even human players last year), hilariously low by comparison.

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

The ruling has been updated.

https://frc-qa.usfirst.org/Question/...er-while-the-l

So much better now.

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

Hooray!

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

Let me be the first to say...

PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: G27, Q&A 83, and Noodling a Can Without Touching it
 

I would challenge that it is cut and dry (or at least simple) based on the rule book. The rules do not define well what the FIELD is in the areas that matter most for G27. From the glossary, the FIELD is

Looking at what ALLIANCE WALLS are

The human player chutes are mounted in the wall. What does bounded by mean across the wall? Is it the vertical projection of the intersection at the carpet, or does it contour the wall's surface? There is a hole at the chute (when the door is open), so is it bounded by where the door was or by the aperture at the back of the chute? Maybe I am just being optimistic in wanting this to be true.

I get wanting a shorter rule book, but it seems like it would have been simpler for them to just flat out say you can't control totes that are in the chute and explain what that means up front, rather than relying on us going through long logic paths to try to figure out what they mean. We didn't realize the full possible implications of G27 until Michael Corsetto from 1678 pointed it out to us. If the ruling is as the QA says, this seems like a pretty important concept to be just tucked in there.

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

Even better they actually apologized, it does't make it perfect but that's all we can ask for. In my opinion the Q&A have been far better this year in terms of actually trying to answer questions and being polite. They got this one wrong but they fixed it and owned their mistake.

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

Reason prevails in the GDC! This truly is a new era in FRC.

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

ugh
so, to be absolutely clear
if your robot is carrying a container and the HP pushes the litter through the litter chute into the container so that the litter touches the container while it is still touching the HP this is a violation of G27.
Is that correctly interpreted?

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

Not under the updated rule.

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

The loader is actually very robust. More likely to break the tote than the loader. But the GDC reasoning is far beyond me. :]

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

Awesome! And now back to those nose diving totes...

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

Let me just say that the latest GDC response to the G27 ambiguity has been on par with their new style of awesomeness.

They clearly indicated what they intended, apologized for it, and were nice about it.

I really like the new GDC style; very customer friendly. Bravo!