Re: Late as it is for strategy, I was thinking.
 

Yeah, if you have swinging arms outside the field where all the volunteers sit, they can and will disable you. Not in all cases, but the refs certainly are strict on the safety hazard rule and will disable you if it's blatantly obvious you can hit someone. It all depends on what's going on. I've seen them not disable because they (the ref) were the only ones standing near it and not really in harms way (according to their own judgement), but if an arm is swinging around wildly near people on the sidelines, they will shut you down without hesitation. That is all up to the ref.

The only thing I can say about the difference between being in the ball corral, and being over the 7' wall is that, they had to do something from preventing robots being designed to deliberately reach into the ball corral to deliver balls, or whatever. That is a quick safety hazard due to the fact that hp's are actually reaching INTO the ball corral as balls come in.

However, there aren't many people out there at 7' tall to have the hazard of getting a 2x ball or robot arm shoved in their face at that height. In my opinion, since the design of this game creates long arms and vertical height robot parts, the quick over-and-back (across the top wall) movement of a 2x ball high up in the air poses less of a threat. I've seen robots out there that hold this ball up high while they're feeding balls into the corral, and while they do what they can to avoid being above the wall, it can happen. If it was a penalty, you would probably see more penalties called against robots pushing them into the wall, causing their arm to cross the plane.
Again, the safety hazard is the refs call and if he feels it's a safety hazard, he'll disable you.

oh, and btw, I would think most times if this were to occur, it would be over your own player station, so you would be blocking your own hp and creating the "safety hazard" on your own team (not that this excuses it by any means). But typically there would be no reason for an opponent bot to be reaching over your 7' wall over your hp. Not sure why you'd want to be that near to your opponents ball corral!

Re: Late as it is for strategy, I was thinking.
 

Actually, I've got (IMHO) the perfect strategy for such a robot.

Imagine a robot that in autonomous mode can get across the field in a hurry and pop open a big see-throughable net (a la ComBBAT, but opening horizontally). If you made the net wide enough (the whole 20', maybe less if you did some figuring), high enough, and got the net nice and flush against the wall, you'd have great defense. 100 points maximum, and that's assuming both of their robots hang.

But to take it to the next level, all you'd need is to collect all of the caught balls and spit them across the field (kinda like that red robot did in the game animation). Get a partner that'll herd them, and you're in for a show.

I think it could be done--thoughts?

Re: Late as it is for strategy, I was thinking.
 

the long sides of the field are roped off from spectators and the judges- your bot is allowed to extend out past the field borders on the sides by the rules - they can not disable your bot unless it makes contact with the floor to 'return to the playfield' - ie, if it falls over, has to push against the floor, or the drive wheels go outside the borders.

If a bot was disabled because a judge or cameraman was standing next to the edge of the field, I would DEMAND the match be replayed - they have no business being that close to the field to the point where they are interfering with the robots.

Re: Late as it is for strategy, I was thinking.
 

Actually, at SVR, penalties were given for breaking the plane of the barrier, no matter whether it was through the ball corral or over the window. Specifically, I remember 253 throwing their arm back over the wall at the beginning of the match (in auto mode) and getting a red flag for it.

Re: Late as it is for strategy, I was thinking.
 

Yes, again, it's allowed to go outside the field, as long as you don't touch the floor. HOWEVER, since all the volunteers sit outside the field (i would guess some are within 8' of the field), if you have a longggg arm that is swinging about wildly, they can disable you for safety hazard. The refs are also standing right there at the side of the field and if they feel they are in harms way, they'll disable you.
I don't think the volunteers should be sitting anywhere within 10+ feet, but that's not for me to say. We've had our arm (inadvertantly of course) swinging about outside the field mostly in the air, near the refs even, but they haven't disabled us. If there's an 8yr old kid volunteer that's sitting on his chair outside the field that is at risk, there's no problem in disabling it. He's not "interefering" with the robots, he's just sitting where he was told. Theoretically, the bots should be inside the field anyways!!

Based on what I've seen, I think the refs really try to wait until you're a big danger outside the field. If you touch the floor, you're done. But if you're swinging outside, I think they do what they can to avoid disabling. I think it would be absurd to argue over what would and would not be a safety hazard to people outside the field. Yes, it's dumb if a cameraman is right on the edge, and I'm not sure if they would allow that close proximity, but he's not "interfering" with the robots.
Bottom line, I think the refs are pretty lenient on the safety hazard thing, and if you can't stay within those limits, they're right in disabling you.