Confused On One Rule
 

I'm confused about one thing in the rules, and i can't find the yahoo group update about it.

Is it legal to throw human player balls at other robots to intentionally stop them from doing what they are doing? Or try to knock them over. Or is this not in the spirt of FIRST? Or against the rules?


Thanks
Chris
151 The Wildcards
Driver 2002

I think there is no rule that explicitely prohibits it, BUT it would be contrary to the spirit of FIRST and you might risk a penalty or similar. Furthermore, try hitting a robot over a distance of 20 ft with a 6 ft high plexi glass barrier 1 ft in front of you. You have to throw the balls in a nice arc and could not even intentionally do it.
My opinion: Do not base your tactics on it or on any other form of ungracious behaviour. You will not make yourself a lot of friends if you try it.
This is just my personal opinion, though, and does not need to be the same as the official or other people's version.

In the rules...
 

I think I found it:
FIRST 2002 Game rules, appendix A, page A-7, Disqualification Violations:
I guess this means definitely "no".

I'd like to see the human player that can throw a soccer ball hard enough to tip over a 130 pounds of 'bot...

But ya, I can't see it being worth doing, that ball is always more useful in a goal then banging into a 'bot. Now that I think about it, tossing balls out in and effort to clutter the field might be usefull. If your up against teams that you know can't handle balls, then having field full of them may be an advantage since the opposing team might have a harder time navigating. Still, it's a shakey idea at best, and your better off trying to make that last hail Mary then annoying the other teams.

-Andy A.

It is probably okay, imho...
 

If you mean trying to stop them by getting balls in their way or by making them screw up by missing their alignment or making them unsteady, I think it is just fine.

If you cross the line to trying to break them, I think you may get called for it, but I really think that you would be given a LOT of latitude.

Teams knew that robots would be in a dodge ball zone. They should plan on getting hit with a ball now and then.

Joe J.

Thanks for the advice, It wasn't a strategey that i was thinking of using, i was just curious of the legality of it, because it came up at one of our Drive meetings. I do remember a couple robots in 2000 being knocked over by an HP ball when they had their scoring mechanisms deployed 6.5 feet in the air. So it is possible

If it was used i see it being more used to throw at ball scorers trying to mess up their alignment on scoring, not to damage.

Chris
Team 151
The Wildcards

I think that lobbing balls at an oppnent's robot to stop/tip/damage them, is not in the spirit of FIRST. Also, where do you draw the line between throwing a ball to stop them and trying to damage the opponent's robot? You could throw it to stop them but accidently hit their controls and damage them, unintentionally. I think it would be hard to distinguish between trying to damage them and just trying to stop them. I think it's too big of a risk for an alliance to take - Just my $.02:)

Also, as Jan pointed out earlier, "Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed... If a breach of this rule occurs, the alliance will be disqualified for that match".

So I would go with no...

- Katie

Re: It is probably okay, imho...
 

Exactly.


Hey- can anyone find a rule(s) that discuss this topic: A "red" human player intentionally tossing a ball to a "blue" human player for scoring/strategy purposes?

This was done at KSC. The members of the red and blue teams coordinated before hand to "share the wealth" of orange balls. Thought this was a cool thing, and it was allowed.

KA-108

Ok so where is the line two examples

1) Ball grabber bot goals to score balls and has a high center of gravity and robot b is playing defense and gets into a shoving match with the ball grabber which in the end the ball grabber is tipped on its side. Is that the fault of the robot who is pushing no but supposedly doing this is against FIRST rules.

2) Throwing a ball at a robot I don't think is going to be that highly contested as a malicious act as time goes on. How are people going to know whether you did it on purpose or you have the worst aim in the world... diliema dililemas

Sincerely Todd with a grinning smile because I know what you don't.

I tried
 

Chris,

I actually tried that in one of our matches at VCU. It doesn't work( i mean seriously, 130 pund robot vs. a like 6 ounze ball). The Referees said nothing to me and i doubt they will to you.