What the heck is going on????
 

Anyone have a clue what going on with the "faulty" rules???????

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

just hold on until the rules updates. I'm sure they found out their issues by now and are working on solutions.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

there is a rule that says you cant extend higher than 6 feet in your opponent's home stretch...but then you can't get the ball off of the overpass

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

This happens every year. No biggie. Just wait for updates. :]

"Patience is key, young Padawan"- Yoda :p

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

right...patience...not my best thing....i guess i can wait a little bit...but what all is wrong???

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Which rules do you say are faulty? We'll answer better if we know which rules.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

I believe that is the un-technical rule they want clarified.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

OK, how do you legally remove your ball from your opponent's overpass?

That's a "homework" problem for our team.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

In that case...The search function is in the orange bar at the top of the page. This has been brought up. (It does hang lower than that, apparently.)

And, it's part of the "Game Challenge".

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

From what I've read today, the rules most people agree need clarification are the interaction between <G22> and <G35> with respect to descoring, and also the definition of "command" in <R69>.

It's worth noting that rules like this show up almost every year. In 2007, it was the definition of "supported". 2005 was the definition of "touching". In some kickoff past, it was noted that while the GDC spent thousands of hours designing this game, now some of the brightest young minds in the world will spend hundreds of thousands of hours picking it apart. This is all a part of the process, and I fully expect that most of our questions will be resolved with the first team update.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

so what do we do...figure it out or sit and watch it out?

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

I believe the bottom of the ball in the overpass is almost exactly 6' from the floor. (It's one of those "do the math" problems".)

If you more than graze the ball while passing under the overpass, you must be exceeding the 6' limit.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

One way that I saw is to "punch" the ball from below it. The bottom of the ball is at 71" from the bottom of the floor. With a well placed impact on the ball with a pneumatic cylinder, the ball should pop out of its resting place.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

maybe you could just pop the ball out and as long as you dont stay in the same place with whatever you used sticking straight up in the air...its legal?????

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Its a very "squishy" ball, with only 1" max penetration I think you'd be lucky to move it a few inches from its resting place, not to mention getting the ball's CG outside of the rail (at least hitting it from the bottom). It's prototype testing time (unless you prefer to "do the math").

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

what if you use a sort of spring action?

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

to not being over 6' in your opponent's home stretch, i say:

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Actually I found the ball to be quite "not squishy". It is very bouncy. I played with it in Manchester this morning and it took a fair amount of force to deflect the ball even 1". I apologize for not being able to quantify how much force, but it seemed to be quite a bit. With the ball held at 6' in the air and dropped, it bounced about 3 feet or so. I still think that you could "punch" it from the bottom and get it to pop out.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

you mean use that to pick it up from the other side of the divider????

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Extending your robot arm (appendage) across the opponent's finish line from the other side of the overpass most likely violates rule <G36>.

BTW, I noticed that there's a related thread on this subject:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=60767

A moderator might step in and merge the discussion...

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

i only started this thread to find out exactly how many rules we're having prob. with and how many i need to discuss with my mentors monday.....then it got to this.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Lot's of discussion going on about this. In defense of the animator, the rules are probably in flux until the last minute before the manual is released, but the animation is completed earlier...GDC will likely resolve this in Update #1

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

its still confusing and frustrating..........

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Well, you've only got six more weeks of confusion and frustration before the robot goes in the box.

The rules will get clarified in the next few days, don't worry - be happy!!

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

I can think of several solutions.

1. Cross line and pop it back wards.
2. Leave it in place and collect 12 points.
3. Take the penalty
4. Use the other ball to bump it. The rule says only the ROBOT can not exceed 6 feet.
5. Gentleman's agreement with the opposition to put all balls in play
6. Ed on our team pointed out that if your wheel contact point is over the line you are no longer in their home stretch and can reach back and tap it.

Maybe the rule is intentional and won't be changed.

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Starting with the first and last points, the entire robot must break the plane of the opponents finish line to exit the opponent's home stretch. If the robot then backs up and breaks the plane moving in the wrong direction, it's assessed a penalty <G22>. It may be possible to knock the ball off "backwards" without having the robot break the finish line plane.

With the second and fourth points, the opposing alliance will want to leave your trackball on it's overpass until the last second. The "gentleman's agreement" will probably need to include language like "agree to knock opponent's ball off at the first teleoperated pass" otherwise things might get "sticky".

As long as a possessed ball is not considered to be part of the robot (I haven't seen a rule that states this is the case), knocking your ball off with another ball would work. If the possessed ball is released before hitting your ball on the overpass, then I don't believe any infraction is incurred.

Taking the penalty outright just doesn't seem right, but if it's done early enough the alliance still might net a bunch of points.

Comment: In the kick-off, we were reminded that FIRST is not about winning at all costs. Is it GP to intentionally incur a penalty? Maybe this is a test...

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

it works like this, no matter how many man hours they put into testing the rules and making them flawless Well, always find fault because
A were not the ones who wrote the rules, we see things they wouldn't
B ive spend 16 straight hours today picking apart these rules if every other first student did half of that.. our man hours who be theres ^9 or so, you just cant compete with the sheer number of man hours avalible to the general population
C We kids, there dumb adults. fill in the blanks (lol JK):)

Re: What the heck is going on????
 

Except for "C", you're right - the review process is very important. Only so many possibilities can be anticipated by the GDC. They're a small (but very experienced) team and really must focus on the architecture and structure of the game. The FIRST teams are detail-oriented and actively participate in "fine-tuning" the rules before the competitions begin.

Think of it as beta testing with an active user community that really wants to improve the product as fast as possible. It's priceless and invaluable work that FIRST teams do each year.

This is not about making someone wrong, it's about getting it right for the competitions.