Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

Drivers should have played with the rule in mind from the beginning. I think "adapt their play" is an odd way to say "stop breaking the rule."

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

Our operator got a penalty for crossing over the line in our first match. He knew he did it, and also knew not to do it any more.

We told him, if you can't make it to the position you want in the next quadrant then don't fully enter into it. We had no penalties for crossing over the line for the rest of the weekend.

As for the glare...our drivers and coaches noticed it on Thursday, adjusted to what was real and what was a reflection and never had an issue during qualifying or eliminating matches.

I think the biggest issue this year is teams not adjusting to the conditions, getting multiple penalties, adversly effecting the scoring, and causing slow display of the final score. If we knew who won or lost at the end of the match, this game would be much more exciting.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

The issue might not be that your team is well aware of the penalty, the issue is many matches were decided because one team on the alliance had trouble with it and multiple penalties were not at all uncommon. MANY matches were decided by penalties and a clean match was a rare sight.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

i tottally support a rule change our alliance got screwed over by this rule because one of our bots got pushed back at the end of the macth and we would have won, the rule really does need to be tweaked

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

If it was pushed back, no penalty should have been assessed. I would suspect that there was another penalty involved.

This discussion is pointless at this point. Here's why:
The rule is the rule. It's been this way since Kickoff. Changing it now would result in a lot of teams complaining that they had it hard, the later events have it easy, etc.

It doesn't matter whether or not you like the rule, you still need to play by it.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

If your description of the event is accurate, you should not have been penalized.

To address your concern, the rule does not need to be changed. It merely needs to be enforced correctly.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

I also agree with Paul (as I almost always do): if teams do not wish to incur a penalty, they should not break the rules.

However, I've observed and heard of some really "ticky-tack" calls regarding rule <G22>. A more important issue involves whether the robot has actually completely crossed the line then broke the plane in the reverse direction:

Crossing or breaking the plane for the lane divider line can be difficult for a referee to unambiguously determine. In San Diego, the start of tele-operated mode was delayed at least twice to allow a referee to go onto the field to assess whether robots had fully crossed the line. If it's that difficult to determine for a stationary robot, how can the call be reliably made for a robot in motion? Given the severity of the penalty, the referee needs to be absolutely certain that the robot has crossed and re-entered the zone before raising the flag. Maybe something like a 6-inch "DMZ" around that line might make sense?

In some sports (soccer, for example), "advantage" is a consideration in calling a penalty. This means that the infraction is only incurred if the offender is gaining an advantage by breaking the rule. I can see this as being something that the FIRST and especially the referees would not want to enact because it introduces a level of subjectivity to calling penalties.

I tell my driver once you've driven most of the way into a zone, you better just keep on going. A ten point penalty is a killer...

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

Now i know some of you here are for this rule and some are not.

Yet i would have to say this rule didn't bother me till i was driving up our home stretch driving forward as fast as i could then turning on the far divider to set up to drive backwards since our robot seems to go better in reverse go figure. But to the true point to call this rule on us though we didn't go forward or backwards on the line only pivot. now why was this called?

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

It was called? That ref needs a little manual re-reading. If you weren't fully across, they shouldn't call it.

In the ref's defense, it can be harder to see whether the robot has crossed or not from their perspective--I'd say they have to go by shadow/seeing line/seeing wheels/seeing bottom of frame.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

After experiencing this at VCU when we received 2 penalties in a QF match when we couldn't tell if we'd recrossed the line on the opposite end due to shoving from opponents in traffic...well nevermind, you'll just say we have to deal with it, and we do. In a qual match we also received a penalty for impeding *after* we'd pushed the robot disable button. Refs aren't perfect and niether are drivers. If you'd re-read my post, my point is that we don't like the rule and the quotes you've listed are simple reiterations of that. Planning for the "field layout" has absolutely nothing with how we designed the robot and everything to do with interpretable dynamic gameplay.

There are several valid points/helpful suggestions here. First, not going into the next quadrant without fully knowing you can make it is key. It seems intuitive at first unless you've spent all day overcoming different system problems and just want to capture a ball for your first hurdle. It's easy to lose track of the line then, especially on the opposite end of the field.

Second, I can attest that to the fact that the glare isn't very noticable. It's probably different for different venues, but it wasn't a deal-breaker for us. Traffic on the opposite end of the field is what hurt us the most. The point in the last paragraph should help avoid that though.

Finally, in other sports/games it is very apparent that a penalty has happened the second that it happens. In this year's game, we have to wait for penalties to magically show up at the end. It's very difficult to adjust your driving if you don't know when or where you've made the mistake, and always driving conservatively is just downright boring to the crowd. It's just as frustrating as not being able to fully test hybrid mode coding adjustments without risking penalties in a match.

If there was a way they could at least make the lights on the driver station flash when a team receives a penalty, the driver would know it right away and adjust to it. Maybe that's easy to implement, maybe it's not, but it'd definitely relieve some frustration.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

Because the rule is not whether you go forward or backward over the line ... it's if you break the plane of the line once you've crossed it.

This rule is being strictly enforced this year, My suggestion is to coach your drivers properly and have a strategy for crossing (or not crossing) the lines.

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

Madwolvez whispers to Daniel "i am the driver if i said i was driving........."


this is true,

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

For a vast majority of the <G22> penalties called (and some other infractions), one of the four corner refs will wave their colored flags signaling that a robot has broken the plane in the reverse direction. This isn't easy for a driver to see, but it is possible for the coaches to watch the refs and factor in the penalties (in fact, a few different alliances walked onto the field talking about how many penalty points they/their opponents had and how it would factor into the score).

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

From this Q&A system answer:

That seems pretty definitive.

-dave

Re: Rule G22 needs to be changed
 

Just one re-crossing penalty can negate five laps around the course, or more than one hurdle and robot crossing, or almost negate the bonus for having your ball on the rack at the end. One penality by each team can erase the alliance's whole score is some matches. At the Arizona regional, one team's robot did a spin on the end line near their starting position and got 120 points in penatlies in hybrid mode. Penalties decide way to many matches. At the end of the game, you have no idea who's won until the penalties are accessed. Is the rule meant to keep the game flowing or to make the game harder?