Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

To reiterate what (few) others have pointed out, it's surprisingly easy to get balls stuck underneath the robot. At one point, we had a bar going across the front of the robot about 4-5" off the ground. Yet, when we drove into a ball in the middle of the field, our robot ended up going over the ball instead of pushing it.

Thankfully, at WPI, the refs kept the spirit of the rule, and seemed to only penalize teams who then tried to score/move the ball.


And to repeat what ahecht said, there weren't many cards issued at WPI either. Our robot was the one tipped/rammed in the red card instance. From my (completely biased) perspective, I think the red card was justly deployed. Of course, I don't know if it was an issue with the other team's robot that unintentionally caused the repeated contact, but it did cause substantial damage to our drive system.

The one thing that really irked me with the red card, though, was that it happened in the 2nd-to-last match on Saturday. So, the team only lost out on 10 seeding points, and ended up in 9th seed (eventually becoming 7th? seed) instead of 6th.

Although this is just enough in our case, I feel that red cards should really represent huge weight. I don't think it will ever be an issue again this year, but in the future, it might be worth it for the GDC to modify the rules to provide *some* sort of carry-over to the elimination rounds.


Take everything I say with a grain of salt, clearly I'm quite biased! :P

Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

Unfortunately, during the incident, our driver contacted another ball while driving to get the first from out from under us. That is what the penalties ended up being called for - because we were possessing one ball and interacting with another.

In the end, it was a judgement call by the ref. Not a big deal, just a very unlucky break for us.

Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

In one of the matches I got to see, 1319 was parked on top of a ball for a good 13 seconds. They were trying to get it out, and the penalty was never officially
called.

Other than that, there are VERY few "under the robot" being called. The ones that are being called are being called for robots that sit there and pretend like they don't have anything under them.

Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

As a ref in Oklahoma, I would like to shed some light on what is going on, in our regional at least.

Throughout Thursday and Friday morning, we called penalties based on what the Head Refs had decided during their conference call. They had said that if a ball penetrated for just a second, then rolled back out, no penalty would be called. If the ball was stuck for more than 2 or 3 seconds, we would call a penalty. But if the robot continued playing the game, a penalty, plus a yellow card would be assessed.

After discussions during our lunch, we went back over this rule, after I pointed out that one user on the webcast was more than upset by the way we were calling it. We then decided that if a ball went under a robot, they had 10 seconds to dislodge it. We feel that 10 seconds is more than enough to fix the problem. After that, we call a penalty. However, if the robot tries "playing the game", we will call a penalty and a yellow card, no matter how long it is stuck under.

I hope that provided some insight. I'll do my best to answer any other questions about rulings on the field.

EDIT: As of the drivers meeting this morning, we will not call the penalty if it looks as if the robot is actively trying to remove the ball. I personally believe that this is much more in the spirit of the rule, and glad we made this change. I know teams will be upset if we call this penalty, but keep in mind we don't know exactly what you're trying to do with the robot. We base it off how the situation looks to us.

Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

It is pretty nice of you to clarify how you are planning on making the calls. I would think, however, that you would want to make the call in accordance with the rules. If for some reason a ball gets stuck under their robot and they spend the entire match trying to remove it without actually engaging in game play, why penalize them? Which rule are they breaking?

Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

Please see the edit to my previous post.

Re: Drive-over penalties still being called
 

I heartily endorse the adjustment :)