Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

<R02-C> is a prohibition of anything intended to jam or interfere with opponents' sensors.

On second read, you sound like you were intending to try to ram them away from the line. That might work, except that I'd be more than willing to bet that they have a gyro and/or accelerometer to block that.

Regarding parking across their tunnel entrance with a wide-oriented robot: perfectly legal, easily possible if they're coming from the middle, and pretty easy to set up as an autonomous: orient parallel to the bump, and drive forward x distance. One blocked robot, coming right up. You can't get the 38" dimension through the tunnel without bumpers, let alone with.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

No, no, not ram them. We've got mecanum drive, and couldn't hope to budge them in a pushing contest. The idea would be to jam ourselves under the tower so that they hit us and then deflect off of our robot, all nice and bumper-to-bumper-like, but keep moving forward as if they were going under the tower...

And that has nothing to do with interfering with sensors!

Yes, yes, but that only works for the autonomous period. (I was thinking 'strafe sideways, then back into the tunnel as much as possible). The goal would be to get yourself wedged in there well enough that they couldn't de-wedge you, and being parked across the tunnel long-ways just means they'll come in from the side and shove you out of the way.

(I have it on good authority that their drive train can shove most other robots out of the way almost trivially).

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Yeah, looks like some team already tried to block the tunnel in auto without success:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJh_tb9Ox6A

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Depending on your alliance, you may have already made their strategy all but useless. All you have to do is hold them off long enough to clear out as many balls as possible from their zone.

You would need to get out of the tunnel at the end of the match, to avoid a major penalty; that's my primary "don't go in there" reason. It's also not exactly easy to wedge in there.

If you're lucky, a partner comes over and adds a second robot to the pushing train. Now they're stuck... unless, of course, they realize that there's an easy way to get you out of there, cross a bump, and de-wedge you from the other side.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

You would have to physically put at least 6" of your robot into the tunnel for it to work -- and ideally, you'd also be too tall (or too wide*) to fit entirely in the tunnel. Just getting somewhat in the way is certainly not good enough, given how pushy their robot seems to be.

*I said before that it might be worth a penalty to stop them... Expanding outside your original configuration to prevent them from being able to push you through the tunnel -- for a shorter robot -- would cause a penalty, but might be well worth the points.

True on both counts. I'm not saying you block it the whole match -- just long enough to clear out any balls in the ball-return system, and in zone three. Easier said than done, like I said, but better tried than not!

As for getting out to avoid a major penalty, the only reason you wouldn't be able to get out is if they were pinning you there, and they can't be the cause of a penalty on you. Regardless, what I'm thinking would *let* them into the tower after a reasonably short period of time.

-------------------------

I'm not saying they won't be hard to beat. I'm not saying I don't hope they'd be on our alliance in the tournament in Atlanta -- even though we're both designed as middle-zone control bots, so that makes this scenario unlikely. All I'm saying is that teams that concede that they're unbeatable are making a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are a zillion people involved with FIRST teams a zillion times smarter than I am. If I can come up with a general strategy that at least stands a chance, without re-building robots just to deal with the "469 Menace" (cue ominous music), then I'm sure other people can do the same.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

I don't know exactly what 469 is doing, but I'd be shocked if any deflecting would cause their robot to cross the white line. I'm willing to bet that 469 uses an encoder based navigation system so their robot always knows where it is on the field, Since it knows where it is, it knows not to cross the white line.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

I didn't watch the whole webcast, but I never saw 469 extend anything until the beginning of teleop. This is probably intentional to ensure contact with the tower.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Fair enough. I wasn't really counting on the idea that they'd not have such systems in place, merely bringing up the possibility.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

A scenario I can see happening is 469 gets into position and starts to cycle balls into their goal. Their opponents, knowing they can't beat them, do nothing but watch. They get the winners score but why give 469's team any coopertition points.
Winners get 5 more points than losers.
Just my opinion. *flame suit on*

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Wayne,

I'm really, really glad you brought this up. I had the same idea yesterday when talking to a friend of mine about Infinite Loop Robots.

In a qualification match I'd probably leave them and their partners be, while I have my team play their own game. I could never tell my Driver's or Any other driver to sit and watch because that's too close to throwing a match to me (This is the Driver in me talking), but I sure wouldn't interfere with the other alliance knowing that they could drive our seeding score up.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

If the team knows they're going to lose, instead of doing nothing, why not help score for 469? After all, the losing team is going to get the winning alliance's score as their qualifying score. They might as well rack it up big-time and take a big jump in the standings.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

You know how people complain about having harder schedules? Imagine how everyone who's with 469 gets a massive QP jump over people that don't have 469. That must suck for everyone else, being ranked based on a randomizer :/

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

I think a lot of peoples ideas on how to beat 469 are coming from the elimination side of things. Which as you know is a different ball game.

-Brando

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Yeah, I think if I'm against 469+<good scorer (148,217,1114,etc)> I'm just gonna accept the 5 pts and help them rack up my score. In qualifications. In Elims... I dont know.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

After reading the rules, I know that as other people have stated, it doesn't violate R19. However, their mechanism does extend past the 28x38x60 box before the finale. NORMAL CONFIGURATION – The physical configuration and orientation of the ROBOT when the MATCH is started. This is the state of the ROBOT immediately before being enabled by the Field Management System, before the ROBOT takes any actions, deploys any mechanisms, or moves away from the starting location. This configuration is static, and does not change during a single MATCH (although it may change from MATCH to MATCH, specifies config when the match is started.
The finale period only has rules about the last 20 seconds. So can any robot expand without bound ( up to the field perimeter) until the last 20 seconds, or am I over analyzing this? The rules only prevent you from being outside the frame limits when the match starts and the finale, but nothing about the middle 100 seconds.