Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Team Update #16 has been posted: http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...pdate%2016.pdf

It affects RED and YELLOW cards under <G32> and <G33>, and removes a potential "one-move-win" strategy in elminations:

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Not exactly an emergency, unless your strategy revolves around intentionally trying to get other teams disqualified.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Thanks for the notice. I am glad they decided to eliminate the possibility of this happening before qualifications started at the least. Although the way of making sure this is happening to prevent it is going to be tough on referees.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I'm glad they fixed this. It should have been done sooner though.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I find it disturbing that there is even one participant who might consider adopting such a tactic.

Thank you for the clarification, GDC.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I could tell bad things were going to happen when they added the exception to the "cannot cause a penalty" rule.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

This has been discussed here more than a little bit. However long it took, I am very glad that they changed this rule. When they first announced the interpretation they are now changing it was obvious to me that it could be a real problem. Any rule that allows you to be disqualified because of the actions of your opponents has a great potential to be abused.

If I am reading it correctly, I actually think the way it is now worded strikes a good balance. If I try to push the red robot into my zone in order to disqualify them, I get disqualified. If the red robot is trying to block me from scoring in my zone and as a result is pushed into another blue robot then the red robot is disqualified.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

And a ref who may not even be looking when the incident happens will decide which team gets disqualified.

I think it's a horrible rule situation. The GDC needs to get it's act together, come up with a set of rules for a game at the beginning of the season, and not spend the rest of the build season changing the rules to try to get teams to play the game the way they "think" it should be played.

They now have rules for Logomotion that depend on a referee deciding whether an alliance is working together to blockade the field (G48-C), and now another one for a referee to decide whether a team intentionally pushed one robot into another.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

The original "cannot cause a penalty" rule has been an exception to the other rules for a while...then they added an exception to it....now they added an exception to that....

So we now have an exception to an exception to an exception. Who is lawyering things now?:rolleyes:

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I think the GDC just saw Inception.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I was referring to the exception from the cannot cause a penalty rule.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Good to know they don't want anyone trying that move. It's better to make it explicit in this manner than sort it out later during an event.

But what's with the precedence implied in the last sentence? If you got your alliance disqualified, but the other alliance got disqualified first, you win? The rules previously implied nothing of the sort—both alliances would be disqualified, and there would be another match—so this is a change to "The Tournament" that should be specified. (It's one thing to give teams a heads-up that something will be considered an aspect of an existing rule; it's another to change the rules without adding the relevant language to the rulebook.)

And what happens if the DQ was for another perfectly valid reason? Or what if both teams use the same banned strategy? Is the "necessarily precede contact" clause an implication that if there is an order of events causing alliance disqualifications, only the first one counts toward the final resolution of the match?

And what about the qualifying rounds? My initial impression is that this changes nothing, even in the situation where a robot attempts this strategy to disqualify the last undisqualified member of the opposing alliance. (The fact that it's in the eliminations seems to be a fundamental part of the scenario.) In that case, both robots get disqualified (instigator and victim), and the remaining alliance members on the instigator's alliance get the benefit of 5.3.6: their own score as RS.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I hadn't thought of that strategy, and probably would never have suggested its implementation. Winning is winning, however.

Regardless, always nice to have FRC more based on robot merit than strategies aimed at disqualifying opposing alliances!

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Oy. I knew this was possible when I read some of the early defensive posts, but I never brought it up to my team since I never wanted them to even think this way in terms of building a robot. It's a good thing the GDC addressed it.

[In general, not completely related to this update] It seems to me that the rules this year could add some severe conflicts of interest if the referees have any affiliation with teams on the field or have a bias based upon a team's history. Who's chasing who? who backed off first? Was something intentional? Did that minibot deploy a fraction of a second too early? They're all subjective and at the mercy of referee interpretations. I don't think it would be a big deal except that the subjective parts are all getting more visibility. At this point I think all we can do is hope that an alliance in elims doesn't appear to try it.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I was actually referring to FIRST lawyering the rules, not you. Sorry for the confusion.