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.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

<G32> and <G33> both have inexcusable flaws (see quote below) that the GDC added in a hasty attempt to get people to play the game how they want it played. This left a conspicuous hole in the rules that urgently needs to be fixed, probably by completely rewording these two rules. However, the GDC is instead adding circuitous supplements to the rules that make them extremely subjective and... In other words, I cannot see this ending well.

IMO, the issues started by adding an exception to <R61> to these rules, if anything, such an exception should have been added to <R61>.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

This is my 10th year in FRC, and perhaps I'm just no good at this, but I find this whole thing very confusing. I bet I'm not the only one...

Would anyone care to provide a simpler plainer version of what exactly the issue was, what they did to fix it, and what the new issue is now?

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

The issue was simple. As the rules stood before today, if my robot pushed your robot into my zone, and you contacted another robot from my side in the zone (or if I pushed you far enough in that my robot was also in the zone) then your team would be given a red card. My team would receive a yellow card, but in elimination rounds this would mean my robot could push yours into my zone and thereby win the match automatically.

To fix it, they said that if I intentionally push you into my zone, I get disqualified and my alliance loses the match. Apparently this ruling only applies to elimination, so I can still DQ you (if I am willing to take a yellow card) if I push you into another robot in my zone. If I unintentionally push you into another robot in my zone (such as trying to get you out of the way so I can score) then you still get a red card.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I do think that if they want the basic rule to be as it is now, that you can't intrude into the other side's zone at all, then they have reached a reasonable compromise per the rules. I would simply prefer the "you can't make another robot get a penalty" rule. If I push you into my zone it is not a penalty. My intent doesn't matter. But it seems as though the GDC wants the zone to be inviolate, so this ruling at least prevents the cheesy strategy of disqualifying your opponents by pushing them into your zone.

I completely agree, however, that this is going to be difficult to adjudicate on the fly. Not impossible, but it is going to involve quite some difficulty. (Somehow I am seeing endless "instant" replay delays in my head right now.) Further, I am kind of surprised that they didn't see this coming. It is not as though the situation they said "has come to our attention" was difficult to see. And it was extensively discussed here on Chief Delphi when the update with that ruling came into being.

The oddly specific rules don't bother me that much. I guess that coaching track and cross-country for the last two decades has given me a much higher tolerance for weird rules than most. (I have seen a relay team disqualified after two officials spent five minutes determining that the black on one set of compression shorts was significantly different from the black on another set of compression shorts. And numerous athletes disqualified because the stitching on the t-shirt under there uniform was a different color than the t-shirt itself.) FIRST has had some rules like this in the past.

Honestly, I have found that regardless of my like or dislike of the rules for a particular game, my enjoyment of competitions has not been significantly altered by liking the game or not. Certainly the years when we have had a really good robot have been fun, but that has not correlated well with how much I liked the game. I loved Aim High's rules, and our robot was honestly not that great. I loved playing Triple Play (our robot was very effective) even though I really didn't care that much for the game/rules during the build season. I thought FIRST Frenzy would be awesomely exciting when the rules came out and it turned out to be one of my least favorite games, even though I had a ton of fun because we had a really cool arm and it was the first time we qualified for the Championships. So I guess my message would be no matter what the state of the rules, go have fun. The competition will be a blast.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

For this example we have 3 bots: RA, BA, BB (A of the Red Alliance, A and B of Blue alliance, respectively)

RA is the defense bot for the Red Alliance and is on the caution line in front of the Blue Zone.

BA is in the Blue Zone, placing a tube.

BB pushes RA into the Blue Zone and directly into BA.

This triggers some rules violations:
1. A G32 violation assigned to RA. Since it touched another Robot it gets a Red Card and G32 isn't subject to G61
2. A G32 strategy aimed at the fact that G61 doesn't apply goes to BB. Yellow Card and Penalty

BEFORE UPDATE 16:
IF you're in a Qual: RA gets a Red Card, BB gets a yellow. This may be important in the final match of qualifications.

IF you're in an Elim: Red Alliance is DQed, BB gets a yellow (and remember Yellow + Yellow = Red).

GDC doesn't want that so:

AFTER UPDATE 16:
If you try and pull this off in an elimination as a strategy BB gets a Red Card.

Then the GDC went and added that order of Red Cards matter (a new rule, not anywhere in the rule book) and that an Egregious Behavior Red Card (the equivalent of a double yellow) that would normally not be issued until match end now is an immediate action that happens as soon the strategy is taken.

End of Description, now for a slight editorialization:

This is a very inelegant solution. The better solution (IMO) is to change the violation for G32 violation to read as follows:
Violation: PENALTY. G61 does not apply to this rule, however strategies aimed at taking advantage of this exception will result in a PENALTY plus a YELLOW CARD. If a ROBOT enters the opponent's ZONE and does not leave within 10 seconds OR if it contacts another ROBOT (or GAME PIECE in its POSSESSION) also in the ZONE, then the intruding TEAM will receive four (4) additional PENALTIES.

This would put it on that same level of timing as Pining but without quite as much penalty (because of the fact that it ignores G61).

-Joe Kavanagh
Of course the whole problem could be removed if you delete "G61 does not apply to this rule" but that ship has sailed.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Amen.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

Why did the GDC decide to make G61 not apply to these rules? All of these loopy rules and non-rules and extra exceptions are really, really confusing.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I believe that they simply did not want any interference with scoring in the zone. So they made it prohibitively risky to try to play defense anywhere near the zone. In game design one of the most common problems you run into is this sort of "rules creep" where you keep modifying and modifying to try to get things to turn out exactly the way you want. Generally when you start to do this you should stop, step back and try to examine basic premises again.

But for all I know the GDC did just that and decided that keeping defenders out of the zone was important enough that they had to have a rule like this. In that case, this is a reasonable (if quite difficult to adjudicate) middle ground to take. Make it all about perceived intent. I still think it means that you are foolish to attempt defense near your opponents zone. Better to try to block them in the middle of the field.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

OK, here is my proposal to simplify this while still maintaining basically what the GDC is trying to do (removing the G61 exception entirely is simple but obviously not what they want). Lets use the Caution Line to make judgement calls (instead of it just being a waste of yellow tape). I am going to express it using scenarios.

If Redabot has already broken the vertical plane of the Caution Line and then is caused to enter Blue's zone by Blueabot Violation: Penalty on Redabot and possible Red Card for contacting another Blueabot in the Zone.

If Redabot is outside of the vertical plane of the Caution Line and then is caused to enter Blue's zone by Blueabot Violation: Yellow Card on Blueabot, possible Red Card if it is egregious. In this scenario I would give Redabot G61 protection (no penalties) but if GDC wanted to it could be Penalty on Redabot and possible Red Card for contacting another Blueabot in the Zone.

I think of the caution line as a "cross at your own risk" line. If you cross it you are waiving your G61 protection and inviting opposing robots to push you into the zone for penalties since you are so close to to their scoring Zone. If you want to play it safe, it is easy to avoid their caution line if you drive smart. Can we agree this caution line interpretation would be easier to enforce and play the game.

Also the part where if both alliances get a Red Card in eliminations one can win is completely illogical. If both alliances are disqualified, how can one be qualified to win that match? :confused: Just replay the match like in previous years where there are double DQs (like 06). Seriously, who want to see an alliance win an elim match by getting a Red Card and somehow being less disqualified than their opponents?:yikes: That is the worst possible way to declare a winner.

Re: Team Update #16 - EMERGENCY
 

I had several people from teams at the Alamo Regional ask me about this update. They didn't know about it and I didn't know about it.

Now we do. I was glad to see news spread through the regional so quickly and that they wanted to access the actual information rather than go by word of mouth.

Jane