Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Its an awful strategy. You pretty much give the other team another piece to use directly in front of their bot.

Don't think of it as unprofessional, they are actually helping you out. hehe

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Totally agree on the fact that legal strategies are... legal. And that throwing tubes at your opponent's claw is legal.

However, you obviously need to be careful about strategies that "incidentally" damage an opponent's robot. There that whole rule outlawing strategies solely intended to damage or disable an opponent's robot. Your intention should clearly be defending the robot in some fashion. As opposed to aiming directly for its arm to damage and disbale it while it doesn't even have a tube near it.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Intentional damage would be covered under the rules dealing with egregious behavior imho. That being said, I've been in FRC since the days when wedges were a viable strategy and metal on metal was the norm.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Going a little off topic, since i think the original question has been answered, has anyone tried "spamming" the opponets zone by throwing tube after tube into the zone until the teams cannot score? seems like a fun strategy for the human player

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Works great until you realize that they can floor load.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

So that's what that human player was doing when they were throwing all those tubes in the opposing zone. And here I thought they were just terrible at their job.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

:D
Speaking of which: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I52nJ5bJYkU

But i mean like so many that it would take them a while to get all the tube out of the way

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

I did something just as bad... I am the human player for 503, and I threw a tube over the wall, hit the nearest minibot pole, and it bounced back and scored for the opposing alliance on the middle rack thus earning a red card (it was a square). this was at the troy regional, match 13. wow.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

I'd be more than happy to get them out of the way. Know just where I'd put them too.

This strategy does work with some select robots at the Feeder Station, but only because the Lane Divider keeps them from simply plowing the tubes aside. By the Grid, you've got a lot more room and Pegs that stick out rather handily. You'd probably run out of tubes before you blocked some of the better scorers, especially those with arms. And even if it takes a bit, once they scored the one they came with, they've got a whole slew at their proverbial fingertips.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

This was the first thing I thought of when reading the OP. The field geometry would make it hard to interfere with anything but the side to the left of the drivers (square) without the feeder stepping outside the station to do it. If the game piece did not come over the wall of the feeder station, the feeder deserved a penalty. Even if the penalty had been assessed, it would not have counteracted the loss of logo completion score.

I must confess that I did not pay a lot of attention to feeder activities during the regional I just attended. I did see several more hand excursions through the slot than were penalized, as some were.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

I believe that I was the thrower that hit your tube and I would like to say I am sorry. I did not mean to hit your tube and would not like that to be the reason that we won if it was. I hope that you will forgive me.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

I was FTAA at the Connecticut Regional. As one who was really in the heat of things, I can tell you that human players were not perfect in throwing the tubes. In fact there were many times that a human player threw the tube & it went in a completely different direction of the intended throw. Being on the sidelines as FTAA is not all fun & games. There were a lot of throws that went outside the field, hitting FTA, FTAA, Refs, scorekeepers & scoring tables. So many hit the minibot towers I thought the lights would break right off. I agree that I can't see how a human player could throw a tube & hit a robot about to place a tube on the rack. I suppose he could hit the end one on the top, but nowhere else. I saw no players able to throw the entire length of the field in the air. The aerodynamics of the tubes are lousy.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

The robot was trying to score the square, at the very edge of the scoring pegs and therefore was right next to the human player. The robot turned and the tube ended up between the thrower and the middle of the field, where he was aiming.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world & things do happen.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Not when there's not enough time left it's not. And it's not unprofessional regardless.