Should this have been allowed?
 

Hello, I am the team leader of team 3082, and I have a question about a situation that occurred during a semifinals match causing our team to loose. During the last 40 seconds of the match, we had completed on logo and put up two of the three tubes needed for the logo on our left side, all we needed was the square. We had that tube and were attempting to place it and while we were releasing it, a tube thrown by the human player knocked it out of the claw and away from the peg making us unable to score the piece in the final amount of time and still deploy the minibot, so we were unable to complete the logo. After the match we talked with the head ref who said "It was inadvertent" which is why they did not call the team on it and issue a red card. But aren't all penalties and red cards inadvertent? The strange thing here is that this directly caused us to looses the tiebreaker match and not make it to finals. This was heartbreaking for us, and we were wondering if this ruling was correct or should have been looked over differently. It is apparent that first by all means wants to prevent human actions on the field from preventing scoring as shown by tubes which land on the tower. Is there anything first can do for us? This was very sad for the team to be the alliance captain of the 3rd alliance, yet not win any awards. I know this might not make total sense, but I was wondering what everyone else thought the ruling should be on such a devastating move.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Can you cite a rule in the manual or team updates that states this is an illegal action, even if done purposefully?

If not, it was a completely legal move.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

If I am correct it's perfectly legal to throw tubes at an opposing alliances robot. Thus causing then to drop such tube. It is illegal in the same regard to throw a tube to knock a tube off the wall. Although I'm not condoning this because it's un gracious.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Unfortunately the calls like that have been extremely different throughout the regionals. There is no rule that specifically forbids this (please correct me if im wrong), but it is clearly some sort of intentional non-gracious professionalism act, at least from the story, since the opposing human player is on the same side as your robot in the zone. 461 has gone through even worse luck than that, so i know how you feel.
Good luck in the future,
Duke
P.S. The only rule you could bring up is intentionally trying to hurt another robot.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

That is the issue, there is no rule against it, but it seems like there should have been because of the actual use of human feeders. There is however a rule against human feeders de-scoring game pieces, of which our piece was "almost scored since it was touching our peg and robot at the same time.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Interestingly enough, after one human player at Lone Star inadvertantly struck a tube from out gripper while trying to hang, because the refs saw this as completely legal, it became a game strategy for teams trying to stop tube hanging. Though I don't agree with it for it's not truly in the spirit of the game, it is completely legal.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

That's some good aim and distance if it was intentional. At the LA regional I saw some throwers that looked like they'd practiced their technique for weeks...and they still threw about 10% of their tubes out of bounds.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

If team A is trying to score in their zone, then Human player on team B is right next to them....

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Yes, because playing the game in a legal manner is ungracious. Next thing you will tell me that using my robot in the manner of a battering ram is un-gp. You knew the rules and by not designing your gripper to take a hit you decided that you would take the risk. If I call your bluff it isn't un-gp it is just good strategy.

I've said it before and I will say it again, if I am on the field across from you and find a way of winning a match that is within the rules I will take it. If this means that my strategy incidentally results in damaging your gripper because it was not designed robustly enough then so be it. Will I help you rebuild the gripper? Sure. Were my actions in any way "un-gp"? Not in the slightest. I'm not going to pull a punch on any team. I think going easy on anyone is disrespectful to them.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

There is nothing FIRST would do about that situation. A referee's call is final.

Your team showed up to the 10000 Lakes competition and did a great job. Our team played with you in the qualifiers, and your people were great alliance partners. I'm sure that your match could have gone either way, and I think both alliances deserved to advance to the next round. When alliances are closely matched, that's part of the deal, and one does not need to feel bad about oneself when the luck doesn't come through. Having said that, it's also true that any team that loses a close match could have won it comfortably (even with some poor luck) if they had built their robot that much better.

But none of that is the reason I wanted to respond to your post. I would invite you to look at this endeavor in a different way. A lack of awards does not equal failure. The whole difficult process of this competition is the important thing here. Running a bunch of students and mentors through that gauntlet is what is changing the world for the better, not the act of bringing home a trophy.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

This is the only rule governing the situation and it only talks about scoring on a opponents peg or descoring, nothing about the feeder interfering with the act of scoring.

G39> ROBOTS and FEEDERS may not SCORE on their opponent's PEGS or descore their opponent‟s GAME PIECES, or interfere with their opponent‟s TOWERS. Violation: PENALTY plus RED CARD.

I would bet that if the GDC is made aware of teams intentionally interfering with a robot in the act of scoring they would make it a penalty.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

At Peachtree this was specifically clarified as a LEGAL strategy- HOWEVER, if that Human Player throws a tube, it bounces off of our robot, and DESCORES one of our hung tubes, they get a penalty. (I believe a red card)

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

This Q&A response should help answer your question. Particularly, read the GDC's answer to question number 3:

It is permissible to throw a game piece so that it hits another alliance's robot, unless that robot is deploying a minibot. All other situations appear to be okay though. Personally I think it's a little ungracious, but one should probably account for such things when designing their mechanism to handle tubes, especially when there are many more high-impact events that could cause you to drop a tube inadvertently.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

As far as I can tell, this was 100% legal.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Folks,

I never cease to be amazed that so many people want to substitute their opinions about GP-ness, Spirit-of-the-Game, and similar nebulous concepts for the rulebook. I certainly don't.

Instead I embrace the rules; and I consider following them meticulously to be the very embodiment of those sorts of concepts.

If the rule authors make statements outside of the rules that contradict or appear to contradict what the rules allow, then I come down firmly on the side of those statements being either mistakes, or being interesting but irrelevant; and not on the side of treating them as new rules.

If those statements made outside the rules were new/different rules, then they would actually be rules, and not comments associated with the rules.

I can sympathize with the OP asking their question, for the sake of confirming that they didn't overlook something when they did their mental post-mortem review of the situation.

It's the rest of the folks (and its not the same people each time) that make me scratch my head.

Dear OP - What occured wasn't illegal. Referees use the rules to call the game. The rules determine what is legal/illlegal. What would you want a referee to do? Decide to add a rule?

Recently at a robotics tournament I commented to someone that following the law (the rules) doesn't always result in justice; but, that I believed the alternative leads to worse outcomes. That comment might apply in this situation.

Blake

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.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

If the robot's tube was between the human and midfield, it sounds like the possessed tube was over the lane, which is a lane violation-- perhaps that should have warranted a penalty. Sounds like the robot put the tube in the thrower's throwing path. But I didn't see it, I'm just going by what's described here and the thrower's statement that he had no intent to interfere.

John Vriezen
Team 2530 "Inconceivable"
Mentor, Drive Coach, Inspector

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Using a thrown tube as a defensive object to interfere with the opponent attempting to score is allowed within the rules, as is using a robot as a defensive object, within limits. Is it a good strategy? that is debatable. Is it ungracious? I don't think so. As I have stated, this is a competition, you are supposed to COMPETE. If is allowed in the rules, it is OK to do, and therefore cannot be ungracious.

In my opinion, it is dangerous (at Peachtree, on two occasions, teams received red cards for trying this strategy and de-scoring tubes). It was attempted several times on our team, and we just welcomed the tubes and scored them (except the one that deflated after a particularly hard throw at our bot). Here is a video of a HP trying it. Watch at about 38 seconds in.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

If nothing else poor human player plays have upgraded the comedic potential of the event. Especially on the dry hours of an early Friday afternoon.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

Interestingly enough, our Human Player was Yellow Carded at FLR for throwing a tube that hit an opponent robot that was in its zone. If I remember right, the robot didn't even have a tube.

I believe <T06> was what it was sited under, although that's a very general all encompassing... refs can make decisions needed type rule... Being that it was a week 1 event, my guess is that it just wasn't clear whether it was legal and within the spirit of the rules or not.

Im glad to see an actual ruling (at least by the Q&A).

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

I talked to a judge in D.C. about this. It is not illegal UNLESS it disobeys the rule of entanglement. So, essentially, unless the tube gets stuck on the robot, it is LEGAL.

Re: Should this have been allowed?
 

I'm doubting that entanglement reasoning. That should only apply to a robot and robot actions. The point there is to keep robots from getting entangled with each other. I know it doesn't apply this year, but in 2007 it was perfectly legal to throw tubes on robots with the expectation they'd get caught. The gdc expected teams to design robots that weren't vulnerable to this.