Re: <G28>
 

Ya know, in most forms of racing anything (sailboats excepted)

"Rubbin is Racin"

Having been on the receiving end of the behavior that inspired <G26>, <G27> & <G28>, I like'm. Enforcement will be problematic. Reality is this is a contact sport.

And <G28> has a little problem with the relationship of "its".

Re: <G28>
 

Not to lawyer this up but.....the problem with <G45> is the definition of exploiting. Is forcing one penalty exploiting the <G44> exception of <G28>? Does two, three or four forced penalties make it exploitation? I believe the issue can only be resolved by quantifying what becomes exploitation. Removing <G45> totally would give a greater advantage to the team who owns the particular key, bridge or alley by allowing a larger number of penalties. But setting a number too low could swing the advantage to the team not owning the key, bridge or alley by limiting their penalties for more aggressive play.

Re: <G28>
 

I think the definition of "exploiting" will likely be left to the discretion of the judges, so plan accordingly.

Re: <G28>
 

The other day I overheard our Chief Scout explaining his definition of an "exploitation" of said rules to other students:

Example:
Red Robot is sitting on the Red Key shooting
Blue Robot approaches the Red key and suffers some system failure rendering it motionless.
Red Robot chooses to drive over and taps the Blue robot repeatedly while remaining in contact with the Red Key.

His logic for this being an exploit is that the contact serves no purpose other than to gain a penalty, especially since the Blue robot is not a threat.

Re: <G28>
 

I am almost certain that this is the type of thing the refs will penalize: a penalty only for its own sake.

Re: <G28>
 

Referees! They wear the stripes.

Judges will be dressed in navy blue polo shirts and will be busy interviewing teams in the pits and talking to RCA candidates.

Re: <G28>
 

Regardless, we need an interpretation from the GDC (either TU1 or QA). Is the GDC's intent to keep half of the field completely clear of the opposing alliance (i.e. pushing opponents for area penalties is a legitimate scoring strategy), or are they allowing teams to go in clear areas without worrying about being pushed into penalties?

The current wording leads me to the former, but it is entirely possible I'm lawyering the rules.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to lobby my team for a particular drivetrain without knowing if we have to worry about this.

Re: <G28>
 

Yes, yes, yes... I make that mistake all the time!

Re: <G28>
 

What if we think about the intent of the rule here?
Consider that the intent of the rule is to prevent BLUEBOT from sitting in the red alley stopping red from getting balls. The intent is to allow REDBOT not to be hit while shooting from the key. The intent is to allow the red alliance to balance without worrying about being hit by BLUEBOT.

If that is the intent, then the rules seek to stop BLUEBOT from interfering with red in these ways. If either team operates not in the spirit of the game or FIRST, then it sounds like <G45> wins.

In any event, this will probably be explained in TU1.

Re: <G28>
 

There are days when I really feel sorry for the GDC. A day when I read someone admitting that his interpretation of the rules means matches can be won by a team shoving an opponent into a forbidden corner and repeatedly tagging it to rack up foul points is definitely one of those days. Demanding the GDC explicitly tell us that we can't win a match solely by forcing fouls on our opponent seems pretty silly to me. I know the GDC has made some calls in the past that many of us disagreed with or thought would go the other way, but this one just seems far far too obvious to support this speculation. I'm honestly expecting a Q&A on this to get a rather abrupt smackdown requesting the submitter not lawyer the rules and use some common sense.

Re: <G28>
 

The problem is though that you need to lawyer the rules. You need to go strictly by what the rules say, and not by what you personally think the intent is. I know that on our team, we thought that redirecting balls in breakaway was illegal.

<G45> Active BALL control - ROBOTS may not control BALL direction with active MECHANISMS above the BUMPER ZONE. Violation: PENALTY.

Judging from intent, it seems that you cant redirect balls. In reality active was the key word in that rule, and it wasnt defined as to what constitutes active mechanisms. Had 469 not "lawyered" the rules, we would not have seen one of the best robots in this era.

Does anyone know when update 1 comes out?

Re: <G28>
 

(EDIT: I think my initial stance on this wasn't so clear, so I made a few edits.)

I don't think it's that obvious that the rule should be clarified as you suggest. Below are two scenarios in which violating G28 can win you a match if the rule is clarifed as suggested. In other words, the following two scenarios illustrate that a team that knows that G45 provides protection against multiple G28 infraction causes that team to violate G28 in order to win the match:

In each scenario you have one great robot (robot A) that can pick up balls and score with ease, and another robot that can't pick up balls, can't shoot, but is as large as a refrigerator (robot Z).

Scenario 1:
Robot Z's alliance has three balls in front of Robot A's rebounder station with 40 seconds to go. Robot Z knows Robot A can pick up the balls and score them with ease resulting in losing the match, so Robot Z herds the balls into the corner of the field in the lane and parks their robot so Robot A can't get them.

Robot A tries to shove Robot Z out of the lane in order to get to the balls, which earns Robot A three points for the foul (Robot Z is in violation of G28, so Robot A gets 3 points). Robot Z continues to sit there knowing that Robot A can't get to the balls and they can't continue to touch Robot Z for fear of violating G45 (or even if they don't violate G45, perhaps the refs only award one foul). Robot Z's alliance wins since the 3 point foul is less than the 9 points Robot A would have scored. Violating rule G28 resulted in an advantage to Robot Z.


Scenario 2:
Robot A makes 100% of it's shots from a particular position of the key and is not so good elsewhere in the key (they have a fixed shooter that is highly optimized for one spot). Robot Z knows this and anchors itself to the part of the key that Robot A likes to shoot from. Robot A tries to shove Robot Z out of the way (giving Robot A 3 points for the foul) but can never move Robot Z out of the way since they are an immovable object. Robot A settles for the shot from the side of the key and misses all three shots (it only shoots well from where Robot Z is sitting). Robot Z's alliance wins since the 3 point foul is less than the 9 points it would have given up had Robot A had it's ideal scoring spot. Robot Z gained an advantage by violating G28.


In these two scenarios, do we really want to reward breaking a rule since breaking that rule costs less than if they played by the rules? As far as I'm concerned, in both cases Robot A should be awarded for at least the number of points they had to give up due to Robot Z's violations of G28. If that means awarding Robot A 3 points every time they back up and hit them again to try and move them out of the way, then so be it. The problem is that if the rule is changed, it's easy to violate G28 and get a 6 point advantage by doing so.

Re: <G28>
 

In scenario1, I disagree that G28 was violated. The intent here is to make the alleyway defendable, but not to make passing robots into targets.

In scenario 2, I disagree with both quoted statements. Z did not violate G28 and the driver of A is a fool and should have made at least 4 substantial runs into the opposing robot and thus gained 12 points. Z was out of position and deserved the points.

Moral: defend far enough away from the zones to be reasonable and if the opponent comes tearing at you , dodge and remember, they are wasting their time instead of scoring.

Re: <G28>
 

Just curious, how different is that than a situation in which a team realizes the proximity of an opponents robot (say, playing defense), and while in the key bumps them several times? To me, that's "exploiting" a rule, but well within the intent and language of the rule.


Either way, I'd appreciate a clear interpretation to prevent ambiguity. That's not something I want to find out at the first regional.

Re: <G28>
 

Ha ha. That is too funny. Does this mean that two robots could sit there and rack up a huge number of fouls and set a scoring record?
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