[MrJohnston]

We found that the best time to deal with these questions - in the question box - was the day before teh competition started, even before the drivers' meeting. By doing so, we had ample time to actually discuss concerns with the head referee and get clarity. In Seattle, he was great: He acknowledged the ambiguity in the rules and gave us a straight answer. He then had a couple of long discussions with his referee team and got back to us with a changed opinion.

The key part of the G18-1 rule is that, in order to be slapped with a technical, a robot must be adopting a tactic that has the SOLE purpose of trying to draw a foul.

We told the ref that were were a full court shooter and that our game was largely based around cross-court shots and makign sure that we had an open line of fire. When faced with an 84" defender, we would have challenges (duh).... We told him taht we would then want to push ourselves up across the autoline where the tall robot could not go so that we would have a clear shot. He agreed that, as long as we had Frisbees in our hopper and were going to shoot when getting to the line, we clearly had a purpose other than to draw the technical and that it would become the tall robot's responsibility to not cross teh autoline. Of course, if we were to manuever in such a way that the tall robot could not get back, the technical woudl be on us.

We also discussed the contact around the protected feeder. I did learn that one of hte questions on the referee-qualification-quiz asks whether or not a foul should be assessed every time there is contact in the protected zone. The answer is YES. Unless the protected robot is doing something for the SOLE purpose of trying to draw a foul, the foul will be called against the other bot. AGain, we spoke to the referee about our challenges in lining up with the feeder and target for targeting puposes and the need to clear shots against taller robots - and we never had an issue with it. The only question we still had was, "How many times can another robot foul us in the protected zone before it becomes a technical?"

We intend to have a simliar conversation with the referees at St. Louis so that we know the rules of engagement, so to speak. The G18-1 rulings have been called very differently at different regionals, so who knows what is going to happen at Nationals? We just want to know the rules before we start. We want it to be called once way consistently so that our drivers know what is and is not fair game.