Yeah, I agree with those that say you really can't write rules for these kinds of things, aside from what's already in the current rules, so I'll just say some thoughts.
I wonder if one of Aidan's intentions was to show us how hard it is to write and interpret the rules. Whether it was or not, I think this thread has shown it.
For tipping, I would say you can't really make a fair DQ for someone that tips a robot playing defense. The only easy way to fairly DQ them is if they have a scoop or lift that intentionally picks up a robot and flips it. If a robot is top heavy, you should probably expect that you could end up flipping. But I would hope that any team in FIRST would not consciously decide that they will aim for them at their most unstable condition and take that opportunity to flip them. They could have most likely just pushed and shoved to keep them at bay rather than flipping them. I have seen robots become just a little unstable and the opp seemingly comes in under them for the kill and finishes them off. Intentional? Don't know. Who's not to say it was an accidental wrong joystick movement? Or maybe they couldn't see you were slightly unstable and thought they were just pushing you around.
For agressive play, there is one match that stands out in my mind as overly aggressive moves. Keep in mind, my intention is not to single out or bash teams, but providing and example of my opinion of overly aggressive play.
Q111 in archimedes, 494 was against 111. Wildstang was on the mid-platform and hooked. 494 came flying at relatively high speed from the floor, across the mid-platform, "rammed" into Wildstang and went flying off the other side of the platform, taking Wildstang with them. Now 111 was off the platform and a corner of them was on top of 494 due to how they landed. So 494 reversed and went flying back onto the platform, across, and off the other side taking 111 with them the whole time, and in the process breaking their hook I believe.
Now, 111 went on to win that match I think by capping and other things, but I feel that it was unnecessary to make a couple high speed passes "bashing" into the side of them, seemingly dragging them along like a ragdoll. But that's just my opinion. Now how do you write that into a rule? I don't have any idea. I guess you can show a video of it, as suggested before. I wouldn't say either that 494s intention was to break 111's hook. So aggressive play calls comes down into the hands of the refs and their interpretation of the rule. You can only write a rule that satisfies so many people. But maybe they can become more and more satisfying to more and more people in the future and hopefully this kind of collaboration helps that effort.
I don't necessarily think that we need to have "no contact" zones on a field to prevent this type of play, but there could be an aspect where it fit. That takes some fun out of robot interaction, especially if the scoring object is in that zone. I feel one of the main objectives in this game is, besides scoring your own points, is to keep your opponent from scoring more than you. I would hate to see the rules become so restricted that it limits robot interaction.
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Originally Posted by KenWittlief
Blue bot is directly infront of its stationary goal and is attempting to place the 2X ball. Red bot pushes it from the side, attempting to push it away from the goal, or Red bot gets behind it and attempts to latch on and pull it away, and in either case the Blue bot is toppled. Red bot shall be disqualified for tipping, even if no contact outside the bumper zone occurs.
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I don't think this should be true either. If team 45 or 71 are in front of their stny goal trying to cap, you better believe someone's gonna try to push us out of the way, and they have. I know that 71 had been pushed a lot from the side in order to keep them from capping and it worked. But they didn't tip, and there was no ramming involved. Now you're saying that if 71 was tipped, the opp should be penalized? So they're supposed to sit there and watch as 71 doubles their points? No.
There's some robots you don't know which is the front/back/sides. So how do you call that now? We could cap the stny goal with any of our sides facing the goal. So now a team has to be able to physically see my robot and determine which side I'm facing in order to play defense.
Teams also don't necessarily know that if they push from a certain side that the other robot will tip. If someone pushed 45 from the side while a 2x in their arm was 6 feet off to the side, we might flip, but we could have had our arm in a different position to keep from flipping. So, it's not necessarily the opponent's fault. It's the nature of the game - to keep someone from scoring.
Entanglement - Unless a team does it habitually against another team (as with any of the ramming/tipping actions), you can't call entanglement intentions. You can disable due to safety hazards, but I think there are many entanglements that can be freed. With arms and grippers like in this game, that's one tool that can be used to keep someone from scoring a 2x, by holding their arm down. If our arm becomes entangled somehow, we should be allowed some time to free the entanglement or remain entangled for defensive purposes as long as nothing's on fire.
I just keep coming back to common sense. There are so many ways to play offense/defense aside from ramming/tipping/etc. I think the rules are ok as they stand, but I'm sure there can be improvements. The judges do a pretty good job on these types of calls, whether we think so or not at times. If you see a trend of mean-spirited driving habits (there should be none in this organization), then warnings and flags should be flying. The idea of handing out warnings, yellow, red, etc, I think is a good one, but should apply for all their matches (vs bring the yellow ones to your next two matches only). Tangible warnings would at least let the team know their actions are questionable and on the verge of DQ.
That's my xx cents.
And I just realized how long this post is.. Sorry.