Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery
Thank you for volunteering to write the rules next year.
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Ooh, can I volunteer too? I'd love to be on the GDC.
(Yes, I know this was a sarcastic response to an insulting comment, but in seriousness, I do think it would be awesome to be a part of the GDC.)
As for the question at hand, I have seen a few past competitions where one robot has tipped and then another (both alliance and opponent) have picked up the tipped robot. I've also seen times when one robot tried to pick up a tipped robot, and ended up failing - either tipping themselves or getting tangled - and this is certainly more common.
For the most part, robots are not designed to pick up other robots, and so attempting to do so will take a lot of time and not succeed. If it is an alliance member which is tipped, then the coaches on that alliance need to make a decision about what to do - push the robot out of the way, attempt to pick it upright, or leave it as-is. If it is an opponent which is tipped, then, in my opinion, the gracious thing to do is to help them, if possible. It is certainly not gracious to "beet them while they're down". It is a very tough call, however, to determine "will my actions attempting to help this other robot be more likely to help them or to damage them?" The safe thing to do, from the perspective of not damaging the other robot, and to avoid the possibility of getting penalties, is probably to ignore them. I would expect "ignoring" and "gently pushing out of the way - aligning them with the flow of traffic" to be the two most common, and probably best, solutions.
As for the likelihood of robots tipping - there certainly will be some that tip, as there are every year. Compare this to the 2005 game, Triple Play. This year we are picking up an 8-10 pound ball roughly 8 feet (putting the center of the 40" ball at 8'2" puts the bottom at 6'6", the height of the overpass). In 2005, the tetras weight around 15 pounds and were lifted 12-14 feet. That's more weight at a higher elevation. How often did the 2005 robots tip? Certainly they tipped over some, but not THAT often.