[Qbranch]

I don't think there will be any rule change about the blocking in autonomous. It's kind of obvious when people are doing it on purpose and when they arent, but I just don't think there will be any kind of rule against this.

However, to deal with blocking robots, 1024 is possibly going to hand shifter control over to RALFF (our autonomous driver). In this case, if an obstruction is detected by the forward ultrasonic sensor array, our robot would gently (2 ft/sec) approach a robot which 'accidentally' got in the way, shift in to low gear, and push whatever is in the way out of the way with our 299lb pushing force (sustainable about 5 seconds at this 299lb level).

As usual, as soon as the traffic is cleared, the robot will continue on it's usual course. If for some reason the robot does not slide away from the front of our robot, ours would continue to push the robot at the 2ft/sec speed until the end of the hybrid period.

The thought of doing something like that never occurred even as a thought to our programming team until a certain 'explosive' robot continually blocked our autonomous. Don't take that as me complaining, I understand there is no rule that says you can't, and opposing robots have the same right to win as their opposition does.

See you all at Boilermaker!

-q

EDIT: While the drivetrain can produce 299lbf, I'm not 100% sure what exactly the tires can put to the floor. This has never been tested. Nope, we don't have any supersticky materials or anything.