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Originally Posted by Joe J.
I would have to say the penalties for breaking the plane, I think the rule was a little excessive and a "your robot cannot fully cross the line in a clockwise direction" would been sufficient. Or maybe limit it to your robots main frame cannot fully cross the line in a clockwise direction, to take the appendage out of the equation.
That rule decided too many matches.
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To be fair, leaving out a consequence for crossing the plane would open you up to the ref's interpretation, which means many teams would be angry at inconsistency. At one regional they might hand out yellow cards, at another they might hand out only warnings. Maybe at a third regional they'd give your alliance -10 if someone on your team crossed the plane no matter how many times it happened. Since even now there are actions teams can (and do) take that break the plane legitimately and with positive benefit (placing a ball, freeing a partner from the overpass), what would the refs do in that situation? How would they ensure consistency? What would stop teams from going backwards to get that trackball "just this once"?
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That said, the amount and complexity of the penalty-based rules meant that you needed well trained and consistent refs available, which wasn't always the case at all regionals. Reducing the number of penalty-inducing rules would make for a more consistent game. Bumping to pass could probably have been removed without a massive change in the character of the game.
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An improved implementation of G22 might be to put an RFID tag under the robot, and have sensor strips under the carpet that detect how far forward it has gone. If it crossed 'too far back' from its furthest-forward line, then the field scoring software could automatically add a G22. This would allow for real-time penalty-giving, and would allow for more forgiving zones* that you couldn't cross (i.e. nudging backwards after moving to a new quadrant wouldn't be an instant G22).
*It would be difficult to implement more forgiving line-crossing with humans because of the logic required to track where a robot has been with 6 robots on field.