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Unread 25-01-2009, 15:33
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Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
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FRC #0188 (Woburn Robotics)
 
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Re: pic: Ball Harvester

Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepWater View Post
What I BELIEVE the GDC intent is to limit all contact with the trailer to the bumper only. I would even be willing to bet that at inspection there will be a legal TRAILER that will be pushed into and around your ROBOT and you better have designed it such that nothing but the BUMPERS of the trailer can touch your ROBOT inside and out. In other words, if you have an opening on the front of your robot such that the trailer can partially go inside your robot there is no such thing as "incidental contact" outside the bumper zone. The whole point of the drawings in Update #2 was to make sure we understood that the trailer bumper couldn't touch anything inside/under/etc. our robots, only the legal front minimum 6" bumpers. If you have an intake roller near the front of your robot with protrusions on it designed to grab the balls and pull them into your robot you better be careful that they can't touch the bumpers (or any other part) of the trailers.
I'm still thinking this <G32> situation through, but I notice that the Q&A includes the following discussion:
Quote:
Originally Posted by FRC1120
(1) are two pictured configurations in Update 2 "legal"? They seem to meet all parts of <R08> and thus we are assuming they are legal. Correct assumption?

(2) Is it acceptable for the robot to extend over the bumper zone of the TRAILER (not of the robot), that is the "opponent's trailer", as shown? is this "incidental contact"?

(3) If it IS ok to extend, any limits on reaching/touching the trailer posts?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GDC
We believe that the two example illustrations in Team Update #2 are correct and satisfy the conditions defined in Rule <R08> as intended.

As shown in the illustrations, it is physically possible for a legal ROBOT configuration to partially enclose a TRAILER, including extending over the BUMPERS of the TRAILER. There are no rules that would prevent this, provided the TRAILER (including the BUMPERS, base, and vertical pipes) is not grasped, grappled, or attached to in a manner that would cause a violation of Rule <G29>).
And <G29> states, in part, that "ROBOTS may push or react against any elements of the ARENA, provided there is no damage or disruption of the ARENA elements."

The way I interpret this, you can definitely touch the bars on other robots' trailers, without penalty, as long as you don't grasp/grapple/attach to, damage, climb or wedge the trailers.

By the way, here's a question on a related topic, in which the GDC seems to ignore the question of touching a trailer's posts (concentrating on the part of the question dealing with spreading them). Although their non-answer is in no way definitive, it might be an indication that they don't consider mere contact a problem. (But they should really avoid non-answers.)
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