IRI Rule Changes

[Chris Hibner]

Sorry to the IRI organizers for jumping the gun here, but there are a few rule changes for this game that I'd like to get out in the open before I forget about them.

1) If the ball leaves the field of play on the drivers' side of the truss, the ball must be returned to the driver station human player. This includes truss-passes that do not count because they were wide of the pole. (I felt this should have been the rule all year.)

Rationale: there needs to be more risk in the truss passing. As of now, if you're under any defensive pressure you can just shoot the ball wildly out of bounds and the down-field HP will get the ball in about the same amount of time as if you made a perfect truss pass. The game should require some accuracy in the truss game. The current game is like if you were given a 15 yard gain in football for throwing the ball out of bounds under pressure - that's crazy.

2) Allow up to 6 balls for autonomous.

Rationale: There are going to be so many good teams at IRI that I would love to see a lot of teams run multi-ball routines in the same match. It would also add a bit of risk/reward - can you imagine having to chase down 3-4 albatross balls. Yikes.

[cmrnpizzo14]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

*snip*
2) Allow up to 6 balls for autonomous.
*snip*

I like that this will be a good incentive for a goalie bot during auton too. Imagine if people actually figure out how to block a 3 ball auton.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

I like that this will be a good incentive for a goalie bot during auton too. Imagine if people actually figure out how to block a 3 ball auton.

*cough cough* 1114 *cough cough*

[Yipyapper]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

2) Allow up to 6 balls for autonomous.

Love it.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Allow a ball to be taken off a pedestal at any time but penalize an alliance for inbounding the ball early before the assist lights go off.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Allow a ball to be taken off a pedestal at any time but penalize an alliance for inbounding the ball early before the assist lights go off.

I think the penalty for taking the ball off the pedestal should stay.

I think the penalty for inbounding should only be applied if it is inbounded before the last ball is physically scored (not when scored by the ref).

Rationale: The team has already been penalized for taking a ball off the pedestal. If the ball is inbounded after the last ball has scored, then there really is no harm. It also eliminates the requirement that a team remove the "dead ball" before the next cycle can start.

One other possible change is: When the live ball is scored, the dead ball then becomes a live ball, and the cycle starts from there. Again, the team has already been penalized 100 points (50 for removing from the pedestal, and 50 for inbounding before the last ball is scored) so no team would intentionally do it to save a few seconds.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Allow a ball to be taken off a pedestal at any time but penalize an alliance for inbounding the ball early before the assist lights go off.

Absolutely this!! and making sure they only grab 1 at a time.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Allow a ball to be taken off a pedestal at any time but penalize an alliance for inbounding the ball early before the assist lights go off.

Really like this. It would take some of the stress off refs and field volunteers, and it would shorten the transition between cycles. The only issue I can think of would be if a human player inbounds a new ball, expecting a robot to score but it misses. I think the extra ball could basically be treated as an auto ball if this occurs.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

The only issue I can think of would be if a human player inbounds a new ball, expecting a robot to score but it misses. I think the extra ball could basically be treated as an auto ball if this occurs.

This would be a foul, because the assist lights won't turn off until a ball is actually scored.

[MechEng83]

I think having 6 balls in auto might "break" the game and give a disproportionate advantage to multi-ball auto teams; but maybe 4 balls? This introduces an interesting element of making a decision which robot gets an extra ball (if any) without making everyone think they HAVE to have a multi-ball auto.

Also, as a hypothetical, could you imagine 6 balls on each side that all miss? 12 balls on the field would be absolute mayhem.

[Tungrus]

Good rules!

The truss shot rule mentioned by Chris should be extended little more, 20pt foul if the truss shot goes outside the field but not caught by HP or HP does not even touch the ball without leaving HP zone.

Rationale: So many teams have been randomly shooting over the truss, sometimes putting volunteers/refs/judges in awkward dodging game.

Also the volunteer getting such balls should walk and bring the ball to HP, not run or throw the ball. Shooting randomly should have some consequence.

[pandamonium]

Both Goals and truss + 10pts during last 30 seconds.

[Paul Copioli]

Make autonomous actually autonomous.

I mean, the Kinect and webcam driving made for cool interaction during "auton", but they were both just different ways to drive the robot in auton.

Even the hybrid auton of 2008 didn't allow for that much driving in auton.

Don't get me wrong, I love how teams took the Q&A ruling and used it to their advantage, but I feel this will probably be changed in future years (unless it will no longer be a true autonomous period).

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Make autonomous actually autonomous.

I mean, the Kinect and webcam driving made for cool interaction during "auton", but they were both just different ways to drive the robot in auton.

Even the hybrid auton of 2008 didn't allow for that much driving in auton.

Don't get me wrong, I love how teams took the Q&A ruling and used it to their advantage, but I feel this will probably be changed in future years (unless it will no longer be a true autonomous period).

I agree. Though if this is done, I would also get rid of hot goals - just make all auto balls hot (or not), since you still can't count on deterministic timing of the goals as of Champs.

[jagen31]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Make autonomous actually autonomous.

I mean, the Kinect and webcam driving made for cool interaction during "auton", but they were both just different ways to drive the robot in auton.

Even the hybrid auton of 2008 didn't allow for that much driving in auton.

Don't get me wrong, I love how teams took the Q&A ruling and used it to their advantage, but I feel this will probably be changed in future years (unless it will no longer be a true autonomous period).

I agree. I spent the majority of build season writing and testing vision code in opencv (first time using it, great library.) We got to the competition and had an issue with exposure and an issue with communication. So, I spent the entire rest of the competition writing a calibration routine to reduce the effects of lighting, adjusted the camera's exposure, and wrote a hysteresis threshold to add precision to the image analyzer. (I actually ported the whole thing to JavaCV because I'm more adept at java and so is the rest of my team)

Well, all that work (done with the help of a mentor who works in image analysis) was scrapped for 254's driver side CheesyVision. Because of a communication error.

I mean, its fine that its within the rules but just frustrating when you spent time trying to make a truly autonomous robot using technology that applies to an increasingly popular real world field, and such a simple yet entirely legal solution comes along.