Rules G-30 and G-18-1

[MrJohnston]

We had several conversations with the Head Referee at Seattle in order to get clarification. He was fantastic - and acknowledged the "gray areas" in the rules. We did not get a final answer until he had at least two long conversations with the other officials.

Here is what theycame up with:
* If we are in our protected feeder zone, all contact between us and an opponent would be called as a foul on the opponent - unless it was clearly obvious that we were only trying to draw fouls. He understood that we needed to line up perfectly with the feeder so that we could hit our three's as fast as we could load and that we, therefore, would wiggle about a bit. He also understood that if a taller robot was in front of us that we would need to clear it out in order to open our a shot - again, not trying to draw fouls, just shoot Frisbees.

* If we push a tall robot over the autoline, it would be its responsibility to drop beneath 60" unless, again, we are clearly looking to draw a foul. I instructed our drive team to only push forward (possibily pushing a tall defender across the line) if they had a full hopper and were going to line up for a shot.

It worked out quite well as the rules were clear. I do hope that such clarity is continued at other events.

[Sam390250]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

I think I will ask the head referee at Seattle... I'm not looking at giving the other robot a "tap" - rather I want to push it out of the way, to open a shot. It also seems strange that we'd have a "protected zone" if the opposing robot could stand right in front of it and we'd be forced to try do dodge it... Before 18-1, I figured the rule was in place to make sure that the opposing robot kept a respectable distance.

I think it is a bit faulty to assume that G-30 was put in place to keep robots a respectable distance away. I believe the main point of this rule is to keep robots who are loading from being physically jostled which would impact the loading of the discs. Even if I am incorrect in my assumptions, if the intent was to keep robots a respectable distance away, they probably would have made the protected zone quite a bit bigger.

[FrankJ]

Regardless of why the rule is written, it should be enforced on how it is written. The quote Seattle Referee's interpretation sound very reasonable. (Especially since I agree with it )

[2789_B_Garcia]

For an interesting interpretation of how these rules interact, check out Quals Match 53 from Alamo this weekend. An opponent pushed and pinned us under their pyramid, and we were then knocked into one of their alliance members, and couldn't get out because we kept being pushed by our opponent and the ref gave them a technical foul because of 18-1, and then gave us two technical fouls for contacting both of the opponents robots AND awarded them BOTH FULL CLIMB POINTS because one of them had their hooks up...it gave them a total of 100 points for this interaction...they beat us by 16 points...I sent my driver to the question box immediately, but the ref stood by the call. Needless to say, we then went and apologized to our alliance members for that match.

[Abhishek R]

I remember that match, I don't believe you should've been awarded that many foul points nor the climb points as stated before, you were forced into the pyramid, so the opponent was "clearly looking to draw a foul." This year has been a pretty crazy season for fouls...

[chmconkling]

I was a referee at North Carolina and we had this exact situation. What we called it as, as long as you are still "protected" you can hit somebody, they get the penalty. It goes back to last year with the bridges at champs. You put yourself in the situation on getting penalized, thats your fault.

[2789_B_Garcia]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

I remember that match, I don't believe you should've been awarded that many foul points nor the climb points as stated before, you were forced into the pyramid, so the opponent was "clearly looking to draw a foul." This year has been a pretty crazy season for fouls...

We felt so bad about that match. Y'all deserved that win. When my driver went over to apologize, he said that y'all were upset, but the team and the mentors handled the situation respectfully. I've always respected your team and your team culture. Other teams would have chewed him out or ripped him apart. Please thank your team on our behalf for showing true gracious professionalism in a very stressful and frustrating situation.

[M.O'Reilly]

I saw a similar curious (infuriating?) call at Bridgewater this weekend.

A Blue robot sat in a Red feeder station for the entire match, blocking red robots from getting discs there at all.

The Red alliance received 44 points from penalties due to the Blue robots illegal actions.

The Blue alliance was awarded 20 points because it was deemed that a Red robot was intentionally hitting the Blue robot into the second Red robot trying to enter the feeder station as well: technical foul as per 18-1. It was clear that both robots were just trying to get the blue robot out of the loading zone.

The Blue alliance were only net -24 points for this illegal action, while effectively shutting down 2 good disc scorers. Blue won the match.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by M.O'Reilly

I saw a similar curious (infuriating?) call at Bridgewater this weekend.

A Blue robot sat in a Red feeder station for the entire match, blocking red robots from getting discs there at all.

The Red alliance received 44 points from penalties due to the Blue robots illegal actions.

The Blue alliance was awarded 20 points because it was deemed that a Red robot was intentionally hitting the Blue robot into the second Red robot trying to enter the feeder station as well: technical foul as per 18-1. It was clear that both robots were just trying to get the blue robot out of the loading zone.

The Blue alliance were only net -24 points for this illegal action, while effectively shutting down 2 good disc scorers. Blue won the match.

This ancedote, combined with what I have seen personally at SVR combined with watching many streams, has convinced me that the technical foul for "purposeful or consequential" contact is not being given enough. If, as you say, the blue robot had intentionally sat in the station for the entire match, then at some point (fairly quickly) a 20-point foul should have been given for each contact. And I don't have specific examples to point to, but I have constantly seen obviously intentional contact or contact on robots lining up or lined up to shoot (i.e. consequential contact) only being penalized with a normal foul.

[coldfusion1279]

I assume you mean more technical fouls on the Blue alliance in this case. 44 points would be 1 technical and 8 regular fouls. I guess the first 8 weren't technical? Though I was more concerned with the foul on the Red alliance.

[peirvine]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

Likewise, if a 80" tall robot stations itself in front of us and we push it across its autoline en route to our pyramid (to shoot), are we called with a technical? Or is it?

It will be you who is asses the technical foul, as you are causing them to be out of their auto zone (as per the Minnesota North Star Regional and the Minnesota Northern Lakes Regional).

[coldfusion1279]

Originally Posted by peirvine

It will be you who is asses the technical foul, as you are causing them to be out of their auto zone (as per the Minnesota North Star Regional and the Minnesota Northern Lakes Regional).

I don't know if I agree with this assessment. I know it's the way it has been called, but why is an offensive robot being defended by a 84 inch robot also limited to how it can defend itself because you might cause the defender to incur a penalty? IMO, you should be allowed to push them across the center line, but then give them space to get back. It was called this way at our recent competition.

Hopefully FIRST steers clear of ambiguous rules in the future.

[Jeffy]

Originally Posted by coldfusion1279

IMO, you should be allowed to push them across the center line, but then give them space to get back. It was called this way at our recent competition.

Or a more "in the spirit of the rules" type ruling might be to not penalize the tall bot, as long as they can be seen to be making an effort (not necessarily progress) towards getting back into the zone.
This weekend I saw 701 push multiple bots out of the auto zone so 2169 could shoot, and then 701 would limit the blockers motion to the other side of the field. The entire time, the blocker bot was receiving penalties.

It seems that if you want to be a blocker this year, you better have a clear superiority in traction. Or, alliances ought to just ditch this whole FCS thing because they risk calls (usually wrong if you ask me) being made against them too.

note: I also saw some misinterpretations of the pinning rule involving trying to block FCS, but this seems to be an isolated incident.

I'd really like to a few of the teams that have been successful using the question box to explain how they did it. I think that could help a lot of teams.

[MrJohnston]

We found that the best time to deal with these questions - in the question box - was the day before teh competition started, even before the drivers' meeting. By doing so, we had ample time to actually discuss concerns with the head referee and get clarity. In Seattle, he was great: He acknowledged the ambiguity in the rules and gave us a straight answer. He then had a couple of long discussions with his referee team and got back to us with a changed opinion.

The key part of the G18-1 rule is that, in order to be slapped with a technical, a robot must be adopting a tactic that has the SOLE purpose of trying to draw a foul.

We told the ref that were were a full court shooter and that our game was largely based around cross-court shots and makign sure that we had an open line of fire. When faced with an 84" defender, we would have challenges (duh).... We told him taht we would then want to push ourselves up across the autoline where the tall robot could not go so that we would have a clear shot. He agreed that, as long as we had Frisbees in our hopper and were going to shoot when getting to the line, we clearly had a purpose other than to draw the technical and that it would become the tall robot's responsibility to not cross teh autoline. Of course, if we were to manuever in such a way that the tall robot could not get back, the technical woudl be on us.

We also discussed the contact around the protected feeder. I did learn that one of hte questions on the referee-qualification-quiz asks whether or not a foul should be assessed every time there is contact in the protected zone. The answer is YES. Unless the protected robot is doing something for the SOLE purpose of trying to draw a foul, the foul will be called against the other bot. AGain, we spoke to the referee about our challenges in lining up with the feeder and target for targeting puposes and the need to clear shots against taller robots - and we never had an issue with it. The only question we still had was, "How many times can another robot foul us in the protected zone before it becomes a technical?"

We intend to have a simliar conversation with the referees at St. Louis so that we know the rules of engagement, so to speak. The G18-1 rulings have been called very differently at different regionals, so who knows what is going to happen at Nationals? We just want to know the rules before we start. We want it to be called once way consistently so that our drivers know what is and is not fair game.

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by Jeffy

Or a more "in the spirit of the rules" type ruling might be to not penalize the tall bot, as long as they can be seen to be making an effort (not necessarily progress) towards getting back into the zone.
This weekend I saw 701 push multiple bots out of the auto zone so 2169 could shoot, and then 701 would limit the blockers motion to the other side of the field. The entire time, the blocker bot was receiving penalties.

It seems that if you want to be a blocker this year, you better have a clear superiority in traction. Or, alliances ought to just ditch this whole FCS thing because they risk calls (usually wrong if you ask me) being made against them too.

I do not fully agree. When a team creates a robot more than 60" tall, with no ability to lower itself, it accepts that it can only enter a very limited area of the field. If it is then going to block a FCS, it also most accept that the other alliance is going to desperately attempt to push it around - and, likely, out of the autozone, causing fouls. If you want to really effectively block a great FCS, you need a blocking mechanism that can be lowered - which many teams have done quite well. HOWEVER, once teh tall robot has been pushed out and is trying to get back, it seems to me that a robot preventing it from doing so would be guilty of G18-1. (It doesn't have to allow the tall robot back where it wants... just somewhere legal.)