Balls In Opposing Robots

[PriyankP]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

If a team has put the ball in your robot, or it accidentally enters your robot, why should you be penalized for trying to remove it?

If someone intentionally puts the ball in your robot, you DON'T get a T-foul for that. The other team gets it!

If it accidentally enters your robot, it is on you to avoid that situation. Especially when you've been warned of it in the game manual.

I feel it is a reasonable foul because otherwise teams would make no effort to avoid possessing the wrong ball! It would add ~10 seconds to the other alliance's cycle time. Think about it, without this rule, holding the other alliance's ball would actually become a part of teams' strategy!

As someone said earlier, the red robot at GTR-E should have driven backwards or just stopped going towards the ball - easily avoidable situation in my opinion.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by PriyankP

If someone intentionally puts the ball in your robot, you DON'T get a T-foul for that. The other team gets it!

Agreed, this is how it should be called...

Quoting for relevance:

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

If I'm lined up for a catch, my ally and opponent both fire, my ally misses, but my opponent's ball ends up in my catcher, what would you call that? I don't see how in a game where catching is an objective, you can design something that doesn't catch opponent's balls on accident.

Also, Copioli said it the best.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Justin Shelley

I agree. It is extremely saddening to me that this caused 1114 to lose. They had the best robot there and in my opinion should've won. These penalties are deciding elimination matches when the penalties received are judgement calls. Meaning it is debatable as to whether or not the penalties should've been received. In the Finals at the Arkansas regional the Blue Alliance won the first match and the next two the Red Alliance won but solely because of foul points that were questionable.

Though I understand the concerns behind this rule, I want to point out the best robot is not always necessarily the winner of the regional. In the first match, a combination of the blue alliance playing solidly and executing a strategy well combined with the time it took for the red alliance to rid itself of the third autonomous ball caused them to lose the match.

[BrendanB]

I remember during the drivers meeting at UNH we were reminded of this rule and told to "Make sure your robots are designed so they can't hold an opponents ball". I heard this and I know this was out of the control of our head ref (who did a fantastic job all weekend I think UNH ended extremely fair and of the few problems that did go wrong they were remedied quick and fair) but this is coming directly from FIRST so what kind of bogus line is this? Are we all supposed to put a bunch of sensors on our robot to detect red/blue balls and close up our intakes when we get near one?

We all know the intent of the rules because if the rule didn't exist teams would just grab opponents balls and play keep away for the match but most of the calls for possessing an opponents balls are either accidental or caused by the alliance that is benefiting by getting the penalty points.

Same thing with the G40 problems of week 1 its the accidental infractions of the rule that are killing teams because the penalties for tech fouls are way too large for minor offenses!

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Though I understand the concerns behind this rule, I want to point out the best robot is not always necessarily the winner of the regional. In the first match, a combination of the blue alliance playing solidly and executing a strategy well combined with the time it took for the red alliance to rid itself of the third autonomous ball caused them to lose the match.

I'll second this, and expand to say that this game was designed very well such that its not the best robots that win, but rather that the best alliance wins. Hence why there are so many "upsets"

[Wes Mantooth]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

I've seen numerous fouls called today on teams who had an opponent's ball enter their robot. If a team has put the ball in your robot, or it accidentally enters your robot, why should you be penalized for trying to remove it?

I understand why it has been called this way, but it's painful to see this create huge point differences...

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Justin Shelley

I agree. It is extremely saddening to me that this caused 1114 to lose.

If I was 1285, 4476 or 2198, it would be pretty disheartening to hear people say I won two matches because of one 50 point penalty (in a match we won by 74 points).

[rkbot]

Originally Posted by mizscience

This. Teams need to know the rules. If you have a question, send a pre-college member to the question box to talk to the head ref asap after a match. That's the only way something could possibly be done.

Our team questioned the ref multiple times during GTRE. the ref there did not give any actual answer to some of our questions. During quarterfinals the opposing team directly dumped the ball into one of our alliance members robot. Of the 5 matches we lost, 3 of them were because of the massive penalties given, or not given (many of which easily noticeable in the game play) . Why should it be a 50 point penalty when an opposing robot directly puts their ball into our alliance members and they spit it right back out to them( I understand what the rules say, so dont tell me to read the previous posts)? The penalties given at these regionals are making to big of an impact. The penalties given should correspond to how many goals a robot can score in that time, a robot holding an opposing teams ball for 2 seconds should not count for 50 points. It can make a very large impact especially when the ref will not even give you an actual answer to why he gave you, or did not give a penalty.

[orangemoore]

I have a general question to ask.

Should a team receive a penalty during a match, but the after that match the ref/head ref does not and or cannot explain what the penalty was to that team?

Basically can someone get a penalty without a reason if they were to question the decision?

[JosephC]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

Should penalties be assigned for any reason, even if a ref can't or does not explain it?

I'm not sure I understand the wording to your question.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by JosephC

I'm not sure I understand the wording to your question.

Does that help?

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

Does that help?

You have to remember while your drive team is in charge of communicating with 1 alliance, and playing based on input you are getting from the field. A ref needs to keep track of both alliances, human players, robots, flying objects, and all sorts of other things. It isn't much of a shocker to me that a ref doesn't know about the penalty you got that one time during that one match.
I think in the end though no penalty is truly going to be placed on any team for no reason what so ever. Just because one ref doesn't know doesn't mean someone else wont know.

[pigpenguin]

A BALL that becomes unintentionally lodged on a ROBOT will be considered POSSESSED by the ROBOT. It is important to design your ROBOT so that it is impossible to inadvertently or intentionally POSSESS an opponent’s BALL

Can we at least agree this is a bad way to word this rule? Sure it covers all the bases but it presents an odd situation (at least they way I am reading it). How do you design a bot that can intentially hold your ball but not your opponents?

[mwtidd]

On this note also, I would say be careful about calling for a dead ball twice in a match. As we saw at UNH this weekend, this can be grounds for a replay. The ball getting lodged in another team results in a 100 point penalty, however, you must wait for the head ref to suspend the cycle.

If an ALLIANCE’S BALL becomes stuck in an opposing ALLIANCE’S ROBOT, the Head Referee will signal an extended infraction of G12 (the assumption is that the ALLIANCE has already been penalized for the initial G12 infraction). At this point, the Head Referee will suspend the current CYCLE and re-illuminate the PEDESTAL, beginning another CYCLE for that ALLIANCE. If the stuck BALL is freed, that ball will be considered FIELD debris.

I would advise all teams not to call for a dead ball in this situation. In our third semifinal match we got the blue alliances ball stuck in our robot in this semifinal match (In what may be the best unintentional catch thus far).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcMtO...k57J7Q# t=170

You will see at 3:11 that the blue alliance on the right side of the screen holds up the dead ball sign. Then the match proceeds and one of their teammates gets the ball lodged in them. You can see at 3:56 that a second dead ball is called for.

Even though the second dead ball replacement is never put into play it was deemed that just calling for it was grounds for a replay of this semi final match. Luckily, this did not affect the outcome of this semifinal series, but under other circumstances it certainly could have.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by pigpenguin

Can we at least agree this is a bad way to word this rule? Sure it covers all the bases but it presents an odd situation (at least they way I am reading it). How do you design a bot that can intentially hold your ball but not your opponents?

Require your bot to actuate to collect or catch a ball (put a collector out, spin your roller claw, open a pneumatic, etc) -- then, if you possess a ball, it was because your drivers actuated the machanism.