On field coach passing ball from pedestal to HP

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by bobl

Just watched QF 2-3 on Newton. One of the coached on Blue kept grabbing the ball from the pedestal and passed it to the human player. Thought this is a technical foul. Anyone else see this?

Are you sure it was a coach and not a second human player?

[bobl]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Are you sure it was a coach and not a second human player?

There were 2 HPs down field and one behind the alliances. There may have been a member of the 4th team but I thought this was characterized as an Alliance Captain not an HP.

[GaryVoshol]

There is no restriction on a DRIVER touching the ball.

[ThunderousPrime]

Originally Posted by bobl

There were 2 HPs down field and one behind the alliances. There may have been a member of the 4th team but I thought this was characterized as an Alliance Captain not an HP.

I was the one who implemented the strategy of using a fourth human player during the match for the number 5 Newton alliance. It is explained below.

Quoted from the FRC Manual 5.6.1

One representative from the TEAM not on the LINEUP is allowed in the ALLIANCE STATION as a thirteenth ALLIANCE member.

The above applies to not only the a captain sitting out a match but any team regardless of selection number which does not field a robot. In practice this means that you can have 1 extra Coach or HP from your backup partner. We decided to use 2283's Human Player to take balls off of the pedestal and throw them to 2054's human player who inbounded the ball. The reasoning behind this was to save 1-2 seconds on getting a ball in play by not having to run from the pedestal to the corner.

To the my knowledge the 13th alliance member role was explained incorrectly at the captain's meeting (at least in Newton) after alliance selection to mean that the 13th member only could come from a captain as stated in the quote. We asked the head ref about this by showing him the above quote and we were able to use this strategy with no repercussions.

As for how it went in matches, it worked well; 2054's HP caught every throw from 2283's HP. I had them practice throwing balls back and for to each other for about a minute to practice this before they did this for a match.

I'm interested to know what other alliances did to use the 13th member for. This situation is yet another example of why teams, especially drive teams should read the Manual thoroughly or they may miss out on (small) opportunities like this one.

[bobl]

ThunderousPrime - I misread the rule to mean the extra player was a like a master coach position. I commend you and your alliance for coming up with an ingenious strategy for saving precious seconds on your cycle times.

Your alliance was the only one I saw implementing this strategy. Way to think outside the box. I believe that this type of thinking is what FIRST is looking for in the engineers and scientists of the future.

Bob Libby
Mentor
FIRST Team 58
The Riot Crew

[pandamonium]

I am interested in if anyone else used this??

[Lil' Lavery]

The #7 alliance on Newton also used human players from all four alliance members.

[Siri]

We used the fourth, but opted to have the coach as a 'cycle keeper' (reporting the time, ensuring things are scored correctly--which was thankfully not a problem). Having that added flexibility was awesome. I hope this rule change stays for 2015!