IRI Finals Question

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Brandon Zalinsky

I didn't watch this live, but isn't reaching an appendage outside of the field a penalty?

In the regular season, it depended on which week, and where, and how far.

However, for IRI, the basic foul part of that was removed, leaving continuous/repeated violations as a technical foul, along with contact outside the safety zone as a major foul. IF a team was repeatedly reaching outside safety zone, then a tech foul should have been called--but, speaking as a ref, the safety zone was the absolute hardest thing to enforce, particularly for minor violations.


@websass: It's entirely possible that they weren't trying to prevent a shot, but to throw off the aim. One of the best ways to throw off aim is to hit the corner of a robot, repeatedly if they return to their start position. Thus, it's entirely possible that it was accidental that they ended up on top of another robot. But, even an accidental maneuver that ends that way is probably going to net a technical foul at least--and the refs will probably have their choice of fouls to call (pinning, damaging contact inside frame perimeter, and inhibition are all technical fouls).

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by wesbass23

Just from my point of view both seeing 330 play and watching finals 1 on youtube. They were backing up and jerking forward quickly in order to lift up the front of their robot and land it on 469's bumper, ideally stopping them from shooting.

This of course may have been totally accidental but I remember them doing it in qualification matches too if I'm not mistaken so the refs may have deemed it a repeated strategy.

330s bot was slighty tippy, and quick changes of direction caused it to rock. I don't believe it was intentional. However, they did damage 469, and the tech was certainly deserved.

[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by JB987

Watching the archive videos peaked my interest. Tons of great matches and kudos to all the competitors and champions. Can somebody explain to me how the human player hard bounce off of 2056 that returned to the in bounder was construed as an actual possession/assist...throughout the event? No intent to be argumentative, just trying to understand why such interaction wasn't called as an assist throughout the regular season events I attended or watched. Sure would have made things easier

I was thinking the same thing about possession. Upon further investigation I found out that unless there was a rule change I did not know about, it should not have counted for possession. Here is the FIRST definition of possession in the rule book:

“carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT or holding the BALL in or on the ROBOT),
“herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
“launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or
“trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

All of these definitions require that the robot actually moves either a manipulator or the whole robot in order to direct the ball. By definition, the hard bounce is NOT possession. No idea why they counted it. However, there was a rule change for IRI saying that zones don't matter for assists, not sure if that affected anything judgment-wise.

[tickspe15]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

I was thinking the same thing about possession. Upon further investigation I found out that unless there was a rule change I did not know about, it should not have counted for possession. Here is the FIRST definition of possession in the rule book:

“carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT or holding the BALL in or on the ROBOT),
“herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
“launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or
“trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

All of these definitions require that the robot actually moves either a manipulator or the whole robot in order to direct the ball. By definition, the hard bounce is NOT possession. No idea why they counted it. However, there was a rule change for IRI saying that zones don't matter for assists, not sure if that affected anything judgment-wise.

Their hard bounce for the definition of launching. The ball went where they wanted it to and their catapult arm moved relative to their robot

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

I was thinking the same thing about possession. Upon further investigation I found out that unless there was a rule change I did not know about, it should not have counted for possession. Here is the FIRST definition of possession in the rule book:

“carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT or holding the BALL in or on the ROBOT),
“herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
“launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or
“trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

All of these definitions require that the robot actually moves either a manipulator or the whole robot in order to direct the ball. By definition, the hard bounce is NOT possession. No idea why they counted it. However, there was a rule change for IRI saying that zones don't matter for assists, not sure if that affected anything judgment-wise.

In the case of 2056 at IRI there was not a hard bounce. It looked like their shooter had a bit of a spring to it, so the ball went in, bent the shooter back, and then the shooter would spring forward. This would count as "launching," because there was a mechanism in motion relative to the robot. 4334 had a similar strategy at Champs.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

I was thinking the same thing about possession. Upon further investigation I found out that unless there was a rule change I did not know about, it should not have counted for possession. Here is the FIRST definition of possession in the rule book:

“carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT or holding the BALL in or on the ROBOT),
“herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
“launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or
“trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

All of these definitions require that the robot actually moves either a manipulator or the whole robot in order to direct the ball. By definition, the hard bounce is NOT possession. No idea why they counted it. However, there was a rule change for IRI saying that zones don't matter for assists, not sure if that affected anything judgment-wise.

As I previously explained earlier in the thread, 2056's catapult deflected when the ball hit it. They didn't just bounce the ball off a rigid part of the robot - they bounced the ball of their catapult while it was in the "just fired" position. As the catapult went in and back out, the robot was LAUNCHING the ball and it counts as an assist.

In general, rather than assuming a world class FRC team and the reffing crew at the most prestigious off season in the country were all unaware of the rules, I would consider that maybe there's something you're missing or isn't obvious from a web cast.

[Bryan1625]

2056s catapult is on a winch with an encoder so they have it half cocked giving it the ability to move back and launch the ball to the human player and since it was their catapult it counts as launching.

[qzrrbz]

Originally Posted by Bryan1625

2056s catapult is on a winch with an encoder so they have it half cocked giving it the ability to move back and launch the ball to the human player and since it was their catapult it counts as launching.

takes a clever team to make a lie of "never go off half-cocked"

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

As I previously explained earlier in the thread, 2056's catapult deflected when the ball hit it. They didn't just bounce the ball off a rigid part of the robot - they bounced the ball of their catapult while it was in the "just fired" position. As the catapult went in and back out, the robot was LAUNCHING the ball and it counts as an assist.

Realistically, no part of the robot is perfectly rigid. Throwing a ball at a goalie pole, or side shield, or any other number of non-spring loaded mechanisms would also deflect and bounce the ball back to a desired location (if done properly).

IMO, it was a slippery slope to allow those short bounce-off type possessions because from the get go because you can get so deep into the 'technically its deflecting' part of the rule description.

That being said, it was a tough nuance of the game that was difficult to parse out, and it seemed those type of possessions were being called consistently. Thats all you can really ask for in weird situations.

-Brando

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Realistically, no part of the robot is perfectly rigid. Throwing a ball at a goalie pole, or side shield, or any other number of non-spring loaded mechanisms would also deflect and bounce the ball back to a desired location (if done properly).

IMO, it was a slippery slope to allow those short bounce-off type possessions because from the get go because you can get so deep into the 'technically its deflecting' part of the rule description.

That being said, it was a tough nuance of the game that was difficult to parse out, and it seemed those type of possessions were being called consistently. Thats all you can really ask for in weird situations.

-Brando

Technically speaking, every material you chuck the ball at will deform and push the ball back, so I agree, every time I hit a ball with my robot, I'm impelling it with motion relative to the robot.

But remember, this is FIRST, where rules aren't interpreted the way they're written, but are interpreted according to how people are feeling on a particular day (see extending outside field fouls), and according to FIRSTers, should be "interpreted by Grandmothers", who are the most qualified people in the world to make decisions in an engineering project.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by magnets

1-Finals 1: What happened in auto? Did 1114 get a penalty for their blocking, or was this a clean match?

2-Finals 2: It appeared that 1114 and 2056 were disabled after dragging each other around. Was this done by the teams e-stopping themselves, or by a ref? If by a ref, what was the rule for disabling them?

3-Finals 2: Was there a foul for entangling? If so, did 1114 get it?

1) Clean match during auto, though 1114's goalie auto was racking up techs during qualifications. It looked like they changed it a bit going into elims.
2) 1114's claw got caught in 2056's strings. If you watch the match video, the entanglement did not start as bad as it ended. Originally, the string was stretched outside of 2056's frame perimeter and caught on the bottom half of 1114's claw. As the two of them moved around, the tangle got worse and worse until both robots were disabled.
3) As said by other users, the penalty was actually against 330. I believe the lack of a call was good, as the entanglement really was neither team's fault. It's not like 2056 has any control of where the strings flop around, and they really don't flop that far outside the perimeter anyway.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Thanks for clarifying Cory. What was the reasoning for disabling 1114 and 2056?

At Mt. Olive district, three robots got entangled during an elims match (semi?), and were disabled 'due to safety hazard'. Basically, prevent the teams from doing more damage to either robot, volunteers around the field, or field elements by continuing to flop around while entangled. As a note, that match was also replayed since it was paused-and-restarted during the entanglement issue.

Best guess is that's also why it happened at IRI. However, it happened insanely late in the match after the entanglement started, and the teams were allowed to move around and try to get un-stuck for at least 15 seconds.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

1) Clean match during auto, though 1114's goalie auto was racking up techs during qualifications. It looked like they changed it a bit going into elims.

This bothered me a bit, actually. 1114 had what appeared to be a neat, rainbow colored 20" stick that would swing out from under their robot to maintain contact with the goalie zone while blocking the low goal. Despite this appendage being really visible, at least once I saw 1114 get a technical foul for leaving the goalie zone when this appendage was indeed maintaining contact. I'm guessing this was cleared up for elims as 1114 didn't get any technical in auto during elims that I remember.

[brennonbrimhall]

What happened happened, and the past is in the past.

However, for the sake of discussion, I'm interested in the reverse of the other side of the coin. The rules this year are defined such that the definition of possession is the same for both alliances with both balls, irrespective of who 'owns' the ball.

If 2056 had been executing the same maneuver with the other alliance's ball somehow (perhaps the other alliance's HP messed up their inbound or whatever), I definitely think it would have fallen under the modified G21 (if it was in fact considered a possession) or not been considered a possession (instead considered deflection). However, which side of the fence does it fall on here?

[Jared]

Originally Posted by brennonbrimhall

However, for the sake of discussion, I'm interested in the reverse of the other side of the coin. The rules this year are defined such that the definition of possession is the same for both alliances with both balls, irrespective of who 'owns' the ball.

What the manual says about possession is not how referees call possession. The manual is not the source of referee judgement. This was admitted by a member of the GDC at the CMP driver's meeting.

Regardless of what the rules say, offensive possession is totally different from defensive possession. These kinds of contradictions really bug me.

1114's coach asked if offensive possession was judged differently from defensive possession. The response was yes, it is judged differently. At this point, a few other people asked where this was written, and the answer was "it's not written, it's up to the individual referees, but don't worry we've gone over it with them, and it'll be consistent", but they didn't spell out what was considered offensive or defensive possession because they didn't want to give people something to argue about with refs.