G27 and the Chute Door

[Pretzel]

It seems to me like it would indeed be unsafe to touch the chute door. If a human player was not expecting it and the chute door (specifically the handles attached to the door) started moving, it could be dangerous. In addition, any attachment that can touch the chute door would also likely be capable of extending beyond the chute door, which would be much more dangerous than the previous situation and one that is most definitely deserving of a disable.

The chute door also does not extend all the way down to the carpeted surface of the field. This means that you can drive up to, and touch, the wall underneath the chute door provided that you have no protrusions on that side of the robot which would touch the chute door itself.

My guess is that this rule is intended to prevent robot designs that involve things like a forklift that inserts itself into the tote chute, or a robot that could prop open the chute door to allow for faster (and more dangerous) loading of totes into the robot. I am not a member of the GDC however, so this is only a guess. There are still a number of different designs that can effectively load totes from the tote chute (my team's robot included) without violating this rule, so I imagine that a vast majority of teams who carefully read the rules will not have any issues with this specific rule except under unusual circumstances.