Your tall opaque robot is now illegal

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Part of the difficulty here is the way the question itself was worded. The answer itself isn't as bad as an overly broad interpretation of the answer. The question and the answer specifically deal with "a piece of plastic installed to prevent a camera from seeing the reflective tape on the goals ", not all tall pieces of plastic or tall robots. My primary concern is if this Q&A is interpreted so broadly as to say blocking views of cameras is illegal.

Keep in mind this is an inspection issue, not a game match issue, so it's not actually illegal to play defense on a robot with a camera regardless of your design...

Bingo.

The person asking the question asked if it was legal to have a device intended to interfere with sensors. The GDC responded to the question asked. People here are interpreting that to mean a much broader answer, that no devices capable of blocking cameras are allowed.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Bingo.

The person asking the question asked if it was legal to have a device intended to interfere with sensors. The GDC responded to the question asked. People here are interpreting that to mean a much broader answer, that no devices capable of blocking cameras are allowed.

People are inferring a broad interpretation from past GDC responses.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by dodar

People are inferring a broad interpretation from past GDC responses.

That does happen often, but what happens if a team complains about it, shows them the blocking robot and a printout of the Q/A response? I'm sure all referees won't see it the same way.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by waialua359

That does happen often, but what happens if a team complains about it, shows them the blocking robot and a printout of the Q/A response? I'm sure all referees won't see it the same way.

That'll then go on how the LRI or Head Ref interprets the response by the GDC.

[cad321]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The person asking the question asked if it was legal to have a device intended to interfere with sensors. The GDC responded to the question asked. People here are interpreting that to mean a much broader answer, that no devices capable of blocking cameras are allowed.

This is my interpretation aswell. As long as it is clear that you are using your mechanism to block boulders being shot, and not to interfere with vision/sensing abilities, than your robot should be deemed legal and not in violation of R9-c. People are interpreting this in a much broader scope than the initial question refered to.

[headlight]

For an engineering activity that generally focuses heavily on results and effects there are a surprising number of rules that hinge on intention.

If I am able to justify my large blocker that happens to impede camera operation by claiming I intended it to only block boulders, can I justify running my ultrasonic range finders on full blast all match because my team collects the data for our study on the effectiveness of range finders during matches? All remote sensing on a robot is going to be subject to interference from ambient conditions and from other robots, the question that needs to be resolved is how much interference is allowed and if the legality of the interference is determined by the intentions of the team or the actual effects of the device.

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The person asking the question asked if it was legal to have a device intended to interfere with sensors. The GDC responded to the question asked. People here are interpreting that to mean a much broader answer, that no devices capable of blocking cameras are allowed.

Be that as it may, is it too much to ask for the GDC to use their own common sense and answer the question that the asker really intended to ask? My principal concern here is that lacking further clarification about what blocking strategies are actually legal, LRIs are going to see this Q&A and start applying it incorrectly to robots that are legal within the intent of the rule.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

Be that as it may, is it too much to ask for the GDC to use their own common sense and answer the question that the asker really intended to ask? My principal concern here is that lacking further clarification about what blocking strategies are actually legal, LRIs are going to see this Q&A and start applying it incorrectly to robots that are legal within the intent of the rule.

Yeah, I'm with you Pat. This makes the business of blocking any shots significantly more difficult because someone can say "It blocks our camera!" and point a finger.

I know for certain that at least one team we've encountered this season with a cloth blocker was intentionally designed to block cameras and balls. Personally, I thought it was clever.

[dodar]

Team A builds a boulder blocker.

Team B, "hey their blocker blocks our camera."

GDC, "Team B don't move your camera, Team A shall just have to redesign their entire robot to not block Team B's camera."

Yeah, makes total sense.

[cad321]

Has anyone submitted a Q&A asking the other half of the original question? Something along the lines of,

If I have a mechanism on my robot with the sole intent to block boulders being shot into the high goal, but it unintentionally interferes with an oponents vision system, would this be in violation of R9-c?

Get final clarification once and for all on this matter?

I'd ask it myself but I don't have access to my teams Q&A account at the moment.

[hardcopi]

So basically they are saying that it is illegal to use anything to stop the robot from functioning as it was intended to. Ok... then defense is illegal beause my robot was designed to shoot. The low bar should be illegal because we are a tall robot, etc...

They will rethink this I am pretty sure.

[Anthony Galea]

If this is going to be the ruling, saying that you cannot block shooters, I will be very upset as that was one of the large factors in us becoming a tall robot, we would have been a low bar bot if we knew that your shots are not allowed to be blocked. I sincerely hope the GDC reconsiders, as it feels like the game is being changed fundamentally mid-season.

[Lil' Lavery]

Chief Delphi's Greatest Hits vol. 47: Overreactions to Q&A responses

[hardcopi]

Hmm... could I get the entire opposing team red carded by attaching my camera to the wheels? So anything above like 1 inch would be intending to block my camera.

Obviously that is a bit ridiculous, but blocking a camera seems like a good strategy and if a robot can only shoot on visual cues then they have issues. We had that issue in St Joe when the field rejected our camera (we had it configured incorrectly) and we corrected the issue. We can now shoot with or without the camera.

[nrgy_blast]

A tall robot (or piece of polycarb, or a drop cloth held by a robot) doesn't interfere with the proper functioning of the sensor. The sensor is still working just fine - it just can't see what the operator wants it to see. Shining an IR laser at their camera, now THAT would be interfering with the proper functioning of the sensor.