Your tall opaque robot is now illegal

[aldaeron]

I have submitted another follow up to (hopefully) clear up any R9-A violations or other issues with defensive add-ons of all kinds (and cake varieties). Should have been a little more thorough in the first Q&A.

-matto-

Edit: General advice to teams is to make sure that the team members talking to inspectors and referees are very clear and consistent in the messaging that any tall parts of the robot (whether added on during competition or not) are for blocking shots only. The fact that some teams chose to build low robots that cannot see or shoot or aim is inconsequential. On the note of visibility and R9-A, the GDC has been clear that lack of visibility was intentional (Team Update 16 says "Limited visibility for drivers was one of the intended challenges with this game ..."). Teams that chose to spend their time and resources improving their visibility can gain an advantage if they thought the problem through carefully and made good design choices.

[Lil' Lavery]

What's the record for the longest Q&A chain? Can this break it?

[aldaeron]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

What's the record for the longest Q&A chain? Can this break it?

I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by aldaeron

I have submitted another follow up to (hopefully) clear up any R9-A violations or other issues with defensive add-ons of all kinds (and cake varieties). Should have been a little more thorough in the first Q&A.

Thank you for submitting this follow up. Looking forward to the GDC's response, considering the Head Ref's interpretation of R9-A at CVR.

-Mike

[rsisk]

Here is Q955 for FYI...

This was also a discussion on our LRI call last night and there was a reasonable solution to cover us until Q955 answer came out.

Q955
FRC Q&A Answered Questions
Q: Please clarify Q953 - If a robot meets the sizing requirements for R3 and does not have any markings that are similar to the field (i.e. markings meant to mimic vision targets) does it violate R9-C? If so, could you please expand on the criteria for what violates R9-C? For example: does translucent plastic sheeting or bumper noodles at the maximum height that was added between Qualifications and Eliminations that to a reasonable observer is for the purposes of blocking shots violate R9-C?

A: A device which is not specifically intended to interfere with the remote sensing capabilities of another ROBOT, but merely happens to be in the way of that ROBOT sensing a desired object, while intended for other functions(such as blocking shots), would not be a violation of R9-C.

(Asked by FRC1410 on 2016-03-22.)