Seizing Self Defense: What limits? (Rules of Engagement)

[kmcclary]

I'm disappointed that they're allowing other robots to "assault" the "personage" (robotage? ;-) of your machine in an attempt to drag you home with them. IMHO, it's one thing to fight over a goal between you two, and quite another to directly grab or lift another machine.

For the record, WE are NOT planning on assaulting other machines directly. (We'll be too busy anyway :-)

So... Given that it IS legal to seize and drag, what do you all feel SHOULD be the limits on self-defensive actions to extricate yourself? Should it be legal that if a team reaches WITHIN your volume to grab you it waives its own legal protections against contact damage while within said volume? Should you be able to attempt to "pry them off" of you with a wedge if they grab your frame? How about legally applying torque or other force upon the offending gripper? What about popping off an air line running to their pneumatic forklift that is holding you up in the air?

Should you be penalized if:
- An assailant's gripper is lopped off by a quick move by your bot?
- In simply trying to free yourself by motion or wedging, it damages the assailant's main robot body?
- You slap them back?

Should we have the concept of "sacrosanct personal space" added to the Rules of Engagement so that
its legal to defend yourself strongly if seized?

I feel that it would make a LOT of teams think LONG AND HARD about Battle Bot style strategies if they knew they could legally have their gripper hurt if they tried to grab you with it, but WHERE should the limit be drawn WRT self-defensive actions?

Let's hear YOUR opinions on this.

- Keith
--
Keith McClary, Advisor, Huron High Rat Pack, Team 830

[Alfred Thompson]

My understanding is that you can't make it impossible or even to hard to get away from an attaching robot.
If your robot loses an arm when anohter trys to get away than you have made a poor design choice and the escaping robot should not get a penalty. If a piece of a defending robot has to break off to get away than the attacking robot has broken the "no entanglement" rule.
I think we will see a lot of pushing but not too much grabbing. Grabbing is too high a risk for the attacking robot getting a DQ so smart people will not do it.

[Joe Johnson]

I am not so sure that there will be very little grabbing going on at the FIRST competitions.

FIRST has been very clear that it is allowed.

It may not be suite our tastes, we may not enjoy getting mauled, but it IS legal (within the limits set forth by FIRST) and I expect that a lot of unwanted groping will be going on.

I hope that there will be a police officer nearby if someone crosses the line...

Joe J.

[kmcclary]

Alfred wrote:
> My understanding is that you can't make it
> impossible or even to hard to get away
> from an attaching robot.

Quite the contrary! They've been VERY clear from the beginning that kidnapping IS allowed, by grabbing, forklifting, etc. That's why teams are grumbling. On Jan 10, they wrote this:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FRCtech2002/message/82

To make it worse, to my knowledge they've yet to relax ANY of the "no damage rules" against other machines or the environment. They HAVE already stated if you hurt the ENVIRONMENT while trying to RESIST, YOU can be DQ'd for it! See:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FRCtech2002/message/348

Now THAT is reasonable, but I'm not sure it is right to totally protect your ASSAILANT from harm arising from self defensive actions!

BTW... I've posted this question to FRCtech2002 on Sunday, and it finally appeared today. However, while waiting, I'm still curious to get everyone's opinion on the matter.

How far does everyone FEEL you SHOULD be allowed to go (without penalty) if someone DOES have the audacity to seize you?

- Keith
--
Keith McClary, Advisor, Huron High Rat Pack, Team 830

[Jordan A.]

If grabed our team intends on doing whatever necessary to make it difficult to hold on to us.

This will mostly boil down to driving techniques.

If you want to catch a 30lb fish you make sure you have the right kind of line to handle it fighting. If want to catch a 130lb robot you make sure you have the right kind of mechanism to handle IT fighting.

[Wetzel]

I am of the opinion that if somebodys grabs you and while you are driving or moving to escape, their graber/hook breaks, that would be poor design/choice on there part, and their own fault.
However, a device designed to break off, ie choping pinching, an assailants grabbing device would not be in the spirt of FIRST.
So if you plan on grabbing another robot, build it sturdy enough to do the job properly.

[ColleenShaver]

It's no different than past years (well, different then last year) but even in '99, lots of people had pole grabbing devices that could serve to grab on to another robot and keep them from getting on the puck or moving them off it. It wasn't traumatic.. you built your robot to be rough and tumble.. it was like playing king of the hill.. and it was a great game..

Regarding all this fiasco about pushing, pulling, defense and retailiation.. I say watch a video from 99 or 2k.. the same rules stood then, but after last years 4v0 game, everyone seems to be quite up in arms that they have brought these rules back..

Personally, I'm psyched.. it adds a great diminsion to the game in terms of strategy.. it's never been a destructive or overly violent game... Eric posted today on the yahoo forum EXACTLY how I describe what the game is to people... it's like a football game.. it's a contact sport, so be ready.. but there are limitations and penalities for not playing fair.. mainly there is something called "unnecessary roughness"

This is the way I see it.. if a robot is sittingon the field, doing something or doing nothing.. and you go out of your way to drive into them and hit them or get tangled up with them.. it's unnecessary roughness.. face masking.. whatever you want to call it.. but if there is someone in your way and you are trying to get a goal or a ball.. push on through and find the holes around them..

offense, defense and special teams.. have all sides prepared.. it's all part of them game.. let's play on, play by the rules, and remember our gracious professionalism.. and we all will be ok..

[kacz100]

This may be a little off of the subject but we had claw that we used last year. This claw we used was 3/4 inch lexan and we snapped it pulling a goal last year and that was just with everyone working "together". I can just imagine what this year is going to be like.

[Fury-ous_Kat]

I think the idea of pushing and dragging robots is interesting, but my team doesn't plan on trying it.

(it adds an interesting dimension to game play, I'll say that!)

For one: Should your get into a pulling match, you run the risk of doing harm to either your robot or the other teams. This could range from that "Aw, the paint job's all messed up" to Insert-Profanities-Here. Should, by some coincidence, or irony from the Powers That Be, you get partnered up later with that same robot, you're in for fun. Especially if it's the profanities one!

For another: Right now, considering the strategy we're looking at, it's just a waste of time for us to grab or push another robot.

For other people, it may be a BIG part of their strategy. More power to them if they manage to drag bots around, unless they cause major damage. In which case, then, I'd have to consider it malicious.

On the whole defense thing. If another bot had hold of your bot, you can do anything in your power to break free, unless it's in a malicious manner (ie- repeatedly forwardly slamming the other robot to damage it severely and free yourself).

It's a judgement call thing.

Kat.

[Wayne Doenges]

I agree with Kat. The opposing robot you disable one round may be the robot you are allied with a few rounds later.
I was told that a few years ago that if you couldn't make your match, the alliance played without you. Maybe FIRST will allow you to put a disabled robot in the scoring zone. Maybe!
Think about that before you go h*** bent for leather and slam into another robot.
Just something to think about.

Wayne Doenges

*throws $.02 into kitty.

[Skanker]

I'm rather dissappointed in that ruling also. I'm afraid that maybe my team's robot, despite it's good design and overall toughness, would be crippled by 'harmless' attempt to drag us away. maybe their gripper would grab some piece or electronics, or pneumatics and just tear it off? that can sometimes be time consuming to repair. even worse, I'm afraid we might have to re-machine some parts if they break (snap) due to the forces exerted on our robot by our assailants.

I don't like this ruling at all. I didn't like the lifting ruling, mainly because our drive motors are mounted on the underside of our robot.

I sure hope that grabbing teams are 'graciously proffessional' and not determined to damage my robot (maybe they built some grabber that just doesn't hurt anything?).

[Curtis Williams]

I am very interested in this. I can picture a few scenarios.

Imagine a robot clamps/hugs onto you. If you had a piston that shot out to push the grip away and the opposing robot's arm got snapped in half, who would be responsible? Did they take that risk when grabbing you or have you malitiously attacked their robot?

Our robot's underbelly has weak sheet metal with holes in it. If an opposing robot tries to use a forklift on us and breaks something, can they claim that we werent well designed? Or have they broken our robot and need to be penalized? Disqualified for malitious intent?

What are you allowed to grab? Touch? Can I poke a rod between spokes in a wheel to prevent it from moving? Theres a decent chance that this could harm a poorly-built robot. Would this violate entanglement maybe?

It would also be interesting to see spikes INSIDE a robot. If a robot rams you hard enough to penetrate your outer shell, could you have spikes inside to *discourage* overly aggressive behavior?

Lets say you had things like grippers and arms that reacted to sensors on your robot. A hard blow could cause these parts to trigger. If they are triggered (by a sensor not by operator), would you be responsible for any resulting damage?

Lets say someone picked our robot up. If we extended part of our robot inside their frame (assuming they had no side panels), and they moved us up or set us down and damaged their robot, would we be responsible?

[Curtis Williams]

BTW, I dont like this ruling either, but I can live with it.

[Matt Ryan]

The rules seemed pretty concrete in that respect to me...

[Matt Ryan]

Originally posted by Curtis Williams
I am very interested in this. I can picture a few scenarios.

Imagine a robot clamps/hugs onto you. If you had a piston that shot out to push the grip away and the opposing robot's arm got snapped in half, who would be responsible? Did they take that risk when grabbing you or have you malitiously attacked their robot?

Ref's call.

Our robot's underbelly has weak sheet metal with holes in it. If an opposing robot tries to use a forklift on us and breaks something, can they claim that we werent well designed? Or have they broken our robot and need to be penalized? Disqualified for malitious intent?

Not malicious intent. All the ref has to do is look at the underside and see that your robot wasn't made robustly. Remember the warning they gave us about having robust robots...

What are you allowed to grab? Touch? Can I poke a rod between spokes in a wheel to prevent it from moving? Theres a decent chance that this could harm a poorly-built robot. Would this violate entanglement maybe?

Entanglement. Ref's call on malicious intent. Ref may disable due to safety reasons (have someone throw a stick between the spokes of your bike when you are riding...think about it...not cool). Ref's may see this as not in the spirit of the FIRST competition.

It would also be interesting to see spikes INSIDE a robot. If a robot rams you hard enough to penetrate your outer shell, could you have spikes inside to *discourage* overly aggressive behavior?

The spikes would be made with malicious intent, from a ref's point of view (the ONLY point of view that counts, BTW). The whole point (no pun intended) behind the spikes would be to damage a robot.

Lets say you had things like grippers and arms that reacted to sensors on your robot. A hard blow could cause these parts to trigger. If they are triggered (by a sensor not by operator), would you be responsible for any resulting damage?

Good question. Ref's call. Remember, the ref won't know if the blow triggered the sensors or not...

Lets say someone picked our robot up. If we extended part of our robot inside their frame (assuming they had no side panels), and they moved us up or set us down and damaged their robot, would we be responsible?

Sticking the parts inside their frame would have only one use--to maliciously damage the opposing robot. Its retaliation. "You want to pick us up? We'll rip damage your insides!".