Amount of contact this year

[generalbrando]

This year we have those important large balls and all the small balls running around. Since these are very important I expect to see a lot of teams manipulating them. In 2001 you didn't have to worry about designing a grabber that would withstand high impacts and lots of pulling. This year should be a different story. I can see teams coming up with super strong grabbers or other means of holding the ball firmly and/or stealing it. I can also see these grabbers getting twisted into pretzels. I think this year is much more like 2000 in terms of contact because 2002/3 didn't require the same kind of extra mechanisms to accomlish the tasks while still being able to take a bit of a beating.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Bill Gold

I think you're refering to implied rules against tipping, which I totally agree with your statement. I think that teams (like in the 2000, 2002, and 2003 games) have the explicit but in this year the implied ability to try to remove your opponent from a scoring position. In this case, trying to take your opponent off of the bar. Maybe I'm mistaken in my assumption, but I'm sure it will happen at an event and then we'll get a ruling on it.

Of course.

I meant rules against tipping and malicious damage.

Removing a robot from the hanging bar, seems to be a perfectly viable strategic move.

[Stephen Kowski]

I think in autonomous while people are going after the bonus balls you will see some of the more interesting hits....

[greencactus3]

hold on, ARE we allowed to try to take the big balls from say, a robot who has a grip on the ball. like tearing it from their grip?