[YMTC]: field of view

[Rick]

First off, you cant willy nilly pull teams from the competition. Period.

This is a gray area indeed, but I see nothing wrong with it. Whats the difference between one non-transparent machine blocking the rack, or 2 smaller ones blocking it? One answer is obviously one team blocks, the other 2 score. As long as the ramps arent blocking the drivers at the diamond plate, this is acceptable.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Ricksta,

The whole point is that as soon as you start playing with the intention of preventing the other drivers from seeing where they're going, you're playing the drivers, not the robots. There's a reason FIRST disallows things like sirens and blindingly bright headlights. Your robot is supposed to be playing against the other robots on the field, not the drivers. Nitpicking about location and number of robots is silly. Were I a ref, I'd DQ a team doing this anywhere on the field. Otherwise you're saying it's okay if they're 1 foot from the diamond plate. or maybe 2 feet. No wait, maybe it's only an inch. There's literally no way you could make that stance make sense.

Similarly, if I saw 2 alliance mates blocking the entire vision of the rack, I'd DQ both teams. In my book it's an illegal strategy no mater how you go about it. You're supposed to be playing the robots on the field, not taking advantage of the fact that FIRST has given you a row of sitting ducks on the opposite end of the field. Honestly, wouldn't you be terrified if FIRST made this legal? Do you know how easy it would be to make a robot that could effectively block vision of the entire field? My students could whip one up in 2 days. Once your robot was on the wrong side of the field, you'd be hard pressed to get it back in a safe manner to move the offending blinder-bot too.

I think it just comes down to fairness. Theoretically, a team can design a robot to counter just about anything your robot can do to it on the field. But with the lack of driver aids and the fact that drivers are stuck in one spot, there's virtually nothing a team can do about being blinded by this robot. It simply isn't fair to force a team to sit there and tell them there's absolutely nothing they can do about the giant annoying robot keeping them from even attempting to drive their own robot.

[Karthik]

With the lack of consensus on this topic, this question should probably be posed on the Q&A.

[Cody Carey]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Otherwise you're saying it's okay if they're 1 foot from the diamond plate. or maybe 2 feet. No wait, maybe it's only an inch. There's literally no way you could make that stance make sense.

Unless you say that the blocking robot has to be outside of the other alliance's home zone... or any other tangible measurement away from the opposing driver station. The aforementioned stance quite literally makes perfect sense, as long as you don't try to make it fail.

Also, I agree full-heartedly that you can't just pull a robot from the competition because you don't think their strategy is GP. If it isn't in the rulebook, then it shouldn't be applied to the field of play. Period. Until a change is made, this is perfectly legal by the rules of this year's game.

The same goes for handing out a yellow flag for this particular strategy.


Or we could just leave it to Q&A

[Kevin Sevcik]

So I asked for the record, my question was posed as follows:

Assuming a robot meets all Robot Rules for design, is it legal for a robot to deploy a large sail of material (presumably about 100" wide by 92" tall) for the sole purpose of preventing the opposing drivers from being about to see the (entire) Rack? Related questions would be if it is legal to use a ramp or other system for the same purpose, and if the distance of said robot from the opposing driver's station affects the legality of this action.

EDIT: Cody, my point was that saying you can't do it in front of the driver's station is just drawing a completely arbitrary line. There is very little functional difference in blocking vision directly in front of the driver's station versus 8' away from the driver's station. It's like saying you're allowed to ram other robots as long as you only started accelerating from less than 2 feet away versus saying you can't ram other robots to damage them. If the intent is that robots shouldn't ram other robots to damage them, the distance rule isn't strict enough. If the intent is to let robots ram other robots to damage them.. well specifying a distance is simply defining the amount of damage you find acceptable.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Cody Carey

Also, I agree full-heartedly that you can't just pull a robot from the competition because you don't think their strategy is GP. If it isn't in the rulebook, then it shouldn't be applied to the field of play. Period. Until a change is made, this is perfectly legal by the rules of this year's game.

what about....

<G50> Respect and professional demeanor - FIRST Competitions promote respect and professional demeanor. In the event that any TEAM members on the playing field are uncivil towards competition field personnel or other TEAMS, the TEAM may be disqualified from the match. This rule applies to TEAMS at all times while on the playing field (including before and after the match). TEAMS will not receive match penalties for actions off the field, however event personnel will hold them accountable for their off-field actions.

[dlavery]

Redateam gets hit with a 10-point penalty and is disabled for the remainder of the match. Following the match, the Head Referee approaches Redateam and states that they must remove their very large non-transparent ramps before they will be allowed back out on the field.

Redateam realizes without asking that they have been found guilty of violating Rule <S01>. By preventing Blueateam's drivers from being able to watch their robot, they have caused the Blueateam robot to be operated in an uncontrolled and unsafe manner on the field. Even though it was the Blue robot that was operated unsafely, Redateam was the originating cause for the situation and was therefore determined to be responsible. And since Redateam has demonstrated that they would use their non-transparent ramps to cause this situation and could do so again, the ramps must be removed before Redateam can rejoin the competition.

Lucein, er, ah, uhm, I mean Redateam's Head Engineer, pulls much of his remaining hair out as he struggles to come up with a way to remove the ramps in the next four minutes so they won't miss their spot in the queue, without actually resorting to the Sawzall he has stored in the back of his truck...


-dave

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Redateam gets hit with a 10-point penalty and is disabled for the remainder of the match. Following the match, the Head Referee approaches Redateam and states that they must remove their very large non-transparent ramps before they will be allowed back out on the field.

Redateam realizes without asking that they have been found guilty of violating Rule <S01>. By preventing Blueateam's drivers from being able to watch their robot, they have caused the Blueateam robot to be operated in an uncontrolled and unsafe manner on the field. Even though it was the Blue robot that was operated unsafely, Redateam was the originating cause for the situation and was therefore determined to be responsible. And since Redateam has demonstrated that they would use their non-transparent ramps to cause this situation and could do so again, the ramps must be removed before Redateam can rejoin the competition.

The blue team wasn't forced to operate their robot unsafely. They could have stopped it and waited for the hazard to pass, but instead chose to operate their robot despite not being able to see it. <S01> speaks of penalties for "uncontrolled motion that cannot be stopped by the drivers" as an example of unsafe operation; if the drivers could have stopped it, and it was under partial control (inputs were functioning, but drivers couldn't react to the robot's behaviour), it doesn't seem like a plausible extrapolation of the example.

While simply stopping and waiting might negatively impact the blue team's opportunity to play the game, <S01> is a safety rule, not a gameplay rule.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

The blue team wasn't forced to operate their robot unsafely. They could have stopped it and waited for the hazard to pass, but instead chose to operate their robot despite not being able to see it. <S01> speaks of penalties for "uncontrolled motion that cannot be stopped by the drivers" as an example of unsafe operation; if the drivers could have stopped it, and it was under partial control (inputs were functioning, but drivers couldn't react to the robot's behaviour), it doesn't seem like a plausible extrapolation of the example.

While simply stopping and waiting might negatively impact the blue team's opportunity to play the game, <S01> is a safety rule, not a gameplay rule.

That's specious reasoning at best. That's like saying that a person driving down a 2 lane highway at night is perfectly within their right to leave their super extra blindness inducing high beams on when passing another car because, hey, the other car can always pull to the side of the road and stop driving. It's certainly true, but it misses the point entirely that the rude driver is causing the problem in the first place and shouldn't be depending on the other driver to make up for his lack of caution. Do you commonly weld in the middle of a busy shop and expect everyone else to notice this fact and avert their eyes, or do you put up weld screens in a corner of the shop and let everyone know what you're doing? Honestly, if you think safety is everyone's responsibility but your own.... well I wouldn't want to work around you.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

That's specious reasoning at best. That's like saying that a person driving down a 2 lane highway at night is perfectly within their right to leave their super extra blindness inducing high beams on when passing another car because, hey, the other car can always pull to the side of the road and stop driving. It's certainly true, but it misses the point entirely that the rude driver is causing the problem in the first place and shouldn't be depending on the other driver to make up for his lack of caution.

If you're faced with an oncoming car in your lane, while it might be the other driver's fault, it's very much your problem as well. Obliviously going about your merry way makes you as careless as the other driver is reckless.

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Honestly, if you think safety is everyone's responsibility but your own....

The point is exactly the converse of that: both teams are contributing (though not necessarily equally) to the purportedly unsafe situation, and both are able to act to prevent it. Paradoxically, the blue team's motion is only uncontrolled if the blue team chooses to operate their robot when they can't see it.

But maybe there's a better question: if operating a robot outside the driver's view is a priori unsafe, why were the 2002 and 2003 games designed to make this a common occurance? (Similar versions of <S01> existed then.) In 2002, robots frequently got lost behind one or more goals. In 2003, a robot passing under the bar was temporarily obscured by the ramp, from the point of view of a driver in the furthest alliance station—to say nothing of the 8 ft × 16 ft wall of opaque boxes in the centre of the field. What about the rack this year? How difficult is it to see through that thing, when it's almost full? If a robot is positioned with a full rack between it and its drivers, and they can't see the robot, did they just cause themselves to lose control, in violation of <S01>?

I don't doubt that this behaviour is a bit unsportsmanlike, but it doesn't seem fair to use the strongest safety rule to enforce a penalty that seems targeted at a gameplay event that is not necessarily, and not gravely unsafe.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

If you're faced with an oncoming car in your lane, while it might be the other driver's fault, it's very much your problem as well. Obliviously going about your merry way makes you as careless as the other driver is reckless.

If you're saying driver on the proper side of the road is just at much at fault as the driver on the wrong side of the road, and, therefore, no tickets (penalties) should be given.... Well then I'll be sure to avoid Toronto. <S01> discusses robots creating unsafe situations. Not field elements. Teams are, presumably, planning on having their vision partially obstructed by the rack. Teams are not planning on having their sight completely and utterly blocked by another robot that can run around the field blocking vision anywhere it likes. The point is that field elements, etc, are a known quantity. Robots tossing in additional unsafe situations are an unknown and to be avoided.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

If you're saying driver on the proper side of the road is just at much at fault as the driver on the wrong side of the road, and, therefore, no tickets (penalties) should be given.... Well then I'll be sure to avoid Toronto.

That's not what I said. The wrong-side driver is at fault for being on the wrong side, and he's guilty of something serious (e.g. dangerous driving, crossing a solid dividing line, wrong-way driving, etc.). But if the driver on the correct side of the road, having observed that there's an oncoming car in his lane, doesn't attempt to take precautions to avoid a collision, he's guilty of careless driving (though as a practical matter, this is probably unenforced). If the situation is so dangerous that it is to be avoided at all times (a traffic collision, for example), you're required to choose your actions responsibly, even if not at fault. In any event, I disagree that not being able to see your robot is (always) that dangerous.

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

<S01> discusses robots creating unsafe situations. Not field elements. Teams are, presumably, planning on having their vision partially obstructed by the rack. Teams are not planning on having their sight completely and utterly blocked by another robot that can run around the field blocking vision anywhere it likes. The point is that field elements, etc, are a known quantity. Robots tossing in additional unsafe situations are an unknown and to be avoided.

In the hypothetical case of the rack causing a visual obstruction, the robot creating the unsafe situation would be the one moving outside of the driver's field of view. The driver chooses where to position the robot, and has the option of not passing behind the rack. If the result (i.e. the robot is uncontrolled because it is not visible) is a severe hazard, worthy of enforcement under <S01>, then making a conscious choice to create that hazard ought to be treated equivalently—whether your robot is the obstacle or the obscured.

Isn't the real issue here that it screws up the game for the team being blocked, and not that it's always a serious safety risk? And isn't that an issue to be dealt with on a gameplay basis, not on a safety basis?

[dlavery]

Ahem.

From the FIRST Q&A System:

Question: Assuming a robot meets all Robot Rules for design, is it legal for a robot to deploy a large sail of material (presumably about 100" wide by 92" tall) for the sole purpose of preventing the opposing drivers from being about to see the (entire) Rack? Related questions would be if it is legal to use a ramp or other system for the same purpose, and if the distance of said robot from the opposing driver's station affects the legality of this action.


Answer: The FRC competition is designed to have robots compete against robots. Strategies such as the one outlined above pitch robots against the human operators, are against the spirit of the game, and are prohibited.

A team that uses a device to cause an opposing robot driver to lose control of their robot (e.g. by blocking their vision so they cannot safely coordinate the operation and movement of their robot) will be determined to be in violation of Rule <S01>. The violating team will be assessed a 10-point penalty, will have their robot disabled, and their robot may not be allowed back on the field until the device is removed.

It is a safety violation, as previously indicated. Q.E.D.

Lucien, er, ah, em, the Redateam coach, offers his neighbor from the North a handfull of thinning hair that has just been pulled from his head. He wanders off into the darkness, mumbling something sounding strangely like "it was never like this when we were playing golf..."

-dave

[Taylor]

Regarding the Redabot being disabled: Assuming the "wall" is up when all motors/electronics/pneumatics are at rest, when power is cut to Redabot, wouldn't Blueateam still be unable to see? While Redabot is unable to move, and making the Blueabots unable to move safely, Redateam has the rest of the match to score at will. What would be gained by disabling Redabot? Shouldn't it be removed from the field of play and the match restarted, and allowed back when and only when necessary changes are made?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by dlavery

It is a safety violation, as previously indicated. Q.E.D.

Just to be fair, that Q&A response was posted after all of the arguing above....

Fortunately for gameplay, they did make the distinction between causing a robot to become obscured, and using a device which causes the robot to become obscured, and specified that this applies to blocking the view of opposing drivers only.

The trouble is, this really makes it much more of a gameplay ruling than a safety one—let's say that the red team are a pack of morons and they obscure the view of one of their alliance partners. It seems that that's just as unsafe as if an opponent did the same. Apart from the fact that red team 1's drivers are within yelling distance ("stop it, you morons"), red team 2 has the same conundrum: keep driving (by definition unsafely), or stop and wait for the obstruction to pass (which won't happen if red 1 gets disabled). And I realize that penalizing red 1 also penalizes red 2 and red 3—so that's not an ideal situation either. If only <S01> called for individual disqualifications....

In fact, if this were being enforced on the basis of gameplay, nobody would really care if doing the same stupid thing to your alliance is treated unequally. But for safety, shouldn't there be a solution that can be applied uniformly to whichever team is causing the hazard? As if I haven't belaboured the point enough already, let me just say it: why not describe this as a new gameplay rule, and include it in the next update?