[YMTC]: field of view

[Greg Needel]

You Make The Call (YMTC) is a series of situations where you are the official and make the call. Please reference specific rules when applicable. The results of YMTC are not official and are for educational purposes only.


Redateam is at the YMTC regional event with their robot. This robot is 6ft tall has 2 very large non-transparent ramps. At the beginning of the match the ramps open wide with a flat side of just wide enough to fit within the 72X72" rule (101.8" wide). The team plans to use these large vertical ramps to bock teams from scoring on the spider legs, but as the match progresses they realize that they have a better effect by blocking the other alliance's driver station field of view by positioning them self between the drivers and the rack. Reaateam wins the match because the blue alliance cannot see the rack to function their robots and the other red teams are able to climb those large ramps. At the end of the match the drivers from the blue alliance approach the head referee to ask if this is legal. You are the head referee do you allow this strategy in this and future matches. You make the call.

[rees2001]

Interesting... This strategy doesn't sound very GP. It would really seem to me that it depends on where the robot sits. I don't see anything in the rules that say you can't block the rack & therefore block vision from the rack back. I know I wouldn't want my kids using this as a strategy but, to each their own.


BTW should this be a poll?

[Tristan Lall]

I'd have to agree with the above. It's not a nice thing to do, but as long as a clear view of the vision targets is maintained, no penalties apply. A lecture on playing nicely with the other robots may be in order, but it would be too much to try to disallow the behaviour.

Penalties may apply in specific circumstances, such as when ramps exceed the size limit, or when the robot remains in the opposing home zone during the endgame, but those are side effects, not results of blocking the drivers' field of view.

In some previous years, rules have existed prohibiting this. Perhaps FIRST feels that 72" is a small enough obstruction that drivers can work around it.

[Donut]

If the ramps being deployed ever causes a violation of the no wedge rule, then this would be illegal; likewise if they remained in the blue alliance's home zone they would be penalized.

Beyond that I can't see any immediate problems, but I'll say I don't think this would be a very effective strategy. Even if you could get the full 102" (meaning redateam's ramps would have to be less than 1" wide to still fit in the box), redateam still covers only 8.5' of the field, which is less than 1/3 the width of the field. Redateam will only be able to block one team's drivers, and the other two blue robots will most likely be able to move redateam and/or gain numerous penalties for running into the extensions (remember, redateam's extensions out of the starting size receive penalties for high hitting even if they don't initiate the contact).

[BlondeNerd]

I'm a little confused...Are the ramps deployed or not? If they are, they are violating <R05> and <R06>.

<R05> "Wedge” ROBOTS are not allowed. All parts of a ROBOT between 0 and 8.5 inches from the ground ... must be within 10 degrees of vertical...
<R06> Ramps, platforms as other mechanisms specifically designed to elevate ROBOTS during the END GAME are exempt from Rule <R05> when they are deployed in the HOME ZONE. Such devices deployed outside the HOME ZONE are not covered by this exemption.

The ramps are not in the home zone. They should be penalized for disobeying these rules.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by BlondeNerd

I'm a little confused...Are the ramps deployed or not?

In this situation the ramps are partially deployed. While they are not on the ground the have opened from their initial starting orientation.

The goal of this YMTC is to determine if Blocking the rack from the view of the drivers is a legitimate strategy

[kawelch]

If it truely blocks the vision of the other Allience... I think this would constitute a safety hazard S<01> as you would make the other team drive blindly.

[Ross340]

Is it just me or is this not very FIRSTlike?

[Kevin Sevcik]

I've said this before elsewhere, but I'll repeat. The very first year FIRST had alliances, a highly similar question was asked in Q&As. Teams wanted to know if they could deploy a peacock tail and sit in front of the opposing alliance station to block their vision. The GDC declared this illegal as they ruled it was not within the spirit of competition. The proposed situation is slightly different in that the Redateam is presumably only blocking vision of the rack, and not sitting in front of the opposing station blocking the entire field. I also know that the previous ruling doesn't apply this year, and there aren't any rules that specifically apply to this, but I still think it's illegal. Here's my reasoning:

First, there is the rule against strategies aimed at damaging or destroy other robots. I feel the intent there is to prevent teams from disabling a robot and rendering it completely unable to function in a match. This is a bit of a stretch, but entirely blocking a team's vision prevents them from doing just about anything. Especially with any kind of safety.

Second and probably more pertinent, R46 prohibits many items. Including speakers and audio devices that are loud enough that they could cause a distraction or otherwise influence the outcome of a match. I think the implication here is that your robot is competing against the opposing robots. Your robot is not competing with the opposing drivers, and you should not be using it solely to impair and disadvantage those drivers. Impair the functioning and efficiency of their robot, as by using your ramps to guard spider legs, sure. But impairing the drivers by blinding them while not touching their robots... no. I'm pretty sure that's very clearly illegal.

[Zero-Bee]

It's clearly illegal. It is totally not in the spirit of competition, and a distrating stratagy is competing with the people, not the robots.

Plus, it's just not cool. The team should be disqualified from that match, and if it appens again, thrown out of the tournament.

[Justin M.]

In any type of FRC gameplay you are going to have to deal with robots blocking your field of view - this is one of the hardest and annoying things when driving. I'd say if it happens due to coincidence, then it would be fine.

BUT - refs will be noticing team's strategy and gameplay a bit more this year. If I seen that a certain team was blocking another team's F.O.V. intentionally and using it as a gameplay strategy, I'd give the team an aggressive flag, and if it's done again, pull them from the competition.

[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