Flags...what will happen with them?

[Brandon Holley]

1 match at NJ on Friday, team 103, the cybersonics, had 2 tubes accidentally thrown over their flag by the human players on their side and they continued to place tubes without penalty. The refs made an excellent assessment of that situation and decided they were not intentionally in possession of those tubes.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

1 match at NJ on Friday, team 103, the cybersonics, had 2 tubes accidentally thrown over their flag by the human players on their side and they continued to place tubes without penalty. The refs made an excellent assessment of that situation and decided they were not intentionally in possession of those tubes.

If that was true, it was totally against one of the updates that came out. They should have only been able to place a ringer they had in their possession at the time their flagpole was ringered. The update even mentioned that the robot could free the ringer itself, or have an alliance robot do it.

Now, if you meant the flag was ringered by the opponents, then yes, that doesn't count as being in possession.

[Dad1279]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

1 match at NJ on Friday, team 103, the cybersonics, had 2 tubes accidentally thrown over their flag by the human players on their side and they continued to place tubes without penalty. The refs made an excellent assessment of that situation and decided they were not intentionally in possession of those tubes.

Well it happened to us, 1279 twice (in NJ) and we were assigned penalties the first time. The second time we stopped placing tubes, and went back to the home zone. After that, we lowered the flag flush with the top of our arm structure, with the inspector's approval.

I would find it very upsetting if we were penalized differently, as in our case I am pretty sure it effected the outcome of the matches.

[coreyk]

1 match at NJ on Friday, team 103, the cybersonics, had 2 tubes accidentally thrown over their flag by the human players on their side and they continued to place tubes without penalty.

To clarify, I believe that we were assessed a penalty for having the tubes on the flag.

[Arefin Bari]

Right about now, I am really liking this thread.

[JoelGoering]

I know at KC that we had our a ringer on our flag during the first finals match. What seemed like a disater to us at first, turned out to be an excellent demonstration of teamwork as our alliance member, team 1775 grabbed the ringer off our flag and immediately scored it.

[Athleticgirl389]

Originally Posted by JoelGoering

What seemed like a disater to us at first, turned out to be an excellent demonstration of teamwork as our alliance member, team 1775 grabbed the ringer off our flag and immediately scored it.

Gracious Professionalism at its best We could also not throw tubes and get rid of the chance of ringing the flags Then again... that wouldn't be a challenge.... I take it back haha

[Aren_Hill]

you could always go with wildstangs aproach and grab the flag off of yourself which is if i may say an amazingly flexible arm.

[razor95kds]

Originally Posted by JoelGoering

I know at KC that we had our a ringer on our flag during the first finals match. What seemed like a disater to us at first, turned out to be an excellent demonstration of teamwork as our alliance member, team 1775 grabbed the ringer off our flag and immediately scored it.

we did the exact same thing in the finals matches at SVR. 852 got a ringer stuck on the top of their robot and we had one of our presets at the right the right to grab the tube and lift it off.

[Frinkahedron]

Not shown in the pictures is the zip tie we placed (at the start of VCU playoffs and during all of Chesapeake) from the bottom of the holder (seen left of the yellow elevator strap) that went down to the 80/20 below it to keep it vertical.

We had a problem of a different kind with our flag. At Chesapeake, our flag was knocked up enough for it to come out of the holder, but fell right back down and got stuck in our elevator system, locking it up and preventing us from scoring for the rest of the match. Temporary solution was to jam an ear plug into the flag holder along with the flag to keep it oriented away from the elevator. Any force big enough to knock the flag off afterwards was also big enough to knock it clear off the robot and fly off, instead of a small one that just plops it straight down.

However, the other problem we had was the actual holder itself coming off, swinging down because of the zip tie, and getting stuck in the elevator (again!). That one cost us our last qualification match, as we were on our way to a win only to not be able to complete the 6th ringer to out weigh the opposing alliance's bonus points.


The flag holder placement was more of an afterthought right at the end of build season, which explains the problem's we've had. Modifications are coming for Atlanta (hopefully )

[KTorak]

They are kinda dangerous. At Boilermaker, I saw one get knocked out of a robot in a manner that it was ejected 10-15 into the crowd where it hit a man in the face. I'd like to see FIRST get stricter on this because many teams have them hidden or placed in a manner that they do not meet the guidelines in the manual.

[+()c|D]

They have been flying off of some robots, maybe they should change them to something closer to a piece of plexi or something that is attached via velcro to the top of the robot, something that is more likely to stay on the robot, even after getting rammed into a few times.

[ewankoff]

A good solution would be to put a rubber stopper in the top of the flag poles.

[Andy L]

At Davis/Sac. team 100 got a tube on their flag in the quarter finals which kept 1458 and 100 distracted most of the match(we lost that one) and again in the finals where we the tube off a little faster but still took time.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Andy L

At Davis/Sac. team 100 got a tube on their flag in the quarter finals which kept 1458 and 100 distracted most of the match(we lost that one) and again in the finals where we the tube off a little faster but still took time.

I'm pretty sure the only reason why 100, 1148, and 997 lost that match was because two of your bots got knocked over...


Anywho, yeah. FIRST needs to redo their alliance marking system. Colored LED arrays, anybody?