What the heck is going on????

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by yodameister

One way that I saw is to "punch" the ball from below it. The bottom of the ball is at 71" from the bottom of the floor. With a well placed impact on the ball with a pneumatic cylinder, the ball should pop out of its resting place.

Its a very "squishy" ball, with only 1" max penetration I think you'd be lucky to move it a few inches from its resting place, not to mention getting the ball's CG outside of the rail (at least hitting it from the bottom). It's prototype testing time (unless you prefer to "do the math").

[daftpunk79]

what if you use a sort of spring action?

[neutrino15]

to not being over 6' in your opponent's home stretch, i say:

[daftpunk79]

you mean use that to pick it up from the other side of the divider????

[David Brinza]

Extending your robot arm (appendage) across the opponent's finish line from the other side of the overpass most likely violates rule <G36>.

BTW, I noticed that there's a related thread on this subject:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=60767

A moderator might step in and merge the discussion...

[daftpunk79]

i only started this thread to find out exactly how many rules we're having prob. with and how many i need to discuss with my mentors monday.....then it got to this.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by neutrino15

to not being over 6' in your opponent's home stretch, i say:

Lot's of discussion going on about this. In defense of the animator, the rules are probably in flux until the last minute before the manual is released, but the animation is completed earlier...GDC will likely resolve this in Update #1

[daftpunk79]

its still confusing and frustrating..........

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by daftpunk79

its still confusing and frustrating..........

Well, you've only got six more weeks of confusion and frustration before the robot goes in the box.

The rules will get clarified in the next few days, don't worry - be happy!!

[Spylake]

I can think of several solutions.

1. Cross line and pop it back wards.
2. Leave it in place and collect 12 points.
3. Take the penalty
4. Use the other ball to bump it. The rule says only the ROBOT can not exceed 6 feet.
5. Gentleman's agreement with the opposition to put all balls in play
6. Ed on our team pointed out that if your wheel contact point is over the line you are no longer in their home stretch and can reach back and tap it.

Maybe the rule is intentional and won't be changed.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Spylake

I can think of several solutions.

1. Cross line and pop it back wards.
2. Leave it in place and collect 12 points.
3. Take the penalty
4. Use the other ball to bump it. The rule says only the ROBOT can not exceed 6 feet.
5. Gentleman's agreement with the opposition to put all balls in play
6. Ed on our team pointed out that if your wheel contact point is over the line you are no longer in their home stretch and can reach back and tap it.

Maybe the rule is intentional and won't be changed.

Starting with the first and last points, the entire robot must break the plane of the opponents finish line to exit the opponent's home stretch. If the robot then backs up and breaks the plane moving in the wrong direction, it's assessed a penalty <G22>. It may be possible to knock the ball off "backwards" without having the robot break the finish line plane.

With the second and fourth points, the opposing alliance will want to leave your trackball on it's overpass until the last second. The "gentleman's agreement" will probably need to include language like "agree to knock opponent's ball off at the first teleoperated pass" otherwise things might get "sticky".

As long as a possessed ball is not considered to be part of the robot (I haven't seen a rule that states this is the case), knocking your ball off with another ball would work. If the possessed ball is released before hitting your ball on the overpass, then I don't believe any infraction is incurred.

Taking the penalty outright just doesn't seem right, but if it's done early enough the alliance still might net a bunch of points.

Comment: In the kick-off, we were reminded that FIRST is not about winning at all costs. Is it GP to intentionally incur a penalty? Maybe this is a test...

[yodameister]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

Its a very "squishy" ball, with only 1" max penetration I think you'd be lucky to move it a few inches from its resting place, not to mention getting the ball's CG outside of the rail (at least hitting it from the bottom). It's prototype testing time (unless you prefer to "do the math").

Actually I found the ball to be quite "not squishy". It is very bouncy. I played with it in Manchester this morning and it took a fair amount of force to deflect the ball even 1". I apologize for not being able to quantify how much force, but it seemed to be quite a bit. With the ball held at 6' in the air and dropped, it bounced about 3 feet or so. I still think that you could "punch" it from the bottom and get it to pop out.

[Matthew2c4u]

it works like this, no matter how many man hours they put into testing the rules and making them flawless Well, always find fault because
A were not the ones who wrote the rules, we see things they wouldn't
B ive spend 16 straight hours today picking apart these rules if every other first student did half of that.. our man hours who be theres ^9 or so, you just cant compete with the sheer number of man hours avalible to the general population
C We kids, there dumb adults. fill in the blanks (lol JK)

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Matthew2c4u

it works like this, no matter how many man hours they put into testing the rules and making them flawless Well, always find fault because
A were not the ones who wrote the rules, we see things they wouldn't
B ive spend 16 straight hours today picking apart these rules if every other first student did half of that.. our man hours who be theres ^9 or so, you just cant compete with the sheer number of man hours avalible to the general population
C We kids, there dumb adults. fill in the blanks (lol JK)

Except for "C", you're right - the review process is very important. Only so many possibilities can be anticipated by the GDC. They're a small (but very experienced) team and really must focus on the architecture and structure of the game. The FIRST teams are detail-oriented and actively participate in "fine-tuning" the rules before the competitions begin.

Think of it as beta testing with an active user community that really wants to improve the product as fast as possible. It's priceless and invaluable work that FIRST teams do each year.

This is not about making someone wrong, it's about getting it right for the competitions.