2008 game confusion thread

[vhcook]

There are a huge number of threads that are covering this issue, and I'm not sure which one to pick, so I'm going with this one. I'm hoping this will help whoever wins the race to ask about these when the Q&A opens up. (Or I may just be indulging a tendency to overanalyze things.)

I am assuming that the home stretch is the area from the alliance station wall to the team colored stripe/color coded piping side of the overpass (i.e. the end of the finish line), meaning the entire structure of the overpass is within the corresponding home stretch.

I'm finding two visible and one implied apparent rule violations in the game animation.

The one that I've been seeing a lot of comment on is at 1:51. The red forklift robot in the blue homestretch extends its forks well above the overpass to knock down the red trackball during hybrid period. This appears to be a violation of G36 and is the one that keeps getting mentioned in discussion.

<G36> HOME STRETCH Height Restriction – ROBOTS in the HOME STRETCH of the opposing ALLIANCE can not be more than 6 feet tall. A PENALTY will be assigned for each infraction.

This may happen again during teleoperated mode at 2:17, since the blue gripperbot in the background is in the red home stretch and appears to be doing something above the camera frame. The blue ball with the dots had still been in the red-side overpass at the end of hybrid mode, and we see the blue gripperbot take possession of it from the ground at 2:32 in the back half of the red lane.

The other one that bothers me is at about 2:57. Blue gripper robot in the blue home stretch breaks the plane of the lane divider and the red finish line in a clockwise direction to descore the red trackball on the overpass during teleoperated mode. If I'm not misinterpreting it, this appears to be a double violation of G22:

<G22> Direction Of Traffic – ROBOTS must proceed around the TRACK in a counter-clockwise direction. Once a ROBOT has CROSSED a LANE MARKER or FINISH LINE, it shall not break the plane of the line by moving in the clockwise direction. A PENALTY will be assigned for each infraction.

As appears to be the consensus, these two rules appear to be problematic in combination, both from the perspective of getting one's second trackball without help from the other alliance and descoring. Descoring appears to have been intended to be legal, per G29.

<G29> POSSESSING Opponent’s TRACKBALLS - ROBOTS may not be in the POSSESSION of a TRACKBALL belonging to an opposing ALLIANCE. A PENALTY will be assigned for each violation. HERDING of an opponent’s TRACKBALL and removing an opponent’s TRACKBALL from the OVERPASS is permitted

The combination of G22 and G36 would indicate that the opposing team will have placed them on the overpass above their own finish line (assuming both of their trackballs were in play at some point). My analysis would indicate that the only legal methods to descore in the opponent's lane or retrieve your own second trackball would be:

a) Knocking the ball off by carefully but energetically striking the very small area of the ball below the 6' mark (bouncing it out of the overpass in an uncontrolled direction)

b) Carefully but energetically striking the very small area of the ball extending into the non-home-stretch portion of the opponent's lane (sending the ball clockwise).

c) Striking the ball with a thrown trackball (of your own color, since you probably have to take possession (G29) to throw it, and you wouldn't want to miss and hurdle your opponent's trackball anyway) launched from below the 6' mark. If successful, this would result in a fairly crowd-pleasing elastic collision that would send trackballs flying in two directions at high speed.

I suspect the intent of G36 was to reduce the ability to deflect the other alliance's hurdling attempt, but I'm not pleased with the side effects.