Defense, It's still here.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by dlavery

If you try this approach, you may need a few extra team members to help you count all your penalty points. There are a few rules that very effectively combine to prevent you from doing this.

-dave

<G42> Protection While HURDLING – A ROBOT in the process of HURDLING shall not be subjected to overt, blatant, or aggressive contact that interferes with the HURDLING attempt. Each incident will be PENALIZED. Bumping to signal to pass (see Rule <G38>) a HURDLING ROBOT is permitted if no passing lane is open (see Rule <G43>). Incidental contact while passing the HURDLING ROBOT or otherwise engaged in normal game play is permitted.

Beyond this nothing else springs to mind, though I've just woken up. Again, I can't imagine that any contact by any opposing robot unto me can (or should) be considered overt, blatant or aggressive. The caveat is that any robot in possession of a trackball and in its home stretch can be considered to be "hurdling," and contact with them or their ball as such is a very bad thing.

In circumstances, however, where we're defending from behind their finish line and, as I suspect many teams will, they've released the ball to complete the hurdle -- that team no longer satisfies the conditions of HURDLING -- and, moreso, we are really doing nothing more than HERDING at a height of 7 feet. I can't imagine how a wall, sitting innocently on one side of the overpass and bouncing balls away, is doing anything wrong.

Of course, we're not building this robot, so my interest in this is almost purely academic.