Protection to shooters

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by falconmaster

I am from 842. First of all I do not want to cause any hard feelings. The robot game is just that a game. In the interest of trying to figure out the game we had some issues.
For us to launch the track ball, we had to come to a stop and then start the firing sequence. The sequence involved lowering our forklifts to allow the launching the track ball. About a second later the pnuematic catapult launches the track ball. We were told that once we start the firing sequence we would not be allowed to be hit by another robot. After three times being interfered with while we were launching in our home stretch and all, and no penalties called, we were told that the ball must be moving, or in other words, we were not allowed to be interfered with when the ball is actually launching. So according to the rules as interpreted by the refs at the AZ regional, we were not launcing even though we started our launch sequence. Based on this rule interpretation, we decided that the only defence against team 39 was to interfere with there setup for launching, because if they are not actually launching then it is fair game.
Their driving up to the hurdle before launching is eqivalanet to us stopping and lowering our lift arms to fire.
I think that is why we did not get called.

All this being said, I would rather have teams that have clearly shown that they are starting to fire should not be interefred with. This would allow us and 39 to fire without intereference. But hey,Iam not the ref.
Based on this bit on info and some othwer things we learned, we will be implementing them in LA and LV and we hope to see how it works against teams like 39.
They are a great team and have built a great bot, they were also very gracious to explain to us how they got their launcher to work.

On the field though we must do all we can to benifit our alliance. That is all we were trying to do. Playing the game as it was being interpreted.
I hope this explains why we played why we did.

As far as I can tell the refs interpretation is correct. Your robot was neither moving towards the overpass nor elevating the trackball so it does not fit the definition of hurdling. 39 on the other hand launched on the run and thus should have met the definition of hurdling as they were moving towards the overpass.

I have not yet been down on the field for a match this year, but what constitutes "clearly shown that they are starting to fire"?? With your robot on the far side of the field from any driver that would be interfering with you I think things may not be so clear from their perspective. If you aren't moving towards the overpass or elevating the ball, you're fair game, plain and simple. These two criteria should be much easier to see and distinguish from the far side of the field vs. trying to tell when a shooter is starting to fire.

This rule has been in place from the beginning and all teams had ample opportunity to design accordingly.