Legality of Team 190's Mechanism?

[Paul Copioli]

For those of you that don't understand why it is illegal, here are some things to help you out:

1. 1114 and 190 asked a question about holding onto the ball as you go over the overpass and how far off the ground you should be when you let go. It was crystal clear (based on the Q & A) that intent of the rule was that the ball was approximately at the height of the overpass. 1114 decided against this strategy because of the GDC response here: http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=8151. Apparently, 190 ignored this response.

2. No one ever asked about this strategy as relating to G22. Is the GDC supposed to aswer questions that aren't asked?

3. If a box on wheels drives out at the start of teleoperated and starts spinning perfectly counterclockwise while in the starting quandrant and a corner of their robot goes into quandrant 4, then they will get a penalty each time. Why is it different for an arm?

4. To be considered to enter a quadrant, the entire robot has to enter that quadrant. So the robot never entered Q2 or Q3, so Q4 is still the previous quadrant.

5. The reason many other teams did not use this strategy is because of the response in the Q & A above and G22. We wanted to do someting very similar to this, but G22 kept getting in the way.


Now for a small rant:
How can you not see how clear the G22 violation is? The robot spinning something counter-clockwise is completely irrelevant. The counterclockwise term only has to do with how a robot moves from quadrant to quadrant not how the robot moves with respect to itself. We want the GDC to have less rules, but we as teams continue to find loopholes. Stop it. The answer from the GDC on releasing the ball was clear. They said, "at least the height of the overpass." 190 simply ignored the answer. Why? Because it wasn't specifically in the rules, but the answer clearly stated the intent. I just don't get it. Maybe I just don't have a good enough imagination.