Legality of Team 190's Mechanism?

[Eric O]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

Very good point. However G22 reads:

"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."

Which can be interpreted to mean that breaking the plane in a counter-clockwise direction is not a penalty. After all, breaking the plane and crossing a lane marker are two different activities with seperate definitions.

No one said that breaking the plane in the counter-clockwise direction was a penalty. It should be interpreted to mean that it is not a penalty. I would also agree that CROSSING and breaking the plane are separate.

I still do not understand how either of these arguements make 190s strategy legal. In fact, I think that G22 is one of the clearest rules in the manual.

For those of you still having trouble grasping what G22 really means:

Here is the definition of Crossing (emphasis mine):
CROSSING: The act of a TRACKBALL or ROBOT passing through the plane defined by a line (i.e.LANE MARKER or FINISH LINE) when it is projected vertically upwards. A TRACKBALL or ROBOT shall have CROSSED a line when all parts of the object, while traveling in a counterclockwisedirection, have completely passed through the plane.

The logic to tell if a robot is in a given quadrant and is answered by a yes or no question: Has the entire robot entered a quadrant (meaning crossed the line)?

One you have defined the quadrant the robot is in, G22 simply states: it shall not break the plane of the line by moving in the clockwise direction (read, previous quadrant).

The big picture is that if you are in one quadrant there are only 2 other quadrants you can break the plane of. This basic logic is what makes 190s strategy illegal. I actually went through this same logic when I sketched up a very similar robot and then realized it severely violated rule G22. I actually thought that it was the reason the rule was wrote as breaking the plane was to aviod strategies of this kind.


-Eric