Legality of Team 190's Mechanism?

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

I just don't get it, 190's robot enters the previous quadrant while the robot is clearly in the home zone. You lawyers are frustrating me.

Paul, I don't think many are disputing the illegality of 190's hurdling method as clarified by the GDC. What they are instead trying to say is that the rules as written lend themselves to multiple interpretations. One man's obvious penalty is another man's opportunity to create a truly unique design. The difference between the two interpretations is often only a few misplaced or omitted words within the rule. I've also seen where the existence of the words "may" and "might" in a rule or a Q/A response color in many more gray areas than should be present.

Critical reading and analysis of the rules by teams once the Manual is released is a natural occurence and brings these "loopholes" to the forefront yearly. Unless something different is tried during the rule development process, you can expect to see this continue.

If the GDC wishes to eliminate these "controversies" in future seasons, I suggest they add some more editorial filters and Devil's Advocate sessions (i.e. "What Would 190 Do?" ) to the rule creation process so many loopholes are identified and closed shut before the rules are released. It may not be easy for one person or even a small group of people to do this alone, but by recruiting more people to browse and proofread the rules beforehand - the SAME PEOPLE who would have otherwise done the same thing after the rules were released anyway - FIRST and the GDC will help nip these inconsistent interpretations in the bud before they are ever published.

I'd sign whatever non-disclosure agreement I needed to sign if I'd have a chance to help make the rules more exacting and less open to interpretation. Call the team mentors who help out during this process "Game Manual Beta Testers" and let us have a crack at them 1-2 weeks before Kickoff, or whenever is most appropriate.

A suggestion for a "new" G22:

Direction Of Traffic – ROBOTS must proceed around the TRACK in a counter-clockwise
direction. Once a ROBOT has completely CROSSED a LANE MARKER or FINISH LINE into a new quadrant, no part of the ROBOT may enter into the adjacent clockwise quadrant it just departed. A PENALTY will be assigned for each infraction.