What do you think will be important this year?

[kirtar]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

It can't be.

Since the ball has to be touching the carpet, and can only be 3 inches under the robot, you can't catch it and have it roll down a ramp into a mechanism, as it's being funneled and thus its direction of travel sticks with you when spun.

Also, metal on carpet.

True, although there's still nothing against say, making the top of your robot such that a ball will bounce off of it in a given direction (i.e. angle the top of your robot). This is not an active mechanism, so we don't have a problem there (It's not even really a mechanism). It is in fact a method to avoid carrying balls as it will cause them to roll or (more likely) bounce off.

It is difficult to determine to whether a ball rolling down a ramp (with no side boards) is carrying because if the robot turns, the ball will probably remain in approximately the same absolute position (pulling a tablecloth from under glasses if you will). In addition, any movement in the other degrees of freedom (moving forward, back, left, right) would certainly cause a difference in relative position. As such, I would suggest that a ball rolling down would not qualify as possession, and therefore does not qualify as carrying.

As for the metal on carpet issue, that is not arguable because it is explicitly stated in the rules.