Rail Diversion

[Nuttyman54]

Two rules prevent you from doing this:

<G31> BALL RETURN and RETURN BARS Protection - ROBOTS may not contact the BALL RETURN or the RETURN BARS (black tape). Violation: PENALTY for inadvertent contact; plus a RED CARD for obviously intentional contact or damaging contact.

<G47> BALL RETURN Interference - ROBOTS may not interfere with BALLS in contact with the BALL RETURN. Violation: Two PENALTIES per affected BALL.

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Two rules prevent you from doing this:

<G31> BALL RETURN and RETURN BARS Protection - ROBOTS may not contact the BALL RETURN or the RETURN BARS (black tape). Violation: PENALTY for inadvertent contact; plus a RED CARD for obviously intentional contact or damaging contact.

<G47> BALL RETURN Interference - ROBOTS may not interfere with BALLS in contact with the BALL RETURN. Violation: Two PENALTIES per affected BALL.

i think there is at least one more rule that might prevent this...
Unless you are contacting the tower you cannot reach into the ball return without exceeding your standard height. (If you are doing this while the ball is enroute along the the tower rails... (It is pretty obvious from G47 that you can't do this...


Now if you wish to do this after it leaves the track...

I would also think that this would constitute an Active Mechanism above the Bumper zone....<G45> which is not allowed to control the ball's direction.
If you speed up the ball... you are INDEED controlling the direction too...remember the end result of speeding up the ball would be to change its point of contact with the floor... this can only be accomplished by changing the the trajectory of the ball... therefore you would be changing the ball's direction in the y direction...

You should ask Q and A though... they are the real answer people.

[DonRotolo]

But a passive mechanism - maybe an angled cover for the robot - seems just fine to me. I mean, if you're just driving by the return exit and a ball happens to drop on top of you (and bounces right off), I cannot imagine that would be considered carrying. (If it stayed on top, you're scrod).