Outside the field?

[Bill_B]

The recent team update 10 got me to thinking about <G20> and its vicinity. Please advise me if you think this logic is flawed.
1. Goals are outside the field (including funnels)
2. hanging chains are in the goals
3. <G20> says don't touch anything outside the field
4. Don't touch the chains

Some time ago I read the rules and I remember being amused to find that they tried to cover the eventuality that a robot could enter the funnel area as part of the play. "Who would do that?" I wondered "and risk entanglement in the chains." Now it appears to me that we may not even touch the chains. I suspect it will be impossible to get into a funnel without touching a chain, so no going into a funnel, however amusing it might be.

Corollary: the funnels are not part of the field either, so even if you're allowed to be there by <G22> it would be pretty darn hard to navigate that space without touching chain or walls (both outside the field).

'Tis a puzzlement.

[EricH]

<G22> provides a way out. Generally in the past (note: Not necessarily applicable this year), minor incursions into places like corner goals have not been a penalty.

Chains would actually be part of the field border, due to placement in line with the Alliance Station wall, so you're still fine contacting them. (If they're mounted inside the funnel, disregard this part.)

It would be ludicrous in the extreme to disallow contact with the chains. As I pointed out with the do-we-get-penalties-if-we-don't-return-the-ball-after-the-match-ends dilemma, the GDC isn't going to go into situations where they could be easily blamed for a penalty. It is quite foreseeable that a robot shoves a ball into a goal and the chains swing out of the goal with the recoil, hitting the robot. If there was a penalty given for contacting the chains, the team in question, whose robot never entered the tunnel, would be quite within their rights to request the Head Referee's explanation of the call. Should the call go against them, the GDC would be at least 90% certain to "hear" about it from either side, which nobody in their position would really want. Especially if that "hearing" came, as it so often does, through an angry-sounding post here before it went through official channels.