Your tall opaque robot is now illegal

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The person asking the question asked if it was legal to have a device intended to interfere with sensors. The GDC responded to the question asked. People here are interpreting that to mean a much broader answer, that no devices capable of blocking cameras are allowed.

Be that as it may, is it too much to ask for the GDC to use their own common sense and answer the question that the asker really intended to ask? My principal concern here is that lacking further clarification about what blocking strategies are actually legal, LRIs are going to see this Q&A and start applying it incorrectly to robots that are legal within the intent of the rule.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by rich2202

The problem with the question is that the GDC is trying to be sensitive to R9, blue box A and C


So, if the purpose of a robot piece is to block cameras (limit the vision), then it is a violation of R9.

If the purpose is to block shots, then that is ok, as it is an obstacle that robot designers are supposed to take into account.

So, put up an opaque piece of fabric that is supposed to interfere with boulder shooting, and you are fine. If it happens to block vision, so be it.

The rule is intended to prevent a defending robot from intentionally shining a flashlight directly into the camera of the other robot.

As they say: Bad cases make bad law.

Just make sure the robot piece has a purpose other than to interfere with sensing capabilities of the robot.



IMHO: As an R9 call, that is solely in the LRI's court. In general, G's are for Ref's, and R's are for RI's.

This sets up an interesting situation--what if a robot can shoot over a fully extended blocker, but it's camera can't see past the blocker because it's mounted so low? I don't think that was the intent of the rule, but that could make it illegal to block a catapult shooter, but allow blocking of low wheeled shooters.

[headlight]

For an engineering activity that generally focuses heavily on results and effects there are a surprising number of rules that hinge on intention.

If I am able to justify my large blocker that happens to impede camera operation by claiming I intended it to only block boulders, can I justify running my ultrasonic range finders on full blast all match because my team collects the data for our study on the effectiveness of range finders during matches? All remote sensing on a robot is going to be subject to interference from ambient conditions and from other robots, the question that needs to be resolved is how much interference is allowed and if the legality of the interference is determined by the intentions of the team or the actual effects of the device.

[JohnFogarty]

Meanwhile I'm over here with with my completely see-through poly-carbonate blocker prototype laughing.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

Be that as it may, is it too much to ask for the GDC to use their own common sense and answer the question that the asker really intended to ask? My principal concern here is that lacking further clarification about what blocking strategies are actually legal, LRIs are going to see this Q&A and start applying it incorrectly to robots that are legal within the intent of the rule.

Yeah, I'm with you Pat. This makes the business of blocking any shots significantly more difficult because someone can say "It blocks our camera!" and point a finger.

I know for certain that at least one team we've encountered this season with a cloth blocker was intentionally designed to block cameras and balls. Personally, I thought it was clever.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by mwmac

Say goodbye to cheesecaking blockers on second picks.

You can take my blocker... but you can never take my cheesecake!

[dodar]

Team A builds a boulder blocker.

Team B, "hey their blocker blocks our camera."

GDC, "Team B don't move your camera, Team A shall just have to redesign their entire robot to not block Team B's camera."

Yeah, makes total sense.

[cad321]

Has anyone submitted a Q&A asking the other half of the original question? Something along the lines of,

If I have a mechanism on my robot with the sole intent to block boulders being shot into the high goal, but it unintentionally interferes with an oponents vision system, would this be in violation of R9-c?

Get final clarification once and for all on this matter?

I'd ask it myself but I don't have access to my teams Q&A account at the moment.

[hardcopi]

So basically they are saying that it is illegal to use anything to stop the robot from functioning as it was intended to. Ok... then defense is illegal beause my robot was designed to shoot. The low bar should be illegal because we are a tall robot, etc...

They will rethink this I am pretty sure.

[Anthony Galea]

If this is going to be the ruling, saying that you cannot block shooters, I will be very upset as that was one of the large factors in us becoming a tall robot, we would have been a low bar bot if we knew that your shots are not allowed to be blocked. I sincerely hope the GDC reconsiders, as it feels like the game is being changed fundamentally mid-season.

[JesseK]

If my robot intentionally turns another robot which has a camera, is the drive train now considered a device which intends to interfere with the vision of another robot?

[Lil' Lavery]

Chief Delphi's Greatest Hits vol. 47: Overreactions to Q&A responses

[hardcopi]

Hmm... could I get the entire opposing team red carded by attaching my camera to the wheels? So anything above like 1 inch would be intending to block my camera.

Obviously that is a bit ridiculous, but blocking a camera seems like a good strategy and if a robot can only shoot on visual cues then they have issues. We had that issue in St Joe when the field rejected our camera (we had it configured incorrectly) and we corrected the issue. We can now shoot with or without the camera.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by JesseK

If my robot intentionally turns another robot which has a camera, is the drive train now considered a device which intends to interfere with the vision of another robot?

Technically this is correct. You could very easily make an argument that your drivetrain is a device intended to interfere with another robot's sensing capabilities.

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

This sets up an interesting situation--what if a robot can shoot over a fully extended blocker, but it's camera can't see past the blocker because it's mounted so low? I don't think that was the intent of the rule, but that could make it illegal to block a catapult shooter, but allow blocking of low wheeled shooters.

We saw this at the Walker Warren District Event this past weekend. In our last match 3176 played defense on us. They had a long arm they raised up which blocked our flashlight and camera. We were still able to shoot over the arm but it made it so we couldn't see the flashlight nor our camera feed. We never interpreted it as trying to block our vision, just our shot.