G27 and the Chute Door

[Thad House]

Double checking through the rules, it looks like if the robot touches the chute door at all, its a disable. Q122 says its outside the field, and G27 says you cannot touch anything outside the field. So please be careful around the chute door.

I really don't understand why they made driving against the field border illegal. Since the chute door is barely behind the alliance wall, if you are driving along the wall and something touches the door, thats a disable, even though its completely safe. I have a feeling this is going be a foul corrected after week 1, because I would guess that a lot of teams working with the HP station will get disabled because of this.

[Alan Anderson]

The chute door is outside the field. It is not part of the field border, so it is not true that "they made driving against the field border illegal."

A robot contacting the chute door is not "completely safe", because the chute door is intended to be manipulated by a Human Player. One would not want the chute door to move unexpectedly while someone is holding its handle.

Fouls due to this particular situation do need to be "corrected", but that should happen by teams not committing them rather than by referees not calling them.

[Pretzel]

It seems to me like it would indeed be unsafe to touch the chute door. If a human player was not expecting it and the chute door (specifically the handles attached to the door) started moving, it could be dangerous. In addition, any attachment that can touch the chute door would also likely be capable of extending beyond the chute door, which would be much more dangerous than the previous situation and one that is most definitely deserving of a disable.

The chute door also does not extend all the way down to the carpeted surface of the field. This means that you can drive up to, and touch, the wall underneath the chute door provided that you have no protrusions on that side of the robot which would touch the chute door itself.

My guess is that this rule is intended to prevent robot designs that involve things like a forklift that inserts itself into the tote chute, or a robot that could prop open the chute door to allow for faster (and more dangerous) loading of totes into the robot. I am not a member of the GDC however, so this is only a guess. There are still a number of different designs that can effectively load totes from the tote chute (my team's robot included) without violating this rule, so I imagine that a vast majority of teams who carefully read the rules will not have any issues with this specific rule except under unusual circumstances.

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by Pretzel

It seems to me like it would indeed be unsafe to touch the chute door. If a human player was not expecting it and the chute door (specifically the handles attached to the door) started moving, it could be dangerous.

The chute door also does not extend all the way down to the carpeted surface of the field. This means that you can drive up to, and touch, the wall underneath the chute door provided that you have no protrusions on that side of the robot which would touch the chute door itself.

My guess is that this rule is intended to prevent robot designs that involve things like a forklift that inserts itself into the tote chute, or a robot that could prop open the chute door to allow for faster (and more dangerous) loading of totes into the robot. I am not a member of the GDC however, so this is only a guess. There are still a number of different designs that can effectively load totes from the tote chute (my team's robot included) without violating this rule, so I imagine that a vast majority of teams who carefully read the rules will not have any issues with this specific rule except under unusual circumstances.

Yes this is true. But lets say you have a can, and are spinning around the alliance wall. If it touches the door, even accidentally, its an automatic disable, even if its just for a brief moment. That just seems harsh. And, just like the G27 thing 5 weeks ago, adds more ref indecision to the game.

[GeeTwo]

If you touch the chute door, it must be with a piece that extends outside your floor perimeter. It's a short trip from there to injuring an HP who's trying to work the back side of the station.

[Kristian Calhoun]

The answer to Q122 says:

The CHUTE DOOR is part of the HUMAN PLAYER STATION per the revised description in Team Update 2015-01-13. All elements in the Tote Slide Assembly (GE-15004) are outside the FIELD.

I do not see the CHUTE DOOR in GE-15004.

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by Kristian Calhoun

The answer to Q122 says:


I do not see the CHUTE DOOR in GE-15004.

Wow I guess I just completely missed that. So it is inside the field. That takes away alot of the ambiguity.