Question

[AdamL118]

Do robots generally go over to the other alliance's side during the game (to pick up balls etc.), or is this seen as cheating by the other teams? We are a rookie team and cannot decide what is the proper FIRST etiquette. Thank you for your help.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

going on the other side is not looked down upon at all. Something that would be considered dirty is blocking the human player or another robot from moving, so they have defence at all.

[Cory]

You most certainly can go over to the other side. Other teams will come to your side, even if you dont go to theirs. If your balls dont drop, youre going to want to go over there for 30 seconds and get theirs. They will do the same thing if the situation applies to them.

Cory

[Arefin Bari]

what i would suggest is go back and watch some video's of matches from previous years (if you know the game)... then you can quite compare how the game works. you will get an idea... since you are a rookie team you also can get help from a vet. team whos around you... i am very sure that they will help you out.

*about the matches i am not sure where you would be able to find it. 108's website is not up yet. look around the threads, i am pretty sure that you will be able to find some videos.

[Ken Loyd]

Adam,

Gracious Professionalism is easy to talk about and difficult to explain. You want to win the game! If you are playing the game buy the rules without looking for some way to stretch a rule beyond common sense, you are practicing GP. If you play each match as hard as you can without attempting to harm another robot, you are practicing GP. If you do damage an opponents robot in a match, doing everything you can to help repair the damage is practicing GP. Lending tools and parts is practicing GP. Congratulating your opponent (win or lose), is practicing GP. You are joining the greatest family in the world, FIRST, because we all strive to practice GP.

Ken Loyd
Team 64

[KevinB]

"Taking" balls is definately ok --- thats what makes the game fun to watch!

Examples of what would NOT be ok: Creating a bot to block the view of another team's driver; Intenionally dropping stuff (or your bot!) from the hanging bar onto another robot; creating a device to cause IR interference; laying down a spike strip to damage other robots' wheels.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

oh man i can think of alot more things that wouldnt be GP... attaching a spear to the front of ur bot to "catch goals" (sounds familiar..hmmm..*thinks back to 2 years ago*), driving headfirst into a rookie bot made out of aluminum with ur 100 pound solid wood base and pushing them into a wall, bending them into a crumpled mess, or creating a rail gun using a 1000 farad capacitor to zap other teams off the bar.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by ToMMan b182

driving headfirst into a rookie bot made out of aluminum with ur 100 pound solid wood base and pushing them into a wall, bending them into a crumpled mess.

I got a good laugh out of this... How many teams make their robots out of wood that arent rookies? And if you have an aluminum frame getting "slammed" into by a wooden frame, the wooden robot is going to be "a crumpled mess", not the aluminum robot. Last time I checked, aluminum is way stronger than wood.

Anyways, lets not get into what is gracious and not, the thread is about whether or not it is acceptable to go onto the other side. Perhaps this thread should be locked, since multiple answers have been posted?

Cory

[Mike M.]

building a wedge that is designed to intentionally flip over other bots is definitely not Gracious Professionalism.

[KevinB]

Ack! I didn't mean to turn this thread into a gigantic list of what isn't GP. I was just trying to give some extreme examples to make the point.