Boulder shenanigans

Competition Rules/Strategy
1

Is each team in charge of knowing how many boulders are in the opposing castle?

Situation:
If the opposing team has 5 boulders in the castle and I am aware of that and my team at that instance can score two boulders should I score one and wait until the opposing team introduces one onto the field or can our team score both?

G34 No more than six (6) BOULDERS may remain in a CASTLE at any time. If the BOULDER count ever
exceeds six (6), excess BOULDERS must be introduced to the FIELD immediately.
Violation: FOUL per excess BOULDER

In the situation given if two boulders are scored the opposing side now has 7 boulders which is 1 foul because our team scored. Of Course per G11

G11 Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FIRST Robotics Competition and not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in
an assignment of a penalty to the targeted ALLIANCE.
Violation: FOUL. If egregious or repeated, YELLOW CARD

Is it solely one teams burden to keep less then 6 boulders in the castle, or is it the responsibility of both teams.

2

As I read G34, each team is in charge of making sure their castle doesn’t have more than 6 boulders in it. If there’s 5 boulders in our castle, and you shoot in 2 more, than our human player has to immediately release at least one of them to the field. We only incur a foul if we let the 7 boulders remain. We have a grace period to get rid of a boulder before we get a foul.

I don’t think anyone could violate rule G11 by filling the opponent’s castle with boulders. That’s one of the primary ways of scoring; classifying it as a “strategy aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule” would just be perverse.

3

The key word in G11 is “solely” (as I read it, of course). Is your strategy of scoring a boulder aimed at making them take a penalty? Perhaps, they can’t really know. However, they certainly can see that scoring a boulder would have a benefit for you other than your opponents taking a penalty, and thus, it cannot be the sole reason that you are taking that action.

4

In addition to what’s been said above, the way I read G34, it’s okay to have 7+ boulders so long as the human players immediately pick up the excess and introduce them to the field; as such, you can’t really ‘force’ the foul to get a G11.

The rule might still be flawed, though; check out G33:

G33 BOULDERS may only be introduced to the FIELD
A. during TELEOP,
B. by a DRIVER or HUMAN PLAYER, and
C. through one of the holes in the HUMAN PLAYER STATION.
Violation: FOUL per BOULDER
(emphasis mine)

Imagine: the red alliance elects to give all 3 of their auto boulders to their human players, starting the match with 6 boulders in their castle. Then, once auto starts, the blue alliance spy bot scores a boulder in the first few seconds. Now what? The red alliance has 7 boulders; they can’t legally introduce one to the field until teleop, nor can they legally keep them all. Are they fouled? Is G11 called on the blue alliance?

5

Yikes. It can’t be a G11, because it was a strategy to score points, not cause a foul.

Perhaps the “immediately” grace period extends until after Teleop begins. A question for Q&A.

6

Agreed, and that interpretation of ‘immediately’ is how I expect the GDC to respond.

7

Maybe if we get lucky they will just say chute door.

8

I would think so too… as if you interpret it the other way, whatver the human player did they’d get a foul. Be it for breaking the starting line or not purging boulders in time. Still I agree, Q&A should be the ones to say such, so that it gets clarified in the rules.