Can litter be tossed across the step?

3.1.2 Scoring
Points are awarded for a variety of ALLIANCE accomplishments which include, but are not limited to: stacking TOTES on SCORING
PLATFORMS, placing RECYCLING CONTAINERS on scored Gray TOTES, and “disposing” of LITTER by placing it in scored RECYCLING
CONTAINERS, the LANDFILL ZONE, or throwing it onto the opposite side of the FIELD.

G24 ROBOTS may not cause TOTES, RECYCLING CONTAINERS, and/or LITTER to completely transfer from their side of the FIELD,
or from the STEP, onto the opposite side of the FIELD.

So is litter allowed to be tossed across the step or not?

HP yes, robots no.

Human players are allowed to throw litter to the other side of the field (until the last 20 seconds) (see G33B); however, as G24 states, robots are not allowed to do the same.

Makes sense, thanks!

I think a better way to look at it is like this:

Litter MAY be thrown across the step;

however,

CAN it be thrown across the step?

After much play with the official noodle that came in the kit of parts I will submit that there is no repeatable way to make these noodles fly that distance. Maybe 1 in 20 will make it across.

Then in the last 20 seconds of the match the opposing alliance can just push any litter that you managed to get on their side of the field into their landfill and negate your work.

IMHO: Throwing noodles is not a viable option.

IMHO if the GDC changed this one rule and let robots throw noodles to the other side it could improve the game dramatically (by increasing the drama).

Last second hurls to the other side could swing a close match, and the question would be “will the noodles get past the landfill?”

One of our members is pretty consistently throwing 40 or 45 feet

“Swing a match”? This game doesn’t really have match swings, just incremental upticks in average score

This. You have to remember that the only time the scores of the two “competing” aliances are compared is in the finals of the playoffs.