See <G57>
Haha. thanks for clarifying, that was awesome.
Eric was a volunteer. Field reset people are volunteers. You were a volunteer. The head ref is a volunteer. We are all humans. We all read the rules, we all interpret the rules. I’m with Eric. I don’t see this as being legal. And I also see it as making the field reset people mad. Who aren’t exactly going to be willing to give you a sort bit longer to mess with your robot, if you’re the reason they have to wrestle this tube off the tower every match.
<G48>?
Strategies aimed at the… entanglement of… MINIBOTS… are not allowed… Violation: PENALTY, plus potential… YELLOW CARD
note the title of the section: “Robot-Robot Interaction”
*Section 3.1.9 GO 319! 
Another issue here is the definition of deployment “the act of positioning a minibot on the tower”
Well, if interfering with deployment could be considered as interfering from a robot getting in position to position the minibot on the tower.
Just an observation…
Legal or not, the tower for your opponents team is not the closest to the feeder, but the farthest. The plausibility of accurately throwing an innertube that far and that high seems doubtful.
As to the rule, I seriously doubt that they would like it if you stuck an innertube over a <10ft high pole. getting it off would be a nightmare. That being said, as previously mentioned, the rule <G48> is under robot-robot interactions, not human-robot. As much as I would like it to, that doesn’t seem to apply.
HOWEVER,
<G24> The opposing ALLIANCE may not interfere with the DEPLOYMENT or climbing of a MINIBOT. Violation: RED CARD
Even though this is under the end game section, in the blue box, it clarifies that
Interference by an ALLIANCE refers to any action taken by that ALLIANCE that results in disruption of the MINIBOT’s progress
which does not stipulate a time period. So my overall guess is no.
There’s a little something called sportsmanship and Gracious Professionalism. While they may not be official rules, they are a core part of the game.
The intent of the rules is to prevent interference to minibots attempting to climb the tower.
Rules <G18> to <G25> apply only to the End Game. That includes the box explaining <G24>.
Pinning <G50> is in the Robot-to-Robot interaction rules section; it applies the entire match.
The only thing that could vaguely apply here is the “strategy aimed at … entanglement” in <G48>, and then only if you consider the game piece to be an extension of the robot. The use of game pieces in <G23> and <G24> do not necessarily consider them to be extensions of the robot. Those rules also prohibit interference by thrown game pieces. Since <G48> is a robot-to-robot rule, it would not cover thrown pieces - good luck throwing them that far.
I would consider this to be a legal (although not fair) strategy, unless the GDC changes a rule or gives a Q&A response that basically says, “No, you can’t do it; the rules say so.”
The “fairness” of almost every innovative bot is debated almost every year.
Take 469 in 2010 as the prime example.
When the box is broken some of the greatest innovations occur.
If you are going to spend all that time reaching this high: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58037296@N02/5336971203/
… you might as well put all that energy into an effective scoring machine and go from blocking the best to being the best.
Depending on whether or not it is legal
Getting it off would be a piece of cake. A couple of swipes with a box cutter and away it goes.
The difference between the top of the pole and the highest goal isn’t that much. So if you design a robot to cap the pole, naturally they can cap the highest goal.
Also Bob has mad ups, we had 12’ of reach in 04.
Except 469 didn’t break any rules, and these designs apparently do. Big difference.
We simply don’t know right now if it is legal or not, similar to 469. So as of right now, there is no difference.
Has anyone actually tried to put a tube over the sensor on the end of the tower?? We built a field for kickoff, and while I haven’t tried doing it, I would bet the triangle and square don’t fit. The circle might, however it would still require some pretty accurate placement.
-Brando
They don’t, but those uncapped ubertubes might have a use after all. As i said before, the diameters are almost identical, so it would be very tough.
We won’t be attempting to accomplish it, we have another surprise up our sleeves