I was looking in the manual, and i did not see anything right off the bat that would suggest that climbing over other robots (assuming no damage was done) was illegal. Is this true, as long as the contact time is 5 seconds or less? I am wondering, as at our first event, there were several times where it could have been done.
During our Waterbury event, one of our alliance members was stuck on the moat. We tried to push them off, but ended up climbing on top of them. The refs were fine with it. However, this was our own alliance, so I’m not sure what the rule would be with the opposing teams.
This happen to us when we got stuck in the moat and our alliance member tried to get us out and ended up on top of us. We didn’t get a penalty and neither robot got damaged. I think if the opposing alliance got on top of you it would be because of illegal gameplay.
I looked into a few possible violations.
G19-1: I was looking into the definition of bumper zone, as my concern is that if you’re on top of another robot, you may be out of the bumper zone. After taking a look, I didn’t find any issues, as the Bumper Zone is measured when the robot is transposed onto a flat surface.
You could also consider G24, as climbing over a robot could be interpreted as entangling or attaching, without considering damage dealt to the opposing robot. If you end up damaging them at all, you’ll be assessed a red card.
Other than that, I don’t see any real issues.
Don’t risk it. It’s not worth it.
Blue box of G24:
Initiating deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.
I always think it is funny that you only get penalties for damaging your opponents, destroying an ally by falling on them from a tower (or pyramid) results in penalty free match.
I can see why it’s not a penalty.
The damage you may or may not cause to your alliance partner, yourself, and/or your alliance’s chance of winning the match is its own penalty. Therefore, you have been penalized enough, and need no further penalty.
Or, to put it another way: That’s your alliance’s problem, now isn’t it?
In one of our qualification matches our radio-crio cable came loose when we hit the moat, to cross it for the breach. We died in the worse possible place. Our alliance partner, 1418 attempted to push us over the moat, but we didn’t quite make it. They backed off and opened the sally port door for 4538 to drive through, but at that point 4538 was dead also. We told 1418 to do whatever it took to get us out of the way and get the breach. They pushed us over the moat, but our bumper still didn’t clear the ramp. They then drove up over the moat, over our bot, and headed for the batter. Unfortunately, doing so dislodged their bumper. (Ripped the wood screws clean out) They managed to actually make it onto the batter before being disabled. At that point, their bot coasted back off the batter, and we lost 47 to 50, rather than winning 52 to 50.
The two lost ranking points did not effect us, as we still ended up as first seed captain. But, they made a huge difference to 1418 (who lost two points, ranking 11, with 21 points) and 623 (on the red alliance, who gained two points, ranking 4, with 27 points). If it had gone the other way, the 4 point swing would have put dropped 623 from 4th to 7th, and 1418 would have moved from 11th to 8th seed.
Such are the fortunes of battle, in this game of Stronghold, where the smallest factors may swing entire outcomes. As it was, 1418 was our first pick, and our alliance (including 2421) went on to win the event.
In our semi-finals an opposing robot rammed and climbed up into our intake and bent the bar in a total “V” shape. We had to hack saw and replace AND take a time out while the other robot didn’t get penalized at all.
There are years where we’ve played very hard defense, but always try to stop short of tipping robots or driving over the top of them. (Most of the time they’d be driving over the top of us, via defense-initiated contact.)
We’ve never been issued a penalty for such rough play, though we absolutely always tried to remedy the situation without damaging or tipping our opponent’s bots (and (a) we’ve never deliberately tipped a robot and (b) to my knowledge we’ve never damaged a robot via driving partially on top of them.)
Unless it was done to intentionally damage your robot, that is not illegal. If you read the rules, there is nothing preventing robots from interacting with parts of your robot outside your frame perimeter. Any arm or whatever that extends outside the frame perimeter and is not built robust enough to take hits from an opposing robot is your own fault.
Our intake was up inside our robot. Theirs rammed and climbed at such force it caused the V bend. It wasn’t malicious but they were on top of us for a bit before we were separated. Full throttle hitting impact may not be the best way to defend. Our shooter was unable to work due to the bend bar.
We were prepared as we knew this was going to be one Dukes of Hazard type of game and brought all the possible part spares we could but happening in the semis was just like—Dang-it:(
Still–I would take this game 10x over last years!!!
I take it back if your arm was inside your robot. That should be illegal according to G24.