These 2 posts were on the last two updates from FIRST. #37#38…
Q: The analogy with football is good, but still worrisome. If our Robot’s intent is to change the direction of another robot (not to damage it), by ramming it at high speed, would this be judged “malicious” and disqualify our robot? Similarly, if our intent is to make the other robot “fumble” by dislodging the goal from its grasp, would the high-speed collision be judged malicious and disqualify our robot? Would the design of the other robot influence the judges’ decision?
That is, if the opposing robot looks rugged, then the judges might rule in our favor, but if the opposing robot is flimsy, they may rule against us.
A: Worrisome? Hmm. What you’re asking us to do is allow you to blitz
the quarterback with no possibility of penalty, no matter what you do.
If you’ve ever been a football fan, think about it. Your actions would
probably be taken as malicious. There’s rules in football about
people hitting the quarterback in the head (at all) and about unnecessary roughness. This is probably because in the early ‘days of football, the referees’ union got tired of hearing, “Hey ref I wasn’t trying to hurt him, I was just trying to make him fumble!”. Or,
“Hey, he’s a wimpy quarterback! A tough one would have taken that hit!”.
In the NFL, they don’t judge whether the linebacker is roughing
the passer by whether the QB is Dante Culpepper or Doug Flutie.
Q: why is FIRST heading into battlebot mode? I am hoping to have a
unit for display, training, recruitment, etc after the
competition. To spend over $6000 and perhaps be
destroyed seems to me to be a giant step backwards.
- cam brown
team 360
A: Cam, be assured that we’re not going into “Battlebot” mode. People
invest a lot of time and money and sweat building the robots; we’re
not going to allow actions that would obviously and deliberately
damage or risk damaging the robots.
IM SO CONFUSED. WHAT IS FIRST TELLING US??? SPIT IT OUT.
ENQUIERING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.
I personally am not worried that there will be any more damage than in previous years.
In the 1999 competition particularly, there were a lot of scuffles between robots over the control of the puck (a large octagonal raised platform on castors). Truck Town Terror comes to mind
As far as I know however, there were no major issues regarding robot damage and such. I suppose whether the competition goes into “Battlebot” mode depends on the robot drivers.
There was quite a bit of worrying about broken robots in 1999.
There were times when I prayed not to get paired against a particularly rough team.
Even so, I think that there was a no touch rule away from the puck. If I am remembering right, if you raised your basket away from the puck, you were not subject to being messed with.
This year things are very different because my robot is a legitimate game piece for my opponents. This is a difference that changes everything. In the past, the only reason to mess with someone elses robot was for defensive purposes – specifically to keep them from scoring. This year I have not only defensive but offensive reasons to mess with another team’s robot.
*Originally posted by Joe Johnson *
**In the past, the only reason to mess with someone elses robot was for defensive purposes – specifically to keep them from scoring. This year I have not only defensive but offensive reasons to mess with another team’s robot.
**
I’ve said this kind of stuff before, though it’s just my argument…don’t build anything that can be interpreted as a weapon, BUT you can use yourself as one. In other words, ram without intent to damage. Ram to slow down or get goals. Wrech the goals (or soccer balls) out of them.
I’d say the FRCTech is saying metaphorically, ‘don’t pull out a switchblade when sacking, but also don’t throw him into the ground, when you get the ball’, if you know what I mean…
Right now they (FIRST) are trying desperately not to give the wrong impression about the new rules, and as Justin said, it’ll probably end up being similar to last year, even though we have more leeway.
