If the “point of exit” from the field is defined as the point where the CARGO crosses the plane of the field boundary, then the volunteers should be “placing” the cargo back into the field at the same height and location that it exited. Obviously, less bounce is better for the robots, but why should CARGO be returned into play with significantly less dynamic energy than they had when they left?
In 2020, fuel cells were simply tossed back onto the field. I wouldn’t expect any volunteer to break the plane of the side wall (for their own safety) when returning CARGO into play. The field walls really should be treated by volunteers just like the “purple plane” at the Terminal.
I think the main difference from 2020/2021 is that there are a lot more game pieces than this year and the strategic impact this year of such likely event to happen is much more significant because of it.
Understood. What I am saying is that there is no reason to expect that field volunteers would be asked to break the boundary of the field edge under any circumstances while a match is in play. This is a safety issue, and I am trying to think of any example where human incursion into the defined robot field has been allowed or sanctioned.
This is really a question for Q&A, but I’d be really surprised if the answer is that the field volunteer is expected to lean over the wall and place the CARGO gently on the floor in the middle of a match.
I completely agree that the safety question needs to be answered and it’s a genuine problem but the strategic problem in it cant be thrown aside. I do agree that is at the utmost priority but I think there could be a solution that doesn’t compromise on safety but can reduce the strategic impact on the game
This is also a matter of interpretation. Without going into a lot of speculation, I can imagine a team sending CARGO out-of-bounds deliberately as a strategy to use the field volunteers as “dampeners.” Ball bouncing? kick it out-of-bounds and wait for the nice volunteer to serve it up on a silver platter.
On the flip side, if a volunteer is trying to return an opponent’s CARGO to the field, what happens if my robot just so happens to be operating in that area and delaying them from doing so? I could kick half of your game pieces out of the court and keep them out of play, simply because the volunteer can’t safely re-introduce them under the “no bounce” parameters people are asking for here.
The strategy implications are not as cut-and-dried as you might think. The most objectively “fair” way to reintroduce CARGO would be to replicate the approximate dynamics it had when it exited.
It simply isn’t an expectation I would have, given the way these issues have been decided in the past.
Not any volunteer, but FIELD STAFF, which the Glossary and the OP’s quote starts off with REFEREES. By the way, us Field Resetters have always been referred to as “other” .
From past experience, it’s usually the Referees that catch and return the game pieces to Field, as they are stationed next to the Field. Though if launched out the corners, the resetter crew gets to catch them, as they are usually in the corners of the Field during Match play (audience not wanting to see their backs,etc).
We’ll all have to see how it plays out at Week Zero, but seeing as the target is in the center of the Field, maybe Cargo won’t leave the Field? (I’m looking at you, Steamworks, with a stream of Fuel Cells missing the corner Boilers!)
My thoughts? Game Pieces will be returned to the Field at the point of exit, or the corners of the Field if over the Driver Station or Terminal walls. “Returned” meaning the (a) earliest, (b) safest, (c) opportunity. That means when a robot is not nearby. As a Field Supervisor I would kick it up to the FTA or more likely the Head Referee for interpretation.
G401 *Keep CARGO in bounds. ROBOTS may not eject opponent CARGO from the FIELD other than through the TERMINAL (either directly or by bouncing off a FIELD element or other ROBOT).Violation: FOUL per CARGO.
The rule doesn’t prevent me from ejecting my own CARGO, or operating my robot near where a volunteer is trying to reintroduce an opponent’s CARGO. I am sure there are soft rules against this kind of behavior, but that kind of foul will never be called consistently to everybody’s satisfaction.
I guess my question to those who are pushing for volunteers to be required to gently reintroduce the game pieces, are you willing to accept the inevitable delays when a volunteer has to wait for a safe opportunity to do so, or would you rather just have them put the ball back into play ASAP?
Aren’t consistency and fairness the very things people are asking for here?
Hmm… now I want an offseason to try having the third human player from each alliance along the sides of the field with an oversized tennis racket, and be the main ones responsible for getting their alliance’s cargo back in the field. And they’d be allowed to try to hit it back directly into the hub to score, as long as it bounced exactly once on their side of the guardrail first…
I’ve had a volleyball game going for Aerial Assist using the 24" ball, and the Truss as the net, with people, between matches, at a very off-off-season event.
If you’re going to be overly semantic, we should look at the collective context here. Close in value or amount isn’t exactly defined here either given we have neither a “value” nor “amount” that is stated. You’re using this to mean “as close to possible as the exact location it left” while ignoring the value at which the ball was moving. If we had the luxury of an infinitely tall wall, the “placement” would take place on its own by bouncing the ball back in.
Anyone that claims there’s plenty of room in those spaces needs to spend less time in Webster and more time volunteering for those roles.
In the first match of the official week 0 event, the ball rolled slowly when the volunteer placed it. One got halfway across the field. The one placed by the head ref still rolled but not as far.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in how Week Zero is doing things; I think it’s much more a test of the field hardware than it is a test of how volunteers will act.
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