I wanted to point out a rule that is easy to overlook, and I’ve heard other teams talk about it so we’re not the only one caught by surprise… It appears we can not lift the goal or provide any force on the plywood on the goals. rules GM20, GM21, and GM22 talk about this. Our team’s asked a whole set of questions which should clarify these rules. I’ll post here anything I hear.
Patrick
Please let me know of everything you find out. Our team might have to make design changes.
~Tom Fairchild~
This is the latest from the Yahoo board…
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FRCtech2002/message/309
Message 309
“A) GM20 does NOT exclude interacting with the lower surface of the upper deck or, conversely, interacting with the upper surface of the lower deck. However, if by interacting with the lower surface of the upper deck, for example, you apply enough upward pressure to it to allow the goal to be pulled or pushed, then FIRST would consider you to be attached… which is disallowed. In a nutshell, incidental interaction, such as to “sense” where the surface is or with robot arms extending/retracting in that area, is allowed and expected.”
Message 207
“Can a robot deliberately interact with the bottom of the upper plywood platform of the goal (as long as it does not cause damage)?
A) No. FIRSTsnow”
Message 120
“To be clear, see rules GM21 and GM22. A robot could react against the lower surface of the upper plywood if it did not attach to it and did not present a risk of tipping the goal over.”
Message 207 and 120 are definately contradicting each other. Rules GM21 and GM22 do not state rules, rather examples of what is acceptable or not. I think FIRST needs to set rules (standards) which clearly differentiate acceptable from unacceptable, rather than arbitrarily giving examples of what is acceptable and not.
309 was my question. I understand ( as of today) that the plywood is off limits for up-loading weight to your bot, but the pipe and flanges are not. Just design to hit the flanges… Thats the ticket as far as I can tell…
I spoke with someone at FIRST today regarding this conflicting posting…and the newest post(309) is the final ruling…just like there is miscommunication within all of our teams at times, it appears there was some miscommuncation within FIRST as to the correct answer to these questions. I’m willing to forgive them, they’re only human after all 
Another conflicting response…
It appears we can now uplift goals, contrary to rule GM20, if we grab the bar. Or is FIRST’s definition of uplifting synonomous with tipping over?
Patrick
"Q: >>If our robot could grab a bar and tip the goal slightly, could
it be
placed on top of the other goal so as to have an overlap of a few
inches? <<
A: Yes, but if this is part of your strategy, don’t violate the DQ
rules on damaging the playing field, or the DA rules on disabling
violations."
*Originally posted by patrickrd *
**Another conflicting response…It appears we can now uplift goals, contrary to rule GM20, if we grab the bar. Or is FIRST’s definition of uplifting synonomous with tipping over?
**
This isn’t actually conflicting based on how I’m reading it…GM20 says we cannot upend(tip over) a goal, attach to the plywood, reach under the lower base, or grab onto certain parts of the goal. Keep in mind that upend=tip over for all general purposes. My reading of the rulings they have made regarding this issue is that we can still pick up the goals, but we have to use only the steel pipe and flanges to do so.