Provided it doesn’t go over 78 inches. Hmm, I just noticed, no metric equivalents this year.
Regarding transporting tall stacks, you might fall afoul of this rule:
G27 ROBOTS and anything they control, e.g. a TOTE, may not contact anything outside the FIELD.
VIOLATION: Offending ROBOT will be DISABLED.
Questionable if a container toppling off the top of a stack and onto a volunteer outside the field is still in “control” of the robot - but do you want to take that risk?
My mind just exploded, a robot with no wheels
and
your alliance partners feeding TOTES to the… Cranebot!!!
Our team, with limited engineering resources this year, probably is not going to take these risks. However, there are several awesome teams out there who could build an awesome crane. You don’t need to drive or anything…
I just noticed a potential heartbreak for alliances. Since average scores determine qual winners one bad match completely sinks you.
G5 gives a foul for 2 HP in an alliance zone, and an additional foul for every tote put on the field during that time.
G6 gives a foul for touching the tote and chute door at the same time.
A team that didn’t read the rules could put all 30 totes on the field while violating both these rules, racking up 61 fouls and -366 points. With this all happening to the side the other alliances might not notice until the end and find out they got 0 points.
I’m ~90% sure that either a referee or field crew member would inform the offending teams of their errors rather than simply allowing penalties to accumulate.
Cranebot? If you really want your mind blown, consider the fact that nowhere in the rules does it say the robot has to be in contact with the floor…I predict this is the year we see robots go airborne.
We’ve never been told about fouls until after matches, and we’ve learned to sit tight and be ready to send someone into the question box after a match for clarification. Not every team has developed that practice…at events you go to, do refs/field crews typically seek out teams during/after matches to talk about fouls? We do that for alliance partners, I’m just curious if event crews do that, also.
Last year, our human player was reminded mid-match by (I don’t know if it was field reset or a referee) about the rule preventing him from extending past the tape on the barrier. Had that not happened, we would have ended up with quite a lot of penalties that match.
Referees DO signal that fouls are happening, as they happen. Watch for the flags to go up; refs will often point at the offending robot.
Not every team has developed that practice…at events you go to, do refs/field crews typically seek out teams during/after matches to talk about fouls?
During practice, it’s not uncommon for SoCal refs to flag down a flagged team and let them know what penalties they picked up during the practice match. During qual matches, the Head Referee will inform the MC what the fouls were and the MC will announce them.
At the very least, there would have been a ref waving a flag and pointing at the person committing the foul when they did it.
Depending on the game, it’s sometimes possible for a ref to quickly say something to the person committing the infraction. Aerial Assist was a bit unique in that regard - it was so dependent on split-second entry from the refs that they had to stay at their tablets through the entire match.
My personal approach as a head ref: if a team’s behaviour during the match suggests to me that they don’t understand the rules, or if they keep getting the same foul over and over, I’ll try to make a point of talking to the team. Of course, the match schedule and everything else going on sometimes doesn’t allow me to do this.
At least at the events I’ve been to (Ontario and Quebec), it’s standard practice for the head ref to give the MC/game announcer a summary of all the fouls, and these get announced when the final match score is displayed. Do other areas not do this?
Here in Texas, we do get the flag wave, as well as the announcement from the MC, however newer teams don’t always know to keep an eye/ear out for that, but I’ve never seen a ref or field crew come to talk a team about a foul…I’ve seen field crew stop an unsafe robot before it enters the field, but I’ve never seen an interaction during the match, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen foul discussions/explanations other than the MC announcement and in the question box.
I make an effort during the match when I’m field resetting or refereeing to point out that an action a team (normally a human player) is doing is illegal if I notice them doing it many times in the same match.
No one wants to see fouls, especially ones that are easily avoidable and typically inconsequential to a match.
It depends what it is. In my experience, it’s rather common for a ref to quickly tell a human player “watch your foot - you keep stepping out of bounds” or “stop putting your hand through the slot in the wall” or the like. During a match, any more complex communication than that probably isn’t practical - the refs aren’t going to want to interfere with the match by distracting a team member with a lengthy discussion.
Hopefully, this is a sign that your team knew the rules well enough that the head ref didn’t feel that this sort of discussion was necessary. 
LoL
I don’t see anything preventing humans from holding a device that launches noodles.
T21.
Your homework for tonight: Read Section 5 of the Game Manual, particularly T21, and tell me how that sort of device would be allowed under said rule.
Ya, we wanted a slingshot or an atlatl… #NoDice
Or tethered 550 based 'copters. Just don’t fly too high. (probably wouldn’t be ruled safe)
I want to see a bipedal humanoid robot stack a tote. Or maybe a hexapod climb over the landfill and grab containers. I’m not sure which would be cooler.
The launcher comes in as part of the operator console, I imagine sitting on a frame above the driver station laptop. The secondary driver picks up the launcher and it is now a handheld part of the operator console. The secondary driver walks to the corner of the alliance station, the human player loads in pool noodles, and they get launched.
Hm. I’d imagine it would have to stay physically connected to your operator console. But you can always ask the Q&A for clarification…although I think we all know what the answer will be. 