during our competition I saw a team using a low-built launcher to send a ball into an enemy alliance’s robot. I thought they were trying to get a technical foul, resulting in 50 points, instead of a 30 point cycle like they had been doing. Is there anything preventing this? I seem to be completely missing it… Of course, that may not be what they were trying to do, but given the circumstances, it sure looked like it.
Also, nothing was ever called in regards to fouls or tech fouls.
Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FRC and are not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in assessment of a penalty on the target ALLIANCE.
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL
I’d be careful about posting any more details about the team you mention here as it seems you don’t have a lot of concrete evidence of any wrong-doing. It’s very difficult to figure out a teams intentions by watching a match from the stands or video.
G14
Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FRC and are not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in assessment of a penalty on the target ALLIANCE.
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL
In reality, intent is very difficult to judge. If a team were to do this intentionally they would probably get away with it, but I wouldn’t count on this as a regular scoring strategy. Insert stuff about spirit of rules, GP, etc.
Q. If a blue bot deliberately (as determined by a ref) causes a blue ball to be POSSESSED by a red bot, will G12 apply or will G14 apply? If G14, and the POSSESSION is via carrying, can red POSSESS the ball for the remainder of the match without penalty? Consider if Red is not be able to free it.
A. If it is determined to be a “strategy aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule”, G14 would be called. In this case, there would be no additional penalty for the Red ALLIANCE continuing to POSSESS the BALL.
Without going into details of the match, and assuming we’re talking about the same one, there wasn’t a clear demonstration of intent for one robot to land the shot in another robot (extended period of time lining up, waiting until the opponent was in position, etc). I believe the robot that caught it got a technical foul, though with the most recent rule update it would have been a regular foul.
I suspect with how hard it is to line up a robot with another, deliberately aim, and time a shot appropriately, we won’t see this kind of thing happen. The burden of proof for “intent” here is quite high as many accidents can look intentional (see: tipping).
It was answered in the first reply 10 minutes after his original post. Maybe you looked past the quote.
Edit: Thought about this post and decided it may not be read as the gentle ribbing I intended… even with the smiley. So don’t take it seriously. Sarcasm is tough to type.
Accidental is OK though. During the Los Angeles Regional, one of our truss passes bounced off our alliance partner’s catcher and into a “dead” opponent.
What happened next?
After waiting at least 5s, and pointing at the ball, the field judge flagged a technical foul on the opponent alliance for possessing our ball. At the time I was baffled, but it follows the rules (G12 blue box). Seconds later the opponent’s partner rammed them and dislodged the ball. But the damage was done. +50pt to us, and the win.
We didn’t want to win that way, but rules are rules. So BE CAREFUL!
