I’m not understanding this rule:
TEAMS may not contact any ROBOT or any BALL in contact with a ROBOT at any time during the MATCH.
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL
Does that mean that the human player can touch a ball that is contacting the robot, but the whole team can’t? then what is the purpose for the human player stations?
From my interpretation of this, I think the intention of this rule is to prevent human players from reaching over and touching robots or balls contacting robots when they aren’t in the process of removing a ball from play via human player. Example would be an opposing human player contacting your alliance’s bot and its ball when they pass by, and another would be your human player trying to aligning your bot’s ball properly when the bot is not in the action of passing the ball to a human player.
I advise you post a question on the official FRC Q&A for further clarification.
I’m not the GDC, but my view on the rule is that no team member is allowed to come in contact with a robot or a ball that is possessed by a robot. This is not an unusual rule. When the human player is able to get as close to the field as this year, in prior games, this same rule was in place.
Also, in the Field Tour videos the role of the Human player on the side of the field is explained.
The rule is to stop human player from shoving the ball into robot. A game piece must not be held by both robot and human player, and this is designed for safety reason. HP should not be extending any part of their body into the field perimeter. My preferred way is to drop the ball in front of the robot or on to the robot equipped with some sort of storage (generic term).
THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL CLARIFICATION!