Senior solutions: the bowling mission

[mlantry]

i mentor a team for FLL and i was wondering if for bowling your robot can throw the ball (like catapulting it). i know the physical people can’t.

[jackie.p]

@Page 14 Robot Game Manual

METHOD RESTRICTION:
— Each pin’s fall must be caused by impact from a completely loose and independent ball (not touching or guided by anything at the time of impact) or another loose/independent pin. Pins falling for any other reason are worth 0.

As long as it’s only the ball that knocks down the pins you should be fine.

[Calvin_Hartley]

If you look at the rules and read them carefully, you will see that yes if the robot throws the ball, that is legal. The rules do not specify how the robot moves the ball, only that the ball must be totally free at the time of impact with the pins.

@Official Rules

Bowling
Basic description: Robot sends balls to knock pins down. If the pins are not all down after the first try using a yellow
ball, the referee returns that ball to Base for a second try (this can only happen once per match).
Precise Scoring Conditions:
— 1 to 5 pins down: 7 each
— or —
— 6 pins down: 60
method restriction:
— each pin’s fall must be caused by impact from a completely loose and independent ball (not touching or
guided by anything at the time of impact) or another loose/independent pin. Pins falling for any other
reason are worth 0.

Hope this answers your question, here’s a link to the challenge if you need it: http://firstlegoleague.org/challenge/2012seniorsolutions

~Calvin

[EricLeifermann]

As a ref at a FLL regional a week ago the only criteria for counting the pins as scored was that the ball not be in contact with the robot when it knocked down the pins we did not care how you achieved this as long as the ball was “loose” of the robot.

Other competitions may offer different interpretations of this rule though so a good person to ask is the head ref at your competition.

[jwalters1902]

If it is not the the robot rules, or in the updates, it is fine.

I would ask in the Coaches Meeting before the tournament begins. This way all the coaches can participate in the conversation on it.

[mlantry]

thanks for the response

[budman]

Yes, the robot can catapult the ball from anywhere…including the base. This is clarified in rule update #12 entitled “bowling distance”.

Here is a link to the rule updates:
http://firstlegoleague.org/challenge/robotgameupdates