While I do agree that you would want to keep your partner as far away as possible to stop them from incurring such large penalties, you cannot just go around e-stopping teams for stuff like that because one it can damage their robot and two only the team controlling the robot or the FTA has the right to hit a teams e-stop. If it becomes an issue during the match you should discuss it with that team and tell them to stay out of the way for the remainder of the match. If it seems intentional that they are incurring penalties talk to the field officials about it.
Agreed. E-stopping (or trying to e-stop) another team’s robot seems to me like a nuclear option.
I know teams like to win, but common courtesy is another thing.
That being said, I sincerely doubt anyone would actually do this-- aside from the moral aspect, it may also be a tad difficult to get at your parters’ e-stop buttons, considering they aren’t in your alliance station.
I think in this case (unintentionally catching a ball), you should be just fine - as long as you get rid of it as quickly as physically possible.
That being said, your point is still valid since as the rules are written, you would be carrying an opponents ball and could, in theory, be assessed a technical foul according to G12.
I’d imagine that this would be a fanstastic Driver’s Meeting question at each event assuming that the Manual hasn’t been upadated by then. I think the head ref would more than likely rule no tech foul - assuming that the catch was unintentional (weird bounce, shot angle is off, etc) and the robot obviously got rid of the ball as quickly as they could.
First off I’m not advocating this strategy, I just think FIRST needs to fix a hole they just opened up.
Possessed balls don’t count as part of the robot otherwise a lot of robots will break the height restriction and the extension restriction.
That means that an alliance could get a ball “stuck” on the end of their goalie’s 6" blocking device and now have a 25" wide blocking device in front of their opponents goal.
This is obviously not in the spirit of the rules but from my interruption of the rules currently legal. Strategic use of the new dead ball rule should be a Red card or technical foul.
Overall FIRST put a very nice solution to a potential big problem in the flow of the game.
How is 36 square inches of anything going to hold a ball rigidly enough to deflect another ball? I really, really don’t see this happening.
This is FIRST. Anything can happen.
I have learned not to count a lot of things out in FRC. I didn’t think a sub 10 sec climb was possible last year but the Poofs proved that to be incorrect. I can conceive of a strong enough vacuum system that could do this.
It definitely wasn’t within the intentions of the GDC to originally allow this and it should be prohibited unless that’s how they want the game to be played. The rules shouldn’t even allow teams to try it.
I think the trade off of not scoring any points is worth a 25" diameter blocking device.
Additionally, does a dead ball score the base amount for being scored through the alliance goals?
I saw a video the other day of a team holding a ball with a shop vac. It seemed pretty stable to me, and wouldn’t violate the 6" diameter cylinder rule. Also, a 6" diameter cylinder isn’t 36 square inches in cross section. That would be the area for a square cross section 6" per side, and as the diagonal of such a square would be longer than 6", it would be illegal per R3. The largest cross section available is about 28 inches, per the area formulae for a circle, pi*r^2.
I feel sorry for the refs.
This is a tough task and will require much interpretation.
Rather than shaking the truss, I’ll bet that we see 12’ PVC poles on each side of each field. They will become the nets of 2014.
Repeat in your best Boris and Natasha voice:
“Head referee strong like moose.”
if the alliance’s ball gets stuck on the truss, is there a penalty?
This is a totally different scenario. Basic math could be done to show that a system using even just a few CIM motors would be able to lift quickly enough for a ten second climb. This is something you essentially can objectively prove is possible. The question mark was whether or not a team could tune a system to transition between layers smoothly and quickly.
Okay, so 27*pi square inches. I’ve seen vacuum setups work okay, but I haven’t seen any using a 6" diameter circle that are strong enough to deflect a ball being shot into it. And honestly, if someone gets a ball up there onto their scoring mechanism and wastes the alliance’s “dead ball” card on their blocker, I think they’ve earned the right to attempt to block a shot. I’d be more inclined to believe a 12" diameter suction cup with a well designed, high powered impeller could do it, but I don’t see it here.
It does shake off, the GDC tested it before making that the official way to remove a stuck ball.
Personally I was expecting them to send a piece of pipe to knock it off.
Does anyone know if the GDC reads CD? (fun with acronyms)
I have an idea for signaling a dead ball, which is apparently still being discussed. Basically, the alliance currently possesing the ball can give the signal as soon as they believe it is dead. Alternatively, if the team is holding on to it strategically (to tank rankings), both alliance partners can give the signal and overrule the team holding the ball. Possibly something different for Elims, to give alliance captain more power. You would hope this would never be the case in Elims, but you never know.
They read CD all right. They just don’t necessarily say anything about it, and rarely if ever post anything here. (I’m not even sure they have logins, in most cases–though I’m pretty sure some of them have older ones if they really need to use them.)
By definition of a CATCH, I believe if you stop moving your robot (as in on the x/y plane that is the field, which is considered HOLDING) and quickly get it out of your robot (therefore not shielding it inside your machine, or TRAPPING it) and as long as they don’t consider your attempt to get the ball out of your machine as LAUNCHING, it would be legal, right?
I perused the Q&A and didn’t see a question about it. I might submit it myself tomorrow if no one does by then.