At a recent District event, our team was the alliance captain of the top-seeded alliance. In the match that eliminated us in the semi-finals, the only seasoned member of the opposing alliance defended us fairly by blocking. While being blocked, however, another member of the opposing alliance gave us a high-speed hit on the business end of our robot, entering our robot’s frame perimeter and bending its fuel pickup roller. Replay tapes reveal that the head referee just a few feet away did not see the actual hit, but heard the noise and saw the robots separate. The bent roller was in clear view. The referee bent down to get a clearer view of the damage - a roller bent at approximately 30 degrees.
The initial impact also caused our machine to get stuck on a ball. While our driver tried to spin the robot in place to get free of it, the third opposing alliance member approached and duplicated the hit that initially bent the roller (though at lower speed), entering the frame perimeter and bending the roller further, to a 45 degree kink. The referee was watching this hit, and saw the third robot well inside our frame perimeter. No fouls were called, and we lost the match by one point…
The 2017 Rules state:
"10.7 YELLOW and RED CARDS
In addition to rule violations explicitly listed throughout the 2017 Game and Season Manual, YELLOW CARDS and RED CARDS are used in FIRST® Robotics Competition to address Team and ROBOT behavior that does not align with the mission of FIRST®.
G09. Stay out of other ROBOTS. Initiating deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.
Violation: FOUL and YELLOW CARD.
4.4 Rule Violations
FOUL
5 points credited towards the opponent’s total score"
My questions for the community:
Is the scenario I described above a violation of G09? If not, then why not? My seeking clarification is certainly water over the dam at this point, but I remain confused by what seems to be the rather clear intent of G09 and its not being applied in this instance. Was G09 not actively enforced this year, or is my interpretation of it incorrect? Thanks!
I’d have to see footage of it, but the way you described it, this sounds like a classic instance of a referee missing a foul. It may not have been obvious it was “damaging,” even if it wasn’t deliberate.
Really interesting question. Disclaimer: I was not a ref this year.
G09 is an old rule. (I’m sure someone can tell me when its first year was) It is also one of the hardest rules to call. G09 really has two parts that are best explained by separating them.
Initiating damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.
This piece of the rule is designed to prevent strategies that intentionally damage other robots. I don’t think anyone in FRC would ever object to this rule. But there is a huge issue with this rule by itself. If a team wanted to, they could put a very breakable material right inside their frame material. If any contact was made, the material would break and an opposing robot would violate G09. Here is where the question of intent and carelessness in design comes in. In general, if a team designs a mechanism that will obviously be able to cause damaging contact inside an opposing frame perimeter, they will be called for G09. But if a team designs a mechanism to play the game that is similar to other solutions (ie arm mechanisms) and is not inherently dangerous, they likely will not be called for G09.
Initiating deliberate contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.
This piece of the rule is 100% about the intent of the drivers. It is designed to prevent strategies that involve contact inside the frame perimeter. In FIRST, we expect gracious professionalism from all teams and as a result, we give the benefit of the doubt to a drive team in these situations. Unless a referee is extremely confident that the contact was intentional, this rule will not be called.
A more complex but hopefully more effective (in conveying intent) version of G09 would be:
Initiating** deliberate contact, or contact that causes damage beyond what is reasonably expected from game play**, with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.
C08 requires an intentional act with limited or no opportunity for the
TEAM being acted on to avoid the penalty, e.g. placing a GEAR on/in an
opponent who’s already controlling a GEAR such that they cannot help
but violate G27
C08 requires an intentional act, a team being acted upon, and no opportunity to avoid the penalty. In that design hypothetical, the team could argue that:
Its a design not a strategy.
It is not an action.
It does not directly act on other teams.
There is still huge opportunity to avoid the penalty simply by not hitting the robot.
For those who haven’t seen the video, let me give my own rendition of what happened.
Blue Team 1 and Blue Team 2 seemingly ram Red Team 1 from either side. Red Team 1 has a U-shaped bumper, and the impact from Blue Team 1 causes a “ramp” effect, causing Red Team 1 to go on a slant on top of Blue Team 2. Blue Team 2’s superstructure enters the robot through Ream Team 1’s frame opening and hits the roller. After both Blue teams drive away, 3688 is spinning around on a piece of fuel. When it turns towards the Camera, you can definitely see SOME kind of bend in the intake roller. I’m not sure if I would have noticed it if I wasn’t looking for it, though. I didn’t see the roller beforehand, but I have to imagine it wasn’t bent. A few seconds later, Blue Team 3 (who also has a U bumper) rams Red Team 1 such that their two bumpers enter each other’s, which causes further damage to Red Team 1’s intake.
Watching the Head Ref during all of this, she definitely seems to be trying to take a look at the damage, but I’m not sure she is able to see it very clearly.
All in all, I do think, according to the letter of the law, yes, this should be a foul + a yellow card. However, because the damage is near the bottom of the robot, it wasn’t very easy for the Head Ref to determine that something was damaged during the match rather than during something incidental in a prior match. If something more serious happened, like say, your superstructure being seriously dented, I feel like that may have been called. I can’t speak to hypothetical situations, though.
This is all from an outsider’s perspective though. I know if I was in your shoes I would probably feel that it should be a violation, and would probably be doing the same as you. It would be best if the Head Ref came to you to examine the damage before the final scores were put up. Sadly no such protocol is in place, as much as it should be.