Answered: Another Herding Question

[TriDragon]

I hope this is the right forum for this question, this is our first full season as a team, I’m new to the forum and coaching, and certainly may have missed something.

During the season we read through the forums and looked at various answers regarding herding during autonomous and felt we were fully in compliance with our two teams. However, events over the weekend brought that into question. Both of our teams have qualified for Worlds so I want to make sure we have flushed this out before then (affording to go to worlds is another question :). I have two scenarios to question:

1. During the 15 sec autonomous period when we start on the back tile with 1 bucky preload (facing the rear), pick up the other 2 bucky’s under the hanging rail come back to our square, rotate the bot to point to the middle of the arena, drive forward (hitting the big ball which may/may not knock off the 3 bucky’s on the bump, turn to face the goal zone, drop the 3 captured bucky’s onto the bump where they end up in either the middle zone or the goal zone.

2. During the 15 sec autonomous period when we start on the back tile with 1 bucky preload (facing the middle), drive forward and pick up the big ball (still have 1 bucky), turn and face the back of the arena, back over the bump to get to the middle zone (this may/may not knock off the 3 buckys on the bump), rotate to face the goal zone, lift, knock off the big ball from the rail into goal zone, deposit big ball in the goal zone, deposit bucky ball in the goal zone.

So, are these both considered herding? I was fairly certain given a recent answer that #1 was not, but not clear on either for sure.

[Karthik]

@TriDragon

1. During the 15 sec autonomous period when we start on the back tile with 1 bucky preload (facing the rear), pick up the other 2 bucky’s under the hanging rail come back to our square, rotate the bot to point to the middle of the arena, drive forward (hitting the big ball which may/may not knock off the 3 bucky’s on the bump, turn to face the goal zone, drop the 3 captured bucky’s onto the bump where they end up in either the middle zone or the goal zone.

This is a legal manuever. At no point is your Robot directly interacting with more than 3 BuckyBalls.

@TriDragon

2. During the 15 sec autonomous period when we start on the back tile with 1 bucky preload (facing the middle), drive forward and pick up the big ball (still have 1 bucky), turn and face the back of the arena, back over the bump to get to the middle zone (this may/may not knock off the 3 buckys on the bump), rotate to face the goal zone, lift, knock off the big ball from the rail into goal zone, deposit big ball in the goal zone, deposit bucky ball in the goal zone.

This is an illegal manuever. You’re Robot is carrying one BuckyBall and then intentionally and directly herding three additional BuckyBalls that were in a known location at the start of the Match. During the autonomous period, all interactions with objects in known locations are assumed to be intentional.

[TriDragon]

Thank you Karthik,

Just to be clear, in case #1, if we hit the big ball and it knocks off balls on the bump, on purpose or not, while we posses 3 buckyballs this is legal in 15 sec autonomous? We are headed to worlds and I want to be crystal clear since we were DQ’d in State for this which cost our partners their world bids.