I was part of the ref team that called this out on Jesse’s thread here.
The decision was made that when a team intentionally compels buckyballs in a desired direction this maneuver is illegal and the skills run is cancelled. In Jesse’s case, the robot was very clearly intentionally moving those buckyballs into a scored position, which was score affecting. As Jesse said, he starting in the hanging zone, picked up the two underneath the bar and drove straight for the three buckyballs on the bump to knock them off. I was under the impression from the many discussions on the forum that if a robot at any point intentionally moved more than three buckyballs, the result was a disqualification.
Since it was deemed legal to have a large ball compel buckyballs, we told Jesse to push the large ball into the buckyballs which is technically legal. The issue of possession is very murky regarding the large balls because teams will sometimes just move the large ball in order to knock off the three buckyballs. You’ve said that this is a grey zone because it is hard to tell if the team is knocking off the buckyballs unintentionally or intentionally. Oftentimes, teams will move the large ball, knock off the buckyballs and then continue on with their routine with no discernible reason for moving the big ball, except to score.
I hope I’ve made the reasoning behind our call a bit more clear and would appreciate any clarifications I can give to our refs this weekend.
Driving through BuckyBalls during the Driver Controller Period is generally a legal maneuver. We don’t want our referees to try and evaluate intent each time a Robot hits a BuckyBall. Thus we’ve decided to be very lenient in these situations and give teams the benefit of the doubt. As long as the BuckyBalls do not become “attached” to the Robot, they would not be considered possessed.
Thank you for the clarification. I know Mrs. Bowling (my club sponsor) forwarded this thread to the event sponsors for this weekend. Nothing egregious happened this weekend from what I heard and saw. Jesse might be inclined to say differently, but I wasn’t there to watch
I’m sure you’ve had enough Hoosier complaining for a good while…
Again, thank you for everything you do for the program Karthik!
