Now for my question. We attempted “basically” the same maneuver at a skills competition this past weekend. We picked up the 2 wall bucky’s (with our preload) then drove straight into the 3 on the bump and went to stash. The buckyballs on the bump did not stick with the robot, they went everywhere. We went through the bucky’s on the bump to put ourselves in a good position to stash.
According to your answer, this is legal. However, at the competition this was deemed “not legal” because we intentionally hit them off the bump. But according to <SG8> we were not possessing as they fell away from our robot and scattered across the field.
I understand this clause as well, however, we wanted a straight shot at the stash (following the white line). Again, the buckyballs on the bump did NOT stick with the robot.
Would this Driver Skills routine be considered illegal? Would the ruling change if this maneuver was intentional or unintentional?
Before the tournament, the ref’s agreed that if a robot holds 3 buckyballs in it’s intake, then, intentionally or non-intentionally hits or pushes a 4 buckyball and it gets moved to a different zone, that was illegal and would DQ your team. That was their possession ruling.
We had no idea we hit the buckyball, but he DQ’ed us when it moved from the middle zone to the goal zone.
From reading the manual, and your official response, their ruling makes no sense to me. This rule makes their life a lot harder. If they would follow your rule, they really wouldn’t need to worry about possession unless it is REALLY obvious the buckyball is staying with the robot. On the other hand, with their ruling, they have to watch extremely closely for the buckyballs moving zones when hit.
They also did not enforce this rule they created very well in the competition matches. It was happened all the time; not intentionally, it is just the nature of the competition. Now in the skills challenges, they were DQ’ing people left and right because teams accidentally moved the buckyballs from zone to zone (when possessing 3 buckyballs).
I would really like to get this cleared up. It is really annoying me, and no one seems to care about the rules.
As has been mentioned on the Q&A numerous times, we cannot give blanket rulings on snapshots of situations. From what you’ve described, it seems like you and referees are seeing things very differently. You’ll need to take this up with the tournament organizers.
Their view of possession is: When possessing 3 buckyballs, if you hit a 4th buckyball and it moves zones, you are DQ’ed. That’s what they are saying.
My view of possession is: When possessing 3 buckyballs, if you hit a 4th buckyball, and it does not stay “attached” to the robot, your are not possessing more than 3; thus legal.
