Cap and Ball

[AstroNight]

What happens if a cap or ball is thrown out of the arena by a robot?

[callen]

Do you mean about returning them to play or about penalizing the robot doing it or both?

[Vex_9185]

I think they would continue flying away from the field for a bit before falling to the ground because of gravity.

Also, there’s a rule about game objects leaving the field.

<SG8> Keep Game Objects in the field. Though it is expected that some Game Objects may
unintentionally leave the field during Match play, Teams may not intentionally or strategically
remove Game Objects from the field.
a. Balls that leave the field during regular Match play, accidentally or intentionally, will not be
returned to the field.
b. Caps that leave the field during regular Match play will be returned to the nearest foam tile,
Low Scored for the opposite Alliance color of the last Robot to contact it. If a referee cannot
determine which Robot was the last to contact the Cap, then the Cap will not be returned to
the field.

[AstroNight]

Yea, I realized that I wasn’t specific enough. What I meant was if you could place the cap back onto the field if say an opponent or you accidentally dropped it out of the playing field while placing it on a post cuz that seems to happen a lot with the DR4B lift.

[rxian]

The answer to your question can be found in the rules. As @Vex 9185 said and as per <SG8b> “Caps that leave the field during regular Match play will be returned to the nearest foam tile, Low Scored for the opposite Alliance color of the last Robot to contact it.”

So if you’re blue and scoring a blue cap on the post, but accidentally drop it, it’ll be returned to the field as a low-scored red cap.

If you’re blue and you descore a red cap out of the field, it’ll still be returned to the field as a low-scored red cap. In addition, if it occurs repeatedly and/or it’s clear that your intent is to descore it out of the field instead of back in, you may get a warning or disqualification.