What are the common problems you guys can see or have noticed when planning a game strategy for ITZ. I’m curious to see how people are going to over come some of these problems and we could share these ideas for a head start.
well the stacks lean even at around 12-15 high around 1-2" which mean that you will have to possible have a bracing system. Another problem is potentially driving with a stack and it falling over. This could also be fixed with bracing.
Is bracing legal? Bracing only the very top one certainly is. But if you brace below that, then you’re possessing the one you’re bracing plus all those above. I believe they have ruled that incidental middle contact if a stack sways is OK, but not intentionally doing so. The question then becomes how they would rule a tall brace that the cones shouldn’t touch but surely will as they sway. It wouldn’t truly be incidental as it’s designed to brace, so it should violate the spirit of the rule. But maybe I’m wrong.
I don’t remember the thread but karthik ruled that you could brace as long as you weren’t holding so you could support but not grab onto.
It is legal and the game manual will be updated on the June 15 to better state that:
The problem is that Karthik says “in the manner you have described” (note the singular article) while the OP there mentioned several different manners. It is impossible to conclude from that yet that a bracing system will be allowed. All we’re sure of from that is that some sort of contact is OK, and incidental would be the minimum so incidental contact must be OK. It may be that more intentional contact is allowed, but maybe not. Maybe you cannot have bracing, only incidental contact. Maybe you can have bracing but not grasping. Maybe you can even grasp. The issue is that more cannot be concluded from that post by Karthik. That’s why I said they have not yet ruled such intentional contact OK and questioned at what point the line would be drawn. So, unless there is another post further clarifying this, what I wrote matches what Karthik has stated.
When the rulebook gets revised we’ll know more, and then more questions will surely be asked.
He said you can “hold” stacked cones so I don’t see how it is unclear whether anything more than incidental contact is legal as you claim
If you lean a board against a wall, the wall holds the board up. That’s the word we normally use. So if the cones rock and lean up against your robot incidentally, the robot may be holding them up. Maybe if your robot is designed to specifically hold the cones it will be illegal, while if it isn’t but it ends up holding up the stack by accident that’s OK? Maybe a non-concave surface will be OK, while a concave surface will be ruled out? Maybe you can actually grasp it, maybe not? Maybe you can have a concave surface for it to lean against so long as the surface doesn’t go more than 180 degrees around the stack? I don’t know. I’m just looking at Karthik replying to a series of questions while only using a single answer that from its grammar must not apply to all the questions, and understanding that trying to interpret too much from there requires logical leaps and therefore cannot be known to be correct.
He didn’t say “hold up”, but ok. I agree that he wasn’t more specific because he’s waiting for the rule update, but I think we can be pretty confident that more than incidental contact is legal