Since this year’s competition is very complex, it is extremely important for everyone to be aware of the rules to avoid confusion
Pinning is defined under game definition as: A robot is considered to be pinning an opposing robot if it is inhibiting the movement of an opponent robot while the opposing robot is in contact with the foam playing surface and another field element. Please note the definition of pinning does not require contact between the pinning and pinned robot. Trapping a robot in the corner of the field is considered pinning.
Definition of field element is: The foam field tiles, field perimeter, fence, gates, and circular goals.
Pinning is further explained in section <SG4> A Robot cannot Pin an opposing robot for more than 5 seconds during the Driver Controlled Period while on the foam playing surface. A Pin is officially over once the pinning team has moved away from the pinned robot by two feet (approximately one) foam tile. After ending a pin, a team may not pin the same robot for a duration of 5 seconds. If a referee determines this rule to be violated, the offending robot will be disqualified for the match.
Furthermore right under <g11> the rules state: In the case where referees are forced to make a judgment call on interaction between a defensive and offensive robot, the referee will err on the side of the offensive robot.
One thing that isn’t very obvious from the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=-EgHDj9LfK8
except in the last few seconds is that the defensive robot has long metal standoffs which make the robot larger than it appears. In response to there not being a visible violation of the pinning rule. In the video from approximately 1:47-1:53 the offensive robot is stuck between the goal and the defensive robot .They also reinitiated the pinning rule by repining in less than 5 seconds as seen at time 1:54 and 1:57.In addition the defensive robot never moved the approximate 2 feet back in order to officially end the pin. In this case the pin would officially go on to 2:04 making the total pin time 17 seconds.
This posts intent is to help clarify what the video does not clearly portray. Since pinning has never really been an issue before hopefully this will clarify pinning for all teams and future competitions.
Thanks for your time.
P.S.
Once again it was a great and fun tournament. Congratulations to the winning alliance of 1492x, 1492Z, and 1107B.