No Trapping for more than 5 seconds. A Robot may not Trap an opposing Robot for more than
five (5) seconds during the Driver Controlled Period. A Trap is officially over once the Trapping Robot
has moved away and the Robots are separated by at least two (2) feet (approximately one (1) foam tile).
After ending a Trap, a Robot may not Trap the same Robot again for a duration of five (5) seconds; if a
Team does Trap the same Robot again, the count will resume from where it left off when the Trapping
Robot initially backed off.
Does this mean that an opposing robot can be trapped for 5 seconds, released for 5, and trapped again?
Or that the opposing robot can only be trapped for 5 seconds total during the driving period?
The count resets. I’ll look for an official source, but this has been the rules for the past two years with similar terminology.
EDIT: I asked this question two years ago in the official Q & A, and the only difference since then was that “Pinning” has been combined into the definition of trapping.
You’ve posted this in the Judging Q&A section. This is for questions about the Engineering Notebook, Design Award, etc.
If you want to ask a question to the GDC about the game manual, use the official Q&A on RobotEvents that’s linked from the Game Manual. Otherwise, just put it under the generic “Tower Takeover” category to get responses from the community.