Is it legal to push/pull opposition alliances’ robots off the platforms from your robot on the side ? what if it results in the opp alliances’ robot toppling ? Any Do’s and Don’ts?
You can push other robots off of the center platform. I am pretty sure you can push them from either the foam tiles or an alliance platform.
watch the game video
and read the manual
http://dreibeingmbh.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/VRC-TurningPoint-GameManual-20180427.pdf
You should always link the manual to the original source.
if youre on the platform, its essentially king of the hill. in one of my matches, i knocked a bot off the center platform and it fell onto its side and couldnt move. it is perfectly fine to knock a bot off the platforms
I would be careful with Entanglement, you could get penalized for that.
Also, as long as a robot is contacting the center platform, they can get pushed off and suffer any unintentional damage according to the game manual. But at the same time, you can’t make a mechanism that is made deliberately for the sole purpose of damaging other robots.
By going on the center platform, you assume the risk of your robot being possibly damaged by being knocked off the platform. It says in rule G12c Note 1:
Note 1: Teams who attempt to utilize the Center Platform should expect to encounter vigorous interactions from opponent Robots who are attempting to do the same. Engaging in this gameplay element of VRC Turning Point constitutes an acknowledgment of the risk of incidental tipping or damage, as covered by <G12b> and <G12c>, and waives the protection that is offered by <G12> against destructive interactions.
Our team built a pusher to shove teams off the platforms as at that time in the season we weren’t able to climb. We are considering removing it as now we are able to climb, it seems to cause some issues for making a decision of what to do during a competition, plus we got commented that it could be interpreted as something built to intentionally damage the robot. In addition, it also serves the purpose to push a cap off the platform to get it out of our way so we can climb.
We were conscious of this damage issue during build, so it moves rather slow (not a knockout punch), the pusher is wide enough so it doesn’t hit anything with a point, plus its just above the height of the high platform, so we don’t tip them over, it pushes at wheel level. The intent is that it simply pushes them over, no different if we were contesting for the platform. I think the girls could win this argument based on their design, but in the end it would come up to interpretation of the judges/referees. The girls are considering whether to take this risk. If we opt to remove the pusher, they were discussing using the motor spot to make a foot to help brake the robot on the platform.
You can see a video of the unit in action here, at roughly 2:00 in:
So the question is a physical brake or a ram? I would personally go with the ram, as that secures the spot away from the other team, rather than risking someone using it on you, overcoming your deployed brake.
Of course, depending on the match, you might be able to make a module robot that you can easily move the motor to the mechanism desired for the match, and then change it again afterwards.