I have couple questions and scenarios over balls crossing the autonomous line. SG3 states that you may not push balls across the auton line. It also states that balls that start on the line are not affected by this rule. However SG7 states that you can not use balls a “gloves” to perform other wise illegal actions. SG2 also states that attempt to go for any goals in the middle row at your own risk.
Below I have a couple scenarios taking place during the autonomous period that my team was wondering whether or not would be legal, result in a warning, or an automatic loss of autonomous.
Scenario 1: A red robot launches a ball that started on their side of the field at the center goal. It misses and hits a blue robot that was also going for the center goal. The blue robot misses its shot.
Scenario 2: A red robot launches a ball that started on the auton line at the center goal. It misses and hits a blue robot that was also going for the center goal. The blue robot misses its shot.
Scenario 3: A red robot intentionally knocks one of the balls out of the goal in the middle row across the line. It doesn’t hit an robots or other balls.
Scenario 4: A red robot intentionally knocks one of the balls out of the goal in the middle row across the line. It hits a blue robot that was attempting to go for the same goal. The blue robot still managed to successfully score its ball.
Scenario 5: A red robot intentionally knocks one of the balls out of the goal in the middle row across the line. It hits a blue robot that was attempting to go for the same goal. The blue robot fails to successfully score its ball.
Scenario 6: A red robot intentionally knocks one of the balls out of the goal in the middle row across the line. It hits a blue robot on the other side of the field, but the blue robot’s autonomous remain unaffected.
Before we spend time analyzing and commenting on your scenarios, would you please make commentary of what you think the outcome would/should be based on the rules in the game manual. While many of us are certified referees and could make comment, I’d like you to take the first crack at viewing your scenarios from the standpoint of a referee.
Let’s look at the first two scenarios, because they are actually similar. I would call scenario 1 the same way you did: the action of red throwing a ball caused it to cross the autonomous line unintentionally, but also messed up blues autonomous.
I would call scenario 2 the same way, autonomous loss for red, because the way you describe it sounds to me like red has taken possession of a ball before throwing it and interfering with blues autonomous. Once red has taken possession of a ball, it doesn’t matter where it came from, be it from the center line or its own preload. The referee is not going to keep track that red robot picked up the ball from the center line, processed it, perhaps along with another preload it was already holding, and then tossed it.
Here’s a 7th scenario from a competition, in which I didn’t think the ruling concurred with the game manual.
Scenario 7: Red team pushes a ball which started on the center line across the auton line, and the ball hits a stationary blue robot.
This was ruled as a loss of the auton win, which doesn’t seem correct to me, but the more important thing is whether it was seen as correct to the ref.
This is an interesting topic to bring up @9MotorGang, and timely since I just went through the reffing videos and head referee training today. A question on this aspect of the rules threw me for a bit. Here is the question from the ref training course:
To me, the key determining factor that a ref needs to use to make this call is summed up in this sentence in the Q&A post:
To your scenarios, I would say that 1, 2 and 5 are the only ones with the potential for it to be an automatic awarding of the autonomous win to blue, but I don’t think there is enough information in your scenario description to know for sure.
After going through the videos and the training, I think this is the rule that will be the most open to interpretation and a judgement call for refs during matches, especially if you are talking about robots interfering with each other while trying to score on any of the center goals during autonomous. I think it will be an easier call to make if a red robot pushes a center ball into the blue zone and it ends up interfering with an autonomous routine that is designed to score in the home row of blue. It will likely end up being a bit of a toss up if a team gets penalized for something with those center “shared” balls.
If you are comfortable living on the edge, then go for them. If you want to play it safe, stay away from them.
As to the scenario @2775Josh mentioned, I think the Q&A I referenced would show that, taking the description at face value, it would not lead to an automatic awarding of the autonomous win to blue. However, there may have been other aspects at play that I am unaware of.
@Golf it should be noted that the awarding of the automatic awarding of the autonomous bonus is not based on a match-affecting determination, as that is decided at the end of a match. These decisions will need to be made at the end of autonomous.
Thanks for the q and a. In other words, I am good to knock balls across the line that start on the line as long as I don’t stop the other team from scoring.
