Rapid Load balls must be placed by a loader in a **stationary position** , and may **not** be rolled or bounced into a robot.
That would make auton much harder.
The problem I have with this rule change is that, this was allowed in previous tournaments so that a lot of teams taking full advantage of it and got really high auton scores. Now team haven’t done so will never been able to achieve those crazily high auton scores.
The super crazy high scores were mostly achieved by using flying wheel and make the robot just staying stationary, roll the balls into robot and score like crazy.
It is very unfair for teams that hadn’t try that route but now all of a sudden, their auton becomes much harder. I would imagine that the highest auton score you can achieve will be much lower now.
Yeah
It removes a technique that is borderline cheating
I don’t compete in IQ, but I understand—it’s like the Yiheng Wang “sliding” controversy; previous scores are preserved because of goofy ahh ex post facto
Current world record will stay the WR
The problem is not borderline cheating or not. It is about fairness.
First, I don’t agree with calling it cheating. Whatever the rules not forbidden, should be allowed. The previous rules very clearly allows it. It only says that if you roll the balls, you won’t receive “benefit of doubt” in case there is any argument in terms of other violations.
Second, the skill scores will be ranked using the scores from all tournaments, including those before this rule changes. I imagine this is going to hugely affect auton score (now the robot has to move to the ball to intake it),
As I said—previous scores are preserved.
imo it’s almost like they were asking it to be banned.
Rolling or bouncing the ball into a robot is a way to circumvent <SG5b> which states that Rapid Load Balls must be released by the Loader directly onto the Floor inside a Starting Zone before being contacted by a robot.
Longer intake won’t work, because it requires the ball to be stationary. So the robot has to “walk” to the ball to intake it.
Totally different level of difficulty than scrolling the ball into the intake.
Sorry, I don’t get what do you mean by “previous scores are preserved”?
Do you mean previous scores CANNOT be used for qualifying for state event? Or they can be used for state event? If they can be used, that’s the unfairenesss I am talking about.
Yes, rolling completely satisfy this requirement: It was released onto the floor inside a starting zone, and it rolls on the floor and then contacted by the robot.
Rapid Load Balls must be released by the Loader directly onto the Floor inside a Starting Zone before being contacted by a robot.
That is what I meant when I said that previous scores are preserved.
I believe that the intent of this rule is that the Loader simply puts the ball on the floor and the robot takes it out, minimizing the human element of the game and putting more focus on the robot. Rolling is very similar to dropping the ball directly into the robot because both techniques allow a robot to not actually intake the ball by itself.
Totally agree with the intent and totally support the intent if it is stated so from the beginning.
Suppose the rule never changed, one team scored 600 total skills point in first tournament and then score 0 points in the rest of the tournaments. The second team scored 0 points in all tournaments, but working very hard, finally in the last tournament, they scored 600 total skills points. Both teams using the points to qualify while using the same rule.
Now the rule changed, the second team is no longer able to score 600 points. Maybe they can only score 400 or 500 pts now. So the second team has to use a score under much stricter rule to compete against score earned under much easier rule.
