Good clarifications. I believe I had the same conclusion on all of them. Even if they change the rules so that you can attach to allies, I would argue that it would be easier to balance not attached, so 1 bot is stationary, and only one is moving around. On Jan 7, 2012 9:03 PM, "John McInerney" <johnfm2000@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi Team, > > Great work today in analyzing the game and coming up with great strategy > ideas. The active participation by students, mentors and parents was > awesome to see. We are off to a great start. During the strategy > discussions, there was some questions about the rules. Here is my > understanding of the questions and the related rules to help answer them. > > 1) During hybrid mode, can the robots leave the Key? > - according to G16, the answer is Yes. > - The term "Alliance Station" can be confusing. It refers to the end of > the court where our drivers are located. > - The robot may not touch the carpet on our Alliance Station end of the > court and so it can move around as desired on your hoop end of the court > during hybrid mode. G17 mentions player must remain in assigned starting > positions but this does not apply to the robots. > - So the Kinect can be used to potentially guide the robot to pick up > balls on the carpet due to missed shots or help guide the robot to get > balls from our bridge or the center bridge and attempt shots. > > 2) While balancing on the bridge, can we attach ourselves to another > alliance robot? > - No (for now). G26 says we cannot attach to another robot. But it > appears to be meant to avoid doing something bad to your opponent. We will > need to get clarification on this to see if we can do it to robots in our > alliance. > - there are other ways to control balancing on the bridge so we can work > around it. > > 3) Do Inbounders need to release balls through the slot if one of their > alliance robots is not present to receive it? > - According to G31, the answer is Yes. > - Each Inbounder can hold 2 balls. The three Inbounders combined can be > holding on to 6 balls without releasing them. If they have 6 in hand and a > ball is scored and enters their corral, they must release one of the balls > immediately through the slot or over the wall, and then quickly grab the > new ball in the corral. > - Basically, each alliance can hoard 6 balls at a time. That is a lot to > hoard when only 18 balls are available. (ball count - 2 in each of the 6 > robots and 2 on each of the 3 bridges) > > 4) Can a robot enter the opposing alliance's alley? > - Yes. The only game rule that mentions alley is G28. It says our robot > cannot touch an opponent robot that is in contact of its alley. The > clarification for the violation says "*for purposeful, consequential > contact*". I would interpret "consequential" to mean if you are in the > their alley and an opponent robot is in contact with their alley and they > bump into you, you get a foul and they get 9 points :( > - So you can enter the opponents alley, but with caution. The opponent's > defensive robot can score an easy 9 points by touching our robot in their > alley. > - I would assume an opponents robot cannot push our robot into the alley > in order to force the foul. > > Thanks, > John > > > > > >