[robocup-humanoid] Rule Discussion for 2012

Dorian Scholz scholz at sim.tu-darmstadt.de
Tue Nov 15 12:45:51 EST 2011


Dear HL Teams,
dear Technical Committee,

here are our comments:

On 11/01/2011 08:53 PM, Daniel Seifert wrote:
> * Goal keeper can not score a goal directly from a throw-in. Ball must first
>    touch at least one other player.
A penalty should be decided upon, if the goal keeper actually throws the 
ball directly into the other teams goal.
We think handling it in a similar way as if the ball had rolled out of 
the field over the goal line would be appropriate.
So the ball would be placed on the half way line, but on which side has 
to be decided by the referee.

> * modify game controller to count up (not down) and have the referee decide
>    the end of game (allowing to make up for game stoppages / lost time and
>    to finish current play)
We don't really see the necessity of this change, as the current GC will 
count from 10 minutes backwards and continue to count (negative) over-time.
This allows the referee to stop the game after passing the amount of 
over-time he sees fit.

> * robots should not have any parts sticking out, such as protective wires, etc
We strongly support that there should not be any stick or hook like 
parts sticking out, that will easily harm other robots.

> * team markers should be large enough with a minimum size, and visible from all sides
Yes, the current rules should mention a minimum size visible from all 
sides and they should be enforced more strictly.

> * increased penalty for teams that do not use the game controller
We support that, but we also like to raise the question about what 
happens, if there is a wireless outage, that is not the fault of the 
playing teams.
There should be a special case for that, still allowing for fluent game 
play, without the penalty being applied to the teams.

But to allow for that it is necessary to be able to distinguish between 
two teams not supporting the GC and an actual wireless outage.
One possibility would be to enforce the use of the GC "ping back" 
functionality, where the GC shows which robots are sending back a reply 
package.
But for this to work the GC's network settings (subnetmask) needs to 
allow for both teams to send packets back to the GC.

> * Technical challenges:
>    * Throw-In challenge modified to use an arbitrarily colored ball
If this is done by using a random ball from a set of balls, how can this 
challenge be made equally difficult for every team?

>    * Dribbling challenge modified to distribute poles over whole field and
>      change robot starting point to opposite goal
Here we would like to discuss changing the rule about a minimum amount 
of ball contacts.
Its goal is to refrain teams from just kicking the ball into the goal 
and then walk around the poles afterwards.
But it fails to do so, as one could still just tap the ball from the top 
ten time leaving it in place and then still kick the goal.
A nicer way to enforce real dribbling would be to virtually divide the 
field into sections in which the ball has to be touched at least once.
E.g. the sections could be: goal line to penalty mark, penalty mark to 
halfway line, halfway line to penalty mark, penalty mark to goal line.

>    * Introduction of ball high-kicking challenge
What would actually be measured?
Maximum ball height, ball height at a specific line (like high jump), 
airtime or flight distance?
Will it be allowed to pick up the ball first with hand or feet and kick 
from there?

>    * Scoring of challenges must be adjusted, e.g. only the top 3 of the 4
>      challenge event scores will be counted.
Important is that the maximum score stays at 30 points.
Also if a team scores in all four challenges, the challenge where it 
scored lowest will not be counted for this team.
But will it still affect the ranking for the other teams that scored in 
this challenge?

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Part 3: Open issues
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> * have mandatory handles at a standardized place (cmp. Darwin OP)
This would be a nice thing to have. The best place would probably be 
behind the head, as in Darwin OP.

> * Referees are allowed touching and moving the robots, e.g. removing them
>    from field (cmp. SPL)
With the above mentioned handles that would improve the game play.

> * introducing 4vs4 games
Even though this would allow for better team play, we think this should 
not be introduced as long as most teams
(including ourselves) are often still struggling to have 3 robots on the 
field at all times...

> * removing side-poles in 2012 or 2013
We are very much in favor of doing this already in 2012.
In general we would propose to try to even out the differences between 
kid-size and SPL fields completely, by changing some aspects of both 
fields if possible.
This would allow for teams participating in both leagues to train on one 
field and also make it easier to plan competitions with shared fields.
As far as I know the differences are:
- goals (we could ask the SPL to change to kid-size goals, as I have 
heard complaints from the SPL about their goals being hard to build...)
- field lines (the penalty area in kid-size is still 3m wide to allow 
for the adult size to play on the same field. as this changes next year, 
kid-size should go to smaller width like SPL: 2.2m)
- side line poles (should be removed in kid-size)


Another proposition is about ensuring a high quality of the provided 
wireless network.
In other leagues (namely Search and Rescue and the MidSize league) 
wireless network scanners are used to find sources of disturbances.
It would be nice to have something like this in the humanoid league as well.
Maybe in corporation with other leagues (like SPL, SmallSize) usually 
located close to our fields to split the costs/efforts and also ensure 
enforcement among their teams.


Best regards,
Dorian

-- 
Dipl.-Inform. Dorian Scholz         E-Mail:scholz(at)sim.tu-darmstadt.de
Simulation, Systems Optimization    Phone:  +49 (0) 6151 16-4811
and Robotics Group                  Fax:    +49 (0) 6151 16-6648
Technische Universität Darmstadt    http://www.sim.tu-darmstadt.de
Hochschulstr. 10                    D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany



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