[robocup-humanoid] [Important] Announcement of small rule adjustments

[Maike Paetzel]

Dear teams,

During the RoboCup GermanOpen we tried to play with the new rule book 
for the very first time. Some issues came up during that process that we 
discussed within the TC for the last weeks. We came to the decision to 
make some small changes to the rule book in order to clarify how certain 
aspects will be handled. Below is a list of changes we are intending to 
make. I’m working on integrating them into the rule book and we will 
release that as soon as possible. In addition, we will publish the new 
protocol for the GameController and an updated version of the MiteCome 
protocol as soon as possible as well.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to discuss them in the 
forum: https://hl.forum.robocup.org/

Cheers,
Maike (for the Humanoid Technical Committee)

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= Missing Rules compared to 2016 =
- The robot weight restrictions -> DECISION: Add to the rules again.
- "The sum of the lengths of the two arms and the width of the torso at 
the shoulder must be less than 1.2 * H_{top}. The length of an arm is 
defined as the sum of the maximum length of any link that forms part of 
the arm. Both arms must be the same length." -> DECISION: Leave out at 
least for this year. Re-discuss during the rule discussion in Nagoya.

= Free-Kick =
If a free-kick is awarded to team A and the 15 seconds start to count, 
what happens if...
a) a player of team B touches the ball within this 15 seconds? -> 
DECISION: The free kick is retaken. The player receives a warning. If 
this is happening again, the player receives a yellow card. If it's 
happening a fourth time, a second yellow card (resulting in a red card) 
is given.
b) a player of team A touches the ball within this 15 seconds? -> 
DECISION: The ball is in play, but the player receives a warning. If 
this is happening again, the player receives a yellow card. If it's 
happening a fourth time, a second yellow card (resulting in a red card) 
is given.

Clarification on the exact procedure of the free-kick:
1. Referee blows whistle and announces: "Free Kick"
2. The Assistant Referee presses "Free Kick" on the GameController. The 
15 seconds do not yet start counting.
3. The referee places the ball at the position from where the free kick 
is supposed to be taken.
4. The referee announces: "Prepare Free Kick", which is communicated via 
the GameController. From then on, the 15 seconds start counting in which 
the teams can position themselves.
5. The Assistant Referee announces that the 15 seconds are over. The 
referee asks the robot handlers to remove all robots which are in 
illegal positions.
6. The referee blows the whistle and announces: "Execute free kick", 
which is communicated to the robots via the GameController.
Necessary changes in the GameController: Another state for the "Free 
Kick" phase which is send before the 15 seconds start. The 10 seconds 
counting down after the "Execute Free kick" and before the ball is in 
play will be send to the robots as well.

Currently, the ball needs to be touched by another player after a free 
kick and after the ball is in play, otherwise an indirect free kick is 
awarded to the opponent.-> DECISION: In order to be in line with the 
other rules, we propose to add "or moved for at least 20 cm"

DECISION: Add that the distance between ball and robot is measured 
between the point in the convex hull of the robot and the ball which is 
most close together (so NOT between the center and the center, since 
that is difficult to measure that quickly on the spot)

= Kick-off procedure =
There were major misunderstandings in how the kick-off procedure is 
supposed to be executed, especially in relation to which robots can be 
manually placed when.
1. All robots are placed outside the touchline or the goal line outside 
the goal (including the goal keeper)
2. During the ready phase, the robots have time to automatically 
position themselves
3. Once the set phase begins, the referee announces illegal positioned 
robots. They have to be removed
4. The teams may then position their goal keeper (which is the one they 
announced to be the goal keeper beforehand) on the goal line inside the 
goal area. They may manually place the goal keeper independent of its 
current position (so even if the goal keeper already is in a legal position)
5. The team having the kick-off may then position a striker on the 
field. The striker can be selected from the robots which are legally or 
illegally positioned and can be placed anywhere on the field.
6. After the robots are positioned, the referee starts the game.

The same procedure is followed for the drop ball. The only difference is 
that a striker may only be placed outside the center circle if both 
teams request that. Otherwise, none may place one manually. Apart from 
that, the procedure is the same.

= Drop-In =
DECISION: Each team may contribute a different drop-in player for each 
of the games, meaning that the robot playing the games does not have to 
be unique.

DECISION: An additional point for the robot scoring the goal is only 
awarded if it was not an own goal.

DECISION: Add that a team must have a number of points greater than 0 to 
be considered for best player award.

DECISION: The points from the drop-in are also directly counted for the 
Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup.

DECISION: Change the drop-in games in length so they are a full game 
(instead of only one half time)

DECISION: The MiteCom protocol of team FUmanoids will be used for 
communication within the Drop-In teams. A slightly modified version will 
be made available very soon. For starters, please check out the FUmanoid 
repository: https://github.com/fumanoids/mitecom

= Yellow / Red cards =
DECISION: Yellow and red cards are only counted for the current game.

DECISION: Official warnings against robot handlers are kept for the 
whole tournament and must be reported to the TC after each game

= Clarification questions =
Are QR codes on the robots allowed if they are only used for identifying 
the specific robot and does not give any other information?
-> DECISION: The TC does not find any rule that forbids this for 2017. 
However, we propose that this issue should be discussed during the rule 
discussion in Nagoya for the next years.

= Minor logical mistakes =
- Page 30, indirect free kick: A goal keeper is allowed to have the ball 
lifted for up to 10 seconds, this needs to be changed here. It also sais 
"direct free kick" where it should be "indirect".

= Missing in the GameController =
- Ability to award yellow and red cards to robots. This should also be 
communicated to the robots.
- Distinction between direct and indirect free kick.
- For a full list of features to be implemented refer to: 
https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/GameController/issues