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

[Maike Paetzel]

Dear teams,

apologies that the rule adjustments took a little longer than expected. 
Now they are implemented and the latest version is uploaded on the 
homepage (https://www.robocuphumanoid.org/materials/rules/). It can also 
be found on github (https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/Rules). 
Please see the change history of git or my previous email for an 
overview of what has changed.

In addition, I'm happy to inform you that we released the second version 
of the new GameController implementation yesterday: 
https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/GameController
It mostly fixes bugs and adds features which we realized are necessary 
during the GermanOpen. Please see the changelog for details and test the 
GameController if you have the chance. If you find any issues or bugs, 
please report them on github.

As announced in my last email, we highly encourage teams to implement 
the MiteCom protocol from team FUmanoids for the Drop-In challenge. We 
made a small adjustment to the protocol and added the following fields: 
WALKING_TO_X, WALKING_TO_Y, SHOOTING_TO_X, SHOOTING_TO_Y, BALL_VEL. The 
official version of the protocol for 2017 can be found here: 
https://github.com/RoboCup-Humanoid-TC/mitecom

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to write an email to 
the technical committee (rc-hl-tc at lists.robocup.org) or post in the 
league forum: https://hl.forum.robocup.org/

Hope to see you all next month in Nagoya!
Maike (on behalf of the RoboCup Humanoid Technical Committee)


On 6/9/2017 5:00 PM, Maike Paetzel wrote:
>
> 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)
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> = 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
>