[robocup-small] opinion on Rule changes for 2005

[Brett Browning]

Hi Raul and others,

Thank you for responding. We really need more discussion within the 
community, and now is the time for this. I hope _all_ the other teams 
out there will also respond.

Okay, I will let Sean or the other TC members respond in detail to your 
comments, but I will respond to one or two as below:

> "Change 1:
> The dribbling distance will be set at 500mm for both active and passive
> dribblers."

I will let the other TC members handle this one, but for a quick comment 
-- it is not ultimate frisbee. In that sport you have to stop as soon as 
you catch the frisbee. Instead the robot can maintain contact with the 
ball anywhere in a 1m diameter circle. That is 1/3 of the field width! A 
robot can move the ball beyond that distance, but must visibly loose 
contact (as per this year). The goal, is to encourage passing as opposed 
to rugby.

> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> Change 4:
> 
> "No more bluetooth is allowed in the small-size league, and all other RF
> decisions will be left to the OC based on local conditions."
> 

There were problems this year. Also, there is a strong desire from wht 
wider RoboCup community to make this change. Basically 2.4GHz in the 
802.11b range is far to heavily used. So anything that utilizes the same 
frequencies (ie. Bluetooth) are not allowed. Anything outside of the 
802.11b range is fine.

> Change 8:
> 
> "The time of game will include 12 minute halfs, 5 minute half time
> breaks, each team retains its color for the duration of the match and
> colors are decided along with the referee 1 hour before the match."

Our lack of continuous game-play is certainly a problem, and I think 
everyone realizes that. The proposed changes to the free-kick rules are 
meant to fix this.

> Teams, contribute to this discussion, feedback is needed.

It is indeed. This is your opportunity. I hope everyone responds.

Brett

-------
Brett Browning, Ph.D., Systems Faculty
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
phone: 412 268 6021, lab: 412 268 2601
fax: 412 268 4801, web: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~brettb