[robocup-small] opinion on Rule changes for 2005
Beng Kiat Ng
nbk at np.edu.sg
Mon Nov 15 22:45:25 EST 2004
Hi Raul!
To answer some of your questions:
Change 1)
a) Yes, passive dribbler refer to pusing the ball.
b) Current rules does not allowed a robot with active dribbler to continue
pushing the ball after turning off the dribbler.
c) The reason for having dribbling(active or passive) distance limitation
is to limit individual robot play and promote team play. To me, it seems to
have the desired effect in 2004 and that's why I would really support to
continue having it, at least for 2005. The reason we extend the rule to
cover passive dribbler is that FU Fighters has shown that passive dribbler
robot can dribble as well as an active dribbler robot. It's a fantastic
work of hardware engineering and software control. In many of FU Fighters
games, I had seem the robots dribbling the ball over long distance. It's
more of an individual robot play most of the time. If dribbling distance
limitation stays, it should apply to all robots. If not, then it should be
lifted for all robots.
Change 4)
Last year, we had a China team (ZjuNlict, I think) playing against
RoboCats. RoboCats used WLAN and ZjuNlict, BT. RoboCats had one whole
channel of the IEEE802.11b. Yet they couldn't work properly when ZjuNlict
started their BT transmission. So in reality, BT can't really work with
WLAN. Since the other leagues are also banning BT and supporting
IEEE802.11x, we should follow suit.
Change 6)
I think we should try to have at least a standardisation for blue and
yellow, so that teams do not have to calibrate the teams colors of all
teams in the group. It's a practical thing to do. As for the secondary
colors, I agree that teams can use their own colors if both teams agree.
Change 7)
With 5 robots, there's very little passing options while attacking. An
extra robot should make a lot of difference. The defense area might get a
little crowded though.
Change 8)
Extending the playing time is not just to compensate for the ball out of
play lost time. With running clock, ten minutes is really too short. I
would prefer to have it longer, but I think some teams might have battery
problem if the play is too long.
As for the ball going out of play too long, we should wait for one more
year to see if the situation improves, before doing anything drastic like
putting back the wall. We hope that teams would make effort to try to keep
the ball in. I personally felt that we had removed the walls too early. We
are not ready. Since we have made the decision, let's try and make it
work.
Regards
BengKiat
"Raul Rojas"
<rojas at inf.fu-berlin.de> To: <robocup-small at cc.gatech.edu>
Sent by: cc: (bcc: Beng Kiat Ng/me/staff/npnet)
robocup-small-bounces at cc Subject: [robocup-small] opinion on Rule changes for 2005
.gatech.edu
13/11/04 10:53 PM
Following the call from Sean Verret to take a stand on the rules
proposals, here is our opinion abous some proposals:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
"Change 1:
The dribbling distance will be set at 500mm for both active and passive
dribblers."
It is not clear what constitutes a "passive dribbler". If the intention
is to limit
the distance the ball can be pushed by a robot, I think this is wrong.
Pushing the ball
does not give full control of the ball to the robot. If the robot stops,
the ball rolls
away, the ball is loose. The intention of the 50 cm limit for motor
dribbling was to avoid giving
too much control to a robot with a motor dribbler, which even when the
robot stops or goes back,
does not loose the ball.
Moreover: robots *with or without* dribblers are allowed now to push the
ball. Robots with
dribbler can just turn off the dribbler after 50 cm, and can keep
pushing the ball.
The current rule does not handicap or penalize, in any form, robots with
motor dribbler,
compared to robots without motor dribbler.
More important: limiting the range of options for a robot does not
improve the
game. If the opponent does not know if a robot is going to continue or
can make
a pass, the range of options is wider and the game is more interesting.
In the extreme, with this limitation we would have ultimate frisbee,
where anyone
with the "ball" has to stop moving and sits there just holding the ball
and waiting
for someone to help.
Oliver Purwin of the Cornell team had already argued against this
limitation, which
affects ALL teams, those with motor dribbler and those without. ANY
robot, with or
without motor dribbler, can push the ball right now.
So, please leave a wider range of options open, do not limit the range
of alternatives,
do not make this ultimate frisbee.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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."
Is there a reason for this? Two teams had Bluetooth last year, and I did
not hear of
problems with other teams.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Change 6:
"The EC/OC/TC will decide upon ALL yellows, blues, greens, cyans, and
pinks allowed to be used by robots before the competition and will make
enough of these colors available at the competition for each team to
field 6 robots."
Please NO! This proposal has been made year after year, and has always
been rejected.
If two teams agree on a set of colors that they will be using, so let
them play. Until now,
every team looks at the colors of the other team and asks for changes,
if needed. I have
never been in a game where two teams could not agree on the markers.
Limiting the range of options is specially dangerous now that we do not
have special
lighning at the venue. What happens if the lightning is a little yellow,
like in Lisbon?
Then, the colors change and everybody can be affected, if we limit and
set in advance
"official colors".
A set of "official markers" should be only last resort, if two teams
cannot agree on the
markers to be used. If they agree on the colors, whatever colors they
use, let them play,
they will be happier. We want interesting games, not games in which one
team cannot
play because it does not see the official colors. As Paulo from 5DPO
once wrote, the colors
become unofficial, once the
lightning is variable and uncontrollable. Color is the light reflected
by a patch
from a *given* light source. The light source at the venue is
**uncontrollable**,
and *undefined*, we all know that.
So I propose: don't change the rule. It is not broken, do not fix it. If
you want, the TC
can have a set of "official" color patches only for the remote case that
two teams do not
reach an agreement on the colors they want to use.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Change 7:
"We will have 6 robots per team"
Why? We worked so hard to make more room available to the robots and now
we will start
clogging the field again? The current size is about just right for five
robots. What
do we gain by having six? I would like to hear a good explanation of why
this will make
the game better. I would go for more robots, only if we had more space.
Right now the field is ideal for five robots on each side.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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."
This change does not address the *fundamental problem* we have: game
sequences are only
seven seconds long (on average, as measured for the game Lucky vs
Fighters in Lisbon).
Making the game longer does not make if more interesting, it only
compensates for lost time.
I made a proposal to speed up the game restarts, which is having a
slight slope on the
periphery of the field and let the ball roll back, when it goes out.
That's the
best idea I can come up, other than reintroduce the band. Please think
that without faster
restarts, the small-size league is becoming even less interesting than
the Sony dogs of
evil. We have lost our edge of being the fastest league with continuous
play, and
we have to make something about this, not just make the game longer.
Tedious remains tedious,
even with more time.
For those who missed my proposa, here is the full text:
http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/~rojas/pub/NextFrontier.pdf
I would be for longer matches, only if we cannot find something better.
I put forward the
the slope idea for discussion.
Teams, contribute to this discussion, feedback is needed.
Raul Rojas
FU-Fighters Team
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