[robocup-small] Comments&suggestion for SSL

[Beng Kiat Ng]

Hi all!

It's been a while since David sent his first email requesting for feedback
and suggestions. Sad to say, there's not a single response so far. Among
all the leagues, SSL seems to have the least amount of discussion
(regarding rules, future direction etc) year after year. Some teams seem to
think it's the Technical Committee's job to handle this. But really, it's
the reponsibility of all involved in this league to make things happen. If
we do not progress, we will be left behind by the other leagues and made
irrelevant. In order for us to progress, we need to hear from all teams
your views, suggestions. We need to know how the game can evolve so that it
stays relevant to your area of work & research.

And here are my comments.
1) Current rules are ok and comfortable to most teams.But how do we
progress from here towards the 2050 target? Are we going to have fully
autonomous robots? This would imply local vision and I know this is not
welcome in SSL. One thing we can do is to tweak the rules to encourage more
team play & passing as there is still research opportunity to work on in
this area.

2) Robots are getting too fast! No matter how much we increase the field
size, it will never be enough if there's no cap on the robot speed. If
speed is what we encourage, then that is fine. But if we want the game to
stay similar to human football, then robot top speed should be limited to a
similar scale. Slowing down the robot would encourage passing as there's a
huge advantage to be gained. How do we do it? Well, I have no practical
solution. One possibility is to trust that teams will regulate their own
robot speed to meet the requirement. But this can happen only if everyone
trust everyone else. Having a vision system to monitor the robot speed is a
possibility, but tedious to setup. Other possibilities : limit battery,
motor; control robot weight etc. I like none of these. I hope someone can
have a good solution to this.

3) Inconsistency of rules regarding  restart at touchlines. All restarts
should be at least 10cm from all boundary lines.

4)Official colors worked really well this year. I spent much less time on
vision calibration. The only problem was the pink color as some pinks are
rather close to the ball orange. I would suggest having an official pink
color too or get rid of pink totally. Note that having official colors work
against research opportunities on vision. But for now, it seems to make the
game setup easier and more pleasant. And not many teams are interested in
vision in SSL.

5)Mandatory checks of robots. Referees should be equipped with tools to
make checks on robots before every game.

6) Ball holding rules. This rule should spelt out clearly, in no uncertain
terms, what ball holding means. There should be diagram to illustrate this
rules so that it's easy to understand.

7) Video evidence. The game is now so fast that even having 2 referees is
not enough. I would not suggest having compulsory official video recording
to serve as evidence as that would be quite an organisational chores to
handle. I would suggest that referee be given the power to check whatever
video evidence there is available (and there is plenty around normally) if
he thinks it's going to be critical.

Regards
BengKiat/LuckyStar