[robocup-small] Planned Rule Changes

Christopher Head chead at chead.ca
Sun Jan 13 18:03:21 EST 2013


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Hello teams!
Your technical committee (with some input from the OC as well) has just
finished planning what rules we’ll be changing for RoboCup 2013. Here’s
what we’re planning on doing:

Yellow card rules are a little bit ambiguous as written in the
rulebook. How we have always played at RoboCup has been that each
yellow card reduces the maximum team size by one, no matter how many
robots are on the field or how many robots a team has available to use.
Which specific robot committed the violation was not important. We
determined that given:
(1) how interchangeable different robots from the same team are,
(2) that teams have different levels of hardware reliability and
resources and might want to bring different numbers of robots to the
field for a game, and
(3) that a team playing with fewer than the maximum number of robots is
already at a disadvantage,
the current rules are appropriate. While it is slightly unfair that a
team voluntarily playing with fewer robots is not punished for
receiving a yellow card, we feel that any other possible solution is
even more unfair, so what we have is the best answer. We will be
updating the wording in the rulebook to reflect this.

Some teams asked for video review of referee calls. Because we do not
yet have good, tested infrastructure, it would be too soon to put this
in the rules. We would like to test out video review systems at RoboCup
2013 and may consider rule changes further in the future. For now,
remember that use of tools to help with refereeing is at the referee’s
discretion, so if a referee would like to check calls using a video
review tool, (s)he is welcome to do that.

Lots of teams also asked for ball speed measurement. We’d like to see
this operational for RoboCup 2013, but again, this can be deployed via
referee’s discretion. We don’t think there’s any need for it to go in
the rules. The rules say what’s allowed (ball speed up to 8 m/s); how
the referee enforces that should be up to them, as long as it’s fair.

The chip goal rules are incredibly complicated, possibly contradictory,
and probably ambiguous as written. Furthermore, while strict limits on
chip goals probably made sense back when they were written, when
chipping was a distinct technical advantage, today, with most teams
having chippers, strict rules are probably not so necessary. We have not
decided exactly what our rules around chip goals will be yet. We will
probably have some limits, but they will be much simpler. We will
announce the new rules as soon as possible.

Some teams had complaints about the lack of progress in ten seconds
rule. We believe the rule is appropriate and unambiguous, but we will
reword it to be more clear. The rule is, was, and will be: if ten
seconds pass with no progress, the REFEREE may call a stoppage in play
for no progress and then order a force start. The opposing team may go
for the ball after the force start, but NOT before. If the opposing
team goes for the ball before the referee calls force start, even if
ten seconds have passed with no apparent progress, that team is in
violation.

There were some problems with the two defenders rule. We feel the two
defenders rule is too subjective and, because the punishment is quite
severe, can result in a lot of arguments. We will be considering more
objective metrics for when to make and when not to make a two defenders
call; again, we will announce the new rules as soon as possible.

Thanks!
Chris (SSL TC chair)
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