This is a great answer! And to be honest, much better than I was expecting.
Thanks!

I was wondering, what would it take to get a clarification like this on all
of the missions? I certainly don't want you to write up something like this
for each one--that would take forever. But if this head referees conclave
meeting produces a product like that, is it something that can be shared?


.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 9:26 AM, VA-DC Referee Advisor <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Frank and coaches,
>
>   When discussing the Service Dog Action mission, M02, I don't think that
> it is more restrictive than many other FLL missions, this year and in the
> past.  It may be a matter of perspective.  The challenge of this mission is
> to navigate through a constrained curved path, and the triggering of the
> dog is the indication that you've succeeded.  (Going west is required
> because of the design of the triggering mechanism.)  This is not inherently
> an "operate a machine to obtain a desired result" mission (although that is
> part of it, of course).
>
>   Your teams have the freedom to decide how that traveling is
> accomplished, as well as freedom of design to ensure that the fence is
> triggered, sequencing of actions, and so on.
>
>   In regard to the mission constraint that the fence must be down
> "because" of the travel and "after" the travel, some actions are definitely
> not allowed.  Examples:
>    a)  robot sitting in Base, triggering the Warning Fence, and then
> driving between the barriers later.  The team would not earn points for M02.
>   b)  robot driving east of the fence, pulls it down and then, without
> stopping ,continues and drives through the barrier path from the west.  No
> points.
>   c)  requiring the robot to be shorter than the distance between the
> easternmost barrier and the fence, so that the fence isn't triggered until
> after the robot has passed all of the barriers--not reasonable.
>   d) What about a 20" long segmented bendable robot that enters the
> barriers from the south entrance and triggers the fence while a substantial
> part of the robot is still on the northward section of the
> barriers--probably okay.  (and cool--send me your pictures!)
>
>   VA-DC FLL will be having its annual head referees conclave later this
> month, and we'll definitely talk through exactly what we understand "after"
> to mean for the mechanics of this mission, and how we will rule on it.
>  "Because" seems pretty clear to me, and easy to adjudicate.  GP2 says to
> use the common conversational meaning.
>
>   As usual, Rule D04, Robot, doesn't distinguish between the Robot and
> most active attachments. I think that everyone understands that.
>
> Steve Scherr
> Virginia-DC FLL Referee Advisor
>
> P.S.   Except for purposes of tournament registration, we prefer
> "Advisors" or "Facilitators" or "Organizers" to "Overlords".  (Except
> occasionally during tournaments, c.f. R19, bullet 1, last sub-bullet,
> moderated by GP5, #4)  :-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 12:32 AM, Frank Levine <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>   I'm having a heck of a time figuring out the constraints for M02
>> (Service Dog Action)
>>
>> *"The Fence must be down because the Robot completely crossed it from the
>> west, after traveling between the Barriers"*
>>
>> If my team wants to design an attachment to push the fence down and then
>> cross it... is the fence down *because* the robot completely crossed
>> it?  I don't think so... it's down because the robot pushed it down...
>> *then* the robot crossed the fence.  It's certainly not down because the
>> robot crossed it.  It seems to me that the only legal solution is to have
>> the robot push the fence down crossing from the west.  This seems very
>> 'un-FLL', in that there is no freedom to interpret... the method is
>> completely specified.
>>
>> Any clarification from our FLL overlords would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Frank Levine
>>
>>
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