This is a great question to kick of the World Class season!  It gives a chance to demonstrate how to use the Robot Game materials.

The first thing to know is that the rules and the game change from year to year.  If something was true in a past season, that should only give your team a hint to look for it in this year's game....!

In the World Class Rules, Information category, Rule 5, Precedence/Authority tells us that:

You get information about the robot game from more than one place. Once in a while,there is conflict...
So here is the order of precedence for the sources:
1 = CURRENT Robot Game Updates, 2 = Missions and Field Setup, 3 = Rules
...
When there is conflict between pictures/videos and text, the text takes precedence!


So, I will always try to cite the text from the Updates, Missions, Field Setup, and Rules when I discuss a question about the Robot Game.

In the Philosophy category, Rule 2, Interpretation really gets to the heart of the question:
Robot game text means exactly and only what it says, so take it literally whenever possible.
- If a detail isn’t mentioned, then it doesn’t matter.
- There are no hidden requirements or restrictions. If you’ve read everything, then you know everything.
...and....
--You’re encouraged to think this way - Please learn the requirements and constraints very well, and then realize the many FREEDOMS that are left.


Do make sure that your team reads the examples in Rule 2 and discusses them.  It's what makes the Robot Game so much fun--understanding an obeying the constraints and figuring out something crazy that does a great job anyway!

So, yes, if there is nothing special written about the idea model, then the team may do anything with it within the rules.  The required method for the Thinking Outside the Box mission is that "The box model was never in Base."  As the team recognized, this constraint does not say anything about the idea model.  So, if there's nothing else in the game that limits where or how the idea model may be moved, then the robot may move that model anywhere, in any allowable way.

Steve Scherr
VA-DC FLL Referee Advisor

P.S. for everyone--See the Critical Warning at the end of the Rules.  Every team wants to have at least one member who is an expert on the game documents, and the best teams challenge each other to think of ideas and decide whether they are allowable, and, if not, how to tweak them so that they are.  (But only to use them if they are helpful to the team, of course!)

On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 10:40 PM, Rick Fontanilla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Our team just had a meeting to discuss the missions.  One of the big
> discussions was the Outside the Box mission.  Challenge says the idea
> model is no longer touching the box model.  The box model was never in
> Base.  One of the kids asked if we could bring the idea model to base.  I
> said, in the past seasons, if it is not in the rules specifically, then you can
> do it.
> Does that sound right?
>
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