Question about agility( 3.5 Agility)

To whom it may concern,

Preface
Robots are required to have full autonomy from humans, technical designs, and ingenious programming by their developers.

We realized full autonomy from people by clarifying the role of striker and Goalie.

・Strikers
Less lack of progress : Can capture the ball just outside the line
Less Pushing : Shoot from outside Penalty area
Less Multiple defense : The robot will not enter its own penalty area

・Goalie
Robots are allowed to use the cross-bar in order to avoid entering the goal : Detect the cross-bar with the touch sensor and move forward.
Technical design and ingenious programming are done, and it also moves forward as judged by the robot itself, just as the goalie in human soccer.

It is a question about the movement of the Goalie.
Which of 1 to 4 is the correct judgment?( 3.5 Agility)

  1. Because the Strikers can chase the ball, the Goalie does not have to follow the ball.

  2. Because the Strikers can chase the ball, the Goalie does not have to follow the ball.
    Goalie must be constructed and programmed in a way that their movement is not limited to only one dimension (that means one axis).
    This is because easy and effective ways obstruct the development of technology.

Advanced control technology is required(For example, front / rear position control by a distance sensor, rotation suppression control by a gyro sensor These comprehensive feedback control) for moving linearly using 4-axis Omni drive.
It’s enough to drive using more than two axes regardless of how it moves

  1. Technical design and ingenious programming are done, and it also moves forward as judged by the robot itself, just as the goalie in human soccer.

To avoid interrupting the game, we recommend that you demonstrate in the Pre-match meeting.

  1. The referee do not consider technical design, and ingenious programming.

If movement appears to be only left and right movement, it is determined to be 1 axis drive.
If the referee judges that it is single axis drive, it is assumed that there is no agility.

Thanks!
Tomo

Hello @tomo,

I am sorry for answering this late. To be honest, I do not think I fully get your question, so please feel free to ask further questions, if you find my answer lacking in any way.

In essence, I believe that your question can be rephrased as follows:

How do we persuade the referee that our robot is also responds to the ball in a forward movement, since it only does so in special circumstances?

The answer to that question is really difficult. First, we need to take into account the fact that a lot is going on during the game. The referee has very little time to make a decision, so when they only see the robot move left and right during most of the gameplay, one cannot really fault them for viewing this robot as not agile enough. This is basically how you summed the whole situation up in the last two sentences of your post.

Second, we need to consider the spirit of the rule. The idea is not to punish those goalies that would like to respond to the ball by just blocking it, but rather to encourage active participation of goalies in the gameplay, as it is much more probable that their action will provoke a reaction, which in turn makes the whole game more engaging (and closer to human soccer). I do not think the comparison to the goalie in human soccer is a fair one to make, as the ratio of goalies in an ordinary human soccer team (1/11) is substantially different than the one in the RoboCupJunior Soccer (1/2).

Given all of the above, I would suggest you do two things:

  1. Be very upfront about the strategy your robots will utilize with any referee, so that the potential agility issues are known to them before the game stars. I believe this is what you meant by

To avoid interrupting the game, we recommend that you demonstrate in the Pre-match meeting.

  1. Consider making the goalie go forward at least a little (while still keeping him inside the penalty area), when this does not pose a “tactical disadvantage”.
    From the videos you’ve posted it indeed looks like the goalie only moves left and right when there is another robot attacking. If it moved at least a bit forward when the ball (and also the opposing robot) was facing it, I think that there would be very little trouble with the question of Agility (rule 3.5).

I hope this somewhat lengthy reply helps to clear the confusion a bit. As I said above, I may not have fully understood what you meant, so feel free to ask further questions.

Thanks!

– Marek

PS: I am not exactly sure what you meant by the following sentence:

This is because easy and effective ways obstruct the development of technology.

Could you please expand on it a bit?