Rule change suggestion: thinner line

To make the white line thinner and fainter. All other rules stay the same.

Why would this be done:
To challenge teams to experiment with localization. This would make basic soccer functions a lot harder since teams would need to be sure they are not crossing the line and they would not be able to use basic reactive programming but would have to devise and use more advanced algorithms. This would in turn make the whole competition more challenging.

Pros:
It is a real change all existing teams have to deal with.

Cons:
As long as you do not introduce this for lightweight as well you need different fields.
Teams using US-Sensors instead of optical line sensors benefit from this rule and so the new rule is harder for some teams then for others.
As long as robots keep going “out of bounds” the challenge to stay inside seems hard enough to me.
I did not see a single game at the German Open without at least one team going out of bounds.

Roland

Hi @NesTo and @stiebel,

Thank you for introducing and discussing this suggestion!

I personally also still see “out of bounds” as challenge for many teams and making it even harder may make it discouraging to many beginners. We would like to avoid that if possible.

At the same time, I would very much like to encourage teams to experiment with localization of any kind, even if that would mean ultrasonic-based sensors get used much more. But this would very probably mean different fields for Lightweight and Open as @stiebel mentioned, since the idea of Lightweight is to be a sort of an introductory league. Different fields would mean a ton of logistical issues which would in turn make the competition a bit more difficult to organize.

To some it up, I wholeheartedly agree with the objective but I am not sure making the lines thinner would be the best way to achieve it. That being said, we’ll still give it a proper discussion within the TC committee and let you know the conclusion.

Thanks again!