During RoboCup 2020, we discussed updating the field layout and including a penalty area. My proposal for the size update would be the following:
Kid Size:
Goal area width: 3m (previously 5m)
Goal area depth: 1m (keep as is)
Penalty area width: 5m (previous size for goal area)
Penalty area depth: 2m
Penalty mark dist: 1.5m (keep as is)
Border strip width: min. 1m (previously min. 0.7m, would make performing throw-in and corners easier)
Adult Size:
Goal area width: 4m (previously of 5m)
Goal area depth: 1m (keep as is)
Penalty area width: 6m
Penalty area depth: 3m
Penalty mark dist: 2.1m (keep as is)
Additionally, we should think about increasing height of the goals in AdultSize since the height of the goal does exactly match Htop, the margin is small for the tallest robots of the league. On the other hand, height is way too high for kid-size robots. Since Adult field is different from KidSize field now, I think we can distinguish both goals.
Finally, I would like to add a minimal thickness for goal posts, 8-12 cm seems to be an acceptable range for me which leaves some margins to teams and LOC but still ensures that the size is roughly similar.
I think the increased field border is good and might also help robots not to walk of the field so often.
The extra lines might also help localization algorithms relying on the lines. Since we want more Robots to use some form of localization, I think this is a good change.
Are there a lot of rule changes that would need to be made to incorporate the penalty box into the rules?
About the goal height for kid size: I would like to see a less high goal (with the same width) so the top bar of the goal can be seen more often and detected and used as additional information by teams.
The minimum goal post thickness is a must have. I agree with your proposed range at least for kid size. Does adult size need thicker posts since they must be visible from further away?
I don’t think that adding the penalty box would require much modification into the rules, it would mainly implies changes for:
Field specification
Goalie specific rules
Penalty rule / Indirect free kick in penalty area
I agree that it would make sense to reduce the height of the goal for KidSize, currently the main reason to have the same size is to keep all goals with the same specification. If we distinguish the goals, it would also make sense to reduce the width of the KidSize goal which is currently almost half of the field width.
For the adult-size, it will be mandatory to increase the height of the goal because we have decided to increase the maximal height for adult-size robots next year. However, I don’t think it is adviced to have thicker posts, because 12 cm is the current limit for full size fields in human soccer.