During our most recent tournament yesterday, the judges were requiring that the ball must have a moment with no robot contacting it, between the two contacts, to truly count as "independent contact." So, for example, if one robot drove up with a ball and then pushed the ball directly into the second robot's intake (a direct "hand off"), and then the second robot drove away with the ball, the judge would say this was NOT a valid pass.
To give a very clear scenario that does happen in practice, and needs clarification:
Robot A parks in front of the Goal Wall and never moves after that. Robot B travels back to the Loading Zone repeatedly and picks up balls. Robot B drives over to Robot A with each ball and stuffs it directly into the loading mechanism on the back of Robot A. Robot A feeds the ball through its mechanism, during which time B no longer contacts the ball, and Robot A throws the ball through a goal, scoring it. Does this scenario, if repeated over and over throughout a match, count as a pass for each ball exchanged between the robots?
Note that this is further clarification beyond what was given in <2286>, specifically because in their example, the receiving robot "backs up" before intaking the ball, which might imply there's a moment between contacts when no robot is touching the ball.