Robotics Education & Competition Foundation
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Official Q&A: VRC 2018-2019: Turning Point

Usage Guidelines All Questions

109: <G6> and Substitute Drivers


Adam Bukowski (Event Partner)
16-Oct-2018

This question was asked in the VEXiQ Q&A: "<G6> Drivers switch Controllers midway through the Match. Each team shall include two Drivers. Teams with only one Student in attendance at an event are granted an allowance to use another qualified Driver from the event. No Student may fulfill the role of Driver for more than one Team at a given event, or in a given season.

Does the Allowance to use another qualified driver bind that substitute driver to the team? Or, if there is a team "with only one Student in attendance" is the substitute driver exempt from the season rule as long as they only substitute for that day?"

And responded to: "The intent of the more specific language in G6 was to penalize organizations that were using their best drive team to qualify multiple teams to their Regional / State / World championship. This behavior is not within the spirit of the VEX IQ Challenge.

Event Partners should bear in mind G3, and use common sense when enforcing this rule. It is not our intent to punish a Team who may change Drivers over the course of a season due to illness, changing schools, conflicts within a Team, graduating up to VRC, etc. We do not expect EP's and referees keep a roster of any student who has ever driven for a day.

To answer your specific question, a student who fills in as a "substitute" Driver for a single day/tournament due to a Team having only one student in attendance at the event would not fall under the intent of this rule."

Would VRC Event Partners have similar flexibility in enforcing this rule due to circumstances stated above?

G6  
Answered by Game Design Committee

As always, this rule should be read with <G2> in mind, and the spirit of the answer that was given in VIQC applies to VRC as well. The intent of <G6> is to not allow the same Student driver to operate / compete with multiple Robots across multiple Teams simultaneously. If a Student permanently changes Teams for reasons including (but not limited to) illness, changing schools, or conflicts within a Team, then that Student may drive the new Team's Robot, regardless of whether or not the Student drove the previous Team's Robot.

Conversely, a Student driver who is still associated with another Team may not fill in as a "substitute" driver for a single day. VRC does not require more than one Student for any given Match, like VIQC does, so "substitute" drivers should never be necessary.