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Official Q&A: VRC 2018-2019: Turning Point

Usage Guidelines All Questions

190: Andy Zieglmeier Event Partner


Andy Zieglmeier
20-Dec-2018

Is it an option for the head referee to clarify expectations of SG8 before qualification matches begin? This would be in reference to the following - The intent of this rule is to prevent Robots from “knocking” Caps out of the field to remove them from Posts. Any strategic, intentional, or repeated removal of Game Objects from the field would be considered a violation of this rule.

Examples of clarification would be-

  1. If your robot leverages a Pole scored Cap on the bottom side, from the field side only, this would be considered a violation of the note listed above. Reason for this is due to leverage from the field side only would result in knocking a Cap out of the field in most cases. Teams executing this move and "knocking" Caps out of the field, in this manner, will receive one warning and then be logged.
  2. It is not possible to assume the intent of a robot to correctly de-score a Cap from a Pole in all scenarios. With that said, a robot that is correctly attempting to take possession of a Cap to bring it back to the field drops it out of the field will be notified that multiple attempts in that nature will be viewed as "knocking" Caps out of play.

My reasoning for asking for this clarification is due to volunteering as a referee or emcee at multiple tournaments this year and having teams knock two or more Caps out of the field and saying that they were trying to bring it back into the field. In clarifying the head referees expectations, this lowers the potential of alliances disagreeing with how the match is called.

It is not my belief that the game designers desired to see the Poles empty at the end of matches. I have not seen a robot be able to score a Cap on a Pole anywhere near the same time it takes to knock that scored Cap out of the field.

Answered by Game Design Committee

The VEX Robotics Competition does include some rules which are not inherently black-and-white, and rely on some amount of contextual referee interpretation for heat-of-the-moment decisions. See this Q&A for some more discussion on this topic.

With this in mind, it is reasonable and standard practice for a Head Referee to hold a "Driver's Meeting" to review and/or clarify key rules prior to an event.

However, it is imperative that any clarifications made during this pre-event meeting are in accordance with the guidance given in official materials like the Game Manual, the Referee Training Videos, the Referee Guide, and the Q&A. Augmenting these guidelines with additional qualifications or criteria would not provide a consistent experience for teams across all events.

Much like we avoid making "blanket" assumptions in the Q&A for these context-specific rules, we would advise Head Referees to avoid making "blanket" assumptions for their entire event. Due to the dynamics of head-to-head robotics games, and the creativity of VRC teams, it is impossible to account for all scenarios that you may encounter.

To directly comment on your specific examples:

If your robot leverages a Pole scored Cap on the bottom side, from the field side only, this would be considered a violation of the note listed above. Reason for this is due to leverage from the field side only would result in knocking a Cap out of the field in most cases.

This is an example of a blanket statement, "We will always interpret X as Y because it can only be Z", which may not always be true. It would not be in your (or the teams') best interest to provide this assumption.

a robot that is correctly attempting to take possession of a Cap to bring it back to the field drops it out of the field will be notified that multiple attempts in that nature will be viewed as "knocking" Caps out of play.

This is a better example of a guideline that is in line with <SG8> as it is written. A portion of <SG8> is quoted below, bolded for emphasis.

Any strategic, intentional, or repeated removal of Game Objects from the field would be considered a violation of this rule.

Removal of Game Objects from the field does not have to be strategic, intentional, AND repeated; "repeated" alone can be considered a violation of this rule. This is a good case where the Head Referee should keep track of the warnings in their Match Anomaly Log and watch for repeated instances from the same Team.