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

Usage Guidelines All Questions

232: clarification on trapping.


2381X
3-Feb-2019

This question focuses around "trapping", which is defined in the game manual as a robot status where "a robot is trapping if it has restricted an opposing robot into a small, confined area of the field, approximately the size of one foam field tile or less, and has not provided an avenue for escape. Trapping can be direct (e.g. pinning an opponent to a field perimeter wall), or indirect (e.g. preventing a robot from escaping from a corner of the field). <G14> also states that there should be no trapping for more than 5-seconds, and is effectively over once the opposing robot has driven away by 2 feet and has driven away for 5 seconds.

Trapping however, has a loose definition of "avenue of escape" and "confined area of the field". Pinning, has also not been defined. If a robot were to push an opposing robot, this would be deemed legal, because there is open space around the robot. If a robot were to push another robot into the wall, and then back away, leaving enough space in the front and back for the robot to escape, but would push the robot every couple seconds, would this be legal? The defending robot in this instance, is not technically trapping the robot as it has not confined the robot, the robot can escape, however is not doing so fast enough, and the defending robot is pushing (which, is not trapping), the robot ever so slightly. Would this be considered trapping?

A follow up to the above question, what is the definition of an avenue of escape? If there is a robots-width of space between a post and my robot, then that should be sufficient for a count to NOT be held against me. By that sense, if a robot is in a corner, and caps/balls are piled beside them (which should not be hoarding, the caps are not in the corner because the corner is occupied by a robot), and can not escape, it should not be a trap, correct?

We would also like to seek clarification on pushing, there have been many referees at local tournaments who start counting as soon as robot-robot contact has been made (ie, RED1 pushing BLUE1 away from flags so they can not line up for flags), however, as per the rules, this should be legal, correct? Now, suppose a robot, say BLUE1 were to push RED1 into their partner, RED2, in the middle of the field. RED1 has a clear avenue of escape, all RED needs to do is have RED2 drive away, and RED1 can then drive away. Would this still be counted as a trap? Now what if BLUE1 was preventing RED1 from moving, who was then preventing RED2 from moving. If BLUE1 backed away, then returned to trap RED2, should the count be restarted (BLUE1 was never defending RED2) or should the count continue (BLUE1 has been preventing RED2 from moving as well, albeit inderectly). It would be nice if the GDC could give clarifications on these, as the local refs have had very unclear rules, and there has been a lot of variation with the rulings, which means that students are often left confused to as why one team at one tournament could act in such a way, whereas these actions were ruled illegal at another tournament.

The last question, if RED1 were trapping BLUE1 against a perimeter, and BLUE1 was then incidentally trapping RED2, would there also be a count against BLUE1? Even if RED1 were to back away at 5 seconds, it would be almost impossible for BLUE1 to also move away fast enough (especially if the trap has put them in an awkward position) to allow RED2 to move away. Again, this refers to <G13> and <G11>. If BLUE1 were an offensive robot about to score, but then got trapped by RED1 - they should not be at fault, and should not be allowed to be forced into a penalty, correct?

Thank you for taking the time to carefully read and answer these questions!

Answered by Game Design Committee

Your question(s) appear to be answered by this similar Q&A. If this is not the case, please feel free to rephrase and re-submit. Please especially take note of the following portions:

Please remember that the VEX Robotics Competition is a volunteer-driven program with over 1700 events across 50 countries each season. While the Game Design Committee and the REC Foundation strive to continuously improve our training materials, requisite certifications to run an event, and overall consistency between events, providing absolute guidelines for subjective topics is one of the largest challenges that we face each year.

The interactive and dynamic nature of a VEX Robotics Competition game makes it impossible to provide absolutely black-and-white clarifications of inherently non-black-and-white topics, such as defensive interactions. If everything in a game was absolute and explicitly clear, then the role of a Head Referee to provide in-the-moment interpretations would not be needed!

These answers represent the intent of the Game Design Committee within the guidelines and training materials that we have provided for VRC Turning Point referees, not an ultimate expectation or guarantee that all Head Referees will interpret a given edge case in exactly the same way.