RobotEvents.com
Robotics Education & Competition Foundation
Inspiring students, one robot at a time.

This Q&A is now read-only

The Official Q and A is now closed. If you want to submit a question for the Worlds Drivers Meeting, please click here. The deadline for question submission is Friday, March 24.

Official Q&A: VRC 2022-2023: Spin Up

Usage Guidelines All Questions

1387: Title: G14 clarification

10478S
15-Jan-2023

<G14> G14 states: "intentional strategies that cause an opponent to break a rule are not permitted, and will not result in a violation for the opposing alliance"

In our recent competition we accidentally knocked into an opposing robot, entangled with thier expansion, causing their expansion to release early. The referees agreed that this was accidental.

The opposing robot was not penalised and continued to score discs, as the referees argued that the rules state in the violation notes "In most cases, if a Team causes their opponent to break a rule, the Head Referee will simply not enforce the penalty on that opponent, and it will be considered a Minor Violation for the guilty Team." And therefore it didn't matter that we had forced them into a penalty accidentally.

We believe this to be a misruling so are asking for clarification as to whether g14 still applies if it is unintentional so this doesn't happen in future competitions, and should the match have been replayed?<G14>

G14  
Answered by committee

Thank you for your question. As described in rule <G12b>, "VRC Spin Up is intended to be an interactive game ... and damage may occur as a part of normal gameplay without Violation. It will be up to the Head Referee's discretion whether the interaction was incidental or intentional."

Robots should be designed in such a way as to minimize the chance of accidental expansion.

In the interaction you describe, if the Head Referee determines that the opposing Robot's expansion was triggered accidentally, rule <G14> would not apply as it was not an intentional strategy. The expanded Robot would be subject to rule <SG4> and would have to either remedy the Violation or sit out the remainder of game play to avoid the chance of a Major Violation.

If, however, the Head Referee determines that the opposing Robot's expansion was triggered as an intentional strategy, rule <G14> would apply and the early expansion would not result in a penalty for the expanded Robot. The Team that triggered the expansion as a strategy would receive a penalty as described in rule <G14> and its violation note, which includes "... if the forced situation becomes Match Affecting in favor of the guilty Team, it will be considered a Major Violation."