Robotics Education & Competition Foundation
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Official Q&A: VEX V5 Robotics Competition 2024-2025: High Stakes

Usage Guidelines All Questions

2420: Meaning of “Intentional” With Regards to SG11


70407R
4-Jan-2025

The violation notes under Rule <SG11> state that:

Intentional, strategic, or egregious Violations will be considered Major Violations

We can think of two scenarios of gameplay in which different interpretations of the meaning of "intentional" can be used:

  1. A robot drives up to the goal in the corner and clearly attempts to grab the goal once the 15 second buzzer has passed. The robot seems to willfully violate the rule, regardless of whether or not it actually removes the goal.
  2. A robot drives towards the positive zone with a clear intent of manipulating other game elements (i.e. grabbing a ring, or taking a goal that is not considered scored in the corner), and in the process of doing so, bumps or jostles the goal in the corner slightly by accident. There is an intent to move towards the corner, but not to interact with the goal, so one could determine this to be an intentional violation due to the fact that the robot intended to drive close to the positive corner after the 15 seconds.

An example of where scenario 2 became a major violation can be seen in the clip below, where a red robot attempts to grab a red ring near the positive corner and in the process the goal is jostled slightly but is not removed from the corner, nor does it have any impact on the scoring of that goal:

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx0mCDOybwb09hk1PLrNMQJZcpCKwka883?si=5wLVfUnZhCNRUJBZ

Given that there is no change to the scored status of the goal and that the team has no prior minor violations, are both of the two scenarios above considered an intentional violation of SG11? Or does only one of these fall under that interpretation?

Answered by committee
9-Jan-2025

We'll start by saying that the GDC will not and cannot override a decision made by a Head Referee during an event.

Additionally, we'll remind Teams that Head Referees have a limited perspective of the Field and are not allowed to consult recordings of the Match to inform their decisions. Referees are human, and must make the best decisions possible based on their judgment of what they observed during the Match. In all interactions, Teams should clearly demonstrate that rules are not being broken; some rules have higher risks than others, and rule <SG11> has a lot of inherent risk when Robots choose to take action near the Positive Corners during the final 15 seconds of a Match.

That said, we encourage Head Referees to put more focus on the final sentence of rule <SG11>, which states "Robots can remove Mobile Goals that are not Placed and Rings that are not Scored from the Positive Corners of the Field, provided that the interaction does not affect the Placed/Scored status of any protected Mobile Goals or Rings." If the Placed/Scored status of protected objects doesn't change and the offending Team didn't gain any benefit from contact with the Placed/Scored objects, <SG11> Violations are likely Minor.