We don’t know what happened, so this is hypothetical. It’s not meant to disparage the parties (for whom I have great respect) but to show that possible explanations exist that do not require the REC reps and the referees to be acting “immorally” or “unethically” or demonstrating “abuse of power.” I’m not saying this is the explanation, but rather trying to demonstrate that rational explanations exist.
If an official believed, rightly or wrongly, that you were aware of a safety violation but only brought it to light at the point when it might do you some good, then yes, that sounds unprofessional. We’re all supposed to be concerned about safety, and if you believe it’s unsafe, you should report it, and if you’re certain it’s not, you shouldn’t. Choosing to report it only when it might help you doesn’t sound like the right thing to do.
Again, I don’t know what happened or what the officials thought happened (which may be two entirely different things.) But I believe that some rational possibilities exist.
The emcee at almost all the events I’ve attended has never been a member of the officiating staff. So what an announcer says often doesn’t have any bearing on what’s actually happening.
That’s what I assume. Clearly, the sides differ in their interpretations. That doesn’t make 62A a bad group of VEXers or the REC officials and the referees incompetent or evil. It seems inevitable that they would disagree on these matters.
The “announcer” in this video DQ - YouTube, Tarek, is the same man who claims he contacted the GDC by phone and unilaterally decided to disqualify 62A after the event. This is especially concerning because he said all teams in the semi finals would qualify in that same clip, and because he fundamentally didn’t understand the rules and refused to look at the Q and A entries 62A attempted to show him.
62A was not disqualified as per the end of the event, since they were presented the banner for winning robot skills after the finals.
Some transparency is needed from the RECF. Tarek, Nancy, and Dan have all been unresponsive by email and on this thread. If the RECF is to be trusted, they need to explain why they made the decisions they did and respond to these community ills. There are rumors about powerhouse teams in large numbers permanently quitting in California. I would hate to see this, but if the RECF can’t get their act together it may become a reality.
@meng I agree that you CAN push with an open claw but it is probably not a good idea. I was just commenting about what the rules allow rather than what might be called by a volunteer who may not completely understand the rules.
@kypyro it may make a difference as to what would be called if the mogo tips a bit and touches multiple sides, but it should not. So long as the structure is fixed and unable to pinch the mogo, it should not make a difference if it is being moved from multiple sides. If you are lifting the mogo off the ground, the Q&A has said that will be considered a violation, though.
I appreciate your clarifications. I’m re-reading the posts here and comparing it to the Q&A clarifications as well as looking at some tournament video.
Concerning the point above, is it common in Indiana for the mobile goal movers to be designed so that the don’t pinch the goal? We’ve had some scrimmages with Indiana teams, and it sure looked to me as though the mobile goal movers were “pinching” and otherwise holding the mobile goals. Certainly, in a brief view of a moving robot from across the field it would look that way. Given how flexible the VEX components are, how do you ensure you can’t pinch the goal so you can legally push it around, but guarantee you can pick it up when you need to?
I remember that for certain defensive strategies you’ve said your teams clear their use with the head referees beforehand. Is this the sort of thing you were talking about? Would you advise one of your teams who wanted to use this tactic to demonstrate to the head ref that it is impossible for their goal mover to pinch the mobile goal, and therefore as long as you don’t press the “lift goal” button, you couldn’t be in violation?
As I’ve said, I’ve never seen this in competition. But we’re about to have our KY HS State tournament, and then we have some teams going to US Open. We have one team qualified for Worlds via an online challenge, and one whose skills score should hold up too, (and my daughter’s MS team was tournament champ) so we’re going to take some teams to Worlds. Planning for what we’ll face.
DQs, especially at such an important event, are such a sore spot I don’t want to wade into if this DQ was justified or not in my personal opinion. Watching the video it certainly is confusing how the MOGO was “grasped, grappled, or attached” to.
I don’t know if this helps, but consider this…
#1 It’s not explicitly clear in the rules, but the GDC in the Q&A has stated you may not LIFT an opponents goal. If they say it’s illegal, then it’s illegal, no matter how you or I might interpret the dictionary definitions.
#2 If you use a mechanism to move an opponent’s MOGO that is designed to LIFT your own MOGO, then a referee might be likely to determine that you are lifting your opponent’s MOGO if you use that same mechanism.
#3 Repeated violations can cause an event DQ. If a head referee determined that lifting of the opponent’s MOGO had happened repeatedly through the entire event by a team, they might decide it’s a severe and repeated violation worthy of an event DQ.
other side of coin…
#4 It’s unfortunate when a team isn’t inspected completely and totally before the event begins so as to avoid unexpected violations later. (Complete and total inspections by a qualified inspector take a lot of time and volunteer resources to pull off.)
#5 It’s better to warn teams early in qualification matches if their actions are improper and violating rules. Official warnings (if not DQ-able) should be given, and those should be written down on an official “match anomaly” log, and it should be made VERY clear to teams that they are officially warned.
I guess I should clarify a couple of things. This is not a strategy we have seen widely used in Indiana but it has been done. We have one team that has an interchangeable subsystem 3 and one of them is a cage. If they are going to go defensive, they use the cage. Even with all the Q&A on cages, the calls still go the wrong way on occasion. They plan on bringing a printout of all Q&A that ally to cages to our state tournament as well as info on another surprise defensive strategy we have not seen used this year. They do plan on discussing it with the ref prior to using it.
As far as pinching goes, very few actually pinch the mobile goal but they do grasp it. Here is a Q&A that explains what they define as grasping fairly well. Most intakes in Indiana do not actually have actuating arms that move in to attach to the mobile goal.
I am not trying to answer in place of @blatwell, I would still like to hear his opinion on this. However, regarding the mobile goal intake “pinching” the mobile goal, it appears to me from the video footage that 62A is using a c-channel to intake the mogos as do most teams. When using the c-channel the way they use it, this ensures the mogo lift will never actually pinch the mogo. Thus, the only offense would be in lifting the mogo. The reasoning is that even the thinnest size of c-channel vex makes (2 wide) is wider than the outside flange of a mogo. When the opponent’s mogo is inside the intake, the mogo will never be touching the top and bottom of the mogo (pinching), because it is physically impossible unless the mobile goal is slanted significantly. In Georgia, I have not seen this type of defense, however I have seen almost every team using this type of intake.
[Edit:] I have attached a photo of how the 2-wide c-channel interacts with a mobile goal (for all those who don’t have either of these handy). After re-watching the video, it appears 62A used a 5 wide c-channel, which would be even less of a question as to whether it pinches or not. As can be seen, even with a 2 wide c-channel, there is space on the top and bottom of the mobile goal. Pinching = gripping something tightly, and I would not say this is pinching.
so as long as you are not actually lifting the mogo, having it between two fixed C-channels that are far enough apart that it does not pinch the mogo, is fine and you can use it to move the opposing mogo around the field at will so long as you do not descore cones or put the opposing mogo in your own scoring zone.
It is correct that the forum posts should still be valid. Unfortunately, team 62A was told the forum was incorrect for unknown reasons. At this point, teams going to worlds have decided to repost the q and a to clarify the rule before they go to Kentucky.
@TheColdedge if someone told them that the older Q&A answers are no longer valid, then they were not being honest. In this Q&A from 5 weeks ago, the GDC makes it crystal clear that if an answer becomes invalid, they will actually edit the answer in the post so you will not find an invalid answer in the Q&A.
What this means is that someone is not being honest. I was not there so I do not know who was being dishonest but someone is simply not give correct and honest info.
