I’m sorry for the length of this question and some seem to think this question has been answered and if it has I must have missed something and I apologize. I do my best to stay current on rulings and have re-read both the August manual and any ruling that obviously referenced this topic but remain confused by a seeming contradiction. Rule SG6 states that “Robots may not intentionally grasp, grapple or attach to any Field Elements or the opposing Mobile Goals.” It was my impression that this was designed to limit a team’s ability to control their opponent’s mobile goal. The training video “Chapter 7” at 1:11 also reinforces this interpretation stating “…grabbing, lifting, holding on to or any other deliberate form of control is prohibited.” This is also consistent with the G12 which states “VEX Robotics Competition In the Zone is intended to be an offensive game”. In effort to maintain the offensive nature of the game, the GDC has consistently limited defensive strategies that became too offensively restrictive. Example from previous years have been blocking access to the loading zone in NBN and reaching too far over the fence in Starstruck. Both were behaviors not expressly prohibited until they crossed a line and became too restrictive against the opponents ability to function offensively.
However, there are recent ruling that are being interpreted to mean otherwise.
answered-dropping-cages-on-goals
hoarding-opposing-mobile-goals
Carefully reading these decisions only specifically verifies that dropping something over or wrapping around an object is legal and neither in themselves would conflict with the above interpretation and referee training instructions as they do not represent directly control of the opponent’s the mobile goal. In the second post, there are also statements made by the poster (though not questions asked/or validated therefore not binding) which assume that since pushing goals are legal then doing both wrapping around and pushing combined should be legal. I’m not sure either of these were intended to be “blanket rulings” and this seems like it could be an over interpretation of the rulings to mean that doing these combined with another behavior remains legal. I think the following was also an attempt to reconcile this controlling-an-opponent-s-mobile-goal-clarification , however, it still does not seems to ask the core questions and teams are taking this to validate that the following is a legal strategy team-195a-defense-robot-cad-renders where the team will get at least two of the opponents mobile goals (possibly 3) in autonomous. This (especially combined with parking in front of their opponent’s loader) in most cases this would represent the type of “choke hold” strategy which the GDC has typically avoided (according to a Karthik strategy video I can seem to find at this moment). Field placement of half of a team’s goals unobstructed and only inches for their opponent’s starting position also make this a likely impossible strategy to defend against.
My questions to try to clarify this confusion:
At some point would wrapping around and moving one or more mobile goals be considered “a deliberate form of control” and violate SG6 based on the video’s instruction on SG6 interpretation?
If while moving one or more goals if any part of the mobile goal leaves the mat, does this become illegal?
Thank you for all you do…