Answered: Interfering in autonomous

[therestroyer]

I have a question. This weekend at a tournament, we were at a match and set up our robot. When autonomous mode started, the apposing alliance sent one of their robots over and rammed our robot while we were shooting balls in our loading zone. What are the rules concerning this scenario? The last time this happened and I brought it up to a referee, they said you cannot DQ in autonomous.

[Karthik]

We ask you to please thoroughly read the VEX Robotics Comeptition Nothing But Net Game Manual and to please review the Q&A Usage Guidelines before posting in this forum. Specifically, please quote the rule or definition that your question is referring to.

I have a question. This weekend at a tournament, we were at a match and set up our robot. When autonomous mode started, the apposing alliance sent one of their robots over and rammed our robot while we were shooting balls in our loading zone. What are the rules concerning this scenario? The last time this happened and I brought it up to a referee, they said you cannot DQ in autonomous.

Let’s look at the applicable rules.

<SG7> Robots may not enter the opposing Alliance’s Loading Zone at any time during the Match. Minor violations of this rule that do not affect the match will result in a warning. Egregious (match affecting) offenses will result in a Disqualification. Teams that receive multiple warnings may also receive a Disqualification at the head referee’s discretion.

Now let’s look at the rule that deals with penalties during the Autonomous Period.

<SG15> Any fouls committed during the Autonomous Period that do not affect the final outcome of the match, but do affect the outcome of the Autonomous Bonus, will result in the Autonomous Bonus being automatically awarded to the opposing Alliance.

Thus if the foul was Match affecting, a DQ could be issued. If the foul was only significant enough to affect the outcome of the Autonomous Bonus, the Bonus would be automatically issued to the opposing alliance.