Hello, I am from team 3532B, and I have a question concerning legal blocking strategies. In one of our recent VEX events, while we were in the finals matches, one of the robots of the opposing alliance blocked both our alliance’s robots while he was in our 5 - point zone (the robot’s chassis was half inside the zone and half outside the zone, but the robot did have 2 of it’s wheels inside the zone). There were also a couple of instances when the robot was completely inside our alliance’s 5 - point zone, however this usually didn’t last for more than 5 seconds (however the robot was touching the zone consistently for at least 30 seconds). This continued for almost 30 to 40 second of the driver controlled period, and led to our alliance losing the match. Is it legal to bock opponent robots while partially in their 5 - point zone? If it isn’t legal, then does this result in a disqualification of the opposing alliance (this was certainly match affecting, as we were not able to put mobile bases into our scoring zones for most of the match)?
There are no rules preventing defensive interaction in the 5 Point Zone. However, teams playing defense in the 5 Point Zone should be cognizant of rule <SG10>, which states that Robots may not contact the opposing Alliance’s 10 Point Zone or 20 Point Zone. These Q&A posts go into some more detail about how that rule should be handled.
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-blocking-opponents-from-entering-zones/41463/1
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-definition-of-the-10-point-zone/43614/1