We are at our state competition. We were watching our middle school team compete At 37 seconds left, they started to get lifted by their alliance member. The reason was because the robot went over the 18 inch height limit. The lifter never went over 18 inches vertically. That alliance got DQ-ed. I asked a a REC official, and they never gave us a viable answer as to when the robot went above the 18 inch height limit. This cost both teams the finals elimination match, causing them to not get qualified for worlds. Can someone help clear things up?
Robots are not permitted to expand past the 18" height limit unless they are completely within the Climbing Zone and there are less than 0:30 remaining in the Match. However, the 18" is measured as if each Robot was sitting in their normal stable configuration on the tiles.
So, if either Robot became taller than 18" prior to the last 0:30 mark, that would be a violation of <SG10>. However, if a Robot was only above the 18" mark because they were on top of another Robot, that would not have been a violation.