Hello there!
Are some form of Field Display monitors required for regular and/or skills matches? I would think that they are, so that drive teams can see the match timer (especially important for leaving the positive corner in time), but I wasn’t sure if they technically are.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Not 100% guarantee here but monitors are required for matches and for skills just some form of timing should be there. Whether it’s off their controllers or a brain or a phone.
The Game Manual does not require field monitors. Some events only have audience display which also displays count down time. Skills you can run just with a V5 Smart Field Controller, which makes it very versatile to convert practice fields into skills fields to load balance when the skills queue gets backed up.
The thing is clear - all competitions fields must be the same (no mixing of metal and plastic perimeters, some with GPS and others without…) Autonomous Coding Skills field MUST have GPS.
I do call out time as referee is field display not available for skills (loss of connectivity or other issues). It is important to give all teams opportunities to compete even if there are technical hiccups. In the good ole days, it was not uncommon to run a match with a manual field control switch and a stop watch. (pro-tip bring your manual field control switch and ethernet cables - you may make an EP and all the teams super happy to get matches in…)
Is this for you setting up a tournament?
If so, Im pretty sure there arn’t any clear rules that state how tournaments should be set up (might be completely wrong about this). But every single competition ive been to in the past 6 years of doing vex have had monitors.
No. In theory I can run an event with paper score sheets and a lone TM computer.
So when you have all the extras, tell your EP how excited and happy you are to have them.
If they are not, be super excited that you are at an event, there is a huge shortage of them. Feel free to talk to the EP about bringing your collection of monitors to the next event.
I’m not sure if they are absolutely required (someone fact-check me on this), but they will definitely help competing teams.
If you are hosting an event, try to do this if you can. Maybe even a regular monitor for every field might work, as long as the competitors can see it.
So as the choir jumps in with the “I think” and "Not 100% " and “not sure” you can go with Lacsap, he and I are EP that have run more than a few events.
You could also go here and read everything about being an EP.
I think our organization has now topped 100 events with the 5 RiverBots events…but we’re pretty young compared with you guys…if I remember right our first event we ran in VRC was “Toss Up” for VRC…then we’ve been hosting IQ events since Bank Shot.
But on the OP question, long ago we started just using a single projector display for both teams and audience for the matches (the Emcee or referee would call out the times to help out the teams)…but we added field monitors for competition pretty soon afterwards (I have some long VGA cables sitting on my shelf left over from some of those early days). For skills, we’ve not used field monitors until this season…but at RiverBots this weekend we have 3 skill fields with monitors.
I doubt that this is required, but I think that field monitors definitely help. However, it is still the team’s responsibility to keep track of time, usually through their controller.
My question is actually because I heard of a small local competition recently that didn’t have any field displays (or ANY kind of visible field timer at all), and the head referee explicitly stated in the driver’s meeting that he would not be counting down time.
There was literally no indication from anything for the teams to know how close they were to the fifteen second end-game, unless they were timing it themselves (except no phones out at the field…).
One thing I do find curious… Rule SC1 is a pretty simple rule:
SC1 All Scoring statuses are evaluated after the Match ends. Scores are calculated 5 seconds after the
Match ends, or once all Scoring Objects, Field Elements, and Robots on the Field come to rest, whichever
comes first.
However, SC1-B further states:
b. At the end of the Match, the on-screen timer displayed by Tournament Manager will hold the current
Match information and “0:00” for 5 seconds before moving to queue the next Match. This should be
the primary 5-second visual cue used by Teams and Head Referees.
SC1-B implies that tournaments are expected to have an on-screen timer that is visible to the Teams and Head Referees, as it is necessary for “the primary 5-second visual cue used by Teams and Head Referees.”
While I understand this minor point of a not-very-important rule isn’t particularly convincing, I am curious as to how this affects your answer on whether or not displays are required.
G8a allows for phones in airplane mode. If you want to use a phone as a game timer, you should respectfully point this out to the head ref. You could also avoid the conversation by bringing a kitchen timer or stopwatch.
Hi, the way the rules work is it says things you must do or must not do. Implying in the rules isn’t a thing. If they wanted to require that there be monitors, they would say “monitors are required”
Not sure where you are trying to go with this. Are you trying to button up what you need for your event? Or is there some other agenda going on?