Just got back from a comp that we unofficially triple crowned. (Skills, Tournament Champ, and Design) In the semifinal match we were paired up against 2 clawbot teams. One of them started grabbing us and wouldn’t let go for the first 30 seconds of the match and greatly affected our total score. The head ref claimed they were tangled even though they only got tangled after more than 10 seconds of them holding us. We still won though, and after the match we talked to the head ref. She said “It was unintentional and they are not at fault” even though my teammate got it all on recording and you can see them purposefully grabbing us for more than 10 seconds before trying to let go. The head ref just dismissed us. After the match, we clearly showed her the rule saying they cannot hold us for more than 3 seconds before getting a violation, and she dismissed us saying “It isn’t match affecting” She didn’t even give them a minor violation! Eventually we realized she wasn’t letting up so we left. Is there anything further we should do to report the ref? We have had other issues with her like in the finals match where another robot was holding us for more than 10 seconds and they didn’t get a minor violation either. And of course to make it even worse, last year in High Stakes the SAME head ref dqed us for our alliance touching a protected corner. Mind you they literally BRUSHED by it, not even directly touching it just tapping a ring that was touching a goal in the corner. I feel like this ref has some bias towards us in general. Is there any further action we should take? I have already tried searching it up with the search bar and with google.
No, move on, take the win.
Please remember, for this topic to remain open, no names, no team numbers in any replies.
Thats funny. We had the exact same situation, but lost.
@jpearman is right, you probably shouldn’t be complaining.
That’s a bad call, but it doesn’t matter if your teammate got a video because refs cannot watch footage.
I got a video, but I can’t blur the license plates, so I’ll post a picture with the license plates crossed out.
I do agree with @jpearman and @60_Percent_C_Channel, though. As of right now, it doesn’t even matter, because we still won the match, and the refs aren’t even allowed to review footage.
Here’s my personal take on the matter. They probably didn’t get any violations because:
- You won the match anyway, therefore it wasn’t match-affecting (like you said).
- A minor violation isn’t going to do anything more than letting them slide. You already beat them in elims anyway. They aren’t competing anymore. No point in giving a violation that literally won’t do anything.
Although I think in qualifications that would definitely deserve some violation, in eliminations, there is literally no difference if they lost with or without a violation.
On the other hand, the High Stakes situation is a bit different. I’m not sure about the exact situation, but I’m assuming there was probably a mobile goal (not empty) in the corner, your alliance brushed it, and got DQed. If you won a match, then any explicit rules you break will count against you, because, unlike the previous scenario, there will be a major difference if there’s a violation.
Because of that, I guess the referee could have interpreted the rule as is:
During the last thirty (30) seconds of a Match, Robots may not contact Mobile Goals that are placed in the Positive Corners of the Field, may not contact Rings that are scored on Mobile Goals Placed in the Positive Corners of the Field
They may have directly interpreted it as it is written: You cannot contact mobile goals/rings within the corner. Yes, there is the Q&A 2376: SG11 Mor and Further Clarification : Robot Events, but it is your job to understand the rules and Q&As to prevent the ref from making a wrong decision about your team.
Ultimately, be sure that you know your rules well in advance, and be satisfied (just take your win 
. Be happy that you won.)
@76782AHighVoltage, while this experience might have been unpleasant at a time, try to look at this from the completely different angle.
Consider yourself lucky, not only because you ended up winning, but because you gained some additional insights at how the defense might play against you at the next competition.
Perhaps, consider adding some sort of protection (like the polycarbonate wings) that could make it much more difficult for other robots to either intentionally grab you or get unintentionally entangled with you.
@76782A_Thompson, Ive been viewing several of these same scenarios lots of times. I’ve competed with the same events, same refs, and I understand. But at the same time, people are human, and they make mistakes.
(General question for @bkahl; Why aren’t head refs allowed to look at the video. Baseball umpires have chalenge calls. I’m not saying that the call needs to be changed, I’m just saying that the video and reviewing their mistakes in the video help them be a better referee.)
The issue I have with this event is that one of the ref’s (That also seems to be the Event Partner), is also a mentour for an orginisation competing in the event. I think that is what @76782A_Thompson is meaning by bais. This is understandable. Last year, she gave a team with a HERO-BOT design award! How does that make sense?
Overall, just take the win. This thread is understood by me, at least. Reporting this to the EP would do nothing, because she IS the EP.
Overall, you’ve responded just like i would have.
Our referees are volunteers.
They are not and will not be perfect. Expecting them to be is your first issue.
Umpires in professional sports are, by and large, professionals, too. They are paid to be trained in their sport continuously and meticulously. This is literally a job for them. And they make mistakes too!
And because all professional sports leagues are small (~30 teams or so), the amount of referees or umpires for any given sport is actually quite a small number. To use your example. there are only ~75 MLB Umpires employed full-time. It is significantly easier to maintain a crew of 75 people, keep them equally trained, have them enforcing things similarly to each other.
Conversely, VEX operates with thousands of teams, at thousands of events a year, with thousands of referees. Expecting every single one of those referees to be equally skilled, prepared, and trained amongst themselves is a feeble wish. Asking them to be as capable as professional sports referees is just plain not fair.
More specifically in regards to video, it’s not something we are interested in for a number of reasons. There are many more, but here’s a few:
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Event Flow – This takes a non-zero amount of time, everyone would want to take advantage of it as much as they could, because competitors, by nature, always disagree with the referees.
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Technological Inequity – Not every event is set up to be taped or streamed. Not every event has the same cameras. Not every event can get every single replay angle to ensure we are actually capturing what would need to be seen. And getting them set up to do so would be an astronomical cost across the entire program, likely put onto the EPs, who are already forced to fork over lots of dough to run your competitions.
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This is an educational robotics competition at the end of the day. If you lose a match, you lose a match. The mission of VEX Robotics and the RECF is to expose and provide students to STEM opportunities, and enable them to grow into capable students of the future, not enable them to win matches, or the world championship, or what have you. The matches are simply the means to the end. The icing on the cake, if you will. They are not what is important.
And for what it is worth, every referee in this program that I know on a personal level watches matches from other events, watches matches that they refereed after the fact, goes to events where they are not refereeing, follows this program closely, pays attention to updates and QnAs, and DO continuously strive to improve and become better referees.
Just building on this - in sports with video review, do fans and competitors still feel their teams suffer from “blown calls”?
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
If you meet the age requirements, I would also encourage all competitors to volunteer to be a ref or scorekeeping ref - walk a mile in their shoes, and see what its like.
First, this is reasonable. The design award recognizes a team’s project and time management, team organization, and a professional approach to the engineering notebook. So, there’s more to it than what meets the eye. For example, an engineering notebook can consist of much, much more strategy and code, than just plain robot design. This team could have had a well-documented autonomous plan and path, some good trial and error documentation, and a well thought-out and well-stated strategy. Overall, the design award consists of much more than just ‘robot design.’
It is important to keep the mindset that no, refs will not be perfect ever. They will make bad calls every now and then, but you will just have to live with it and continue your season. It is a factor that can not be removed. I think that this thread was a reasonable claim, but we really can’t do anything about it, and it is best to leave this and continue on with our day.
P.S., happy cake day @bkahl!
Haha, just thinking about Arsenal’s history with VAR makes me ready to start a fight.
However, I have refferied as both IQ head ref and V5 scorekeeper ref (the head ref was inexperianced, so I kinda had to make most of the minor calls like pinning and park violations), and I do think video evidance would be nice. Maybe make it like the timeouts, where each alliance only has 1.
Yes. What I am saying is thatVEX MADE THE PROJECT!!! That is my point.
I understand where you are comming from. This is considered entanglement, according to the general definition category of the Game Manual.
According to the matches I recall from the event, there wasn’t any holding. (However in the finals match, you were completely in the right) There is no violation for being in contact with another robot. Holding, however, isn’t what you think it is.
Holding - A Robot status; see rule for more information. Holding is legal until it exceeds the limits in . A Robot is considered to be Holding if it meets any of the following criteria during a Match:
Trapping - Limiting the movement of an opponent Robot to a small or confined area of the Field, approximately the size of one foam field tile or less, without an avenue for escape. Note that if a Robot is not attempting to escape, it is not considered Trapped.
Pinning - Preventing the movement of an opponent Robot through contact with the Field Perimeter, a Field Element, or another Robot.
Lifting - Controlling an opponent’s movements by raising or tilting the opponent’s Robot off of the foam tiles. Preventing a Robot that is already off of the Floor from returning to the Floormay also be considered Lifting or Trapping.
We didn’t write their engineering notebook, though.
The design award is kind of a misnomer. The name leads people to believe that it is for the best robot design, but it is more of an award for the best notebook, interview, time management, and team communication. The skill level of the team’s robot does not matter, as long as the team can explain and document why they chose it. It’s important to read more documents than just the manual, because all of this information is in the Guide to Judging.
@bkahl It might be good to pin the link in the navigation menu on VEXforum.
https://v5rc-kb.recf.org/hc/en-us/categories/9625677270807-Judging
Perhaps the more obvious thing to point out here is that referees do not decide awards, and neither does the EP.