We had our first event of the season this weekend with 16 teams competing in the elimination rounds. First impression - this is going to be a fun game! Some of the robots where slightly out of compliance, but we were running the competition more to gain a feel for the game dynamics and since it was not a qualifier for anything we kept things very low-key. Here is a link to the elimination round videos. Special Thanks to RECF, VEX sales, and DWAB Technology for putting in the extra effort so we could hold an early season competition. Results can be found on RobotEvents.
It looks like fun! 
For the robots that were using flywheels and shooting well, any idea how many motors they were using to achieve that?
Thanks for sharing these.
Horray!! perhaps the earliest tournament, and it is fairly decent!
Although there’s some rule enforcement little flaws I see from the ref and the team, it is very good already given it is this early into the season.
Couple of things I see:
Motors do die after running under the pressure of flywheels within a match.
There’s pretty huge inconsistency with the shooting. One robot sits in the corner and shoots across field, and the balls don’t really fall into the same spot. I can see that the motor is getting weaker and eventually dying, but the ball density and squishiness we’ve been complaining about do come into play.
Those ball fetching kids are absolutely adorable!!! It’s a joy watching both the robots and those little volunteers!
I am guessing probably a 4 motor flywheel system would work, but it appears that a double flywheel system that’s not geared together would require significantly more power.
Just my few cents.
We are finding 4 motors are working well.
I’m so jealous! I want to be able to work on our robot and get to competing soon! The final matches were interesting to watch. I assume Pembroke Academy was there since that appeared to be their robots I saw in several of the videos!
Hopefully our first local competitions will come quickly
EDIT: I just saw the board in the background that says “Pembroke Academy” and the venue information, my bad for pointing out the obvious.
So, here’s my notes from a referee’s standpoint.
Quarterfinals
Well, whatever team is red alliance in QF2-1 should have been DQ’d. You don’t throw game objects around when they’re on the field. And whoever picked up a battery…
Three red robots in match 2-3, according to the plates. How is that happening?
2-4, AGAIN there are robots with the wrong plates.
There were three Red robots in match 3-2. Which is bad. But this seems to happen a lot. Somehow.
And Red in 4-1 broke the plane of the goal in Auto. And blue should have been DQ’d, as well. The guy picked up a battery during the match…
Semifinals
Blue should be DQ’d in 2-1. Again. Same team, same problem. They broke the plane of the goal again. How did no one tell them about it? Although, seeing as they had a red plate on, it’s hard to tell…
Blue should be DQ’d AGAIN for 2-2. That dumping robot’s Auto is illegal to run. And the way it’s driven during the match causes the same problems.
Finals
Hey, Blue’s auto was NOT illegal in 1-1! Because it missed the goal. But then they drove over the lip of the goal, anyway. I have no idea why the refs didn’t call them. Ever.
And Blue was illegal for 1-2. Which the refs apparently don’t care about. But it’s seriously bad.
This tournament was a reffing debacle. I don’t know who was in charge of that, but seriously. Read the manual, people. Coloured plates have to match the team you’re on, and you can’t break the plane of the goal. This isn’t rocket science. I saw issues with <SG5>, <SG9>, and <R19> that are worth a DQ. There were minor violations of <SG11> that should earn a warning, but not a DQ in a couple of matches. Unless the Refs were feeling particularly vindictive, I guess.
From a player’s perspective, there were several good shooting robots. And for early June, these are quite good. They need some work, particularly in terms of Auto. But that comes with time.
AHHH SO COOL!
I like how original the robot designs are; they vary so much even if some robots use the same launchers, hopefully we see this in future events. Although I’ve noticed that most of the flywheel launchers tend to be inconsistent when aiming for the high goal. To much power with the launcher perhaps?
Then again, early competition so there’s more than enough time to improve 
The OP had said:
While I agree that there were some violations that should have been DQs, I see why they didn’t call anything because the event was more of an early season trial run to see and test robots. Also keep in mind that there were very few teams, and this event did not qualify anybody.
Anybody saw the video in which the 4 bar elevation stationary robot got balls under its ramp and the coach tried to get the ball out with his hands? That was funny.
But part of testing a robot is testing if the robot can score in a way that’s compliant with the rules. If, for instance, the team that built the dumper robot wasn’t told that they were in violation of the rules basically every time they scored, they might continue to violate the rules in a tournament where it does matter because it is a qualifying tournament. Part of the game dynamics is the rules, and that robot is going to have a very hard time scoring in a way that’s in compliance with the rules. By not enforcing the rules, the event actually had a lot less value as a place to test robots.
If you want to have a tournament where they’re not really going to enforce the rules, that’s fine, just don’t have referees in striped ref shirts basically saying with their presence “we’re officially adjudicating the rules, and nothing you’re doing is in violation of those rules, carry on!”
In defense of my sole ref, none of the teams present have received their welcome kits yet with this year’s plates. With some newly registered teams involved, we tried earlier in the day to use existing plates, but gave up.
We addressed the plane of the goal in the official rule Q&A Nothing but Net forum and the response was “our referees will be instructed to be very lenient” Admittedly, we were erring on the side on being too lenient ,but our main objective was to play the game and let people see the dynamics.
All of these robots were in the prototype phase and only 5 of them were competitions ready. But considering this was the 1st time 12 of the 16 teams had ever run on an actual game field or shot at an actual goal, I thought everyone did remarkable well. The field only arrived the Wednesday before the event.
I truly appreciate your feedback. This was the purpose of running the competition and posting the videos for everyone to share. We are hoping the referee videos, official Forum Q&A, and future rule updates will clear up a number questions. For example we are still trying to figure out how to be in compliance with <SG6>. With the exception of giving the ball a tremendous back spin (and that only works once in a while), we have not been able figure out how to keep the driver load balls in the loading zone without breaking the plane of the field. At our driver’s meeting all teams were told, “until we have future clarification, we would allow the teams to gentle drop their balls into their robots or onto the field.” We also told the teams our objective was to see the game dynamics. We would allow them to correct a potential hazard, such as a battery dragging or a ball under a ramp which could potentially damage a robot. They could do this as long as they did not create a safety issue (such as stepping out on the field). We did not want to create a situation where we might not have enough robots to finish the competition with complete alliances. Obviously, we would never allow these infraction to occur during the regular season qualifying event.
From a referees point, we did find out some things to share, The schedule 20 conduit can fall out of the end caps. This may have been because we forgot to put the triangle bracket in addition to the new corner brace under the corner - this should be checked at the beginning of a tournament. The trap door at the bottom of high goal has a Velcro closure, if it is not placed back on securely after the balls are dumped, it can open during the match allowing all of the balls in the high goal to dump out under the high goal. This should be checked between every match. We used a ball as a reference point to determine if a robot was fully elevated the 4". A ruler might be better, but the balls are readily available. Field reset and counting out the driver loads is very time consuming. Fortunately, we ran an eight minute match cycle in anticipation of this and stayed on schedule. Granted we only had a single field, but even with multiple fields the match cycle will probably be longer than in the last couple of years. The good news is, we did not find any problems in the “yet to be posted” Nothing but Net version of Tournament Manager software.
The REALLY good news is, the game is great fun to play. If people can continue to share constructive criticism during the early season tournaments, by the time the qualification competitions begin, there should be a high degree of consistency!
First up, congrats on such a diverse and effective tournament early on, I think I saw every method of scoring covered spread over all robots, which is fantastic, good luck refining your ideas!
Secondly, try taking a closer look the rules, before incorrectly assuming someone else hasn’t and heavily criticising them. The 4 bar robot you criticised is actually legal, or at the very least not always illegal (I don’t recall from my watching of the videos it clearly breaking the plane of the goal) and:
Pointing out (possible) rule violations is one thing (and I believe is generally beneficial) but harshly and repeatedly criticising someone is not constructive, and in this case appears to be incorrect.
Finally, it’s impractical and limiting to host EVERY competition following the rules to the letter. In NZ (Last I checked, some of our teams did rather well at worlds this year) run all our local competitions right up until nationals (worlds qualifying, not lenient) with leniency around the rules, such as allowing uncut, out of size metal if it isn’t functional. Any official skills runs made at early competitions require a fully legal robot, but there’s no sense in stopping practically ready robots from competing, it’s just discouraging.
Just my $0.02 worth
When the ramp bot would unfold during the last thirty seconds was that legal? It was not fully within the climbing zone. Even though it did not score was it still legal? there were other teams doing the same thing.
The expansion was legal, because it was horizontal expansion (even if it unfolded before the last 30 seconds). The climbing zone is defined by the four corner tiles, so the robot was completely within that zone. You may be thinking of the loading zone, which is defined by the the diagonal strip of tape across the starting tiles and the walls.
IMHO the biggest rule violation is that I don’t see any safety glasses. With flywheel speeds in excess of 1000 RMPs these need to be enforced this year.
;(
Are you a ref? I don’t quite agree with you on everything.
The following only really applies for events that qualify teams for a higher level of VRC competition, because that’s where refereeing is important. At events where there’s nothing to win, like this one, it’s not that important to follow the manual. That said, I think it’s instructive to look at some of these matches as if they were being reffed at an official event.
There is definitely some creative rule breaking in this match. However, touching scoring objects is only grounds for a disqualification if it is match affecting (i.e. changes the outcome of the match). In this case Red lost the match, so they shouldn’t be disqualified.
There’s an extra layer of complexity though, because almost every time the Blue drive team member match loads a ball their hand goes inside the field perimeter. That definitely is match affecting, when you combine all the instances of the rule being broken. So if the rules were being fully enforced (which they should be at every worlds qualifying event, and where possible at every state qualifying event) then Blue should have been disqualified. And if you disqualify Blue then you have to also disqualify Red, resulting in a tie.
That said, it’s clear that the drive team members were only breaking the rules because they knew the refs would be lenient. If you’re going to be a strict referee you also need to be clear with warnings and make sure drive team members know what is going on. At this event refs clearly chose not to be strict about this rule, which is reasonable given that the rule seems to still be a little bit unclear.
It was Red that picked up the battery.
I wouldn’t have DQed Red in 4-1. Even if you assume that everything the low goal robot scored was illegal and you ignore all those points (including the auton bonus) Red still would have won thanks to the high goal robot. The high goal robot only scored about two points after the battery was picked up, so pretty much no matter how you look at it Red would have won with or without those rule violations.
I think in the semifinals Blue won by enough that their repeated violations probably weren’t match affecting, but really by that point they should have had enough warnings to escalate to a DQ regardless. You’re right that the robot seems to have trouble scoring without breaking the rules (I don’t just mean crossing the tape, I mean crossing all the way over the pipe).
<SG5> (fixing the robot) was definitely violated but I didn’t see any instances where I would have DQed.
<SG9> (breaking the plane of the goal) should probably have resulted in at least one DQ - though that robot was fortunate enough to have a very strong partner so the fact that it was breaking the rules was mostly irrelevant.
<R19> (number plates): No way should any robot have been DQed for this. At a small competition where refs and participants can recognise all the robots it just isn’t necessary. Even at bigger tournaments it’s something that referees can DQ for but are not required to (*<R2>d: Referees or inspectors may decide that a robot is in violation of the rules … *). Personally I think you would be crazy to DQ a team for this. Maybe if the event has given them the plates they need and they are still refusing to comply after multiple requests. Even then, it’s easier just to give non-compliant teams a flag before each match.
Obviously it’s not the vindictiveness of the refs that should decide this, it’s whether it changes the match outcome. None of the violations of <SG11> that I saw came close.
From what I saw it doesn’t look like any DQ calls in the eliminations were missed, except on the rule about not entering the goal (SG9). It doesn’t really seem fair to allow a robot to progress right through to the finals without a penalty when they break the rules the same way in nearly every game, and I would be a bit concerned about copycats by teams who might not realise the rules issues with such a robot.
For scrimmages in Auckland the only rule that was more lenient than usual was the sizing rule. Because of how frequent the competitions were, the season could have been significantly more expensive for some teams if they had had to cut off the ends of their metal pieces every time they built a new robot or rebuilt their lift. Robots were inspected to make sure that any piece that was out of size wouldn’t affect the function of a robot during a match. Scrimmages in Auckland were qualifying events for NZ Nationals (which in turn qualified teams for Worlds). They weren’t informal events like this one.
As you said, the vex rules were fully enforced for Nationals and for all skills runs.
You are absolutely and completely correct. We overlooked what should not have been overlooked. By focusing on what we thought was important, we missed what was truly important. Things in our part of the woods have become somewhat lax about safety glasses, which is totally unacceptable - especially this year! Thank you for your post. We can not take a step back into the past, but we can take steps to change what we do in the future - Safety glasses will be strictly enforced at ALL our future events!
Personally. I think the spectators are more likely to be hit with a ball than the drivers.
And the foam balls don’t really hurt, they are too soft, but if a flywheel comes flying off a robot like a Frisbee, then there could be some problems.
Thanks for posting these.
Aside from the comments already made, I noticed a few other things.
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When hitting the net backboard (missing the high goal too low), the balls bounced back into play more often than going into the low goal. I wonder if this was just from the style of launcher that did not impose much back spin or if backspin style launchers will tend to bounce out as well.
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The ramp is doable! Non slip mat treads. Nice.
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I wonder if the the little bot that went over the middle of the pole could have benefited from some metal or standoffs to act as a feeler for not going too far over the middle of the pole. A DQ preventer.
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Anyone think we need to buy some backstop nets to catch the errant balls that miss too high? Usually field resetters are on the other field resetting things versus actively catching balls.
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Was the ramp up speed on the flywheels measured or just listen to sense it was back up to speed?
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Any PTC trips on the flywheel guys? I could not tell what some of the issues some robots had were caused from.
Yeah, that’s gonna get annoying real quick. I’m half considering trying to recruit some tennis players, giving them giant butterly nets, and positioning them behind the two nets.