Can you share an endgame system between two teams (and their respective bots)

This is my first post so sorry if it is jank but I was wondering if two teams could share an endgame?

For context, at my school there are two teams and we were planning to share a portable endgame system to save parts and time. Looking in the rules I see no violations except for possibly

For example in competition maybe team 1 goes first and uses the endgame system then detaches it and we attach it to our bot for our match after theirs. Would this be allowed?

This seems like a blatant violation of G6 to me, but it’s also a terrible idea. Consider the possibility of your two teams being in the same match, or one team wanting to run skills while the other is in a match, or one team doing a judges interview while the other is at a match. The list of possible issues is endless, not to mention the extra hassle of switching it off every match.

Is it really that hard to build two endgame mechs?

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Welcome to the forum! Here’s my take: inspection rule 1 section d red box explains that a group of teams sharing a robot is unfair to teams who do all their own work. You’re talking about sharing a fraction of a robot by sharing an endgame mechanism. If fairness is a fraction, then it’s maybe less unfair, but still unfair. If I was competing with you, I would put it this way: if you don’t build your own endgame mechanism, you shouldn’t get endgame points. Also, you will hopefully find yourself at a competition that’s big enough to be running simultaneous fields, and two or more of your teams might be competing at the same time. If you’re talking about saving time and potentially delayed parts ahead of an imminent competition, you’d get sympathy from me, but it would still be an unfair advantage and so you’d still get a “no” from this member of the community.

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The considerations here would be R-1(d) and R-2, with the applicable questions being “is sharing a ‘subsystem 3’ between multiple teams a violation of R-1(d)”? By the letter of the rules, since a robot is defined as having both subsystem 1 and 2, then subsystem 3 by itself does not constitute a robot; therefore, should not be a violation of R-1(d), provided R-2 is not being violated. (this is, of course, not an official answer (you’d have to post on the Q&A)…but I’m fairly competent interpreting the rules).

On a more practical consideration: what happens if both team 1 and team 2 are in the same match as either alliance partners or opponents??? Do you arm-wrestle or play rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to use the mechanism and win the match?

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Suggest that you look at rule R1 instead.

I would classify the endgame mechanism as subsystem 3 ?

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Likely not, adding an expansion device may constitute a major change and would require a re-inspection. Additionally, both teams may be in matches at the same time, and modifying the robot mid-match is not allowed.

IF both teams contributed to the desighn and making of the endgame then i see no problem with it but my concern would be if you guys have a match at the same time, together or agains eachother one team would be left withought endgame which would suck.

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I didn’t really think of that since I’ve kinda never seen the two teams as separate lmao even though we technically are. (we work together and stuff)
Thank you

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Thank you! its my first year and I haven’t been to any competitions yet so I didn’t have the foresight to think of those complications.

Not entirely vex, but in FRC this was referred to as cheesecake where on team would give another team their mech for the duration of their match together. I’m pretty sure the season after they introduced a rule to stop it.

What you’re describing is a clear violation of G6. You have two teams sharing a designer and a builder. A student on one team built part of a robot that is being used by another team. This isn’t allowed.

Your description of two teams being indistinguishable violates G6 in a number of ways. One larger team that shares builders, designers, and programmers can’t show up with two robots at a competition. It is unfair to the other teams and violates the rules.

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To be clear, we have two teams at my school. I am on “Team 2” and we have 2 builders/designers. Team 1 has one builder/designer. I think you are reading too much into my question, I never stated we shared any builders.

Saying that I described the two teams as “Indistinguishable” is unfair as that is not what I said.
I said that I haven’t thought of us as very separate because we are all friends and all work at the same times and places (as we should bc we go to the same school). However our two teams have never built anything for each other or coded anything for each other. We have not designed anything for one another either and the bots are entirely our own creations. This question was just hypothetical.

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If you share a single mechanism between two teams, there is one builder who has built something that is on both robots. This is sharing a builder between two teams. If both teams work together to build this mechanism that is shared, it is the same thing. Each team must build everything on their own bot, without work from other builders, designers, or programmers.

I apologize if I misunderstood what you said, I meant to clarify that we have not violated g6 and that the question was a hypothetical and not something we have done.
Thank you

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