So this match has created a lot of controversy among the Red Alliance because of the defense of blue. During driver’s meeting, the head referee said that a team can play defense in the unprotected zone when the opposing alliance is not trying to score, however, when they are trying to score (placing a stack), a team cannot hit the scoring robot. And as you can see here, that is exactly what happened to 507D. They then argued that the opposing alliance should have been DQ’d according to his statement. He refused as he said we aren’t scoring as we are touching the stack. After further arguments, he later said he made a mistake in the driver’s meeting because it was “hard to word the rule” and said that you can play defense as a team in trying to score in the unprotected zone. Should the blue alliance be DQ’d or should they have gotten a rematch because of the fault of the head referee for explaining the rules wrong? The end result was the red alliance lost by 1 point. Also can someone clarify the rule of defense on the unprotected zone because the ref was not clear at all.
Having looked at the rules I see absolutely nothing wrong with the way the blue alliance acted. It might be annoying, but it is a legal move as far as I can tell. Maybe ask a more generalized form of this on the official Q and A.
This is not what they said, Jess said that if there was already a scored stack and that stack is knocked over due to defence then it’s a DQ, this stack was in the process of being scored, exactly what the head ref said was fine
Well in that case I stand by my answer even more. I will say that @224x is a tad biased because had the blue alliance been DQed he would have been DQed.
It kind of sucks, and it’s a crappy way to play the game, but it is legal. If the scoring robot finished scoring and was pushed into the stack that would have been a different story.
So if I go to a compotation and start to stack 6 cubes in the unprotected zone (smaller zone) and I was under heavy defense but manage to place the cubes and not touch it for a second and get hit and it would be match affecting. How would a ref know I have fully stacked the cubes?
I believe if you are trying to back away and get shoved back into it then yes that would be a violation. You’d have to clearly have scored it and clearly be backing out though.
We were stacking 7 cubes in the unprotected zone and a pushbot rammed into us and almost made us lose the whole stack. In another match, another robot rammed into us when we were backing away from the cubes, and then lost power. (their battery must have knocked loose or something?) Anyway, we couldn’t do anything about it because they were stuck pinning us. But in either of those situations, if they would have pushed us and we knocked over our stack, would it be illegal? Would they be disqualified or not?
If it meets the definition of scored then gets knocked over then yeah I think they should have been DQ’d, but if you were in the middle of stacking it then I think it’s legal.
This is just one of those things that refs will have to pay very careful attention to - there are things like this in lots of games, where the line between legal and illegal is fine and careful observation is required to properly enforce the rule. The expansion zone last year was similar - a robot over 18" tall could in some cases go from legal to illegal just by moving half an inch to its right, and careful observation by refs was required to enforce the rule as written.
Note also that knocking over a stack in the unprotected goal zone does not warrant an automatic DQ - per <SG3c> a DQ is only warranted if the offense is repeated or match-affecting.
At that point, the call would really be up to the ref and what he sees. If you get lucky and he saw a scored stack (it doesn’t matter how long it was scored for), then he would probably rule in your favor.
This is another thing that makes it really hard on refs. With towers and all, the added values of the cubes could be changed by one tower and the color composition of the stack.
This seems like something that may require pictorial proof of the contents a stack to justify why it may or may not be match-affecting.
Hol’up. Go to 17 seconds and hit play. I just see a robot trying to stack turn for no apparent reason and knock their stack over. They played themselves. Even if the blue robot made it challenging for the red team to score because their rollers got wedged into the corner, then they did not break any rules. Additionally, the blue bot was not trapping the red bot because red was not making an attempt to escape. VEX is a contact sport.
Blue is totally allowed to play very hard defense, and red can totally get rammed into the side while lifting and cause everything to fall over.
However: the moment that red lets go of the blocks, and their rollers are no longer in contact with the block , then blue may need to be careful. If the stack is at any point considered stacked, and an action taken by blue, like pushing, results in red knocking over their stack, then it would be against the rules. That is not what happened here.
One last point, if red was a lifter trying to stack on top of an established pile, and the blue bot rammed him and knocked the pile over as a result, it would be an illegal action, so lifters are a bit safer when stacking on the unprotected goal zone vs tray bots.
