So the referees for the college challenge have been allowing illegal preloading of rings in violation of rule SG2: all preloads must be touching the robot. Certain teams stack 5 or 6 preloads up a 30" high goal, only touching the bottom tube. The rule is further clarified in https://vexforum.com/t/answered-preloading-for-college-roundup/18739/1, but the referees don’t want to know.
The basis for the referees’ decision is that since they allowed it once, they have to continue to allow the rule violation to provide “fairness” to all teams. I see no way allowing teams to continue to gain points through breaking rules can be “fair”.
It may be more fair to the first team that got stung by this. But it gives the rule-breakers a HUGE advantage because they can get autonomous bonuses again, and again, and again.
I would be totally willing to forgive a mistake by the referees the first time. But continuing to allow teams to get away with this method of prescoring?
Overall this issue has been handled very poorly. Perhaps there should have been rematches as soon as the error was discovered if the game outcome was affected. Alternatively I don’t think many people would be at all sad to see teams given a DQ for violating clearly stated rules!