I recently saw a post in which someone commented that this year there are more DQs than usual. I’m wondering… what DQs are you most commonly seeing? Are they typically caused by lack of knowledge of simple rules? Is there something more serious going on?
Any insight would be appreciated. Most of the tournaments I’ve attended this year have had very few DQs.
-John
Not lifting the gate on time:
-too focused on the game
Pinning
-students expect referees to call them out if they are pinning (students shouldn’t of course)
-referees’ interpretation of pinning vastly different from students’
-referees may not be able to tell if the robot being pinned can actually move or not
That’s really all I’ve seen, mostly pinning of course.
At a recent tournament were DQed in the semifinals because our alliance partner placed the negator on the tile, then after placing it there picked it up and put it on our robot. It turns out that this tournament was their second one ever, and the first one had been a scrimmage with no elimination rounds.
Other than that, DQs I have seen have been due to either putting in special barrels too early, or forgetting to raise the gate before 30 seconds.
I think that this rules this year, specifically those two that I already mentioned, require more reading of the manual and attention than in previous years. This, combined with a large number of new teams, has contributed to the problem.
-Touching robot while not on tile and interacting illegally with robot
-pinning and entanglement (although seldom actually called)
-illegal descoring
i would agree upon all of those instances. i have also seen tournaments online where teams have been disqualified for not having the gate strapped up by 30 seconds even though they had a team member working on doing so and it was up all of the way by the required time. the pinning and tipping situations i have noticed recently are becoming a problem. some robots think that it is good to pin and unpin constantly while the refs do not like this, and i personally think that it should be ruled upon. i have seen robots that have been disabled on the gate (tipped over on it) and they have NOT been DQed and i believe that something besides telling the opposing team whose gate they were on to lift the gate by 30 seconds or you will be DQed even though there is an opposing robot straddling it. i have seen matches where doublers and negators being introduced too soon by a second or two resulted in DQ (dumb mistake) but it was my understanding that the barrels that were prematurely introduced would simply not count. i also have seen matchloading incorrectly and sometimes not getting DQed and sometimes getting DQed. i wish that there would be more uniformity about the matchloading scenarios. this seems like it should be a simple problem but it has become bigger than it should be. i guess in response to your original question the two biggest DQs that i have seen are 1) improper gate interaction and 2) improper introduction of pieces onto the field/with the robot.
Thanks!!!
i would have to agree with meatboy123 about this one, but add one of my own of course. a lot of pinning/entanglement scenarios that should have been a problem did not warrant any action for some reason, due to lack of clarification in the rules.
At the risk of turning this into a debate.
-I do not like people being allowed to position robots. Besides DQs for grabbing robot when not on tile, I feel that programming autonomous is an important part of VEX. By allowing people to position their robot, its not showing that they can program, its showing they can grab a robot during “autonomous”. Turns are one of the difficult parts of prgramming and take time to perfect, now they are taken out of the equation completely.
At least rename the 20 seconds the “repositioning mode”.
i have seen this as an issue this year, but i have seen the things that i mentioned previously result in more DQs. the re positioning does take a lot of the skill away from autonomous, but even thought it is nice to get your robot running if it doesn’t start correctly, this re positioning does ruin the edge that good programmers were once able to have to some extent.
I don’t know if anybody has been DQ’d on this sort of thing, but sometimes I see teams interacting with their robot in driver control mode illegally. This probably has to do with a misunderstanding of the rules which allow for driver mode robot interaction. (For example, picking your tipped robot on the tile up and tilting it back up)
i have seen the same thing, but i do not remember what had happened exactly. in a different instance i saw a ref allow a team to right its robot after it had tipped bc it was ruled that it had happened bc another team intentionally tipped it.
Keep in mind that VEX has a lot of new teams to worry about. I’ve seen a lot more teams have successful autonomous programs this year than last year.
Also, if a team has an unplugged battery that’s on the side of their robot facing away from the drivers, then they’d have to turn it around to plug in the battery.
While we don’t use the repositioning in matches, we do reposition our robot in Programming Skills because it’s not the most accurate robot in the world. It aligns to a goal mechanically rather than with sensors.
And while the edge of the good programmers has been negated slightly, there is no autonomous bonus this year, so teams relying heavily on repositioning for their autonomous don’t get too far ahead.
Pinning, early special barrels, late gate raising, and illegal driver interaction with the robot. That’s what I’ve seen in order of frequency.
Lol JVN was that post mine? 
Lol. Anyways most of the DQs have been experienced by teams not reading the rules. In the beginning of the year, most DQs were from illegally matchloading in the isolation zone. Another was trying to pick up a tipped robot that had already left their starting square but they managed to maneuver it so that it touched a square again and so they just picked it up. A third DQ that I experienced myself was trying to drop down the intake rollers on my robot manually because it had not deployed during autonomous and stuff had gotten tangled so I untangled it myself which was against the rules, which I knew was illegal but it was the finals and people do crazy stuff in the finals. Finally we almost got DQed a few times by forgetting to raise the gate in time. They had to scream at us to open it.
Oh yeah and there was putting in the special barrels before the last 30 seconds.
The root of all these problems is that people are too lazy to read all the rules and some are ambiguous and people interpret them in different ways, which leads to Karthik having to answer so many Q&As.
The most common DQs that I’ve issued are for improper introduction of of the Doubler and Negator. Teams either introduce them in the wrong zone, or (more frequently), at the wrong time. The most common reason that I’ve seen for this is that teams confuse the 5 second countdown (the whoosh whoosh sound) for endgame. They place the barrel immediately after it starts instead of waiting for the end of the 5 seconds.
ive seen that too. then the team tries to remove the object they prematurely placed and the refs do not like that either.
We’ve had:
I think those account for the majority of DQs this year.
must resist comments about my experience with dqs this season
One thing I want is consistency in dqs, if you dq a team for something, make sure to dq everyone who does that, and if its something small - dq for all the small mistakes. Average teams and good teams alike, just because someone isnt top of the table doesnt mean they shouldnt get dqed
(sorry, i let some of my nagging slip :p)
i agree, but this is hard to do at regionals worldwide… hopefully the judges have a big meeting before worlds to get some of these common things ruled on.
You mean “referees” here, not “judges.”
yes i mean that sorry