Last Saturday (2/11), my team, 6865Z was competing at the UIL-VEX competition at CCISD in Houston. We eventually made it to the quarter-finals, and chose 22221D as our alliance partner. During our match, 400B kept ramming into 22221D, in the process knocking screws and nylocs off of the bot, even chipping a piece of polycarb off of their own robot . 22221D called 400B out on their “defense”. The ref came over and our partner pulled out the rule book and used ; “Robots may use custom-made parts cut from certain types of non-shattering plastic”, ; “Don’t destroy other Robots”, and ; “Offensive Robots get the “benefit of the doubt.”” The ref disregarded G12 and defended his decision by saying it was a defensive strategy, but G13 and R9 should have gotten 400B a DQ, right? Is there anything that we can do besides file an REC complaint now that it is after competition?
Without watching the match, and based on what you have described, I would tend to agree with the referee.
Many times, screws and nylocs can fell off robots even without any opponents playing defense against it.
And having your c-channels got bent from all the crashing and things flying off robots during matches are actually pretty par for the course during worlds eliminations.
I don’t really understand the severity of the damage done or how it was inflicted, but if the ramming had the sole purpose if causing damage, then it may fall under these rules. Otherwise, the alliance partner should have built their robot to sustain the ramming of a defense bot and the ref was in the right
The dont destroy other robots is more about having mechanism on your robot that are made to intentionally damage other robots. You are expected to build your robot well enough to deal with defence. the entirety of G12 states,
Don’t destroy other Robots. But, be prepared to encounter defense. Strategies aimed solely
at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or Entanglement of opposing Robots are not part of the ethos
of the VEX Robotics Competition and are not allowed.
I would veiw 400B as a team just playing defense and the team getting their robot mauled as not having been prepared to encounter defense. also as for the non shatter plastic i dont really think they can do much to prove that its non shatter, like what are they gonna do take the pice of plastic of the robot and smack it with a hammer? i also know teams who use legal plastic and that plastic has chipped in matches.
Hey! I found the stream link so you guys can interpret it here.
Timestamp: 7:47:43
Our Endgame is blue and purple with blue rubber bands, just incase you’re having trouble following.
As for the shattering plastic, I checked our robot this morning and didn’t see any damage. I’m not sure if that was a miscommunication but our plastic isn’t in an easy-to -break location.
That seems like pretty textbook clean defense to me, even without any extended trapping. OP, I would encourage you to read the rest of G12, specifically the second half of the title of the rule, and G12b:
<G12> Don’t destroy other Robots. But, be prepared to encounter defense.
b. VRC Spin Up is also intended to be an interactive game. Some incidental tipping, Entanglement,
and damage may occur as a part of normal gameplay without Violation. It will be up to the Head
Referee’s discretion whether the interaction was incidental or intentional.
When I look at that match, I don’t see a robot that was trying to damage its opponent. Instead, I see a robot trying to prevent its opponent from scoring.
Op, would you be able to link the live steam and timestamp of this match?
Yeah thanks for responding! The plastic might’ve been from a previous match, there was a lot of chipped Lexan on other bots from what I saw, so probably a misunderstanding. I am probably just a bit mad, since we didn’t make it to the semis, so thanks for understanding. I wish you well at state, and I wish your other teams good luck at our own competition this Saturday!
6865Z
From the match - I really don’t see anything wrong with 400B gameplay.
In fact, the blue was hitting the red as much as the red was hitting the blue.
Feeling mad is normal - but what I always tell my students is to get mad with their own performances and robot designs. And not mad with the opponents or the referees.
Calling out another team (especially when they did no wrong) and blaming another team is really not classy.
I think what is good here, is reflection about what the team is feeling and then realizing it is “in the moment” and acknowledging it. Reflective practice is a great trait to have and to support as a community.
The key word there is “reflection”. Always ask “what could we have done differently to get a better result?” rather than seeking to blame external forces (refs, the opponent, the field, your partner, etc.)