In our competition last Friday an opponents bot climbed up ours during the autonomous period, it was a push-bot (can only move mobile bases) and it was intentionally placed and programmed with the intention of getting in the way of the other alliances autonomous period. Now this ruined the rest of our autonomous period and come the start of the driver control period we could not drive with them on us, and they could not drive off of us. We had to use our mobile base lift to get them off which resulted in them being flipped onto our mobile base, they were upside-down and could not recover. We also could not take the mobile base from under them which resulted in us loosing by the ten points it would have given us.
Durring the match, immediately after flipping their robot, I (my teams driver) was approached by the judge who gave me a strong warning for flipping their bot, he also threatened me by claiming ‘you will be disqualified if that is match effecting’.
The thing is, it was match effecting, because their bot effectively possessed our mobile base the entire match and prevented us from winning because of it, so shouldn’t the treat actually hold true then? Shouldn’t we have been disqualified for our opponent intentionally targeting our bot and then possessing our base making us loose by less than that base would have been worth?
Furthermore, is it our fault that we had no choice but to flip them so we could help our teammate because they chose to do what they did?
And their partner didn’t need their push-bot capabilities by the way, after all they got a bunch of cones and scored every mobile base.
(Oh, and on a separate note, we saw some teams flip opposing mobile bases over, is that really legal?)
There is no rule against a team coming into contact with the opposing teams robot, but due to the fact that they had the intention of running into your bot to damage it is illegal which should have gotten them disqualified. We had something similar happen to another team at a comp that we were at and the team that got hit did go to the ref after the match to challenge the match since their autonomous was intentionally running into robots with the intent to hurt.
Since your opponent decided to use a defensive play, I would say they get no protection from <G12> for being flipped over while you recover from their defense.
Flipping mobile goals is perfectly legal.
Finally, regarding DQ, in my opinion the loosing team should never be DQ’d if they are loosing anyway (they’ll get a warning and explanation that it would have happened if they won), unless it is one of the very egregious violations like descoring cones or deliberate destruction (which the “crash auton” is kind of a grey area).
Just a few comments, with the understanding that without seeing the actual match, I can only comment on your side of the situation.
First, there is nothing wrong with them possessing your mobile goal.
There is also nothing wrong with them running an autonomous that attempts to interfere with your autonomous.
As for you flipping them over, if what you described as true, as a referee,I would remind you that intentionally flipping them over is a possible DQ offense, but also state that in this case (because they were in the position that they were in due to their own actions) it was merely you trying to remove them from your robot and them flipping over was incidental.
Also, there is NOTHING illegal about flipping over mobile goals.
And I am sorry to be a grammar troll ( I am a teacher by the way). But not winning or tying is “losing”, not “loosing”. (Just a pet peeve of mine LOL)
I think it is VERY difficult to judge that the intent was to damage their opponent’s robot. Certainly they were attempting to disrupt their opponent’s autonomous. It may have been an unfortunate situation where the design of the two robots just happened to lead to the situation that occurred.
Im not saying the mobile goal flipping is unfair, its just extremely cruel as it would basically deny 5-20 points for that team (assuming they cannot recover it which most bots I’ve seen cannot). Basically one of those play nice types of arguments.
No I don’t believe their intention was to damage my robot, only to ruin my autonomous period, though things tend to happen differently than we usually intend. (It did loosen a motor wire for our drive system that finally disconnected in the last 20seconds but that just happens sometimes so I don’t fault them for that)
All my questions have been answered except for one, how does the ‘Match Effecting’ claim that refs keep bringing up work? Ive heard before that if the match is close then it can then be called match effecting but it always seems to be a threat posed against the team being warned that if they win they will be disqualified…
(536Mentor, I actually appreciate the grammar nazi-ing, keep it up)
As for flipping the mobile goals, most of the better robots here can flip them back upright without much difficulty. Might be tougher with a mobile goal only robot.
Match effecting is a difficult thing to define. If the violation changes who won the match, then it is match effecting. However, the referees cannot take into account certain things in that decision. For example, they cannot base match effecting on “we might have scored that mobile goal in the 20 point zone had they not pinned us”. The referees are taught that they let the match play out, score the match, then look at any possible violation that might have made a difference in the winner of the match. For example, if a robot bumped yours while carrying a stack and knocked off 5 cones, then if you lost by less than 10 points, it would be match effecting. However, they cannot predict whether you would have won high stack bonus by placing that stack in the 10 point zone, because there is NO guaranty that you would have done that.
Having competed in Ohio for some years, I know that defense used to be quite frowned upon by refs and teams alike, but recently, it’s become more accepted in legality terms, which is a good thing because that makes Ohio’s rules closer to other places.
“Match-affecting” (not match-effecting) is somewhat subjective. There are some obvious situations, such as a team tipping over a robot on purpose in an effort to win, or tipping over an opponent’s stack. These warrant a disqualification. Accidentally knocking over an opponent’s robot usually isn’t a disqualification, although it’s sometimes difficult to determine whether it’s accidental or not. Knocking over a stack this year (I believe) is a disqualification if it affects the outcome of the match whether it’s purposeful or not. Hard defense (such as pushing, etc.) is mostly legal, as long as it doesn’t go against the rules in the rulebook (pinning, trapping, etc.). Several threads on this topic. I believe the correct order of handling a violation is to see whether it’s indeed a foul and then checking if it’s match-affecting, not the other way around (kind of subtle difference but I think most referees understand). It’s kind of hard thinking of scenarios for your question unless you give some specific ones. (I typed this before I saw 536Mentor’s new post, so there’s some of the same stuff here. And “guarantee,” not “guaranty” :))
Also, it’s really bothering me that every single piece of text below kmmohn’s post somehow ended up getting bolded and italicized. Is this happening for anyone?
I would strongly suggest reviewing the rules as well as the official Q&A as these two steps will clear up most, if not all, of your questions. As a mentor, one of our teams has a very defense oriented cage bot so we have been watching the Q&A very closely to all questions that may apply.
As others have rightly stated, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the autonomous that you described. Additionally, there is absolutely nothing wrong with them “possessing” your mobile goal so long as they are not grabbing, grasping, or securely holding your mobile goal. They are aloud to contact multiple sides of your goal and allowed to cover it and move it. They cannot lift it or grasp it.
As for the warning you got. Based solely on your description, it may be the case that the referee has not read all the Q&A as it relates to defensive robots. Even though the rules do not specifically say that the defensive robot does not get the same protection as other robots like has been specifically in the rules at times in years past, there is at least one Q&A where the answer clearly states that the defensive robot does not have that same level of protection and that the offensive robot can be more aggressive in freeing scoring objects or itself from a defensive robot.
My best guess is that you probably should not have been warned, but that it was also probably fine for the defensive robot to keep your mobile goal from you the entire time.
I apologize for the gauranty vs. gaurantee. I fell victim to the computer auto-correct as I misspelled it to begin with. “Grammar Doc, heal thyself” LOL
Also, in this context, “match-effecting” and “match-affecting” have pretty much the same meaning. Although, “match-affecting” might be the better choice as affect is used as a verb more often than effect.