Game Manual Questions

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion VRC > Starstruck (16/17)
1

Some questions/misunderstandings regarding the 2016-2017 game STARSTRUCK have come up and I was wondering if anybody could clarify.

1.If a star or cube lands on the tape between both the Near zone and the Far zone. Would the cube/star be scored in the near zone or the far zone?

2.What occurs if during preload of your robot if you cannot get your star on without it being considered an illegal preload in any circumstance? Or is that even possible?

  1. Is the possibility of stars and cubes blocking the hanging bar an issue with everybody? Or could that be a strategy to stop your other team from getting points? (More of a general discussion question)
2
  1. The far zone
    2.I don’t know about illegal preload, but I assume you would be required to introduce it into play.
    3.I don’t think so. If it lands on the ground it probably won’t be a problem. If it lands on top of the pole or on the field perimeter, that would be impressive, but still not a problem.
3

I also have a question…
How many stars or cubes are our robots allowed to hold on to at any time during the match?

4

Dont think there is a possession rule mentioned in the game manual

5

I haven’t found it…

6

Nope

7

so we can posses as many game objects as we want

8

Yeah, as of right now

9

The manual isn’t that long, and it’s pretty clear. This isn’t the first time Karthik and the GDC has written one of these. Before you post, read the manual. I suggest reading it out loud since that slows the reading process down to where you are looking at each word.

And remember, the rules are about what you can’t do. Not about what you can do to play and win the game. So there is no rule limit on how many of the 14" 1/2 pound stars you can carry.

Thinking for some teams this may be the year of the Clawbot. (*)

Another year without defensive play, no pinning calls!

(*) All hail the Clawbot.

10

Can a robot elevate another robot so it touches the bar, like the lifts for nbn, is that legal because I cant find any rules against it

11

I didn’t find anything either, but my gues is that Karthik will change it so people don’t reuse their old robots/designs

12

Thats a good point, (question) I haven’t seen a clause that says you need to be under your own power.
However, it would not be a good strategy considering you would have to design for many different robots, as opposed to designing for one very reliable object.
If teams do this I think the rules will be adjusted in June, as I really doubt it was intended for robots to lift other robots in Starstruck.
Edit: @Mercury_Vexmen just beat me for most of that. :slight_smile:

13

Lol

14

How will skills be done? If you can score on either side you don’t even need a launcher for the maximum skills score.

15

It says you can only score on the one side in skills this year, like a normal match.

16

Did not see that.

17

They will remove all the objects from one side of the court and put the robot on the other side. Then you will have to score like a regular match.

18

Where does it say that in the rules?

19

If you look at Appendix B: http://content.vexrobotics.com/docs/vrc-starstruck/VRC-2016-17-Appendix-B-Robot-Skills-Challenge-041416.pdf
“The playing field will be set up similarly to that of a normal VEX Robotics Competition Starstruck tournament match, with the difference being that all Scoring Objects start on the same side of the field.”
“Note: The Robot Skills Challenge and the Programming Skills Challenge use the same field
setup!”
On a separate note, Appendix C: http://content.vexrobotics.com/docs/vrc-starstruck/VRC-2016-17-Appendix-C-Programming-Skills-Challenge-041416.pdf says "These matches will be autonomous, with limited human interaction. " What kind of interaction do you guys think will be allowed?

20

Im pretty sure the interaction will be match loading the cubes on your robot.