So, last weekend my school attended a tournament and my ally’s robot got its key plugged out during an elimination match. Even though it was unintentional, it was match affecting, and the robots weren’t even on the any platforms. We told the judges abou this, and they did nothing against the opposing team. Was this supposed to happen from a referee point of view? We’re the opposing team subject to a disqualification? I just feel like this action violated the robot-robot interaction rules. This was in “Turning Point”
…It is pretty much too late to change the outcome of the match. How does a robot “unintentionally” unplug a VexNet key? The answer should lie there.
I agree with this, the unplgging f the VEXNet key seems to be your own fault, as you should have your VEXNet and other electronics protected better than anything else on your robot.
I would like to go on the defensive side. Regardless if something is exposed or not, the rules primarily state that the game is meant to be an offensive game. As long as the robots intent isn’t to get on the center platform, the robot that had its vexnet key pulled out should’ve been protected by G12. First of all, we must be aware that a disqualification from G12 is only applied if intentional or egregious, NOT match affecting. But as what @GBHS VEX Member said, it is very difficult to unintentionally damage an opposing robot in terms of pulling out the VEXNet key, so it is highly likely it was intentional, and if not egregious. There should’ve been a disqualification on the opposing alliance.
Last week I refereed a tournament where a robot’s battery came unplugged. Looking at their robot, their Brain was mounted at the extreme edge of the robot with the battery cable facing out, beyond the chassis rail. I didn’t call any foul. Robots are expected to withstand minor interaction without significant damage, whether it’s defensive interaction or not.
For a Cortex bot, the USB slots can become loose after years of use, so I would not jump to immediately thinking this was a foul, especially if the key was mounted in a position where it could be easily contacted by another robot.
This is impossible to say without seeing the robots and interaction in question.
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Rules are tough. This past weekend, in the quarterfinals our partners robot ended up riding up on an opponent and their rubber band intake got tangled with the opponents robot as their intake was running. This was looked at as being entangled, which yes, I can see, but watching the video I didn’t see it as intentional entanglement, but the result of “robot fightin time”. It was near the end of a match in which we clearly had the advantage. After the match the score would have been 20-9.
We got disqualified and knocked out of contention.
So, the way I look at it is overall it will balance out. There have been some questionable calls both ways. Ones that affected us negatively, ones that affected us positively or just not called. It sucks, but I realize the referees job isn’t easy and mistakes will be made.
The way I see it, without actually seeing the match or the robot (which would be nice, if you have a picture), it is probably the robot’s fault for leaving the key exposed. It should be protected well enough to avoid accidental key-pulling. Unless the other robot literally reached inside of the other robot with a claw, it’s hard to believe this was intentional.
I’ve seen firsthand, as a referee, a VEXnet key get pulled out of a robot through very minimal interaction with an opposing robot.
None of the referees saw it as an intentional effort by the opposing team to pull out the VEXnet key.
Was the key over-exposed?
It was a while ago so I don’t recall exactly.
I don’t believe the key was in a particularly vulnerable position, but I don’t recall it being at all protected either.