Misconduct? Or am I mistaken?

[Anon3]

Okay, so I’m staying anon for the purpose of privacy, but I’m a team from Singapore and I just wanted to clarify the rules with the judges who may be reading this article.

For privacy issues, I will keep their names anonymous. During Singapore Vex Robotics Championships, there was a 3rd/4th place match that involved two teams, Red alliance with a push bot and tray bot and the Blue alliance, with 2 DR4B cube stackers.
At mid point of the match, the push bot from red rammed into a DR4B from blue and got a countdown from a side judge. Note: A SIDE JUDGE. The head judge for the match had his role taken over by a judge uninvolved in the welfare of the match. Firstly, to the judges if y’all are reading, please DON’T talk when one judge is already talking, as it really is match affecting and the drivers and coaches don’t know who to listen to.

Second instance, when the judges countdown during a pin, they count WAY too fast. The countdown is 5 seconds, and they were counting twice as fast, and in that match, red was ruled out for trapping for only 2.5seconds. It was utterly unfair! They were also given a DQ afterwards. Furthermore, it was a 3rd/4th place match, just to reemphasise the importance of it.

Next, they don’t even… Don’t even know what pinning is. Now yes you read that right, red, during the match was called out for “pinning”, when blue could clearly escape! In my eyes, it clearly shows a lack of knowledge about the game and when the rule of pinning should be followed. Not just that, his colleague, a female judge(who also was not involved in the overseeing of the game), also told them off, I quote “WHEN WE SAY PINNING, IT’S PINNING!”, when red said the truth that “they can escape!”. Not only does that show unprofessionalism by shouting, it also reflects badly upon the judges’ willingness to listen to both sides of the story during the judging of a match. It does not do justice to the people who lost unfairly.

Lastly, read your rules. Notably, some teams do not know the rules, but that does not apply for the rest of us. In fact, sometimes, the judges claim that they are “thoroughly trained” when sometimes, they give an unfair advantage over those who seemingly “broke” the rules. For example, to call out a pin, make sure that 1) the pinned robot is unable to escape and 2) the robot carrying out the pinning is not backing off. Then when you countdown countdown in a manner that is loud and fair, 1 second per count please. This way, it gives the game not only a more professional and sophisticated vibe, but is also fairly ruled out by the judges, like the judges at world’s.

Those were just my thoughts and I really hope that you can just do us this favour so the match is constantly kg fair. Next upcoming competition in Singapore is probably Vex Nationals. Cheers

[Joey_24K]

If everything you are saying is true, those refs definitely need to watch the ref training videos. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I think there may be a bit of bias here. Also, I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, but what will this change? I think the wisest course of action would be to just let it go. I hope your season isn’t derailed by this.

[ketchup]

the same thing happened to us at state on the competition that determines if u go to worlds. and it was against the school that hosted state so they did not want to eliminate their own 2 teams for cheating deliberately or it make them look bad might i add that literally everyone but the refs and the 2 teams pinning us were yelling pinning and we got it on video and the refs said we “photoshopped” it

[enothecool]

This past weekend at a competition our driver came back from a drivers meeting saying well (insert team hosting event) is gonna be playing dirty

[Anon3]

Hi, so why I said that was because I was scrolling back through past videos to look for inspiration for the next competition and when I saw it, I suddenly felt very empathetic towards Red. Why did the refs rule them out like that? I just did not understand. I just felt the need for it to be pointed out here. Maybe I misunderstood the situation, as I wasn’t there at the time of incident. So I’m sorry if I have made any wild accusations or guesses, but may I know why the refs ruled them out?

[Mike_321J]

I have seen multiple instances of refs not knowing how the pinning rules works and in one case a ref not knowing that teams are allowed to pin at all. I greatly appreciate all of the refs who volunteer their time so we can have our competitions but every once in a while their will be a bad ref.

[meng]

Ok… firstly, I am pretty sure this post is not by any members of 8059.

And as the mentor of the team (8059z) that was being reprimanded and DQ, I need to say that there are quite a fair bit of misinterpretation of the situation by the OP.

While it was true that 8059z was being wrongly called for pinning/trapping (which they pulled back according to the referee’s count), they were not DQ because of that, they were DQ for accidentally causing one cube to be descored from the small goal.
But it was not match affecting (as the red won by a lot more than just 1 cube), so they were being wrongly issued with a DQ.

But 8059z was totally cool with it. In fact, after the match, and after being reprimanded by the referee for talking back to the referee (during the match), the team captain (which is also our club chairman) went to the referee to apologise for talking back and completed it with a bow, in front of all the rest of the competitors and spectators.

Well… what’s my take - obviously I know my team was right, and the referee was making the wrong calls, etc (I mean… those that played with/against 8059z before will know that the team is experience and seasoned enough to not make mistakes like these), but what is heartening to me is that the team is sensible and mature enough to know that in life, you can’t win everything. And there will be times that everything will be going against you in a tournament.
I don’t think I said it to the team before, but I am so proud that they managed to maintain their graciousness even when they were DQ wrongly.

But i did felt a pinch of sadness for 8059z… it was their last tournament. The team is now busy preparing for their IBDP examination. They took one day out of their hectic schedule to build the robot and went for singvex… it was meant to be a fun “outing” for them. So it was kinda sad that they couldn’t win anything due to such incidents.

But still… vex is more than just about winning, I am truly glad that they have demonstrated such grace, composure and great character in their last tournament.

To everyone out here… I hope now you will realised that my teams don’t always have it easy as well. Things don’t always go our way. But we just keep plugging in and keep pushing on.

And to @Anon3 - I am really not sure what is the intention of this post? The tournament was more than 3 months ago, and i think it was the 1st major tournament for the new season worldwide. The rules were not even firmed up yet (as it was before the August rules revision). So let’s cut the referees some slack.
But if the post is because you feel the injustice done to my team and want to show your support, then I will like to say a big thanks on behalf of my kids.
And rest assured, I am sure the referees will know the rules much better during Singapore Nationals
And… yes… 8059 will come back stronger in the Nationals as well