Hopefully the GDC addresses this in an early release. In Rapid Relay, teams with only two members in attendance had options listed in G4c to allow for substitution for loaders, as well as allowing loaders to freely move around the field per G8.
This year, the rules seem overly punitive to teams that are only able to bring two students to a competition. G4 provides no substitution rules, and GG8 requires loaders now stay in their driving box.
Given the six match loads, there are a significant number of points that require loading. Per current rules, teams with only two members are going to have to decide between only driving half of the match or forgoing the match loads.
I’d love to see one of the following changes in the next game manual update…
Re-institute substitution rules from Rapid Relay G4c
Update GG8 to allow a loader to leave their driver box to load for the alliance partner when that team does not have a designated loader
Allow blue match loads to be loaded from the red alliance in cases where the blue side does not have a designated loader (and vice versa)
Allow the second driver to match load during their time not using the controller
Any of these feel to be within the spirit of the IQ competition rules and in alignment with years past. One of these changes will also limit the negative impact of a team being down one team member for the competition.
I totally get that situations can come up where VIQRC Teams consisting of only 3 students can be left short-handed, but this is really no different than any other youth sports program.
If my son’s baseball team had exactly 9 kids on it, and only 8 of them show up to a game, nobody would expect them to be able to pull a random kid out of the stands or off the opposing team, put their jersey on, and play for them. It’s a forfeit, plain and simple. The easiest way for them to avoid that problem would be to simply have more than the bare minimum of players on the team. (Which I know of course, is easier said than done, but the fact remains)
It seems to me that the GDC is trying to make it abundantly clear that Teams should consist of at least three members. It was made known more than 2 years ago now that the number of Drive Team Members was increasing to three. In my opinion, if a Team hasn’t adapted to have that number of members, or developed contingencies for this type of situation by now, it’s on them.
Yep, it’s like signing up for doubles tennis, or beach volleyball or pairs ice skating, ball room dance competition, pickleball, racquetball, badminton, two man bobsled, 2 person … and then jamming a third person into this.
I’m not sure where RECF is getting the info that VIQ teams want more people on them at the drivers station. Maybe this is another “People on Facebook wanted it”.
Let me be crystal clear on this. I’m all for having more roboteers involved in robotics. I’d rather see more robots. Last time I checked the robots are pretty small, so having fewer fingers on the robot can be better.
But I bow to my new “12 people on a team overlords”
The issue of this is trying to find additional members that fit well on the team. Especially for private teams and home-schooled teams, it can be hard to find the right people to add to your team. And this poses an additional problem. Having 5 or 6 people on an IQ team is too much; not everyone will be able to do things. With the change to the rule, you cant have two teams without either adding an additional member, which doesn’t always work, or have the risk of a team member getting sick, and the rest of the team having to skip the competition. The easiest solution to this issue is adding a person onto a team, which is sort of what you said here:
As a IQ participant and now coach, I don’t see the purpose of theis rule. In Rapid Relay, we were partnered with teams that had a memebr leave for emergencies twice (at least they said so) and had our loader load for both of them. This is much better than that team being a no-show because they wern’t a “team”. In Mix-n-Match, having only one loader would be even easier than in Rapid Relay.
I guess I am just trying to say that this rule/defination will just make it more difficult to have a team than before.
At the one event RECF runs every year, and the teams at that competition, sure. I’m dealing with parents who don’t read their email and ignore texts. At least they know what baseball is!!!
We will get extra kids there to fill in on teams that don’t have someone show up. At our summer camp, we’ll just have the other person do the loading and it will probably work well enough.
For those beginning teams, it’ll be OK. They probably won’t be able to pick up enough of the pieces for it to really make a difference… As long as they have two drivers that show up, they just won’t load and they will have plenty to do.
I love this, but for what will be the wrong reasons. RECF runs the largest event and I am impressed. I’m more impressed with EP’s that run 7-10 events in a season. That is some serious logistics that is going on. It’s a lot of wrangling squirrels. It’s a lot of effort engaging a parent that “wants to drink their coffee and scroll on their phones”.
Adding all the other things going on week after week the new tightened requirement isn’t really helpful. Since asking nicely worked last time:
Almighty @VEX_GDC_IQ hear my plea! Grant us knowledge and wisdom on why this rule was changed, and what is the overall benefit to us who are trying to inspire roboteers at the local and state level and why isn’t this just a special Worlds rule?
I come from a small program at a small school. I understand the need to have at least 3 kids on a team but there does have to be some wiggle room in certain situations-especially during cold/flu season. If a team only has 3 & 1 is out sick, they should be able to move after their driving turn or prior to it to the loading zone if they need to act as loader. It only makes sense.
