My team was unable to find anything about flipping opposing robots. We are kind of assuming it is not allowed but we’d like to know for sure. Do you get disqualified or a penalty for flipping opponents?
Yes “that’s a very good strategy.” Good luck with that and btw I looked up the definition of pinning in the game manual and it said “Pinning – A Robot is considered to be Pinning an opposing Robot if it is inhibiting the movement of an opponent Robot while the opposing Robot is in contact with the foam playing surface and another Field Element.” So You would not be able to do any of this if the other robot is on the ground so good luck.
I think in the introduction to the game that the intent is that this is to be an offensive game about scoring. Incapacitating and possibly damaging your opponents seems to violate the spirit of the game. This sounds like attempting judo throws during a basketball game… well the rules didn’t clearly prohibit Ippon Seio Nage… :eek:
Good assumption. See G1, use “common sense”. This would fall under that rule.
(Oh to be a ref and call a violation of G1 :rolleyes:)
<G12> looks pretty scary:
But if you could make it non-intentional, everything would be okay (“I didn’t think my robot would do that!!” ;)) At least, until you find this rule in the manual:
Just stick to accidentally judo throwing balls into drivers (and yourself), and you’ll be dandy 
Seoi Nage. I know my martial arts spelling (not really) :rolleyes:
I believe that I saw a team get disqualified for flipping another robot during a ‘major’ competition in the final game in the final round, 2 or 3 years ago.
It wasn’t worth it for them.
I would say no to flipping. 
It would probably be legal (and really annoying for the others) to lift another robot just barely off the ground by lifting the frame, so that the wheels aren’t touching anything and there is zero chance of damage or entanglement. I mean, you haven’t entangled or pinned the robot, it could easily get away if only the wheels were touching something. 
But then there’s G1, so maybe not…
I know it sounds harsh, but people should probably refrain from answering questions on the forum if they don’t know the answer or aren’t being serious. Pinning and <G1> aren’t the relevant rules here, and teams absolutely can be disqualified for unintentional tipping.
The relevant rule is G12:
So flipping opposing robots is illegal, but it is called “tipping” in the rules. Doing it intentionally is always illegal, and doing it unintentionally is illegal if the referees decide that it is “egregious” (this doesn’t have to mean match-affecting in the sense of changing the outcome, it can just be a careless tip or a tip that significantly changes the match).
Lifting an opposing robot off the ground so that they can’t move is entanglement.
I wonder if there is any rule against attaching pneumatic pistons to the bottom of an opposing robot while an unsuspecting team is not watching and then flipping the robot. :D:rolleyes:
Ouch.
To be perfectly honest, the reason that there are so many “rules” are that people started to nitpick <G1>. In early days the rest of the rules were “Use VEX parts and here is how you score points”.
This isn’t the offical rules forum. It was a half baked question, since when I took 60 seconds to read the rules, I found <G12>. But I felt that <G1> was a better application. Use your head, do you think that flipping a robot would be OK? No, good, then don’t do that. (And if you look the OP said they thought it was a bad idea).
Rule lawyering is one of the things I hate about FRC, and I’m begininng to dislike about VRC.
I’m happy that Karthik is so calm about pasting rules into answers for people that can’t take the time to read the rules. Teams that ask pretty off the wall questions like “Can we flip over a robot”,“can we use a shark with a head mounted laser”, should always be given “See <G1>” as an answer. That should be their clue to read the rest of the rules.
To be fair, I’ve seen some nuanced questions asked, but this wasn’t one of them.
I might be wrong about this, but I think you are allowed to flip a robot upside down as much as you want.
Just so long as it is your robot.
I’m sorry for the inconvenience. This is our first, and hopefully last, dumb post.
That’s correct. For pinning in particular, you are allowed to pin your alliance partner as well, which raises some tricky questions about match fixing. Fortunately I’ve never seen a team attempt to throw a match this way.
Ok, so maybe first, but not last dumb post… I have a few dozen dumb posts, so don’t sweat it…:rolleyes:
I agree that rules lawyering is undesirable, but I think it’s a problem caused mainly by rules that are poorly defined rather than rules that are complicated. The VEX rules (in the manual) are simple enough (Unfortunately the Q+A is hugely complex, but it’s not that common for a call to depend on a Q+A thread).
G1 is deliberately poorly defined. Two people can very easily disagree about whether something violates common sense or not.
If your goal is to have fair rules at one competition, G1 is great. If someone comes up with something really wacky you can just tell them to stop. That way you don’t have to worry about people getting an unfair advantage by bending the rules.
If your goal is to have consitent rules between competitions, then G1 isn’t useful. My goal in NZ has been to enforce the rules that will be enforced at Worlds (but with fewer mistakes).
I realise I’m definitely in the minority here, but I’m not a fan of G1.
It’s an interesting conundrum. Keeping the rules simple and understandable yet not causing too many (mis)interpretations resulting in a complex Q&A “rule addendum”.
Be happy it’s not FTC. This season we have 33 possible gameplay rule violations with consequences including warnings, penalties of varying degree, disablement and DQ. I suppose you could argue that trying to cover all bases with more complex rules to start with is better since it leaves less room for interpretation but more room for error? But as Foster points out rule lawyering comes into play.
Is their actually no restrictions against this? 
In what possible reality would you need to interact with your alliance partner in that way?
You never need to, and you shouldn’t because most people see it as the absolute extreme of poor sportsmanship.
You might want to do it to lower your ranking. That could be an attempt to go under the radar for the first round of picks and be picked by a higher alliance in the second round of picks. It may be an attempt to dodge a particular alliance, for example intentionally going from rank 3 to rank 4 to avoid playing rank 2 before the finals.
You also might do it because you don’t need a win but you want your opponent to win (so they can pick you) or your partner to lose (to make them a less dangerous competitor).