Here is my logic behind this:
At every tournament I’ve been to, there has been some sort of “cheater team,” a team that has the best robot and therefore the highest scores. Meanwhile, they have little to no autonomous score and haven’t won a judged award anytime during the season. While I understand teams may be better at building or driving than other parts of the game, I do believe winning the Teamwork Champion Award or Robot Skills Award should be somewhat dependent on having a notebook that documents the design process of building your robot. After all, the Robot Skills Award is the sixth award in terms of spot allocation and Teamwork Champion is second only to Excellence.
Here are a couple ideas I have:
Have teamwork/skills award(s) go to the team with the highest score and an engineering notebook that scores at least a score of X (number can be workshopped) in categories regarding the brainstorming, building, and testing of the robot.
Have teamwork/skills award(s) handed out to teams with the highest scores in their respective categories, but these awards can only qualify to region/world championships if the team has at least a score of X in categories regarding the brainstorming, building, and testing of the robot.
What do you guys think?
Option 1
Option 2
Keep things the way they are
Notebook should be taken into account for these awards, but in a different way
Keep things the way they are. Rules and already require that a robot’s design, build, and code represent the students’ own skill level, and teams must be able to defend their work if questioned. While performance awards like Robot Skills are based on objective scores, teams are already expected to document their iterative process in an engineering notebook to prove authenticity when asked by officials. Adding notebook score requirements to performance-based awards would redundant since the Excellence and Design awards already prioritize documentation as the primary path to championships.
Ok your arguement has a lot of issues. There is a award, the excellence award that specifically for best match/skills and notebook. It is often referred to as the best or hardest award to get. Also you cant just accuse people of “cheating” becuase you think they dont desererve an award. Teamwork champion is the team that preforms best in matches. Some teams specialize in matchplay, skills or notebook. It is unrealistic to make it so that only teams in the top of all three can qualify. Plus teamwork and skills are in the hands of the team, especially in v5, teams like occams chainsaw focus on skills, as it is the only thing in thier control. I completely disgree that teamwork/tournament champion should be decided by judges/
I agree that accusing people of cheating with no proper grounds is irresponsible and unfair. I want to make clear that’s not my intention with the suggestions. What having some level of a requirement for proper documentation would do is reinforce G4 (which unfortunately has been quite relaxed this season—I’m not sure if that is just because the rule is new or if it is something to be concerned about) by having a minor prerequisite (the notebook wouldn’t have to be judged-award worthy, but simply have content) that addresses G4 for all teams. After all (correct me if I’m mistaken), G4 really only goes into affect if someone were to notice “hole-counted” robots at a tournament. However, two robots at the same tournament don’t have to be the same for a robot to be copied.
@lacsap, I disagree with the claim that being a “cheater team” and having the best robot is contradictory. I’m using the phrase “cheater team” in the sense of a team that copies other robots or has someone else build robots for them. As for the end of season thing, it’s not as if we were beat out by a better robot to worlds for teamwork (well, we were, but we won a judged award that secured a spot).
Finally (I apologize for the lengthy post), I just wanted to make clear what I mean by “somewhat dependent on having a notebook that documents the design process of building your robot.” I don’t mean a stellar notebook, I’ve just seen the problems that G4 tried and failed to address.
It’s important to remember that Teamwork Champion is still a prestigious award, and to have it won by a team through dishonesty is frankly rude and unfair to RECF, other teams, and themselves.
I think a team should only be able to compete / win non judged awards if they have an engineering notebook and interview that can prove that they built the robot themselves and didn’t directly copy from others / team mentor. (Another one being youtubers such as ben lipper.
I have noticed that in some comps 2 teams from the same organisation have had different robots. Then at another competition somehow switched robots. These robot hadn’t been modified ( enough for it to count as a different robot) and this caused other teams to just copy of the internet and just spend time only on building because they just copied the code from online and didn’t have to modify the design. This team (this is from another team not the swapping teams, They did admit to purely copying and when i reported them the judges said there was nothing to do.) This team then won teamwork champion at regional and nationals and is now going to worlds purely based off of driving. This removes the fun and skills out of designing, coding and coming up with creative solutions.
When comparing mix and match to full volume the number of clearly different robots has gone down ( i am taking into account that mix and match had a meta - pintex - but still robots were being copied down to the colour!). In my opinion this is ruining Vex as a whole as there is only one excellence and design compared to the four teamwork awards that qualify to worlds from uk nationals.
I will say that skills still requires some skill, as autonomous can be hard especially when having to use pid. I think that finding pid on the internet is fine as long as you can prove that you tuned the kp etc. This proves that some work was done to fix it.
At one comp (first comp of the season) a team failed inspection because they were 4 inches too wide!!!. After speaking to the judges they were passed as it was the first competition of the season. They proceded to win the comp as there robot was good but the matches were funny to watch as they couldn’t fit properly into the starting zone ( this was in mix and match btw). This proves that although this is severly unfair I still understand were the judges decision came from but 4 inches is still a massive amount. Max i would allow is 1 inch. (this is for the first comp were i wouldnt want to team to go home really sad because they couldn’t compete.
Obviously depending on the number of spots for your region, but safe to say - purely performance-based spots are only limited to tournament champions and robot skills champion.
The rest of the awards basically have an element of the notebook and interview in it.
I have said it before - the reason why I switched from lego-based robotics (wro, fll, etc) to Vex is really because Vex is more focused on the technical aspects.
If the intention is to the “G4-violaters”, then by right it should be surfaced out during the interviews.
You mentioned that the “best robot” are also the “cheating team” , and at the same time, I also say that it happened in “every tournament”. I hope you are not implying that every tournament champions are undeserving.
Side note - I am genuinely curious to know if there are really teams that have “little to no autonomous score” and yet still managed to win tournament champions/skills champions.
At least in my region, most likely no one will want to alliance with that team.
But I have digressed. What I really want to say is that i am pretty sure there are also many other deserving winners but might missed out on the performance-only awards because they couldn’t write a notebook as well as others (that’s if we are including an element of the notebook inside).
Basically what you described was that you want ed to change the teamwork champion award to the excellence ,but there is already an award for that. The point is it’s the TEAMWORK CHAMPION and the current setup works fine and we shouldn’t tamper with it there is a saying that goes “ If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
Anyway we just should keep the awards the way they are.
Making teamwork/tournament champion awards dependent on notebook would in my opinion be a nightmare. If the champions are deemed to not have a good enough notebook, who gets the award? I feel like an easier solution is to just continue going after g4 violations (which the rest has done a great job of improving so far) and then the champions are almost guaranteed to not be ‘cheaters’ as the g4 violators have ideally already been caught.
Okay, I was in a situation where there wasn’t enough time to do both a robot and a notebook. I already spend 20+ hours a week building and designing, and trying to keep up the notebook was killing me (note. in IQ, I won excelance at every comp, even when there were other excellance-winners there. I also did both building/designing and notebooking, so its not a matter of ability but time [and parents telling me to focus on school…])
Here, I had a choice: Spend less time making my robot better to help my alliance partners and make a good notebook, or spend more time with the robot, giving my partners a better teammate while sacrificing the ability to win notebooking awards. I reasoned that more people would benefit from the better robot.
Your statement here is a tricky one. Yes, if a team cannot prove that they built and made the robot, and explain the entire thing, I beleive they shouldn’t compete. But there are different ways a team can show this. In the last 3 competitions I did, we didn’t have time for interviews since we needed to program. But, if a suspecting judge came along and interviewed us in suspicion of a G4 violation, we would be able to prove understanding of the robot. The ability to do so does not rely on a notebook, and while I will be the first one to tell a team to have an engineering notebook, there are still edge cases.
At the end, its up to the EP, Head Ref, and Judge advisor to interview suspicious teams. Having such strict rules takes away from their ability to overview these things. (I hope that makes sense)
Side note:
I pretty much agree with all you have said here and have raised my concerns. With the 4.0 update to the Game Manual, voluntieers have more freedom to take pictures of G4 suspects and present it to the JA. I have done a bit of personal interviewing (I’m still a kid lol. No one will suspect a thing), and there have been teams that defintely did not understand their robot, and others who blew my mind at their knowkedge of the mechanism and why they chose it.
Yes, performance awards are meant for the objectively best team at the tournament. However, the entire point of RECF as a whole is to “provide Students with hands-on opportunities to learn, design, and innovate.” If teams are disregarding G4, there is little you can actually do about it unless you have an experienced judge, referee, or other volunteer that is also familiar with the latest robot drops and YouTube/Discord posts. Not only that, but referees in particular don’t have much of an opportunity to enforce G4, as they only see each team for a minute about six times in total (for most tournaments, although the number could be anywhere from 6-12).
I did want to change what I said earlier. While there is a “cheater team” at every tournament I’ve gone to, they receive among the highest scores. I know not all Teamwork Award winners are cheating, and many work hard for their success, so I apologize for lumping them in the same boat.
With that said, I do agree with the idea of having the interview be part of rooting out G4 violations. At the end of the day, my hope with an added notebook (or interview) aspect is just that G4 would become followed more, without teams having a copied robot and simply knowing people at the tournament are unlikely to notice the copied robot.
To address your side note, while I do have an example of a team that has actually won teamwork with an autonomous score of zero, I’d rather not share so as to keep my own location relatively private. I will share with you that in the VEX IQ skills standings:
173 teams with a driver skills high of 100+ have 0 autonomous points.
Of those teams, 12 have a driver skills high of 200+.
Of the teams in number two, 9 haven’t even tried putting in an autonomous score.
#13 for driver skills has a score of 2 for autonomous, a score that can be achieved with a single “drive forward” block in VEX IQ.
At the end of the day, the main goal is to go after G4 violations better. In my experience (and likely in other places, as well), great referees will overlook these violations because they are simply paying attention to their position. What having a notebook/interview aspect would do is allow teams to prove themselves to be in compliance with G4 without slowing down the schedule of a tournament.
I agree with @Brayden21510R , @meng , @Nik938M , and @Vexiscool27 , and I disagree with the proposals from @vexiq1358 and @Tarzan1 . Engineering Notebooks are explicitly optional, so requiring them for performance-based awards would conflict with the core rules. Adding a documentation requirement to performance awards is redundant because the Excellence and Design awards already evaluate both match play and documentation. If event staff suspect a team is “cheating” by copying work, rule already gives them the authority to demand evidence and disqualify teams who cannot defend their own design. The current system works because performance awards remain objective while judged awards handle the iterative process. Throughout this whole topic everybody has a similar post. Notebooks are best criticized the way the are. NO change is needed.
Performance awards remain based on objective match results because maintaining an Engineering Notebook is explicitly optional for all teams. Rule already addresses concerns about copying by requiring students to be able to explain and defend their design, build, and code to officials. If a team is unable to provide reasonable evidence that their work is their own, event staff are instructed to assume a violation and can issue disqualifications. Adding documentation requirements to performance awards is unnecessary since the Excellence and Design awards already exist to reward teams that master both performance and the design process. The system isn’t broken; officials just need to use the tools they already have to hold teams accountable. I think the answer is clear
I disagree with this take. As others have said, some teams focus on specific aspects more than others. Say X person’s team was really good in matches, but not that good in skills. It is my opinion that they shouldn’t be “dragged down” by not being as good in something else. On the other hand, say Y person’s team spent a ton of time on their notebook, but didn’t do well in matches. Again, matches don’t impact the notebook, so the awards shouldn’t impact each other in my opinion (and a lot of others it seems, based on this post).
When you say the the team in number 2, what do you mean? Also, I agree with you about the G4, like they should crack down on the teams that just straight up hole count, but I still think that Teamwork and Skills should be non-judge related, because think about the name of the award itself. And its not like every good team has a Pintex or 180 mech, we have a completely different robot but are performing well and are going to Worlds.
Hi @Nik938M,
In no way does not having an autonomous mean a G4 Violation. My point for more specified results was to answer a side note. However, an unofficial concern when not even trying to have any sort of an autonomous code is that it begs the question of why. Why would a team not devote any time to having an autonomous code? After all, when only focusing on Teamwork Champion, you limit yourself significantly to advancing further in your competition.
At the end of the day though, you are correct. In no way does not having an autonomous code immediately mean you are cheating or breaking G4, but a lot of teams I’ve personally seen that all have what looks like interchangeable robots don’t focus on autonomous as much, if at all.
I get where what you’re saying here, believe me. But, just to clarify the notebook and robot are not be in opposition of each other when done right. Rather they should compliment each other (i.e. improving the notebook requires you to improve the robot and vice versa).
Personally, I can’t imagine building a robot (let alone one that won competitions) without a notebook. It would be like hiking Mount Everest without any reference of where you’re going.
Good to see that you are doing some consolidation and deeper thinking to address your concerns.
Just to add - am I right to assume that what you have raised here are regarding VEX IQ?
I also want to emphasise that whatever I have mentioned here are regarding V5.
I know the landscape in IQ and V5 are pretty different.
eg. for V5RC, the team will struggle to do well in the ranking if it doesn’t have a good autonomous routine (because of AWP).
so your point about good robots that have good scores but zero autonomous doesn’t really tally with what I am seeing, at least in my region. but that said, the region that i am in is not shabby at all though.
It is true that sometimes, there are good V5 teams that didn’t have time to do a proper or good programming skills runs, but that’s because they want to focus their time on doing a good autonomous routine to secure the AWP.
As for keeping a notebook, again in my region, this season (that’s ending) there is an unspoken rule - always maintain a notebook (regardless of the quality), so that we will not be accused of G4 violations. And yes, i do see the EP, judges, robot inspectors, etc spending more time interviewing and talking to every teams to sift out potential G4 violators.
