Thank you pfsmith. I have reviewed the document for Skills-Only event. I have a question on event RE-VIQC-15-2210. This was a standard qualifier. Yet one team was not present for any match but appears only for skills. All other teams registered were in a match (teamwork).
The document states that it must be indicated as Skills-Only event. Is there language in this document that allows for this provision within the above event?
A: Event Partners include all registered teams in the Teamwork Challenge Match schedule for all events, except those events listed as “Skills Only.” If your team wants to participate only in the Skills Challenges, then Skills-Only events would provide a great opportunity to play. If you would like to learn more about Skills-Only events and how easy it is for your school or organization to serve as a host, please visit the VEX IQ Event Documents site for the “VEX IQ Skills Only Event” document.
Yeah. Many thought the same thing because they would have done ok in matches. It looks like the actual qualified participant to receive the skills award would have been 1840H. Every official standard event we have been to there was no opportunity to just do only skills and leave; the main event here is teamwork.
Waiting to see official REC response as this is the first such instance, which nobody knew was even possible.
I haven’t seen the results, and I’m too lazy to go and look it up, but my guess is that it is possible they did it to let other state teams qualify for the worlds. Only certain awards win a pass to the worlds, and which awards depend on the state participation. Let’s say the state has 6 passes, those would be Excellence, Tournament, Design, Robot Skills and Programming. If you have a very good team, they could be able to win Excellence, Tournament, Robot Skills for example… reducing the state participation from 6 teams to 4 cause, so it is a possibility that they opted not to participate on the tournament and went only for the skills, leaving the Excellence and Tournament Awards for other teams to win… or maybe they just want to expose their robot as least as possible so other teams don’t copy it before the worlds. Those are the only 2 reasons that I can think off.
I agree with you about doing only certain parts. Thought of those as well. However, standard (qualifier) event requires participation in teamwork matches. You would be paired and there you can opt to just stand there and do nothing (or not show, do a minimum, etc). That way you are not trying to get a really good score. Here you would be paired, so what you do with it is up to you. If you recall previously I asked about a similar team no-show question, but there it was a regular match.
There is a Skills Only event where you can just do that. For Skills Only there are no match pairings. A standard event includes all registered teams in the Teamwork Challenge Match schedule for all events (from above). A schedule is generated by TM. Was trying to understand how you can exclude one team from pairing. This is a unique situation, a provision in a document that was finalized earlier 2015-late 2014 possibly that we have missed.
Highrise Game Manual (Rev. Aug. 1, 2014)
Highrise Game Appendix (Rev. Aug. 1, 2014)
The Qualifying Match schedule will be available prior to opening ceremonies on the day of the event. This schedule will indicate alliance partners and match pairings.
Teams will be randomly assigned an alliance partner to collaborate in each Qualifying Match.
For a Qualifying Match, if no member of a team is present in the driver station at the start of a match, that team is declared a “no show” and will receive zero (0) points. A “no show” is treated exactly the same as a Disqualification. The team’s alliance partner will receive all points scored in this Match.
If not, how is “all registered teams … for all events” bypassed?
Aloha,
As Kaverman stated earlier, I too thought of withdrawing my teams from the final competitions in order to provide an opportunity for other teams to qualify and win awards. However, as an event partner, I would encourage teams that are thinking about participating in a tournament in a way that could be considered an “exception” to the tournament format to contact the event partner well before the event to work out any details. From my experience, event partners are usually very open to discussing options prior to events. Just showing up however, without previously contacting the event partner could cause some difficulties which may affect the tournament experience for other participating teams.
Aloha,
We also thought about this and only concentrated on a couple categories so that others have a better chance. If we had a chance to just do one or two things only and leave, we would have done that. At a tournament/qualifier, you have the option not to do skills; you do play matches. As long as you do not place the robot on the field during a match at least, the score will be that of the alliance partner alone. And then there is a Skills Only event that you can do just skills. You have much better insight as an event partner.
Kaverman, the data is listed above. One of its own team that only did skills is listed in Skills rankings though not listed with a single match pairing.
For what it’s worth, I think “sitting out” of teamwork matches that you are scheduled for, is unfair to the teams you are paired with.
Given that we all care enough about points & scores to be here talking about it… How would any of us feel if our alliance partner choose to sit out (on purpose).
Yes indeed Steve,
Based on what I read in the rules about various tournament formats, if a tournament is slated as VEX IQ Tournament, then the teamwork challenge is mandatory. The Skills Challenges would be optional. If a team were to participate in a Skills Only Competition, then the only participation would be in skills.
It would seem to be “unfair” for a team to sit out of a teamwork challenge VEX IQ tournament in the general sense. However, at a tournament it is the Event Partner that has the say in the running of the event. They also hold all of the responsibility for its success or failure.
I cannot foresee or speak to the possible situations that would cause a team to want to sit out at this time. However, I would like us to remember that the decisions made by individual teams at tournaments (to participate or not) and their repercussions are the responsibility of the Event Partner.
As an Event Partner, I would hope that teams that are considering participating in an uncommon way speak to me prior to the event in order to consider options.
As an Event partner, if there are any concerns at my tournament, I would hope that individuals would approach me so that I can address these situations with the individual teams in question or at the very least provide an explanation to the concerned parties.
Agreed. When our peers approached us to possibly not attend some events so that they could go, we happily obliged and stayed out of 3 events in entirety. We did not partially attend.
(It appears that team 1840A did attend another event in full later on last week. Not bad right?)
There were similar questions in a high school tournament but that was slightly different situation (and clarified by vex official staff). It would be nice if the RECF staff provides simple clarification. This would help at other levels as well not just iq. There were a few concerns with this team at another event, but that was fixed and that is another matter entirely.
Thanks all for your insights. So as I understand from the above and information provided by ipanavigator (thank you), is a decision of the Event Partner to allow or not allow something. Although these are two separate events (tournament/qualifier vs skills), for which there are clear rules, it can be circumvented. This was exactly that. We obliged our peers to try for some qualifications by not going. And we did not know that you could do partials like this (not that it would have made a difference, knowledge is helpful).
I will use a simple analogy here. In-n-out and McDonalds have a menu and a secret menu. If you know about it, you could order from it. In In-n-Out this is somewhat common, but at McDonald’s the supervisor must agree and you have to be ready to tell the server how to make it if the server does not know the sequence.
It is somewhat like that here. If the request for rearrangement of some category is simple, then it should make no difference to anyone. If it is a change based on a rule-override executive decision, then it depends on how well you know the rules. As we have not yet been an Event Partner, we are not that knowledgeable. By the way, we were not at that event so we do not know much about it. From outside viewer standpoint, trying to figure out how these type of “exceptions” work in case we also become an Event Partner someday. Just was surprised. Knowledgebase.
I will post it in the official Q&A so that the staff may answer it. I was just expecting a simple clarification from the officials, which will also help many others. In the official subforum, you can only post but cannot do a followup without creating a new thread.
Aloha Surgeon,
I appreciate that you opened your discussion to everyone. You are correct that this form of posts does allow for other points of view to be shared. An official answer to this would be truly helpful. Thank you and best of luck to your team this season.
There is another way to handle this, but it is a little more work for the event partner. As an event partner I could create 2 separate events which take place at the same time and location, one for the Teamwork Challenge and one as a skills only event. Teams could register for either or both of the events. It adds to the administrative work of the event partner and teams need to make sure they register for both events if they want to participate in the Teamwork Challenge and skills. However, it does prevent the issue of teams coming to an event to only participate in skills and causing problems with the Teamwork Challenge pairings/schedules.
Thanks JayM. That was the point of a type of event choice. There is no discrepancy in what you are saying or your understanding of it. The staff also mentioned that there is an event for which you could do just that and there would be no issues or confusion. Any changes or modifications, if needed, would be within an event and not something like this. We handled our participation decision more gracefully and in the spirit of vex.
I understand that the team in question advised the Event Partner on event day that they had a schedule conflict and would not be able to participate in the entire event. The team did not want their absence to impact other teams that would have been scheduled as their partner in the Teamwork Challenge matches. For this reason, the Event Partner tried to accommodate the team’s request to participate in only the Skills Challenge, but learned that this presented complications in using Tournament Manager to upload event results.
The Event Partner and the team had the best of intentions in this situation, but the REC Foundation wants to ensure that other Event Partners do not experience these same complications. For this reason, the policy has been clarified going forward that teams are required to participate in the Teamwork Challenge matches at all official events, with the exception of those classified as Skills-Only events.