So my team was in a match a few months ago and one of our partners in a match threw the match. The other team grabbed our bot and wouldn’t let go. The REC lady said that she didn’t know of any rules on the matter. Is there any kind of ruling on this topic yet, or no?
## The Referee should have called this out for un-sportsman like behavior I hate to see this happen in vex; your team has worked hard to build a robot and even paid +100$ for registration all of that value goes to waste by a team who plays unfairly and is greedy.
It is a little bit of help.
<G17> All teams are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and professional manner while
competing in VEX Robotics Competition events. If a team or any of its members (students or any
adults associated with the team) are disrespectful or uncivil to event staff, volunteers or fellow
competitors, they may be Disqualified from a current or upcoming Match. It is important to remember
that we are all judged based on how we deal with adversity. It is important that we all exhibit maturity
and class when dealing with any difficult situations that may present themselves in both the VEX
Robotics Competition and our lives in general.
Dylan beat me to it but It seems that these circumstances are the flavor of the month for March. Let’s hope that it is not for April. That being said, i might respectfully disagree with anyone who says there is not a rule. Karthik is correct that there is no rule against entanglement of a partner but that is not the issue here and <G17> requires that “All teams are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and professional manner while competing in VEX Robotics Competition events”.
This falls under the following rule:
<G12> Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, disruption of Hanging, or Entanglement of Robots are not part of the ethos of the VEX Robotics Competition and are not allowed. However, VEX Starstruck is an interactive game. Some incidental tipping, Entanglement, and damage may occur as a part of normal game play. If the tipping, Entanglement, or damage is ruled to be intentional or egregious, the offending team may be disqualified from that Match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being Disqualified from the remainder of the competition.
Notice the rule does NOT specify that the entanglement be with an opposing robot. Therefore, as a referee, I would have the discretion to disqualify the offending team and by the following rule:
***<G17> All teams are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and professional manner while competing in VEX Robotics Competition events. If a team or any of its members (students or any adults associated with the team) are disrespectful or uncivil to event staff, volunteers or fellow competitors, they may be Disqualified from a current or upcoming Match. It is important to remember that we are all judged based on how we deal with adversity. It is important that we all exhibit maturity and class when dealing with any difficult situations that may present themselves in both the VEX Robotics Competition and our lives in general.***, this action would, in my opinion, be an action disrespectful to a fellow competitor. Given the double violations, I would, again in my opinion, seriously consider disqualifying the offending team from the event.
Throwing matches, to me, is an extreme form of disrespect to your fellow competitors, who have every right to expect that their alliance partner play the game to the best of their ability.
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-tether-bot-question/39409/1
I don’t disagree with <G17>, but <G12> doesn’t apply.
In this case, we will have to agree to disagree, as i do think that <G12> applies as it pertains to applying <G17>, in this case, if in fact the match went as the OP described.
iBUYPOWER much?
This is seriously messed up, I’m not sure why your RECF rep or EP didn’t do anything. Again, rule <G12> probably applies here, and <G17> if they did any damage to you. It sucks to see that people will throw the match, teams like that should definitely be disqualified from competition. Plus, if they don’t want to play well, why even show up?
I’ve deleted a post for being inappropriate, and 3 others that resulted from it.
Guys thanks for the imput!!!
The problem with this is what do you do to the offending team? DQ them from the match? Well they were trying to loose the match in the first place and that doesn’t help their poor partner. DQ them from the tournament on the spot? That seems a bit harsh since there would be no warning involved and still doesn’t hep the partner and can’t be used effectively as a deterrent until later tournaments. Warn the team and DQ them from the tournament if they do it again? This is perhaps the best option, but the offending team probably only needed to grab their partner in one match anyway.
Unfortunately I think this is a lose-lose situation.
There wouldn’t be much point to qualification rankings then
I think there should be a rule on throwing that goes something like this:
Any teams that intentionally lose the match or cause their alliance partner to lose with them will be DQ’d from the event.
I think throwing would be pretty hard to see though. In some instances like this, the team obviously threw the match. There is almost no way that your robot can accidentally grab on to another robot the whole match Without the team doing something. Then again, there are other ways to throw, like you could intentionally get stuck in the fence/remove your vexnet key or any other number of methods. That said, a rule like this would provide more incentive to actually play. Perhaps it might be removal from all events within a certain time period. I know that in other sports, such as CSGO eSports for example, team iBUYPOWER intentionally three the match to win a huge bet. Ignoringthe bet, throwing is still throwing, and the offending members of iBUYPOWER were permanently removed from the sport.
tl;dr there needs to be a rule that prohibits and punishes teams that thorw.
I can think of ways to be discreet about throwing a match, like pretending to overdo SPs or “burn out” in an unfavorable position. Even if you could tell every time, what are the repercussions to doing something like this? As @Highwayman pointed out pretty much all punishments result in a lose-lose situation.
Hypothetically if they could tell every time, maybe a team caught throwing could be barred from being a second pick during alliance selections. This would not completely eliminate them from the tournament but the main reason to throw is to stay out of the 12-24 ranks. Someone in that position is unlikely to be a first pick for the top alliances but may be picked first on the 7th or 8th alliance. The idea of throwing being that the 7th or 8th alliance would bypass them, allowing them to be a second pick for the top alliances. Now if they were unable to be a second pick, it would negate any advantage of throwing and dropping in the rankings.
An alternative reason someone may throw a match is to directly effect the top two alliances. If the only thing standing between the second place team and the first place spot is one win, then if a team friendly to them got partnered with the top ranked team, this could happen.
I do think it is too difficult to police, but VEX has an armload of uninforcible rules, so that wouldn’t be new. In general, i think changing the structure of the game so that there are less potential benefits to anyone throwing a match would be better than adding a specific rule for it, but that would involve changes that i know VEX is unlikely to make.
This would be very hard for EPs to manage during an event. I think they should have some system to manage unsportsmanlike conduct throughout the season. Teams that have multiple infractions could be barred from regional events and worlds. This should be handled on a system wife basis, and the consequences should be outlined in the qualifying criteria. However, teams could just sign up under another team, though.
I had an IQ event during bank shot where one team had done horribly all day and for their last match they just started attacking the other robot. It was their last event, and there is really nothing that the vex system can do about that.
As the EP I reached out to their coach and to the principal at their school to let them know exactly what happened. For teams affiliated with schools this is a great way to go, but it has to be handled locally.
So, I do what I can. As teams are not “tied” to the students themselves, it is up to each coach to make sure their teams are behaving themselves, and to make sure their behavior improves in the future if need be.
As a coach I also had teams write letters of apology to refs, and they have come to class with their robots missing… With the promise that it will return once their station is not a mess.
You gotta do what you gotta do, and asking the REC foundation to take care of this is like asking teachers write a lesson plan for each individual student. They have thousands of teams and limited time.
As long as Throwing a match will benefit someone it will continue to happen. It would nearly impossible to police any rule to discourage this.
And they could just open a new plate number, are you going to ban entire organizations?
It’s part of the game. its unfortunate, but when a system is developed that benefits this behavior the only way to discontinue it would be to change the system.