Ultra-High-Hang

VEX V5 General Discussion General Forum
21

What rule are you using to support this? From my read of the rules it is just the opposite. Specifically, look at rule <SG5>:

[INDENT]<SG5> VEX Round Up is a highly interactive game. Contact, ramming and tipping is especially likely to
occur on the ladder as part of normal game play. Robots should be designed accordingly as these
interactions on the ladder would not fall under <G11>. However, intentional entanglement is still not
permitted on the ladder.[/INDENT]

Here is <G11>:

[INDENT]<G11> Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or entanglement of robots are
not in the spirit of the VEX Competition and are not allowed. However, VEX Round Up 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, the offending team may be disqualified
from that match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being disqualified from the remainder of the
competition.
[/INDENT]

The way I read these rules together is that anything but intentional entanglement is allowed on the ladder. As long as you can get another robot down without being entangled I think it would be legal.

Jay

22

I think any attempt at dehooking a robot from the ladder will be seen as intentional entanglement as long as the robot isn’t hanging “by a thread” / precariously.

My two cents.

23

Since <SG5> specifically mentions ramming and tipping on the ladder I would have to disagree.

I’m not saying that I would personally condone this. I think it would be difficult to do without getting entangled and could be very dangerous for your own robot since you may have another robot falling onto yours.

I expect the same “gracious professionalism” from my VEX students that I expect from my FRC students and I think do something that has a high likelyhood of damaging another robot falls outside this tenet.

My point is that the way the rules are written I think it would be legal if done correctly.

Jay

24

I am tossing in my two cents.

In the manual it defines entanglement as “A robot is considered to have entangled an opposing robot if it has grabbed or hooked
the opponent robot.”
Rule <SG5>, VEX Round Up is a highly interactive game. Contact, ramming and tipping is especially likely to occur on the ladder as part of normal game play. Robots should be designed accordingly as these interactions on the ladder would not fall under <G11>. However, intentional entanglement is still not
permitted on the ladder, does state that intentional entanglement is not allowed. This would means that the robot is not allowed to grab onto another robot to take it off of the ladder.

25

It is legal to touch a robot that is hanging; see this Q&A.

26

:open_mouth:
here is a video of team 1103 being pushed off a high hang!
luckily the robot didnt break too badly

at 2:00

27

I think this might become really common that teams will intentionally “dehang” a team and destroy their robot, As they might be DQ or kicked out of the compositions, the teams who was dehung is left with a broken robot that wont be able to do anything for the remainder of the competition

28

At a competition that our team held, the AAI Classic, after recurring incidents of an opposing alliance robots impeding our robots hanging by positioning their device on our chasis (more specifically, the micro controller, which led to us losing coms), there was an update to the rules that specified that once a robot is off the ground, any attempts to impede its progress up the ladder or to pull it down are ruled as intentional entanglement:

<SG5>…However, intentional entanglement is still not permitted on the ladder.

29

Are you talking about an update to the rules for that one competition? What you are saying does not match with the answer yesterday from Karthik in the official Q&A.

Jay

30

I normally don’t comment on rules issues/questions outside of the Q&A, but I feel it necessary in this case to end this confusion.

This is not true. There is no rule to back this position up, and multiple Q&A’s have been issued to counter this position. This one in particular makes it very clear.

There was no official update of the rules that matches what you say here. Perhaps local officials chose to interpret the rules this way, but this is not the way the rules were intended to be enforced, nor will they be enforced this way at the VEX Robotics World Championship in April.

31

See this thread in Official Q&A: https://vexforum.com/t/answered-pushing-down-on-hanging-robots/17972/1

gabrielse, our mentor, asked that question in the context of a robot on the opposing alliance purposefully preventing us from climbing up the ladder after we lifted ourselves off the ground.

32

Please read the below quoted answer thoroughly.

You stated that you believe that robots cannot be touched once they are off the ground. You also stated “once a robot is off the ground, any attempts to impede its progress up the ladder or to pull it down are ruled as intentional entanglement” These statements are not true and directly contradict both the game manual and the Q&A.

In the above linked Q&A it was clearly stated that <G11> should not be invoked for minor contact. There is quite a large difference between intentionally pushing down on a robot, and “any attempt to impede its progress up the ladder”. Contact and attempts to impede hanging robots while off the ground are legal expected. Intentionally entangling robots is not permitted. Egregious pushing down on a hanging robot may be considered entanglement.

33

Was the robot which pushed 1103’s robot off the ladder legal in so doing? From the ans. I see above it was. I, like many others I guess, thought that would be illegal. Just looking for some final clarification.

34

It’s always hard to comment on the legality of actions when reviewing them on video. That being said, it appears to have been fully within the rules.

I’m now going to exit this thread. For any official rules clarifications, please be sure to ask them in our official VEX Round Up Q&A forum. This ensures that these answers are easily accessible to all teams.

35

“fully within the rules”,

I have a lot of respect for you Karithik, but you can’t be serious dude.

I will be a referee for the NZ national champs and will not tolerate this behavior in any way, shape or form.

Here is my review on this video:

Team 1103 have made an awesome robot that can hang effectively. It truly deserves the extra 20 points for the engineering achievement of hanging on the ladder. The other team was NOT competing for the ladder and had no reason to even be near it (other than to take 1103 out). What they did was simply disgusting and an absolute violation of <G11>.

As far as I am concerned. If **BOTH **teams have the ability to climb the ladder, then <SG5> comes into place and some contact may occur (it is not a free pass to bash other robot). If the other robot beats you up there, then good on them, they deserve it more than you do. You should IMMEDIATELY change your strategy and score/descore rings, or go round to the other side of the ladder if it is free.

A “De-hanging” strategy is simply disgraceful to the game, and very disrespectful to the opposition. There is no skill involved in this strategy, not to mention the damage it will cause to the robots in the competition.

I will personally NEVER try to do this at the College Worlds this year, and do not expect any of the other Kiwi teams to even think about “De-hanging” another robot.

NOTE TO ALL KIWI TEAMS: This sort of behavior will result in an instant DSQ from the match or the entire competition at the nationals in March.

My general philosophy when refereeing the games is to use common sense, not trying to find loop holes in the rules to exploit. I am an engineer not a lawyer.

I will post a long topic after work to clarify my decision process when refereeing a match so all the NZ teams know what to expect at nationals.

Marty ~ Team aMEss, Massey University, New Zealand

36

It sounds to me that, as a referee, you are refusing to apply a rule that Karthik (and therefore the GDC) has issued a clear interpretation for. Doesn’t that mean that you are no longer playing VEX Round Up? Aren’t you playing “Marty’s variation of VEX Round Up”? More interesting would be to know if an event can lose its status as a qualifier for events such as worlds if the referees refuse to apply the rules and interpretations issued by the GDC. Hmmm…

37

Yes, he can.
Not to be contrary, but…

(Emphasis mine.)

Karthik has spoken. By G16, his word is law. The Q&A is not just something you can treat like, “Oh, I disagree with this, so I’m not going to follow this rule.” Treat the GDC just like the Supreme Court: their ruling stands and will stand until they say otherwise.

If you don’t like the ruling, go ahead and ask them to change it in the Q&A forum.

38

So what you’re saying is “I like one team’s strategy better than another, even though a member of the GDC said both were legal, so I’m going to ignore the GDC”.

39

I thought I should add to this that the robot that pushed me off the ladder was actually my alliance partner. They didn’t do this intentionally. Apparently there robot reset during the match which triggered there autonomous run. They had no control of there robot and unluckily it was sparked right beneath me.

In the past there have been instances where people have tried to (legally) remove me from the ladder. This is the first time it ever worked though. The fact that it was a very high torque lift that was pushing on me and the fact that a piece of metal was bent from a previous match contributed to this. We ended up winning that match anyway (I was 12-0 that day) so it was all good.

All the same, I am making some modifications to insure that this won’t happen again.

40

We ARE playing Round Up, not Robot Wars. And it is not just me that has this mentality, it is how we have always played in NZ.

I have Free Range Robotics (current world champs) sitting right next to me and they fully agree, they are also disgusted with this ruling.