So at an event in the quarter finals, an alliance was dq’d for breaking a intake motor. The alliance that broke the intake motor simply drove into their intake conveyor, the chain snapped, and the intake motor casing separated. The intake motor was held together by rubber bands instead of screws, and the casing broke. The end result in the match score was a difference of 10 points, with the team that was dq’d coming out on top, however that team was dq’d. Was this a fair dq? The team then fixed the motor in 30 seconds after the match.
Please note that this was not on purpose and the alliance that one had already qualified for states through a past competition
I dont think that was a fair DQ. If the other team didn’t take the time to use screws on their motor, then it’s on them if it pops off. If it wasnt on purpose, then nothing should happen, and the team should have won.
So the real question is, since the motor was held together by rubber bands, does that make it more prone to braking. I can tell you that if the motors were screwed together it would not have broken
So then this was a G12 violation which is up to the digression of the Head Referee. I do not want to argue for either side but would like to say that its after the fact and in the future this issue should have been brought up with the Head Referee.
EDIT: took out the < on either side of the G12 as it turned it into a comment
Hey, we were the offending robot in question. The rule used was G12. EDT: I made an edit to the original comment but it somehow was registered as a new post…
Using zip ties to close motor cases is a fairly common practice, and I believe had an affirmative ruling in years past as an acceptable modification of a vex electronic component.
Rubber band as a case closure is obviously a bad idea, and imo should not have passed inspection under R21. The bot was not also prepared to handle defensive play as described in G12.
Hard to rule an the DQ without all the context, but that rubber band use seems illegal to me.
Nothing can be changed after the fact, but this ruling was not warranted.
Chains breaking is part of the game. Chain breaks are one of the challenges that competitors must overcome to be consistent. As it stands there are a number of ways to avoid chain breaking that work quite well, such as triple chain, geared (China, or “Chinamerican” style), or even treads zip tied to surgical tubing to hold things together. If a robot hits you without intentionally targeting your chain, and it breaks, this is incidental and the opposing robot should not be liable to be dq’d.
This part, the refs agreed with.
Although, as contact was made, not only did the chain snap, but the motor casings of both intake rollers came open disabling the intake.
To call this match effecting is highly debatable as a broken intake chain generally renders your bot useless anyway, but I guess you could say it’s possible to score towers with 1 chain so the match might have been effected.
However, even if the break was match effecting, the motors coming loose should never have been blamed on the opposing robot. Contact was never made with the physical motors, just the outside of the robot, so holding the opponent responsible for motor damage was egregious. This, coupled with the fact that the motors were haphazardly held together not by screws, or even zip ties, but a couple rubber bands, leaves all the blame of the motor malfunctions on the robot running them. In this case, a design flaw was magically spun into an opportunity to advance to semi’s.
This is one of the worst cases of reffing I’ve observed in my 6 years of vex, and @4610H-Allen all I’ll say is you’re certainly lucky josh (Our regular head ref) was preoccupied. Most events have higher standards.
Edit: rubber bands also simply aren’t a legal method of holding motors together. Modifying electronic components is a illegal until q and a proven legal sort of thing. Zip ties are proven legal, but bands simply are not, and shouldn’t have passed inspection. They could pass if the bands were claimed to be nonfunctional decoration but then running motors with nothing functionally holding them together seems to point liability at the team leaving their electronics inappropriately attached, not any random team who hits them in match.