VEXU Change Up Legality of having separate robots for Driver and Programming Skills

VEX V5 Robotics Competition VRC > Change Up (20/21)
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Because of the pandemic, our team has operated out of two separate locations, and we created two separate robots for doing driver skills and programming skills. We believed this to be legal due to the wording of VUG1:

<VUG1> Instead of a 2-Team Alliance format, VEX U Matches will be played 1-Team vs. 1-Team. Each Team will use two (2) Robots in each Match.

  • a. Teams are allowed to build as many Robots as they would like, but only two (2) – one of each size – may be brought from the pit to the playing field for any Match.
  • b. All Robots must pass inspection before they are allowed to compete.

However, in the week leading up to our final skills tournament tomorrow, we recieved an email saying that they will only inspect 1 robot, and cited rule VURS1:

<VURS1> VEX U Teams are only permitted to use one (1) 15” x 15” x 15” Robot, i.e. Robot B as defined by <VUR1>.

This rule references <VUR1>, which is:

<VUR1> Teams must build two (2) Robots, subject to the following size restrictions at the start of the Match:

  • a. Robot A must be smaller than 24” x 24” x 24”.
  • b. Robot B must be smaller than 15” x 15” x 15”.

We emailed back about the legality of having separate robots for prog and driver, and their response was that if it was legal they would allow it, which is not a very comforting response.

Previously, <VURS1> had permitted for both Robots A and B to be used in a skills match, and was updated to only allow Robot B in the May 25th Game Manual Update, which we believe to be the reason why it emphasizes “only 1 robot”, as opposed to having 2 robots running at the same time. <VUG1> explicitly states that having extra robots is allowed, but that only 1 of each size is allowed per match, so would it not make sense that that ruling applies to skills matches as well, and that you’re only allowed one 15" in a skills match?

Unfortunately, the Official QnA is closed, (and a response probably wouldn’t arrive in time if it was), so the best I can do is ask here, and ask for further evidence so that if the refs interpret it as illegal, we can prove to them that this is legal. The refs at a previous tournament didn’t have an issue with this so we thought it’d be fine, and I haven’t done enough driver practice with the programming skills bot to just run it as the sole robot.

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I’ve been reading the new season’s Appendix C…so it took me a minute to realize you were looking at last season’s game. (new season, back to two bots for skills).

My opinion, you can build as many of each robot you want, just like the manual says, but only bring “one of each size” to the playing field. Since skills is a “playing field”, you could bring any one of each size robot to the playing field, however, of course, you wouldn’t use the larger one for skills. It should not matter if it is skills or a 1v1 match. I would think the email you received is misinterpreting VURS1. My reading of VURS1 is that you can build a dozen 15" bots if you want, but bring only one 15" bot to the skills field at a time.

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Updated title to clear up which season it is :+1:

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There’s always the possibility that every robot you bring to the event could meet The 15-in bot criteria. University of Toledo did that during their first year at our U event: two identical bots that both met the 15 inch cube. Because of a situation like this, it makes no sense to refuse to inspect every robot you might want to compete with by saying they will only inspect one of each size.

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This tournament is a remote skills tourney so they don’t need to worry about any 15" bots being used as a 24", otherwise yeah it wouldn’t make sense at all to not inspect more robots.

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Yeah this is definitely legal, VUG1a should be the only thing you need to show that:

(emphasis mine)

Incidentally, a couple of teams did this at our LRS VEXU event back in February:

The teams using different robots for driver and programming were VCAT (starting at 46:54) and UNLVU (starting at 57:20)

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VUG1 seems to pretty explicitly allow more than two robots in a tournament setting

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