I feel that I should clarify that this post is written by someone with only V5RC experience, and therefore mainly refer to things in a V5RC context.
In my opinion, G4 and G5 are too vague. While the GDC updated these rules last year, they are still unclear, causing disagreements in the community. I would like to know what you think should be illegal. The following polls will provide scenarios that fall under the jurisdiction of unclear rules, and each poll will contain scenarios ranging in order from explicitly legal to explicitly illegal.
To correctly take these polls, please select the first option that you believe should be illegal, and should be a competition or season DQ for 1 or multiple teams involved.
The following poll refers to G4bii.
- Team A and Team B build different robots (Legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B uses 1 mechanism from Team A’s robot, but designs it without using Team A’s bot as a reference (legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B uses every mechanism from Team A’s robot, but designs their bot without using Team A’s bot as a reference (legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B uses 1 mechanism from Team A’s robot, and designs it using Team A’s bot as a reference. The mechanisms are completely different (legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B uses every mechanism from Team A’s robot, and designs their bot using Team A’s bot as a reference. The robots are completely different (legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B exactly copies 1 mechanism from Team A’s robot, but modifies it to add additional functionality. The mechanisms are not identical (legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B exactly copies Team A’s robot, but adds another mechanism to introduce additional functionality. The robots are not identical (legal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B exactly copies 1 mechanism from Team A’s robot, but changes it superfluously in a way that adds no additional functionality. The mechanisms are not identical (illegal, but could be argued depending on the debate skill of Team B’s members)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B exactly copies Team A’s robot, but changes it superfluously in a way that adds no additional functionality. The robots are not identical (illegal, but could be argued depending on the debate skill of Team B’s members)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B exactly copies 1 mechanism from Team A’s robot. The mechanisms are identical (illegal)
- Team A builds an original robot. Team B exactly copies Team A’s robot. The robots are identical (illegal)
The following poll is in regards to collaboration. it refers to G5.
- Team A and Team B build different robots without interacting with each other (legal)
- Team A and Team B build different robots, but share ideas for 1 mechanism, which they then design separately. The mechanisms are not identical (legal)
- Team A and Team B share ideas for a robot and all of its mechanisms, which they then design separately. The robots are not identical (legal)
- Team A and Team B codesign 1 mechanism, which they then build and tune separately. The mechanisms are not identical, as a result of different tuning (debatable either way)
- Team A and Team B codesign a robot, which they then build and tune separately. The robots are not identical, as a result of different tuning (debatable either way)
- Team A and Team B build different robots, but codesign 1 mechanism, which they each make superfluous changes to. The mechanisms are not identical (debatable either way)
- Team A and Team B codesign a robot, which they each make superfluous changes to. The robots are not identical (debatable either way)
- Team A and Team B codesign a mechanism. The mechanisms are built and tuned separately, but end up identical (illegal)
- Team A and Team B codesign a robot. They are built and tuned separately, but end up identical (illegal)
- Team A and Team B work together on the same design for each other’s teams. The designs are identical (Illegal)
If you have any more ideas for polls based on other issues, please put them in the replies. I would love to have included a poll regarding programming, but I don’t know enough about coding to do so. If you have any opinions on this or feel that there is nuance that I didn’t include in the polls, please reply accordingly.