Here are two photos of stacked risers.
Here, the center of gravity of the second riser is not on top of the riser in the goal.
And in this second photo, the center hole on the second riser is on top of the scored bottom riser. Pulling out the riser to the left would shift the stack varying amounts making it an unreliable test.
What would be the guidelines for scoring when a riser is on top of two others? Which of these examples count?
Stacked Riser - A Riser status. A Riser is considered a Stacked Riser if it meets the following
criteria at the end of the Match.
Seems like it should be okay as long as it’s contacting that riser within the goal.
Meaning that both examples would count?
Q&A INTENSIFIES
https://www.robotevents.com/VIQC/2020-2021/QA/
If you want reliable and confirmable answers, ask on the Q&A.
As @PenguinHasAGun pointed out in the excerpt from the game manual, which is the only source of rules (combined with the Q&A), there is a very specific criteria for the definition of “stacked.” There are two requirements listed, no more, no less. In the two photographs of the original post, it appears that both of the criteria of the game manual are met; therefore, the risers count as “stacked” in both examples. As a referee, the only test I might do for the “upper picture” would be to test the stack with a piece of paper to ensure the stacked riser is actually contacting the base riser.
We must be very careful to apply the rules as they are written in the game manual (and the official Q&A), without adding new rules or extra criteria based on our opinion of what the rules should be.
I understand that you are new to the vex forum, but please read the forum guidelines before you start posting.
Posts like this one are considered bump posts, as they don’t really add anything to the topic, and just send it to the top of the list of threads.
This doesn’t really add any information.
This is all OK, as long as you learn from your mistakes! 
Thanks for letting me know why I was flagged I was scared I said something offensive accidentally.
I know I am reviving this topic, but I had a question about if certain scenarios would count, and I didn’t want to create a duplicate topic. From the photos below, I would like to know which ones count and which ones don’t. I understand the game manual definition of a scored riser, but it doesn’t give anything on broken risers. Also, I am pretty sure that d. does not count, but I just wanted to confirm. Thanks!
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Ooh! Nice ones! I got some too…
(I know I said we should ask on the q&a, so I’m gonna take a look at that after I post them here)
I don’t think c. would work because the manual says that all octagonal sides must be parallel. I’m not sure though.
It would be helpful if the pictures and the question above be asked on the official vex Q&A site. I would like to know if the examples above are considered a stack.
No Q&A entry needed, @kmmohn explained things above:
(ETA: you replied to post #1 so I assumed you meant the pictures in that post. The broken riser pictures are a bit more ambiguous)
I applied the rule stated in the manual very carefully, the rule of what is and isn’t a stacked riser:
Stacked Riser - A Riser status. A Riser is considered a Stacked Riser if it meets the following
criteria at the end of the Match.
- The octagonal faces are parallel with the Floor, i.e. the Riser is upright.
- The bottom octagonal face is contacting the top octagonal face of a Base Riser or a Stacked Riser. For the purposes of this definition, “top” refers to the octagonal face furthest from the Floor, and “bottom” refers to the octagonal face closest to the Floor.
Just for reference, I have had all of these things happen during practice, so I’m not asking questions about things that would never happen.
From my pictures above I concluded that,
a. would count because all of the octagonal faces are about parallel with the floor (the intent of this rule is to make sure that the riser is upright, as indicated when the game manual says “i.e. the Riser is upright.”)
b. would count because when comparing it to the criteria of a stacked riser, it meets all of the points listed.
c. would probably not count, as one of the octagonal faces is not parallel with the floor, but because the intent of this rule is to make sure that the riser is upright, as indicated when the game manual says “i.e. the Riser is upright,” it very well could be a ref’s call.
d. The criteria for a scored base riser is,
Base Riser - A Riser status. A Riser is considered a Base Riser if it meets the following criteria at
the end of the Match.
- Contacting the Floor within the Goal.
- The octagonal faces are parallel with the Floor, i.e. the Riser is upright and not sitting on top
of the VEX IQ elements surrounding the base of the Goal.- Not contacting the Floor outside of the Goal.
Considering this definition and that the intent of this rule is to make sure that “i.e. the Riser is upright and not sitting on top of the VEX IQ elements surrounding the base of the Goal,” I would be inclined to say that this is a ref’s call, but if I was the ref, I would count it as scored.
e. would be scored as all the scoring criteria is met.
f. would probably not count, as one of the octagonal faces is not parallel with the floor, and because one of the octagonal faces is still contacting the robot, the robot is still contacting the game piece, making it not scored. But, if one did a robot reset, removed the plate from the field, and reset the robot, it would be scored as it meets all the criteria I think (someone please correct me if I am wrong). If someone did not do a robot reset, I could see a ref ruling either way, and I’d probably rule it scored for a qual match, since they did the work for scoring the riser (assuming that they did), and the point of the rules is not to lose teams a boatload of points for something like this. For a finals match though, I’d probably be on the fence, and talk to other refs.
These are my thoughts on whether or not the risers in the photos above are scored. I would like to hear others’ thoughts on this as well. Thanks for reading.