[moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Wow! Time flies! One week… and counting!

In order to help facilitate the Driver’s Meeting on Thursday at the Championship, the Head Refs are wondering: what is still on your minds? Teams asking questions now will help us build the answers into our Driver’s Meeting presentation.

Here is how this will work… PLEASE obey these requests…

1) What you may post here are questions EXACTLY as you would ask them if the microphone was handed to you on Thursday – i.e. short and sweet. (The intent here is to keep the questions focused, so we can actually answer them.)

2) No questions will be answered here on Chief Delphi – all answers will be incorporated into the presentation at the Driver’s Meeting. (The intent here is to let us know what is on your minds ahead of time so as to help shorten the Q&A at the Driver’s Meeting -- that way we can think it out, talk it out, and have a consolidated answer for you Thursday.)

3) This is a special forum. You can post to it, but those posts will be moderated (meaning they will not be seen publicly until approved). (There will not be any censorship of legitimate questions – the intent is to filter out nonsense, attempted answers by others, or posts that don’t follow theses rules.)

4) We will take our last look at these questions at 9pm on Monday, at which time the forum will be closed. (We need sleep sometime this week!)

Go Teams!!! Travel Safely!!! We’ll see you on Thursday!


Yours truly,

The Head Ref Team :)

Re: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Will you still be calling a double DQ if one robot pushes another robot deep into a lower goals? If so, does the match simply get replayed when this happens in the eliminations?

Re: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Will "high-speed chasing" in autonomous (or "blind ramming", depending on what side you're on) be called as ramming or normal game play contact?

Lots of different calls throughout the season on this one!

Re: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Assume that the scoring system malfunctions during autonomous mode, and as a result, the offensive and defensive alliances are inverted for the first period. Provided that an on-field official (e.g. referee or scorekeeper) notices the discrepancy, will this match always, sometimes, or never be replayed as per <T11>?

If "sometimes" or "never", will referees choose to overlook such a field fault that affects "the play of the game", if the team which won autonomous mode is the eventual winner of the match?

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Rule G22 specifically addresses Intentional Robot-Robot Interaction, and highlights the use of bumpers. "Contact out of the bumper zone is generally not acceptable, and the offending robot will be assessed a 5-point penalty, and may be disqualified from the match if the offense is particularly egregious or if it results in substantial damage to another robot."

At the regionals I attended and watched, there was more than enough contact outside of the bumper zone, with many defensive robots actually climbing over or on top of the offensive robots. Examples of this do not include "incidental contact." Of the matches I saw, no penalties were called.

How will this rule be called at the Championship event? Also, will teams that have been damaged by such intentional robot-robot interaction be given a "time-out" to fix or repair any damages incured? (During eliminations only...)

Thank you.

BEN

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

The rulebook has this to say on pinning:
In regionals I've seen pinning called multiple ways, including having a robot pinned into the side of the ramp and not having that called. Unless my interpretation of the rule is wrong, that should've been called as pinning since the robot was not "ENTIRELY ON THE ALLIANCE PLATFORM." I just wanted to verify how this rule would be called in the Championship.

Thanks,

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Will drivers be able to step up to their controls as soon as the clock hits zero, or do they need to wait until the buzzer sounds at the end of auto mode?

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Are human players allowed to begin throwing balls as the timer hits zero for autonomous, or do they have to wait until the buzzer?

Also, what constitutes "high speed long distance ramming?" Will robots be required to visibly slow down prior to hitting another robot, or how will it be called?

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

If a robot is at a near tipping point (45 degree angle or so), and an opposing robot pushes it, will there be a penalty on that even though it only required a small nudge?
also, if a robot of the same alliance as the one about to be tipped nudges the tipping robot (or even rams into it), and that robot tips over, will there be a penalty for that alliance?

same question for robots halfway up the ramp.

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

At the Western Michigan Regional one of the referees began counting upon initial contact when 2 robots came together. I think the ref was using the moment of initial contact as the start time for the pinning rule. This ref was counting alot, and very often, as you can imiagine, BUT - I was wondering WHEN DOES pinning actually begin and will ALL referees be using that same criteria??

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

At the Israeli regional if a penalty was made and I (the coach) had to appeal it, there was very litlle time for the head ref to listen to me, since he was the only one I could approach and he had about 20-30 free seconds between each match
will the be the same at the championship?

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Prior to the start of the match, is an alliance allowed to move all, or some (more than half) of their balls not being used on the field for autonomous, to one side or another in the human player bins?

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

This question goes along with Raul’s, and assumes that the human count will be used as the official score instead of the real-time scoring, as it was at many regionals.

What is the reasoning behind disqualifying a robot that intrudes into the low goal when the count it may have influenced would not even matter? The robot would have to poke a long way (more than a foot) into the goal for it to be a safety hazard, which is already covered by <S01>

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

This years robots are very fragile with the cameras and turrets, and prone to tipping over. If a robot is tipped over and is hit by another robot causing damage or not. Will the team that hit the tipped over robot be DQ'ed or penalized per G22?

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Is it still legal for a robot to pin another robot on the ramp for any length of time because at a regional a robot pinned us on top of the ramp for half of the whole match and they did not get any penalties.

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Is it illegal for some robots to get underneath a robot that is trying to get on the ramp and flip them over becasue I have seen this done a couple of times and no penilties were given.

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

If you push a robot that is on the ramp, and than tips over because of falling down the slope, will you be penalized?

Tomasz Bania

Re: [moderated]: Ask the Championship Head Refs now!
 

Thanks! We'll see y'all Thursday!

The Head Ref Crew :)