[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by RyanMcE

Please take a look at this video. My question is, if this isn't purposeful entanglement, what is? Clearly, 469 took their hook into 93's basket and got it stuck. Even the announcer noticed the clear entanglement and talked about it. Yet no call was made. I noticed that on Galileo at least, very few calls were ever made.

I do not mind agressive play - I think it makes the game much more exciting. But those that play agressively have to accept the onsequences of their actions as well. Pushing is fine, but when you get entangled, your robot should be disqualified. If FIRST wants its referees to be respected, the referees need to respect the rules:

"<G32> Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. Accidental tipping over of a robot is not considered damaging and may be allowed at the discretion of the referees. Intentional stabbing, cutting, etc., is illegal. If a breach of this rule occurs, the team will be disqualified for that match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being disqualified from the remainder of the regional competition and/or championship event."

Admittedly, I am bitter, and my views are biased - so let me know if you think 469 should have been disqualified in this situation. ...

I just watched the match. I guess you clearly saw a different match than I did. 469 put their ball grabber in 93's basket in an attempt to block all of the balls from falling into it. This was OBVIOUS. Yes, they became tangled, but it clearly wasn't intentional. In fact, I thought 469 did a very gracious thing: in the fight to become untangled, 93 flipped in its side. All 469 had to do was take their hands off their controls and they would have won the match (because 93 could not do anything). Instead, 469 drove forward, righting 93 and putting them on their feet again.

Their strategy was clearly not to intentionally damage, entangle, or tip 93. If you were at the Great Lakes Regional and saw when 67 put a ball in 1241's hopper before the balls fell, you would have clearly recognized the strategy. 469 didn't have a ball to put in 93's hopper, so they used their big claw instead. It's unfortunate that it got tangled. (As a note, in past year's 93 could have been subjet to a DQ since netting was considered an entaglement hazard, so you can argue on either side.)

Now for the next case study: Galileo Semifinal 1.1. Once again, going up against 469, and one again their agressive play takes out one of our robots. I didn't actaully see it happen (and the video fails to show exactly what happened), but I think it was a legitimate takedown (ie, unplanned, if not unintentional). ...

Wow... talk about seeing the world thought filtered lenses. It appeared to me that 93 was the aggressor on this play. 469 was trying to hold the moveable goal under the ball dump and 93 was trying to push them out of the way. It simply looks like they flipped over during the battle for position under to ball dump. Anyway, it seemed clear to me that 469 was there first and that 93 initiated the contact. Furthermore, BOTH robots flipped over (not just 93). 469 was just able to re-right themselves.

...Furthermore, in that match, 469 destroyed one of the poles of a mobile goal. Please refer to rule <G25>: "If ROBOTS intentionally tip over any Mobile Goal or damage the poles of a Mobile or Stationary Goal, that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified." ...

Once again, the lenses are filtering pretty heavy. Did you notice during the video that when 93 flipped, 469 flipped as well? Also, did you notice that 469 flipped INTO to movable goal? It seems that flipping into the movable broke the pole. Do you really think that they flipped INTENTIONALLY into the goal so they could break a pole?

However, after the match (which ended with our alliance loosing by 5 points), I asked the referees if our oponents had any penalties, and was told that the oposing alliance had a 10 point penalty deducted. I was then amazed by the score, because that meant that they had scored nine (9!) balls, which was more than I thought they had. Well, after reviewing the video, the oposing alliance looks like they have only seven (7!) balls, plus the hanger, minus the 10 point penalty. This comes to 75 points to our 80. But instead, the reported score was 85 points to our 80. The penalty WAS NOT ASSESSED and the result of the match changed. ...

This is legitimate gripe. However, you should have asked the refs this before leaving the playing field. Perhaps the one referee you talked to was not informed correctly. Either way, complaining about it here isn't the right thing to do. You have recourse within the rules, but once you leave the playing field, the results are final. If you did not pursure your recourse within the structure of the rules, that is your team's fault - don't complain about it here.

Depending on how you read the rule, 469 should ahve been disabled for breaking the mobile goal, and perhaps even disqualified for their continuous agressive behavior. But once again, no call was made.

There is no rule DQ'ing a team for "continuous aggressive behavior." If they break one of the rules you mention, they would have been DQ'ed. When I watch the video, it appears pretty clear that none of their "infractions" were intentional.