Minibot's triggering targets?

[Ted Weisse]

As I was watching a few matches today I noticed many minibots being awarded wins while the lights on the towers remained racing and not "triggered" to indicate finishing place.

<G02> The AUTONOMOUS PERIOD ends when the ARENA timer displays zero seconds. The MATCH ends if all TOWERS are TRIGGERED or when the ARENA timer displays zero seconds, whichever comes first.

During the AUTONOMOUS PERIOD, the BASES will be illuminated in yellow. During the TELEOPERATED PERIOD, BASES will be illuminated with their ALLiANCE color. At 15 seconds before the end of the MATCH, BASES will flash yellow, while TARGET lights will flash green. At 10 seconds before the end of the MATCH, when HOSTBOTS may DEPLOY their MINIBOT without penalty, BASES will illuminate with the appropriate ALLIANCE color, while TARGET lights will show a green „chase‟ sequence. This chase sequence will continue until a MINIBOT TRIGGERS the TARGET, or time expires, whichever comes first. If a MINIBOT TRIGGERS the TARGET within the set time period, the TARGET light will illuminate to indicate in which place the MINIBOT finished. 1st place will illuminate all four lights to indicate the maximum number of points have been scored. MINIBOTS finishing in subsequent positions will illuminate fewer lights, with the 4th place MINIBOT illuminating one light, to indicate the fewest points scored

And Triggered from Section 1 is defined as:


TRIGGERED – the act of pushing the bottom disk of the TARGET so that the sensors are tripped and a signal is sent to the Field Management System (FMS). When a TARGET is TRIGGERED, the MINIBOT RACE on that TOWER is complete.

Was the system not working so the places needed to be done visually or are the minibots designed wrong so that they don't "trigger" the targets as required?

What did you see at your regional?