New Central Illinois Regional Looking Good!

[BoilerMentor]

Several of you who have said it are right. My frustration is more with the head ref than any particular team. For that, I apologize. I imagine this would be much more heated if it had effected the outcome, but thankfully it didn't.

This is my full explanation of my feelings regarding robots tipping (how I would expect for it to have been called had it been my team being called into question). Also, I've included my thoughts on a few rules that were blatantly ignored in one case in a rude and unprofessional manner by the referees.

Ignoring the intent, when something happens in the course of game play that is advantageous for a specific alliance it has become a strategy. This is a definition I've heard multiple times from different referees/head refs. Obviously the same robot ended up on its back multiple times in different matches, so by that definition, regardless of intent, it became a strategy.

Per G27:

Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not allowed.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL and YELLOW CARD

So at a minimum it should have been a technical foul and a yellow card simply because it happened multiple times, not because of any intent on the part of the drivers/drive team/alliance.

If you consider that robots being tipped gained a strategic advantage for the alliance now playing 3 v 2 it could be considered a strategy on the first offense. In this case it could have been (and I think would have been totally justified) a technical foul and a yellow card the first time it happened. The second would have then been a technical foul and a Yellow Card, causing a DQ with a further Red Card based on G13, because regardless of intent the strategy resulting in repeated instances of robot tipping would be egregious behavior.

I've coached for long enough to know that there is almost always time to avoid tipping an opposing robot in a two robot interaction. The GP thing to do is to back off and let them down. Defense robot to robot in stable configurations on the floor is totally acceptable, but ANYTIME our driver has a robot off of its wheels I immediately advise him to back off and we do. Our robot spent a match on its back and it isn't fun. It isn't the way we want to win either. You guys do what you feel is right and we'll do the same. I certainly don't have any trouble sleeping at night with the way we play.

On G28:

In the course of qualifications on Friday we had a robot come to rest at the completion of a match with its appendage inside of our robot. This caused cosmetic damage to our sponsor panels, but more importantly popped the HDPE trim that the ball rides on through our shooter mechanism off in one area. The referees sitting at the scoring table not only acknowledged the fact that the robot was in contact, but also grinned. No technical foul was called. The head referee claimed he didn't see it, which is ridiculous, considering that the robots came to rest that way. The point of the rule is not to react to damage to robots, but discourage the damage from happening, at least that is our interpretation and the interpretation of the rule I've heard from reliable, knowledgeable sources, so it should have been called if there was even a question of damage. I'm sorry to hear that there were even more serious instances of this being ignored. 1736 built a heck of a robot. The only drivetrain we really ever struggled to control in defensive interactions in the course of qualification play.

G20 was also not being enforced. Teams repeatedly lost bumpers and continued to play. The rule is clear:

ROBOTS must be in compliance with Section 4.6: BUMPER Rules throughout the MATCH.

Violation: DISABLED

No interpretation required. If you lose a bumper, you're in violation, you pose a risk to other robots, you should be disabled. It happened many, many times with no instances of robots being disabled that I'm aware of.

This game is rough. Totally open field means very high speed robot to robot interaction. Bumpers have to be tough and rigidly mounted. I hope things calm down as the season wears on, because this is not battle bots and it was starting to feel that way.

Best of luck to all the teams of CIR with the rest of their season.