YMTC: worthy of DQ?

[Stephen Kowski]

we had a situation where we got a clarification while i was refereeing @ peachtree....the mentors are not allowed to touch anything that will DIRECTLY CONTROL THE ROBOT....

Then again the ref may have just saw his/her hands near the controls touching something, and these rules in particular are strictly enforced so you should go to great lengths to avoid the refs being able to interpret anything as such (as a coach I put my hands behind my back or in my pockets whenever possible)....

So apparently those refs saw something worthy of a DQ and I won't question it because I wasn't there....every ref ive met is not there to give teams a hard time and normally gives the benifit of the doubt to the teams, but something I assume was apparently wrong to that referee....yeah it was worthy....

p.s. i guess i don't know why your coach HAD to touch rather than just point to it....same effect of getting the ref's attention but no DQ....

[Steve W]

Coaches do not touch controls or anything else unless written in the rules like last year. DQ is my vote.

[Steph]

In Pittsburgh, our team was warned twice in the practice rounds for me (the coach) to watch where my hands were. With all of the music and cheering, sometimes pointing to goals, tetras, etc., is valuable to making sure your instructions were recieved, but I quickly learned to point up high instead of down lower. The last thing I'd want would be to DQ my team from a match for trying to make a point clear and accidentally hitting the controls... It's unfortunate that it happened in your match, but on the bright side I'm sure it'll never happen again Good Luck