This is the last year I get to complain about it, so I will say that the unbag restrictions on 3-day DCMPs are fifty shades of stupid.
I’m interested in the new blue box in section 5.5… is anyone aware of incidents of teams going against this stated intent?
At North Star this past weekend, there was a team present that definitely fell into the “extenuating/exceptional” circumstances. The school is built around a work-study program, meaning the students all have jobs/internships that take up part of the day. As a result, they had varying numbers of students throughout the event, often not enough to make up a full drive team. As a result, 4 teams loaned them students to fill out the drive team and help them in the pits - 1816, 2177, 2491, and 3042 (This was done with the full approval of the FTA and Head Ref for the event). It was even referenced in the award script when we won the GP award on Saturday! I’ve seen one or two other cases over the past decade where something similar has happened with a team that just didn’t have the numbers to field a drive team for a match (or more).
Why? A 3-day DCMP is basically the same as a 3-day regional. Neither does or should get an un-bag period
You are a wonderful member of this community. 
3 day DCMPs start qualification matches on the first full day, regionals get the full day to work.
This has happened more than a few times in Ontario.
Go run the hours on effective out of bag time (time from event load in - QM1 for district based events, pit open-QM1 for regionals) for the 2 day dcmps vs 3 day dcmps vs regionals.
I don’t have all of this yet, but here’s a comparison of unbag time for East Coast DCMPs for the last few years
I had a team at an event I was refereeing at ask if they could lend a coach to another team during playoffs. I told them “no” based on the definition of the drive team in this section.
Here’s the 2019 CHS Championship schedule, wasn’t linked on the spreadsheet: https://www.firstchesapeake.org/images/blog/2019/2019-Chesapeake-DCMPS-Schedule-1-final-1.pdf
This may have already been answered somewhere, but if a team were to score a hatch panel or cargo during sandstorm, tear it off, then put new pieces on, would they get points for both?
In other words, PCH is the best.
No.
Except for the SANDSTORM bonuses, scores are based on the state of the FIELD when the ARENA timer displays zero.
My bad. Was thinking that sandstorm bonus was also referring to the cargo/hatch bonuses. I have no idea where I got that idea from… definitely need to reread the rules
No. All pieces are ultimately scored at the end of the match. There is no bonus for scoring during sandstorm, so at any time if a panel (followed by the cargo) falls to the floor, the points are adjusted down to reflect the “no score” for that cargo bay.
[whoops, already answered…]
Happened this year in Michigan as well.
I can’t say I have ever seen it used for “ill” intent. When I was a student in 2013, there was a huge snow storm during the weekend of the WPI central mass regional. Our pit neighbors couldn’t make it in until later in the day. Only one of their mentors was able to make it. So 2 of my team mates and I offered to help them out and be their drive team until the rest of the team made it to the competition.
Is there any kind of penalty associated with this? It just mentions who can be a driver, but adds no deterrent if a team actually drives another’s robot for the sole purpose of strategic advantage.
The stick that would be brought out if needed is H4, where if an unauthorized person starts driving a robot it gets disabled.
One piece of confusion here may be that the ARENA timer technically displays zero at two different times in a match. Though the first time it’s covered by a big black screen so it’s pretty hard to see. Certainly the intent here, though, is to mean “end of the match”