Alamo Regional: Red cards

Hi all,

I am sure that most of you are frantically watching the regional webcasts. I have been watching the Alamo regional and noticed that many of the teams have red cards. Anyone able to explain why?

thanks! and good luck to all the teams!!

I haven’t seen all of the red cards, but I know that in 148’s case it was a result of the tube that their robot was possessing unintentionally contacting the opposing team’s tower in the final 10 seconds of the match. By the rules, this is a red card whether it was intentional or not.

I also see it at the start of the match. I’m really surprised by the number of red cards, even in the beginning of the matches

What happens when you get the red card

No qualification points for that team from that match.

You mean the team numbers in red on the live scoring bar? If they display red before the match even starts that means they didn’t bring their robot to the field and have been bypassed so the match can be run without their driver’s station being connected.

In the affected matches, are one or more robots not on the field? If so, it’s probably a result of my #1 least favorite rule, where if you haven’t passed inspection, and you participate in a match, your partners and you get red cards. Under another rule, if you don’t participate, you get a red card. (That one I can understand.)

I am also concerned about the number of penalties (I’m not watching a feed, just looking at raw numbers). At Kettering we are averaging 2.5 penalties per alliance, per match. I haven’t run numbers for other events yet but I am worried.

EDIT:

Alamo - 1.2
BAE - 2.0
NJ - .48
FLR - 1.8
Kettering - 2.5
Traverse City - 2.4

ok, now I understand.

I also agree with you Andrew, on the number of penalties. It really is scary seeing the number of penalties ranging from 3-9.

I should look over the rules more before WPI regional

The thing that I find most troubling is it isn’t just young or undisiplined teams that are getting penalized and carded. Teams like 78 and 148 who have good coaches and whose drivers typically know the rules very well have received red cards.

I’m getting flashbacks to 2005, where an entire match could be erased by penalties. I’m not talking about chump points here either, I’m talking 40 to 50 point matches completely wiped off the grid.

I really hope this is just Week 1 ‘debugging’ and not a sign of things to come.

To elaborate a little more, I have added more to the two situations that EricH has mentioned:

  1. Eligibility: <T03> A TEAM will only be allowed to participate in a MATCH and receive qualification, ranking, and Coopertition points only if it has passed inspection. If it is learned after the start of the MATCH that a TEAM did not pass inspection, the TEAM’s entire ALLIANCE will receive a RED CARD for that MATCH.
  2. Match Point Exceptions: A TEAM is declared a no-show if no member of the TEAM is in the ALLIANCE STATION at the start of the MATCH; a no-show TEAM will be disqualified from that MATCH.

The way that they disqualify a team at the start of the match is through issuing a Red Card before the match starts.

Also, to clarify a point stated earlier. If a TEAM does show, but is without a robot, there is a button to BYPASS the TEAM, they should not be receiving a Red Card, since they had a member of the TEAM show for the match and should still receive all ranking, qualification, and Coopertition points.

Hope this helps a little with some of the confusion and sorry if it might seem a little repetitive.

Unless their robot has not passed inspection, in which case they are in violation of <T03>… That’s debatable, but it also can make sense. In which case, the entire alliance gets a red card.

There’s a lot of pressure this year to either pass inspection or not show up at all. Not showing up gives you a red card… but showing up with a non-passed robot gives your partners a red card too, even if the robot doesn’t play. At least, that’s how I read that rule.

Well, I don’t know about other teams, but today, we got one red card for clipping a robot that was deploying, and a penalty for “lane infringement,” I think was the term. Hopefully tomorrow will go better…

…the following behavior is neither endorsed nor condoned by me or my team in any way.

Isn’t it a potential strategy to, upon figuring out that a Red Card for your team is inevitable, decide to bring down as many other teams as you can in order to boost yourself in the rankings? Could you deliberately show up to a match just to screw over your partners? I hope that this behavior has not been and will not be exhibited by any teams at any competition, but with the current rule set up it seems completely possible.

…the above behavior is neither endorsed nor condoned by me or my team in any way.

Just covering my bases. ::safety::

The key phrase there is if the issue is found after the start of the match.

Let us hope the inspectors will communicate such issues with the field.

I don’t think that you would increase your ranking score so much as ■■■■ everyone off if you ‘strategized’ to go to a match (or skip it entirely) upon missing inspections. Getting an incidental red card would seem probable, but not totally unavoidable. I’d love to see video of 16 & 2056’s robot – based on scores, you guys in Alamo and FLR had a treat!

This happened up at Kettering today, but one match I was human player. I threw a tube, it hit the driver station, and frisbee’d onto our alliance’s minibot pole. Our team was confused by this out come because there is nothing in the manual about this. Rule <G24> is the closest I found, but only applies to an opponent’s tower.
<G24> The opposing ALLIANCE may not interfere with the DEPLOYMENT or climbing of a MINIBOT. Violation: PENALTY plus RED CARD
Interference by an ALLIANCE refers to any action taken by that ALLIANCE that results in disruption of the MINIBOT‟s progress. This may include, but is not limited to,
a) throwing a GAME PIECE at the MINIBOT/TOWER,
b) driving a ROBOT or GAME PIECE into the TOWER, or
c) directly contacting the MINIBOT or TOWER.

2056 got a red card at FLR for contacting the tower during end game. It was just a mistake, nothing more, as far as I know.

most of the penalties @ BAE were lane violations and they did pile up, averaging probably about 3 per match