Question about losing bumpers during a match?

Competition Rules/Strategy
1

What is the rule against driving without bumpers? For example, if a bot loses their bumpers during the match and they continue driving instead of disabling their bot, what are the rules? In the finals of the Pine Tree district event yesterday, one of the opposing alliance members continued to drive and slam into us despite losing their entire bumper. Our alliance captain attempted to speak to the referee about this, only to be told it was legal.

I could swear there was a rule about driving without bumpers. Can someone clarify this for me? Thank you.

2

Robots that are not in compliance with bumper rules will be disabled. [G20] Losing bumpers entirely counts as non-compliance. [R19]

3

I thought you got disabled if you lost a bumper.

4

The referee told our alliance captain driving with no bumper was “his call” and legal.

5

The robot should have be disabled by the field personal. Like Max said

3.2.5.3 G20
ROBOTS must be in compliance with Section 4.6: BUMPER Rules throughout the MATCH.
Violation: DISABLED

Not a lot of room for discretion. Also not up to the team to disable the referee should have done it.

.

6

Speaking from experience (we lost a bumper in the finals at Midwest) the robot should be disabled.

7

It’s just too bad it had to happen in finals! And yes, robots are supposed to be disabled as soon as they lose a bumper. This, of course, can result in the occasional heartbreaker match but it happens very rarely.

8

Unless the referee simply did not know the rules, I can think of two reasons why the robot would not have been disabled:

  • The bumper was in a “strange” position, but still within the rules
  • The bumper damage was caused by a foul committed by the other alliance
9

That’s not always the case. The other alliance must have actively been trying to force them into a penalty for G14 to apply (which I’ve never seen happen ever).

G14
Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FRC and are not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in assessment of a penalty on the target ALLIANCE.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL

10

It’s possible the ref felt aggressive defense/contact by the OP’s alliance caused the opponent’s bumper to fall off, which could make G27 apply.

11

Even if G27 was applied, the robot who lost its bumpers should still have been disabled. The only exception to G20 is G14.

12

You guys are right, the ref should have disabled the robot during the match. Another perfect example of refs not knowing the rules…

13

Thank you for your responses. It was too bad it happened in match 3 of the finals.

14

Since this is not a penalty, the why the bumper came of is immaterial. The rule calls for disablement. If the bumper came of because of egregious actions of the other alliance, that would be a penalty against the other alliance.

15

From what I saw, the bumper came off after the bot in question attempted to defend by pushing.

16

Since bumpers are supposed to be robustly attached, it would have to be very egregious behavior to earn a penalty for causing someone’s bumpers to come off.

I cannot judge the referees decision from a distance. The only option for him after the end of a match would be to call a replay. Maybe he didn’t feel the incident effected the match enough to replay it.

17

I remember watching video from Groton of 230. They took a hard hit near the end of a match and their bumper fell off. They were immediately disabled by the refs. It did not really affect the match though, as there were only about 10 seconds left.

Edit: I found the video http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2014ctgro_qm15 It was an early qualification match at Groton.

18

Unless an opponent bot used a ratchet wrench to unbolt those bumpers, I wouldn’t expect any G14 tech fouls :stuck_out_tongue:

19

Video of the match in question can be found at:
http://new.livestream.com/nefirst/me-pinetree

Around 2:56:32 with ~25 seconds left in finals match 3.

Off the cuff, to me, it doesn’t look like it would have impacted the final outcome of the match, but one full corner bumper piece falls off of one of the red alliance robots, which proceeds to remain active until the end of the match.

20

The issue with the rule that goes beyond refs not knowing the rules is how the rule is enforced. For a robot to be disabled a ref needs to go to the driver station and use the E-stop button. I speak from experience on this, my team lost a bumper during a match and we just stopped driving because we knew we needed to be disabled and waited around. After 15-20 seconds a ref showed up hit the E-stop and then walked away. He then came back after the match to explain why he did this we (the drive team) understood and then continued on.

There was a conversation about this issue earlier in the season that if a team lost their bumper towards the end of the match (less than 30 seconds) the robot wouldn’t be disabled because it took a while to get a robot disabled.