So this is a question for First and FTA knowledgeable people… If in a qualification match a teammate can’t connect to the field before the match starts is the alliance afforded the decision on if they can pull the dead robot off the field and play the match 2v3 or do they just start the match with the dead robot on the field no matter what?
In my experience, sometimes, but not usually
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It is partly your alliances responsibility to make sure that your alliance partners can connect in every match in a timely manner. Because of this, and the fact that if a team is bypassed a significant amount of time has passed, the FTA would like to start the match as soon as possible.
H309 Blue Box:
If a ROBOT is BYPASSED prior to the start of the MATCH, the DRIVE TEAM may
not remove the ROBOT from the FIELD without permission from the Head
REFEREE or the FTA.
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This happened to an alliance partner of ours in our first playoff match last week. The robot was removed from the field before the match. But they gave the team a significant amount of time to try and fix it.
Generally, practice day is when communications between the Robot, Driver Station, and FMS is tested, so that by the time Qualifaction matches start, the field has a general sense that everyone has at least succesfully communicated to the field at least once and have troubleshooted general issues that could be affecting each team.
Things happen though, and usually the FTAs are more lenient towards teams at the beginning of the event and will try to work with them to fix issues on the field. If an event is running behind significantly, FTAs will most likely bypass the robots in order to make sure the event stays roughly on schedule. If the event is running ahead of time and a team is running into similar issues, FTAs will generally be willing to try to get a team’s robot to work if possible.
All of this is also dependent on the kind of issues a team is running into. If the FTAs identify the issue as being something that will take a significant amount of time to repair (e.g. your roboRIO just died as you got to the field and needs to be replaced), then you will most likely be bypassed.
The decision to take a robot on or off the field depends on when the issue was identified or if the FTAs have tried to diagnose an issue and have given up after some time. If the robot is already on the field and everyone else is ready to play a match, the FTAs would rather keep the robot on the field and have teams pull it off when the match has conculded, rather than add an additional delay by having a single team pull their robot off when everyone else is ready to go.
If they don’t do this always, point out the manual states a match can’t start before it’s scheduled time. The team has as long as the event is ahead to try to connect before they can be disabled.