Rule Clarification for Touching the Terminal Barrier

[sandysrivastava]

Science_Olympiad_Div_B_Rules_2025, for Scrambler B says:
6.n: If any part of the Vehicle (besides the egg) touches the TB, it is considered a Competition Violation. If the tip of the egg goes past the front face of the TB anytime during the run, it is also considered a Competition Violation.

1. Event Description: Teams design, build, and test a mechanical device, which uses the energy from a falling mass to transport an egg along a track as quickly as possible and stop as close to the center of a Terminal Barrier (TB) without breaking the egg.

Rule 5.f: The TB must be a hard, flat, vertical wall at least 25.0 cm tall, placed perpendicular to the imaginary Center Line that connects the Start Point and the End Point. It must be a minimum of 1.00 m long. The exact Target Distance from the Start Point to the End Point will be between 7.00 m and 10.00 m. At Regionals/Invitationals the interval will be 0.25 m, for States 0.10 m, and for Nationals 0.05 m. The Target Distance will be chosen by the ES and will be announced after the impound period is over.

Scrambler Track Diagram: https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/fil ... iagram.pdf

In our state competition, they used Terminal Barrier (TB) made of cardboard and hence it was not hard. Vehicle hit the Terminal Barrier but it didn't break the Egg. The Terminal Barrier also helped vehicle to rebound and stayed very close to it resulting in short Vehicle Distance measured. There was no "Competition Violation" given as Egg didn't break.

This was so unfair to the team who calibrated and run the vehicle to stop on its own due to the braking system as close but without hitting the Terminal Barrier but they got high scores (Low Score Wins in Scrambler) vs Teams whose vehicle didn't stop on its own due to breaking system, hit the Terminal Barrier and got LUCKY because Egg didn't break due to the materials used for Terminal Barrier.

Is the interpretation of the Rule correct in this case to no mark this as "Competition Violation" for hitting the Terminal Barrier even though Egg didn't break (Lucky because it was not made of hard material)? Rules are not written by Lawyers, so it is possible they expected to Egg to break always in hitting the Terminal Barrier and hence didn't cover it explicitly in the Rules?

If the Even is all about stopping as close to terminal barrier and not hitting (as mentioned in the Even Description), then any hit/touch of Vehicles to the Terminal must be considered "Competition Violation". (For Reference although very old: Page#2, "Run Violation 2" - https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/fil ... 20v3.3.pdf)
Please share your feedback.

[Nydauron]

First off, please refer to scioly.org/rules regarding posting verbatim clauses in the rules. On scioly.org, please paraphrase instead of direct quoting an entire paragraph, and instead quote only the necessary phrase applicable.

Secondly, yes, the TB should have been a hard flat surface, and this should have been appealed. If brought up during competition to the ES and arbitration, the problem of the situation would have been known quickly and would have more than likely dealt with before awards. Granted, it's more than likely all teams had a cardboard TB, the argument can be made that everyone faced the same environment, so the ultimate decision would be with arbitration.

Thirdly, the egg breaking enough such that it leaves wet spots on a paper towel is the sole contributor to whether a run is considered scrambled, whether that be the egg smashes into the TB, the competitor fumbles it and the egg smashes on the ground, or if the egg falls off the vehicle before or during a run. If the egg touches the TB but does not crack beyond the point where a paper towel can pick up a wet spot from the egg, then the run is considered successful and no competition violation penalty (at least for scrambling the egg) is awarded. That being said, in the case you gave, if any other part of the vehicle touched the cardboard TB during rebound, then a competition violation should be awarded.

Fourthly, the event abstract should be taken with a grain of salt. The abstract will not give a full objective measure of an event. This is something that can be brought up to SO Inc. in their rule clarifications (see below), but I would assume they would just issue a correction to the abstract and not amend paragraph 6.m (but I am not affiliated with SO Inc to make that decision).

If you have any more questions about the wording of the rules, it is best to refer to the Rule Clarifications on soinc.org and submit a question there. Normally, the people who authored the rules and the ones running the event at nats will be the ones answering those questions and are able to clarify their phrasing.

[brian9640]

As I have run Scrambler many times over the years, this was a fault of the event supervisor and not an issue in the rules. The ES did not provide a valid terminal barrier. There is no penalty for an egg touching the TB as rule 6.n allows the egg to touch. The egg cannot break as per rule 6.m. Some top teams try to touch the TB on their 2nd run with very little energy. Eggs do need some force to break on impact.

As for protesting, it would be unlikely the arbitration group would do anything as all teams are competing under the same conditions. Generally once teams start competing, the event supervisor should not change how teams are competing as this could give some teams an advantage. Changing the TB in your case to a valid TB after some teams have competed would given the earlier teams an advantage. What could happen is the event becomes a trial event which means the scores do not count toward the team scores. This happened at a State tournament last year where the ES changed the conditions after the morning teams already finished. The change gave an advantage to the morning teams. As all teams did not compete under the same conditions, the event became a trial event. Which is the fault of the ES not reading and understanding the rules.

[sandysrivastava]

Thanks for the feedback.

[xxl116]

Touching the TB should impose a competition violation. A lot of people misunderstood “besides”.

6.n: If any part of the Vehicle (besides the egg) touches the TB, it is considered a Competition Violation. If the tip of the egg goes past the front face of the TB anytime during the run, it is also considered a Competition Violation.

6.n tells two “overreaching” situations shall cause a competition violation. This is because the TB has its width. A overreaching could cause the tip of the egg touch the TB with/without broken or past the TB.

"Besides something" can have two main meanings: 1) "In addition to," meaning to include something extra or other than what was already mentioned. 2) "Other than" or "except for," indicating something different from what's being discussed.
Elaboration:
"In addition to":
This usage of "besides" is similar to saying "as well as" or "moreover." For example, "Besides the cake, we also had cookies.".

This year a thin plastic sheet was used, which is very forgiving. A lot of teams touch the TB. The ES didn’t impose a competition violation.

[knightmoves]

Sorry - you're not parsing the rules correctly. Rule 6n logically follows on from 6m. 6m tells you what happens if you break the egg. Your interpretation of 6n as being "you should get a violation if the egg touches the backstop" makes no sense, because then we wouldn't need all the business in 6m defining what broken means. The point of 6m is that a gentle touch with just the egg contacting the backstop isn't a violation. 6n tells you that if your car slews around so that some non-egg part of the car hits the backstop, that is a violation. Yes, it might be clearer if "besides the egg" was replaced with "other than the egg".

Everybody is correct that using a forgiving barrier is an error on the part of the ES, and is also a common error. Lots of ES seem to use a plastic table tipped on its side, which gives a surface that is still somewhat yielding and forgiving, and also typically not very vertical, which adds to the forgiving nature of the wall. Unfortunately, a length of 2x10 lumber isn't quite tall enough to qualify as a legal backstop, but it's not difficult to build something hard, rigid, and vertical. It's a bit more of a challenge if you're looking to use objects found lying around in a typical school, unless you're prepared to use the wall as the TB. (By my reading, that would be legal, assuming the wall was flat to the ground and didn't have kick plates / skirting etc.) And yes, when the ES introduces a random factor like this in to the competition it's frustrating for the competitors, and the fact that the randomness was present for all the competitors really doesn't make it much better.