Robo-Cross B

[chalker]

Interesting ruling. As a supervisor, I don't see how I could circle "Yes" for "Team enters only one robot" in those circumstances. A robot and a box sitting next to it are not a robot. Also, while I don't have my rules on me IIRC the competition rules say that competitors place their robot in the square, not their robot and any other equipment, Absent a clarification on Soinc. I would not allow it.

I would caution you against falling into the 'trap' of penalizing teams for coming up with creative solutions that aren't within your assumption of how the event should be run. Note that we often refer to General Rule #1 in the answers to FAQs, because we want people to think outside the box (within the spirit of the rules of course). I'll also point out that the rules don't say anything like 'the robot must be all one connected piece', or 'nothing else is allowed with the robot in the starting square'. To the contrary, they do say that it can't separate into 2 active components, but may drop passive components. It's not a stretch to assume the 'dropping' of passive components occurs before time starts.

As always though, this is not the place for official comments / clarifications.

[Flavorflav]

Also, two teams had no technical documentation; since the rules say that the six questions come from the technical documentation, I gave them both zeros. This resulted in negative scores, which meant that the 20% missing documentation penalty actually improved their scores.

I'm not sure I follow this. Are you saying that because they didn't have documentation you didn't let them run at all? (you should have if you didn't) Or were they unable to run at all? (they should be marked as 'P' for participated but unable to generate a score on the scoresheet). Did you use the event-specific excel spreadsheet to calculate the scores? It handles these types of situations automatically.

Naturally I let them run. I gave them zeros for the six questions, because I could not "select six items from the technical documentation" to ask them about as the rules specify because they didn't have any technical documentation. I would suggest that if this were not the intent of the rule, the phrase "from the technical documentation" should not have been included.

I'll also point out that the rules don't say anything like 'the robot must be all one connected piece', or 'nothing else is allowed with the robot in the starting square'. To the contrary, they do say that it can't separate into 2 active components, but may drop passive components. It's not a stretch to assume the 'dropping' of passive components occurs before time starts.

It also doesn't say that competitors can't place anything in zones B, C, or D - perhaps dropping a ramp over the quarter-round, or sliding index cards behind the pennies. I does say that competitors will enter "only one robot" and place "their device" in the starting box, and i cannot wrap my head around the notion that a robot with an item sitting near it which is not connected in any way constitute a single robot or device.

[oshaughnessy]

I does say that competitors will enter "only one robot" and place "their device" in the starting box, and i cannot wrap my head around the notion that a robot with an item sitting near it which is not connected in any way constitute a single robot or device.

Think of this through the lens of the 'passive components' rule. A fully functional bot, that fits within the 28cm cube could include one or more passive components used to perform tasks. A somewhat common example last year was a magnet to pick up batteries. IMO, if the components all fit into the box with the bot, then they are good, whether they are supported by or attached to the bot or not.

[Flavorflav]

Oh, I understand the application of the ruling, I just don't see it as being allowable under the text of the original rules. Fortunately nobody tried it on Saturday. I honestly don't know what I'd do if a competitor produced something that they claimed was an email from soinc.

[chalker]

It also doesn't say that competitors can't place anything in zones B, C, or D - perhaps dropping a ramp over the quarter-round, or sliding index cards behind the pennies. I does say that competitors will enter "only one robot" and place "their device" in the starting box, and i cannot wrap my head around the notion that a robot with an item sitting near it which is not connected in any way constitute a single robot or device.

Sure it does. 5.b. states the robot must be in the designated starting position in the ready to run configuration. 2.d. says that configuration is everything inside an imaginary 28.0 cm cube. So placing something outside of that would clearly be against those rules. I understand you are hung up on the definition of '1 robot', but I'll point out again that at multiple places in the rules it speaks to passive components or robot parts that are separate from the robot itself. So it's clearly within the spirit of the event for designs that are NOT permanently connected as a single robot or device. The minor logical leap then is whether they need to start that way.

Regardless, is there some major advantage teams get by doing this? To the contrary, I think it's a disadvantage since they run the risk of one of those separate components staying in zone A, resulting in 0 robot points.

BTW, you really didn't have to do anything special with the documentation issue. Just put in 0 for the number of correctly identified in the spreadsheet and it handles the rest of the calculations for you.

[Flavorflav]

BTW, you really didn't have to do anything special with the documentation issue. Just put in 0 for the number of correctly identified in the spreadsheet and it handles the rest of the calculations for you.

That is what I did. What I am saying is that when I did so, two teams saw their scores go negative. A negative score makes the 20% penalty for missing documentation become a 20% bonus, because their -6 became a -5.4. I'm not sure this is really a problem, bc IMO a team who fails their questions BC they have no documentation should beat a team who has documentation and fails anyway.

[jander14indoor]

Let me suggest that is a math/logic implementation error in the spreadsheet. The rule clearly states they get a penalty. So the correct score should be -7.2.
I suspect the rule is implemented as: "if no documentation then score = 0.8*(raw score)" = -4.8. Not sure where 5.4 comes from...
The correct logic should be: "if no documentation then score = raw score - 0.2*|raw score|" = -7.2
And I hope I'm not showing my age or confusing folks with symbology: |x| means absolute value of x

And yes that is unofficial opinion, but seems like a pretty straightforward reading of the meaning of "penalty"

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

Can you say 'BUG'

[Flavorflav]

Yes, that is my belief as well. However, I do think failing to answer questions because you don't know anything about the device deserves a worse penalty than failing to answer questions because they could not be asked. The supervisor does always have the option of DQing under general rule 4, but the bar for that should be set very high IMO.
5.4 came from my fallible memory - I conflated the two negative scores and didn't think about the math behind them. They were actually -5.6 and -2.4, from the original -7 and -3. I left them as-is, bc correcting to apply the penalty in the right direction would not have affected the ranking.

[kwinks]

Oh, I understand the application of the ruling, I just don't see it as being allowable under the text of the original rules. Fortunately nobody tried it on Saturday. I honestly don't know what I'd do if a competitor produced something that they claimed was an email from soinc.

This is a bit concerning since every question we have asked this year was answered by email; not one of those questions has been posted on the Soinc site. In regards to the passive device, I couldn't agree with you more, Flavorflav.

[Skink]

Oh, I understand the application of the ruling, I just don't see it as being allowable under the text of the original rules. Fortunately nobody tried it on Saturday. I honestly don't know what I'd do if a competitor produced something that they claimed was an email from soinc.

This is a bit concerning since every question we have asked this year was answered by email; not one of those questions has been posted on the Soinc site. In regards to the passive device, I couldn't agree with you more, Flavorflav.

E-mailed responses aren't tournament-enforceable since they're not covered by General Rule #3 (supported by the fact that they're not accessible to anyone except the individuals whom submitted them). My understanding of the system is that literally 'frequently' asked questions are the ones posted to the site as well as ones that might have reaching impact if answered and posted. Put another way, I've, myself, received an e-mail-only response when the question was, admittedly, mundane. It's hard to say if that generalizes, though, I suppose, without knowing what other questions folks are getting e-mailed back about.