Hello. I’m rotarymars.

In this article, I would like to write a reflection on the 3rd run, which K10-K10 briefly mentioned in the previous article.

What happened

During the 3rd run on the 3rd day, one of the course tiles came off after the robot had started the scoring run.

Therefore, we had to declare a Lack of Progress and restart from the previous checkpoint.

However, since the robot could not follow the line while the course was broken, we had to temporarily fix it.

I thought that, as a participant in the competition, I should not touch the course, so I asked the referee, “A tile has come off the course. What should I do?”

As a result, the referee took the measure of temporarily holding the course in place by hand.

In this article, I would like to summarize what would have been the correct response in that situation, as well as the ambiguous points in the rules, by referring to the official rules for future reference.

The rules I’ll refer to are here: RCJRescueLine2025-final-1.pdf

When the course is broken

First, let’s check the rules for when the course is broken by the robot.

§4.2.4

Robots must not damage any part of the field in any way.

According to this regulation, the robot is not allowed to damage any part of the field under any circumstances (which is kind of obvious).

However, in this case, although the damage was caused by the robot’s movement, the same result would likely have occurred with any robot.

Also, §2.2.1 states that a robot that repeatedly breaks the course will be disqualified. But in cases like this, where the damage seems to have been caused by a problem with the course setup by the tournament organizers, would the robot still be disqualified?

Furthermore, the rules do not clearly state what measures should be taken when a player suffers a disadvantage due to the organizers’ negligence. I felt that there is ambiguity in the rules on this point.

Progress of the competition after the course is broken

I think the situation where the course is broken should not happen in the first place, but if it does happen, how should the competition proceed?

In this case, we had the referee fix the course by hand, but the rules do not clearly state how such a situation should be handled.

For example, if the course is broken, the competition should be temporarily stopped and time should be given to repair the course. Also, before restarting the robot after the repair, there should be a procedure to confirm that the course has been properly repaired.

In any case, I felt that the response flow for course damage that is not due to the robot’s fault should be clearly stated in the rules.

Afterwards

After the scoring run, we consulted with the referee about how to proceed.

As the team captain, I — together with the co-captain — spoke with the referee, and we were able to have our Lack of Progress count reduced by one.

I am very grateful for such a flexible response and appreciate the referee’s handling of the situation.

However, after that, when we talked with the other team members, one opinion that came up was: “Of course we’re grateful that the Lack of Progress count was reduced by one, but we also lost competition time, so our total competition time — and the time available for the rescue portion — would have been different.” So we decided to consult the referee again about whether the competition time should also be adjusted, not just the Lack of Progress count.

Since I had already signed the score sheet after the competition, I had no intention of requesting a correction of the score. Still, I personally found myself wondering what the best course of action in such a case would have been.

In the end, after talking with the referee, it was decided that no adjustment of the score would be made.

§8.1.3

After gameplay, the referee will ask the captain to sign the score sheet. Captains will be given a maximum of 1 minute to review the score sheet and sign it. By signing the score sheet, the captain accepts the final score on behalf of the entire team. In case of further clarification, the team captain should write their comments on the score sheet and sign it.

According to this regulation, the captain has only one minute to review and sign the score sheet after being informed of the score.

This is obviously not enough time to reflect on the situation that just happened and to decide whether to request a correction of the score, and I felt that this point should be reconsidered in the future.

Of course, it is important to prevent teams from taking too much time to review the score sheet. But I think one minute is too short for a team to discuss and decide whether to request a correction — especially in cases like this, where an unexpected situation caused by the tournament organizers affected the competition.

Conclusion

In this article, I wrote a reflection on the 3rd run of the 3rd day, where a tile of the course came off after the robot had started the scoring run, along with the things we discussed with our referee. We found that there are some ambiguous points in the rules regarding the situation where the course is broken by the robot and how to respond to it.

I hope that these points will be clarified in the future for the betterment of the competition.

As for our 3rd run, it was a really important run for us. We hope that future participating teams will not have to experience such a situation, and if they do, that they will be able to handle it in the best way possible with clear rules in place.