Dear RoboCupJunior Rescue Committee,
I am a participant in the RoboCupJunior Rescue Maze national competition held in Puebla, Mexico. I am writing to formally express our concern regarding multiple rule violations committed by the same team during the competition, as well as what we believe was an insufficient response from the referees in both situations.
Situation 1: Use of a 3-position switch
During the competition rounds, one team used a 3-position switch to modify their robot’s navigation behavior, specifically to change the priority of their navigation algorithm depending on the switch position. This was clearly observable across multiple rounds.
This directly violates Section 4.2 Construction, point 8 of the rulebook, which states that only a single physical binary switch or button is allowed for starting the robot and handling Lack of Progress situations, with the option of one additional switch exclusively for cutting power. No extra switches are permitted.
Furthermore, the use of this switch during a round violates Section 5.4 Scoring Run, point 1, which explicitly prohibits modifying the robot’s behavior during a scoring run.
When we brought this to the referees’ attention, the only action taken was a warning to the team not to repeat the behavior. No penalty was applied and the affected rounds were not removed from scoring.
Situation 2: Incorrect handling of blue tiles by the same team
In a separate round, this same team failed to detect blue tiles and continued moving without stopping for the 5 consecutive seconds required by the rulebook (Section 3.2, point 5b), passing through two blue tiles without meeting this requirement.
According to Section 5.5 Lack of Progress, point 1c, moving to another tile without stopping for 5 consecutive seconds after visiting a blue tile constitutes a Lack of Progress, with its full consequences, including physically returning the robot to the last visited checkpoint as stated in point 2 of the same section.
The referees only added two Lack of Progress entries to the scoresheet without applying the complete consequences required by the rules.
We believe this gave the team involved an unfair advantage in the competition. Section 4.5, point 5 clearly states that any rule violation may be penalized with disqualification from the tournament or from a game, at the discretion of the referees.
Our requests
We respectfully ask the Committee to:
1. Clarify how much discretion local referees have when interpreting these situations
2. Let us know whether there is a formal appeal process for referee decisions
We understand that referees have the final say during gameplay according to Section 8.1. However, we also understand that the International Committee has the authority to issue clarifications and even modify decisions according to Sections 8.2 and 8.3.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,