I regret to say that what Jennifer describes may have been an incorrect ruling on the Craters Crossing Mission. The Crossing Equipment for M04 may be any item of team Equipment, and does not have to include the Robot.
I understand that there was a lack of clarity of exactly what was included in "crossing equipment" until update U06 came out this week. Actually, there was a team last weekend whose crossing attempt I did not allow, but would have allowed this weekend after the update, and many teams at today's tournament that would have had trouble convincing me last weekend that they had an appropriate interpretation.
The referee might have thought that since the Robot caused the projectile to move, and might have been over the Craters or even between the Towers when it was released, that the Robot needed to be included as part of the crossing equipment. Depending on the position of the Robot, that's what I would have said previously. U06 says explicitly that "It does not matter if a separate object throws, pulls, pushes, carries, places, or paves the way for the actual crossing
equipment, as that would be a separate object and not considered part of the crossing equipment." For example, a Robot that throws a projectile across the Gate would not be a part of the Crossing Equipment.
The best thing that your teams can do is to be able to point out the exact text in the Updates, Missions, or Rules that show why they have the interpretation that they do. That's how they might be able to change the Referee's mind, or get Benefit of the Doubt applied. They may not be successful, but they will have done everything that they can to support their interpretation.
Steve Scherr
Virginia-DC FLL Referee Advisor
I would like to get clarification on crater (i know for the thousandth time). This won't help my team because we are done, but it might help teams competing tomorrow or next weekend.
It was our understanding that we could send a projectile across the crater. As long as the robot was not touching the projectile, and the projectile complete crosses over the crater, this is legal. We were told today that the ENTIRE ROBOT had to cross the crater. The kids made a simple wheel thing that sat on an attachment (not attached...just carried). They drove to crater, dropped the wheeled system and pushed it. It traveled independently across the crater. No attachment is touching the wheel system as it rides across the crater. We were told by head judge this did not count.
Anyone? 6 teams in our competition could not run this mission because they had similar to above. We still feel we are correct in our strategy.