Interventions

Introduction

These rules govern the manner in which Judges and/or competitors may interact with the rover during the task. The intention of these rules is to serve and balance two divergent interests:

CIRC as a Mars mission simulator – A key feature of task design is that the rover is ‘on Mars’ and its operators are remote, and therefore helpless to perform manual maintenance or anything other than remote commands in the face of interplanetary distances or unsafe environments. This is one of the enriching challenges in competitions such as CIRC.

CIRC as an enriching technical and learning environment – Competition organizers are keenly aware of the personal dedication required to attend competitions like CIRC. We seek to maximize the ‘use’ of competitor rovers and to minimize dead-ends encountered during task participation due to gaps in design, build, operation, and circumstance.

The ideal balance involves a challenging competition which rewards superior rovers, while also providing an environment in which competitors may focus on continuing to use their rovers with minimal** **anxiety surrounding their rover’s ability to continue the task.

We facilitate this balance with 4 categories of Intervention. It is understood that determining which category is necessarily subjective. CIRC empowers its Judges with broad discretion in determining and adjudicating the applicable category.

Summary

While the intricacies of Interventions may seem intimidating, they are meant for Judges’ complete understanding. A summary of the Intervention types to give teams a ‘sense’ of the rules is as follows:

Emergency and Pre-task Commencement (0% penalty) – Covers two cases:

• Teams should not hesitate to use all means to prevent an unsafe environment.
• Also, there is no practical limit to team access to the rover before the task is underway.

Minor ‘Incidental’ Interventions (10% one time, unlimited use) – These are applicable to stuck rovers, malfunctioning components, systems, etc. ‘Flat tire’ Interventions for addressing malfunctions are not to be overly discouraged. These incur a 10% penalty one time to all subsequent points. Subsequent Minor Interventions incur no further penalty.

Major ‘Beyond Design Basis’ Interventions (15% each use, unlimited use) – These are applicable to circumstances in which teams’ rovers were never capable of accomplishing task activities. This can include replacing depleted batteries, manually gripping an object with a rover arm, or other short-cuts that you do not feel can be avoided. To discourage over reliance on this Intervention, Teams incur a 15% penalty on all subsequent points, with the penalty cumulatively increasing with each subsequent Major Intervention use to prevent ‘marionette-ing’ them to the finish line.

Abusive Intervention (minimum 20% cumulative, Head Judge’s discretion) – In short, these are applicable to events in which teams go unethically beyond the scope of other rules to secure an advantage. Examples can include on-site teams deliberately communicating task conditions to operating team mates, deliberately getting rovers stuck and Minor Intervention-ing them into advantageous positions, etc. The Competition tends to rely on the conscience and professionalism of competitors.

In short - if you feel like you are cheating, then you probably are.

If a Judge believes that a team is behaving in such an unethical way, then a 20% (or larger at judge’s discretion) penalty to all points in the task is incurred – cumulative with all other present and subsequent penalties.

Judge Authority – The particular Head Judge at a team’s particular task has final say as to which intervention rules apply and in what way. These rules necessarily have a subjective component, and therefore variance between tasks and Judges is also unavoidable. Judges are given broad latitude to interpret and apply rules to serve the interests described in the Introduction segment. CIRC also tends to rely on the conscience and professionalism of its Judges to adjudicate in a fair and consistent manner.

Examples

There are countless ways in which an intervention can be called and play out. We have examples listed here. We encourage competitors to postulate further examples and ask many questions of Competition staff, especially Judges.

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