[moderated] 469 Entanglement / Bad Refereeing on Galileo

[RyanMcE]

We never had the chance to go up against 494 and have our wires cut, but we did have to face 469 three times throughout the championship event, including twice in the Galileo semifinals.

Please take a look at this video (http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2004/movies/gal/gal_sf1m2.wmv). My question is, if this isn't purposeful entanglement, what is? Clearly, 469 took their hook into 93's basket and got it stuck. Even the announcer noticed the clear entanglement and talked about it. Yet no call was made. I noticed that on Galileo at least, very few calls were ever made.

I do not mind agressive play - I think it makes the game much more exciting. But those that play agressively have to accept the onsequences of their actions as well. Pushing is fine, but when you get entangled, your robot should be disqualified. If FIRST wants its referees to be respected, the referees need to respect the rules:

"<G32> Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. Accidental tipping over of a robot is not considered damaging and may be allowed at the discretion of the referees. Intentional stabbing, cutting, etc., is illegal. If a breach of this rule occurs, the team will be disqualified for that match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being disqualified from the remainder of the regional competition and/or championship event."

Admittedly, I am bitter, and my views are biased - so let me know if you think 469 should have been disqualified in this situation.

Now for the next case study: Galileo Semifinal 1.1 (http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2004/movies/gal/gal_sf1m1.wmv). Once again, going up against 469, and one again their agressive play takes out one of our robots. I didn't actaully see it happen (and the video fails to show exactly what happened), but I think it was a legitimate takedown (ie, unplanned, if not unintentional).

However, after the match (which ended with our alliance loosing by 5 points), I asked the referees if our oponents had any penalties, and was told that the oposing alliance had a 10 point penalty deducted. I was then amazed by the score, because that meant that they had scored nine (9!) balls, which was more than I thought they had. Well, after reviewing the video, the oposing alliance looks like they have only seven (7!) balls, plus the hanger, minus the 10 point penalty. This comes to 75 points to our 80. But instead, the reported score was 85 points to our 80. The penalty WAS NOT ASSESSED and the result of the match changed.

Furthermore, in that match, 469 destroyed one of the poles of a mobile goal. Please refer to rule <G25>: "If ROBOTS intentionally tip over any Mobile Goal or damage the poles of a Mobile or Stationary Goal, that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified."

The question is, does the word intentional apply to both clauses or only the first? Depending on how you read the rule, 469 should ahve been disabled for breaking the mobile goal, and perhaps even disqualified for their continuous agressive behavior. But once again, no call was made.

Now, I am in general a laissez-faire person. I don't mind refs letting the game go on. On the other hand, when rules are blatantly ignored and penalties are completely missed, then the referees are not doing thier jobs, volunteers or not. I have learned over the last three years of FIRST (with the notable exception of 2001, where the problem was non-existant due to the highly innovative game) that despite all the talk of gracious professionalism, teams that ignore the rules and/or beat up other robots are highly rewarded due to inconsistent rule enforcement and spineless referees.

In 2002, an explictly disallowed type of tether was used to edge out a victory against us in the PNW regional finals. In 2003, when an adult mentor on the oposing alliance touched the controls in the PNW regional finals, the match was replayed instead of the team being disqualified. And in 2004, overagressive play and clearly purposeful entanglement ruled the day.

Here is another post (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27872) that shows the problem. And just to show that the problem is widespread, one more story from the 2004 PNW regional in Portland Oregon. For the third time in as many years in the PNW regional, 492 was in the finals. This time, however, luck was on our side and team 753's robot broke down, allowing us to clinch the victory. (Before they broke, we tied, lost, and had three false starts).

At the time, I felt bad for winning that way. Then I reviewed videos and realized the 753 got what was coming for them. Throughout the competition, they had been - as far as I can tell intentionally - pushing over other robots. When we went up against the basket bot in the PNW regional, we made sure to push them out from under the ball release, then we went on our merry way. 753 went one step further: faced with the basket bot, 753 hapily pushed them over without any pretense of trying to do otherwise. Now, they built a fine robot (until it broke, I guess) but where in the worlde is the enforcement of <G32>? Again, for your perusal: "Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed."

In the finals, I found that I didn't mind when 469 lost, becasue I thought they had illigetimately made their way there in the first place.

Let the flamewar begin...

[Chris Hibner]

Please take a look at this video (http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2004/movies/gal/gal_sf1m2.wmv). My question is, if this isn't purposeful entanglement, what is? Clearly, 469 took their hook into 93's basket and got it stuck. Even the announcer noticed the clear entanglement and talked about it. Yet no call was made. I noticed that on Galileo at least, very few calls were ever made.

I do not mind agressive play - I think it makes the game much more exciting. But those that play agressively have to accept the onsequences of their actions as well. Pushing is fine, but when you get entangled, your robot should be disqualified. If FIRST wants its referees to be respected, the referees need to respect the rules:

"<G32> Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. Accidental tipping over of a robot is not considered damaging and may be allowed at the discretion of the referees. Intentional stabbing, cutting, etc., is illegal. If a breach of this rule occurs, the team will be disqualified for that match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being disqualified from the remainder of the regional competition and/or championship event."

Admittedly, I am bitter, and my views are biased - so let me know if you think 469 should have been disqualified in this situation. ...

I just watched the match. I guess you clearly saw a different match than I did. 469 put their ball grabber in 93's basket in an attempt to block all of the balls from falling into it. This was OBVIOUS. Yes, they became tangled, but it clearly wasn't intentional. In fact, I thought 469 did a very gracious thing: in the fight to become untangled, 93 flipped in its side. All 469 had to do was take their hands off their controls and they would have won the match (because 93 could not do anything). Instead, 469 drove forward, righting 93 and putting them on their feet again.

Their strategy was clearly not to intentionally damage, entangle, or tip 93. If you were at the Great Lakes Regional and saw when 67 put a ball in 1241's hopper before the balls fell, you would have clearly recognized the strategy. 469 didn't have a ball to put in 93's hopper, so they used their big claw instead. It's unfortunate that it got tangled. (As a note, in past year's 93 could have been subjet to a DQ since netting was considered an entaglement hazard, so you can argue on either side.)



Now for the next case study: Galileo Semifinal 1.1 (http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2004/movies/gal/gal_sf1m1.wmv). Once again, going up against 469, and one again their agressive play takes out one of our robots. I didn't actaully see it happen (and the video fails to show exactly what happened), but I think it was a legitimate takedown (ie, unplanned, if not unintentional). ...

Wow... talk about seeing the world thought filtered lenses. It appeared to me that 93 was the aggressor on this play. 469 was trying to hold the moveable goal under the ball dump and 93 was trying to push them out of the way. It simply looks like they flipped over during the battle for position under to ball dump. Anyway, it seemed clear to me that 469 was there first and that 93 initiated the contact. Furthermore, BOTH robots flipped over (not just 93). 469 was just able to re-right themselves.

...Furthermore, in that match, 469 destroyed one of the poles of a mobile goal. Please refer to rule <G25>: "If ROBOTS intentionally tip over any Mobile Goal or damage the poles of a Mobile or Stationary Goal, that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified." ...

Once again, the lenses are filtering pretty heavy. Did you notice during the video that when 93 flipped, 469 flipped as well? Also, did you notice that 469 flipped INTO to movable goal? It seems that flipping into the movable broke the pole. Do you really think that they flipped INTENTIONALLY into the goal so they could break a pole?


However, after the match (which ended with our alliance loosing by 5 points), I asked the referees if our oponents had any penalties, and was told that the oposing alliance had a 10 point penalty deducted. I was then amazed by the score, because that meant that they had scored nine (9!) balls, which was more than I thought they had. Well, after reviewing the video, the oposing alliance looks like they have only seven (7!) balls, plus the hanger, minus the 10 point penalty. This comes to 75 points to our 80. But instead, the reported score was 85 points to our 80. The penalty WAS NOT ASSESSED and the result of the match changed. ...

This is legitimate gripe. However, you should have asked the refs this before leaving the playing field. Perhaps the one referee you talked to was not informed correctly. Either way, complaining about it here isn't the right thing to do. You have recourse within the rules, but once you leave the playing field, the results are final. If you did not pursure your recourse within the structure of the rules, that is your team's fault - don't complain about it here.

Depending on how you read the rule, 469 should ahve been disabled for breaking the mobile goal, and perhaps even disqualified for their continuous agressive behavior. But once again, no call was made.

There is no rule DQ'ing a team for "continuous aggressive behavior." If they break one of the rules you mention, they would have been DQ'ed. When I watch the video, it appears pretty clear that none of their "infractions" were intentional.

[Alex Cormier]

i dont want to start bad mouthing the alliance that beat the alliance i was in but.... most of the stuff they had done to my alliance was totally uncalled for and should have got them a DQ.


thats all im in for....

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll toss in some spare change on this argument, and say that I don't think G32 was being enforced much in the finals either. I am uncertain which robot it was, but atleast one of the robots was clearly designed along Battlebots lines. it was low to the ground and had a wedge at the front that ran almost right on the ground. Presumably this could be argued as a way of getting balls out of the way, but it also was perfect for tipping robots, and everytime I saw this robot get into a shoving match, the opponent went over, or nearly did so. I can't see how this robot wasn't designed and used with tipping in mind.

[rees2001]

I'll toss in some spare change on this argument, and say that I don't think G32 was being enforced much in the finals either. I am uncertain which robot it was, but atleast one of the robots was clearly designed along Battlebots lines. it was low to the ground and had a wedge at the front that ran almost right on the ground. Presumably this could be argued as a way of getting balls out of the way, but it also was perfect for tipping robots, and everytime I saw this robot get into a shoving match, the opponent went over, or nearly did so. I can't see how this robot wasn't designed and used with tipping in mind.

I really hope you are not talking about HOT (67). Their robot was a long wedge and could easily have been used as a weapon of mass destruction BUT, we played with them in 2 different competitions an I never once saw them attack a robot with the wedge. More often it was used to shed off attackers or push balls to the player station. On numerous occasions they were attacked & the wedge simply protected their excellent robot. I would say they were the most classy and well run team we have ever had the chance to play with.

We also got the chance to play against 496 on Einstein. They play a tough match. They have a well designed robot and use all of its strengths.

Next year when you build your robot just remember, build a robot tough enough to play with them, or get out of their way.

[KenWittlief]

I have to agree with Ryan to some extent - putting their hook over the other teams netted basket did not appear to block any balls that I could tell, and it ended up getting entangled

I think after spending 6 weeks building these machines hands-on most drivers have a pretty good understanding of what will get entangled, how hard you can ram someone before you break them, how hard you can push a bot before it will tip over

I saw a LOT of matches this year with bots getting rammed, pushed over, knocked over, disabled and seriously damaged, and I never once heard an announcer say the team was disqualified

does anyone have information to the contrary? Clearly many bots have been tipped and damaged this year - if no team was disqualified for these actions at any regional, then you might as well delete those rules from the manual

its not a rule unless its inforced - or maybe they should take the 'weasle words' like 'intentional' out and state that any action that CAUSES damage or tipping will result in disqualification?

seriously, can you drive your car down a city street at 80mph then tell a judge, "I wasnt speeding intentionally...." and be exhonorated? in the real world its results that are judged, not what was going through your head at the time - you bang into someone elses car and damage it, it doenst matter if you did it intentionally or not, you still have to pay the price for your actions.

no matter how well you build your bot, if someone else builds their stronger and keeps ramming you, ramming you, ramming you - sooner or later something is going to break - its only a matter of degree.

some will break or topple the first time they are hit, other will hold out for more abuse - but why is it being allowed at all?!

[Gary Dillard]

I'll toss in some spare change on this argument, and say that I don't think G32 was being enforced much in the finals either. I am uncertain which robot it was, but atleast one of the robots was clearly designed along Battlebots lines. it was low to the ground and had a wedge at the front that ran almost right on the ground. Presumably this could be argued as a way of getting balls out of the way, but it also was perfect for tipping robots, and everytime I saw this robot get into a shoving match, the opponent went over, or nearly did so. I can't see how this robot wasn't designed and used with tipping in mind.

That was HOT (67), and they played very fairly throughout the competition (they were in our division). A wedge is a valid defensive strategy for moving another robot by taking away their traction and transfering it to you; you don't have to flip them to do this.

I agree with Chris on all the points of the video interpretation - 469 was well within the rules in all their maneuvers that I saw in the 2 examples you posted. Time to get over it and move on.

[MikeDubreuil]

After watching the match I don't think any rules were broken.

RyanMcE, 93 has made an excellent offensive robot. The only way to stop them from scoring many points is to deffensively shut them down. 469's method was to stop balls from falling into their net. Unofortunately, at the same time there became entangled in your net material.
The argument could be made that the net material was a bad choice because 93 should have known teams would attempt to block their mechanism. Then they could potentially become lodged in something with a high probablibily of getting caught up in (netting).

It's unfortunate, but a lot of the best offensive teams get shut down by agressive defense. If you want to see an example check out almost any of team #47s matches. The first minute usually involves teams attempting to push them around.

[RyanMcE]

First, thanks for the pulic reply so people can see the different sides of this issue.

I just watched the match. I guess you clearly saw a different match than I did. 469 put their ball grabber in 93's basket in an attempt to block all of the balls from falling into it. This was OBVIOUS. Yes, they became tangled, but it clearly wasn't intentional.
Wheee... Ok, to block the balls from falling is legitimate, but the claw need not be in the basket to do this - above teh basket works fine. What is OBVIOUS to me is that the claw was INTENTIONALLY put into the basket by the drivers of 469, then before lifting it out, INTENTIONALLY drove backwards.

In fact, I thought 469 did a very gracious thing: in the fight to become untangled, 93 flipped in its side. All 469 had to do was take their hands off their controls and they would have won the match (because 93 could not do anything). Instead, 469 drove forward, righting 93 and putting them on their feet again.
Yay, now its GRACIOUS to get your own robot out of an entanglement that you created! If 469 ha not driven forward, they would have been effectively disabled (trying to drag 93 all over the field). It was hardly in the interests of 93 that they drove forward to try to get out of the entanglement that they created, even if the end result was also better for 93.

Their strategy was clearly not to intentionally damage, entangle, or tip 93. If you were at the Great Lakes Regional and saw when 67 put a ball in 1241's hopper before the balls fell, you would have clearly recognized the strategy. 469 didn't have a ball to put in 93's hopper, so they used their big claw instead. It's unfortunate that it got tangled.
Actually, it was quite fortunate for them. And I guess we're both mind readers now, since we both seem to know what 469 intended to do. Nevertheless, I saw consistent agressiveness in 469 (which I like) but consistent non-enforcement of rules (as I interpret them) when that agressiveness led to entanglement and damaging other robots (as in the case of 494 as mentioned in the thread linked to above).

(As a note, in past year's 93 could have been subjet to a DQ since netting was considered an entaglement hazard, so you can argue on either side.)
Since last year's rules apply to this competition, this is clearly germaine......

Wow... talk about seeing the world thought filtered lenses. It appeared to me that 93 was the aggressor on this play. 469 was trying to hold the moveable goal under the ball dump and 93 was trying to push them out of the way. It simply looks like they flipped over during the battle for position under to ball dump. Anyway, it seemed clear to me that 469 was there first and that 93 initiated the contact. Furthermore, BOTH robots flipped over (not just 93). 469 was just able to re-right themselves.
As I was saying, I didn't see it happen, and the video didn't show it, so its hard to tell what exactly happened. What I do know is 469 had a history of ungracious behavior (once again, in my view, clearly not the referee's). I also said, you may recall, that I thought this was legitimate from the information I had.

Once again, the lenses are filtering pretty heavy. Did you notice during the video that when 93 flipped, 469 flipped as well? Also, did you notice that 469 flipped INTO to movable goal? It seems that flipping into the movable broke the pole. Do you really think that they flipped INTENTIONALLY into the goal so they could break a pole?
No, I don't really think that 469 intentionally broke the goal. But do you really think I said that? This is what I said:
The question is, does the word intentional apply to both clauses or only the first? Depending on how you read the rule, 469 should ahve been disabled for breaking the mobile goal, and perhaps even disqualified for their continuous agressive behavior. But once again, no call was made.
I mentioned that this one is interpretation of rules. The question is: Does "If ROBOTS intentionally tip over any Mobile Goal or damage the poles of a Mobile or Stationary Goal, that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified." mean
1. ""If ROBOTS intentionally tip over any Mobile Goal or intentionally damage the poles of a Mobile or Stationary Goal, that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified." or does it mean
2. "If ROBOTS intentionally tip over any Mobile Goal that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified." and "If ROBOTS damage the poles of a Mobile or Stationary Goal that team’s ROBOT will be disabled and the team may be disqualified."
I wrongly assumed this was clear, but I find it interesting that you only quoted the first part of that point and not the second part that I had to quote myself.

This is legitimate gripe. However, you should have asked the refs this before leaving the playing field. Perhaps the one referee you talked to was not informed correctly. Either way, complaining about it here isn't the right thing to do. You have recourse within the rules, but once you leave the playing field, the results are final. If you did not pursure your recourse within the structure of the rules, that is your team's fault - don't complain about it here.
Ah, but we did pursue recourse; why do you assume we did not? Our alliance captain went to the head referee immediately after the match and asked about the call. Unfortunately, by the time the (wrong) score was posted, all the balls had already been cleared out of the goals, the flags picked up, the goal replaced, etc... So what real recourse did we have? Referee's decisions are final, wether they be right or wrong, and that is that. I accept that. But to think sweeping it under the rug like no mistake was made is better than bringing it up on these forums is ludicrous. I think this is a wonderful place to have this discussion.

There is no rule DQ'ing a team for "continuous aggressive behavior." If they break one of the rules you mention, they would have been DQ'ed. When I watch the video, it appears pretty clear that none of their "infractions" were intentional.
Not all infractions have to be intentional, Chris. Nobody ever tried to break the ball chute plane, but those penalties were still assessed. Nobody tried to touch the controls early, but those penalties were still assessed. And as for your first statement, please consult the rules before saying that. Once again, rule <G32>: "Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. Accidental tipping over of a robot is not considered damaging and may be allowed at the discretion of the referees. Intentional stabbing, cutting, etc., is illegal. If a breach of this rule occurs, the team will be disqualified for that match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being disqualified from the remainder of the regional competition and/or championship event."
That to me looks like a rule against "continuous aggressive behavior" that results in other robots getting damaged. There are similar rules about the field.

The real point of this thread (other than blowing off some steam at once again being screwed by rules not being enfored) is to try to show that there is a trend of rules not being enforced over a number of years (see my original post), and to get a some momentum behind the idea of actually enforcing rules. I have probally done a terrible job at this because I am still bitter. But pretending that there is no problem because you don't like me doesn't make the problem go away.

[Gary Dillard]

Clearly many bots have been tipped and damaged this year - if no team was disqualified for these actions at any regional, then you might as well delete those rules from the manual

its not a rule unless its inforced - or maybe they should take the 'weasle words' like 'intentional' out and state that any action that CAUSES damage or tipping will result in disqualification?

no matter how well you build your bot, if someone else builds their stronger and keeps ramming you, ramming you, ramming you - sooner or later something is going to break - its only a matter of degree.


You're going to disqualify a team everytime their opponent gets tipped over? Great - I'll start mounting my motors and battery at the top instead of at the bottom.

You're going to disqualify a team everytime their opponent's robot get's damaged? Great - I'll start making my chassis out of glass and balsa wood.

Let's distinguish between "ramming" and "pushing". If a robot backs up and continually slams into their opponent with firm structure that's ramming. If I've got more traction than you do and I move you down the field that's pushing. If I've got bumpers to absorb the energy I would argue that that's not ramming either.

If this was so blatent, why weren't there any wedgebot tanks in the finals? Because to win the game you had to herd, double and hang. Team 67 made it to the finals because they could do all 3, not because they were flipping robots.

<R10> Teams are expected to design and build robots to withstand vigorous interaction with other robots. See The Game section of the manual.

This is the engineering principle of "robust" - we could have added all kinds of cool mechanisms to our robot if we didn't have to worry about tipping or getting broken. That's part of the requirements, in fact when we start brainstorming every year we list "simple" and "robust" above everything else in selection of our configuration.

[KenWittlief]

I think the only way this type of situation is going to be resolved is for FIRST to bite the bullet

acknowledge that FIRST HAS become a battlebots event to some extent

and to create reasonable rules to deal with it and make it fair

nobody can design a robot that can be hit or rammed on any square inch of its surface at any time with any given amount of force and not be toppled or damaged - every bot will have a soft spot somewhere

in sports where body contact does occur, there are rules - you cant punch a quarterback in the face and then say, 'Hey, whats the matter, if you cant take it you shouldnt be out here'

and even in boxing and martial arts sports, there are body parts that are off-limits

it would be very easy for FIRST to implement a bumper requirement, and then impose a penalty for any bot that hits, pushes or rams another bot outside its bumber zone (hitting above the belt :^)

but I think the problem is, FIRST is pretending its still 1998, when bots rarely ever touched each other - and expecting this problem to go away with a sprinkling of GP talk

its not going away - it needs to be dealt with headon.

[KenWittlief]

Let's distinguish between "ramming" and "pushing". If a robot backs up and continually slams into their opponent with firm structure that's ramming...

ok, thats ramming - I saw this happen many many times this year, with bots getting knocked over and with bots damaged to the extent that parts literally flew off the field

and no DQs were announced - were they called? I dont know - I would think if you want to discourage this type of agression you would make a point of announcing that team XYZ was DQ for inflicting damage or tipping.

like other sports I consider defense being faster or stronger and getting BETWEEN your opponent and the goal - getting their before they do and keeping them away

I dont consider it defense if you run up behind a basketball player or a fieldgoal kicker and slam into them as hard as you can while they are trying to make a shot - its not allowed in other sports, why is it allowed in FIRST?

And where is the spec for how much force or impact your bot must be able to withstand in a match? saying it must be robust is weasle-words - no matter what you build I guarentee you I can build something stronger and put an impact point on my machine, find your weak spot and take you out on the field

then all I have to do to defend my actions is point to the 'robust' words in the manual, and tell you its your fault your bot couldnt take a little rough play.

is this what FIRST has come to?!

[RyanMcE]

I think the only way this type of situation is going to be resolved is for FIRST to bite the bullet

acknowledge that FIRST HAS become a battlebots event to some extend

and to create reasonable rules to deal with it and make it fair

...

its not going away - it needs to be dealt with headon.
Yes! Someone who can see past the bitterness to the real intent of the post. I think that what I am talking about is a systemic problem with FIRST, and that it needs to be dealt with as opposed to pretending that everything is ok as bullies duke it out for the championship.



I have also noticed that my reputation has suddenly gotten quite a bit worse. Here are some of the reactions that I think are legitimate and should be seen:

I disagree with your opinion about calling out 753 in Portland. They played aggressive, but did not intentionally tip anyone. It would have been called. Also, another head ref would've wimped out on the 6 minute timeout for 753, so don't complain.
Thank you Andy, for enforcing the rules. It is legitimate to disagree with me on the intentions of 753, and I think the PNW regional was in general well-called. But I think it is very interesting that you admit that most other head referees would not have stuck to the 6 minute limit. Why not? Is it because the rules are largely ignored when it is convinient? This is another example of the exact problem I'm trying to point out!

Aaaah ... GP at its finest. Thank You, I was a referee on Galileo and I believe we GOT IT RIGHT. Your post was DEFINITELY bitter and biased, and inappropriate. I WILL respond publicly, without flame.
I respectfully DISAGREE. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the two referees with whom I conferred about the penalty (assigned to the far side of the field from our players station) were wrong, and there was no penalty. But they said there was a penalty, and they said it was assessed. And yes, I am biased (I want my team to win; do you not want the same?) and I am bitter (having lost three years in a row to people who, in my opinion, were intentionally streching and/or breaking the rules).

Referee calls are final.
Whoa, high-repuation people have taken notice of this post. And they have promptly ignored the problem. I agree, they are final. I am not asking that the taped be reviewed and the results of the match changed. I am asking for an overhaul of the system that encourages rules to be ignored when it is not convienient to enforce them. Another shout out to Andy who had the balls to stick to 6 minutes for both our alliance and the opposing alliance when we took the timeout.

...
What no comment? Just unabashed reputation degradation? :-)

[Chris Hibner]

Wheee... Ok, to block the balls from falling is legitimate, but the claw need not be in the basket to do this - above teh basket works fine. What is OBVIOUS to me is that the claw was INTENTIONALLY put into the basket by the drivers of 469, then before lifting it out, INTENTIONALLY drove backwards.

469's drivers are 48 feet away, looking through two stationary goals and other robots driving around the field. I think it is forgivable that their first move is to start driving away (especially if they couldn't see that their claw is tangled on 93).


Yay, now its GRACIOUS to get your own robot out of an entanglement that you created! If 469 ha not driven forward, they would have been effectively disabled (trying to drag 93 all over the field). It was hardly in the interests of 93 that they drove forward to try to get out of the entanglement that they created, even if the end result was also better for 93.

469 would have happily been disabled if it also meant 93 was disabled. Afterall, it appeared that their entire strategy was to play defense and nullify 93. The entanglement would have achieved this objective of nullifying 93. However, they took the high road and put them back on their feet for a fair battle.


Actually, it was quite fortunate for them. And I guess we're both mind readers now, since we both seem to know what 469 intended to do. Nevertheless, I saw consistent agressiveness in 469 (which I like) but consistent non-enforcement of rules (as I interpret them) when that agressiveness led to entanglement and damaging other robots (as in the case of 494 as mentioned in the thread linked to above).

To me it was clearly obvious what 469 was doing. It was a near replay of the 67/1241 match up until 469 dropped the big ball (watch the video: you will see 469 take the big ball off of the red movable goal, then drop it. They pause for a second figuring out what to do and then do the next best thing - block the hopper with their claw).



As I was saying, I didn't see it happen, and the video didn't show it, so its hard to tell what exactly happened. What I do know is 469 had a history of ungracious behavior (once again, in my view, clearly not the referee's). I also said, you may recall, that I thought this was legitimate from the information I had.

I don't know what history you know of, but I think most teams that go to the competitions around the midwest would agree that 469 is one of the most gracious teams around.


Not all infractions have to be intentional, Chris. Nobody ever tried to break the ball chute plane, but those penalties were still assessed. Nobody tried to touch the controls early, but those penalties were still assessed. And as for your first statement, please consult the rules before saying that. Once again, rule <G32>: "Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. Accidental tipping over of a robot is not considered damaging and may be allowed at the discretion of the referees. Intentional stabbing, cutting, etc., is illegal. If a breach of this rule occurs, the team will be disqualified for that match. Repeated offenses could result in a team being disqualified from the remainder of the regional competition and/or championship event."
That to me looks like a rule against "continuous aggressive behavior" that results in other robots getting damaged. There are similar rules about the field.

What the rule states is this: if you intentionally damage/tip/stab/cut/etc. you will be DQ'ed for the match (it was ruled that 469 did not do this). Repeated offenses (intentional damage/tipping/cutting/etc.) could result in being DQ'ed from the remainder of the tournament. This rule does not say that repeated aggressive play will DQ you from a match. It says that repeated DQ's from breaking G32 will get you kicked out of the tournament. 469 was never called once for breaking G32. Therefore, they couldn't have repeated offenses.

But pretending that there is no problem because you don't like me doesn't make the problem go away.

Hold on. Who said I don't like you? I just watched to video and gave an unbiased opinion. It's just that what I saw doesn't agree with what you saw.

[D.J. Fluck]

So far, the arguements Ive seen is that people "played too rough"

469 and many others played some tough defense during the elimination rounds and all through the weekend. I don't see any problem with that linked match at the top of this thread...469's drivers tried to get away and they both ended up on the ground, so basically it was a total freak accident...why would a referee call something on a freak accident? 469 played tough, but not maliciously and thats why they made it as far as they did. I don't see any arguement against 469 here in what they did and the refs made the right no call and that should be that. FIRST warned you that these robots should be made tough...they said that with good reason and many of the successful teams over the weekend proved their statement true.

[Peter Matteson]

I have to say that many of the adult mentors I was sitting with with in the back of the Galileo stands thought that this looked intentional during the competition and were surprised when there was no penalty. 469 made several questionable (I mean interpretation of not motivation for) moves in the elimination rounds. [Text Deleted by Ddzconfusd]

That being said, did 469 have good bot? Yes.
Did they know how to play the game to win? Yes.
They beat my team fairly in the Galileo finals and deserved to go on to Einstien, and for that I congratulate them. That is not the point. The point is that rules should be called as written and they were not on the Galileo field. I just want to see rules consistently called the way they are written.

[Text Deleted by Ddzconfusd]

[JVN]

Whoa, high-repuation people have taken notice of this post. And they have promptly ignored the problem. I agree, they are final. I am not asking that the taped be reviewed and the results of the match changed. I am asking for an overhaul of the system that encourages rules to be ignored when it is not convienient to enforce them. Another shout out to Andy who had the balls to stick to 6 minutes for both our alliance and the opposing alliance when we took the timeout.
First off,
I do NOT appreciate having PRIVATE comments I have made, posted publicly.

Secondly,
I'm not ignoring the problem.
I watched the matches you specified, and I feel the same way as Chris Hibner. If we saw it that way, there is a dang good chance that is how the refs saw it. So that is how they called it.

Remember, ref calls and interpretation are FINAL.
You have now attacked 469. You went as far as saying they didn't deserve to be in the finals. Now you're whining about some negative rep?

I've gotta say, I saw a lot of difficult calls being made, and overall I was VERY happy with the officiating this weekend. I thought the refs were absolutely AWESOME.

I was also very impressed with 469, and the quality of their drivers and strategy. I think they earned every W they got.

I watched the video of the matches you speak of.

Based on these things I've gotta say... you're WAY off base in your post. You should consider immediately appologizing to team 469, and the Galileo Referee crew.


John

[Joe3]

Great, the annual "we got beat, so I'm going to complain about bad reffing on cd" post has cropped up.

I would like you to show me where exactly in the FIRST rules manual it says the playing defense is illegal. When 469 put their arm over/into your ball catcher, do you really think that their intention was to get entangled in your net? If you've ever been a driver, you'd realize that not only is it tough to see on the other side of the field, coordination between arm and chassis driver is extremely difficult on the field, and 469's chassis driver probably just jumped the gun and tried to get going before the arm got all the way up and out of the way. Oh, and by the way. Since 469 got entangled in YOUR robot, YOUR robot presented the entanglement hazard, and would have been the one disqualified. 469 employed the same strategy against our alliance (177, 27, 365) in the finals: they picked up a 2x ball and held it over 177's catcher when the balls dropped. The only difference here is that in your match, they dropped the ball.

For the past three years, FIRST has said that vigorous interaction between robots is to be expected, but it seems that some people still haven't listened. Yes the games have become higher contact than they have in the past, but whether that is a good thing or not,that is the way that it is.

You also keep talking about some "problem" that people are ignoring. What problem do you see? That teams are playing the game on the field to win, and are competing to the best of their ability. If you expect FIRST to go back to a 2001 style no-contact game, I think you'll be waiting a very long time. Each team can play the game however they want to, as there are infinate strategies to employ against any robot. Just dont complain when a team comes up with a strategy to beat you that you didnt expect. Get over it, and get ready for next year.

[Paul Copioli]

The biggest problem I see is that each year the refs are told to "really enforce" certain rules. Normally these rules deal with human interaction. Last year the refs were really harping on the human player not going into certain places, not dropping the bins on their side, etc. I thought it was a bit too much focus on something that didn't influence the game (or safety) so much, except for HPs jumping over the rail.

This year there were 2 major rules I noticed the refs looking at:

1. Robots breaking plane - I see the intent, but the way it was enforced was just plain silly. Not to mention the fact that a goal could be placed nearly 1 foot into the goal opening with no penalty. The reasons the goals weren't penalized have been explained, but it is still silly.

2. "Foot Fouls" - This isn't bowling people. Why were the refs so intent on calling penalties if you stepped over the back line?

These two rules took away four refs from looking at other, more important, parts of play.

Pushing, bumping, and ramming will happen. The repeated ramming that is going un-penalized is getting a bit absurd. Teams are playing within the rules actually given to them (since the written words are vague, at best. Read "INTENTIONAL" - what a joke). I am a big fan for defense, but not battlebots. I guarantee that if a team gets penalized (I mean points actually deducted) for ramming they will not do it again. How many times did it take you losing by 5 points to tell your driver to stay at least 6 inches away from the corral?

Some final thoughts:

1. I do not think that every time a team gets tipped it should be penalized.

2. I do not think that every time a team gets ran into and they break, it shoulld be penalized.

3. I DO think the refs need to look at different parts of play than they have the last few years.

4. I DO think the rules should be written and enforced consistently.

-Paul

[edomus]

As part of the 469 alliance I would like to offer my comments. I will be honest and say that I did not take the time to read this whole thread, but it seems that the main argument is that 469 INTENTIONALLY got entangled. Everone should know that this was not at all intentional. We did a strategy session before the match and decided that the only way to counter 93 was to block them from getting the ball drop. To do this we wanted 469 to crab a multiplier ball and hold it over 93. First 469 tried to grap a multiplier for this perpose but it fell out. With only seconds to spare they made a judgement call to try and hold their arm over 93 and prevent as many balls as possible from falling in. THIS was the purpose, and in my mind it is legitimate. They did not intend to get entangled. I am not saying that the entanglement rule should not have applied, because I still havent made my mind up on that. But if the issue was intent, there was no intent to entangle. I would also like to say that it is completely the refs call. It is really not our place to argue over their descisions. They have a tough job, and they try to hold us to the rules as closely as possible.

[MikeDubreuil]

The biggest problem I see is that each year the refs are told to "really enforce" certain rules.

Good post, you got me thinking. Sure, certain rules do change. But there are some that don't entanglement, tipping, etc. They are considered "standard rules" and are included almost every year.

Referees are human and don't want to make the diffcult call of determing whether or not a robot should be disabled. Black and white calls, like when the battery comes loose are easy. However, fuzzy situations like entanglement and tipping are difficult.

There are clearly some who think 469 has violated the rules and others who think 469 is just playing good defense.

I propose that FIRST puts together a video to be shown to all that shows examples of violations of the "standard rules." Actual competition footage could be used. Teams would get a better idea of what they shouldn't do, and referees would have actual examples to use to help determine what intent looks like.

[scottm87]

I have been watching this thread, and I think it is heading the wrong direction. If you want to debate how to improve the rules in the future, make them more clear, design the game to encourage less aggressive gameplay, fine. It seems to me though that this thread is more than just slightly biased. We acknowledged the way the game was going to be played, and tried to do our best within the limitations of the rules. If the goal of this thread (as stated in a few posts) is to give suggestions for better enforcement of rules, then lets discuss that. If not, then it should be more clear, and I will post my opinions on the specific incidents that were brought up.

[rees2001]

[QUOTE=Chris Hibner]469's drivers are 48 feet away, looking through two stationary goals and other robots driving around the field. I think it is forgivable that their first move is to start driving away (especially if they couldn't see that their claw is tangled on 93).

I'm going to have to side with Chris on this one. Until you have been behind the glass in a competition, you just don't know. I see the same thing, they scouted the match well & when their strategy of using the ball to block the dump failed they... paused & did the next best thing. Used their arm instead. I'm sure they would have much rather NOT been entangled. After the block my GUESS is they would have started collecting balls to bring to their human player to try and beat you in a shootout.

If you saw the semifinal match we had with them for the championship you would have seen them put the 2x over 67's mobile goal just before the balls dumped. The Ref's didn't call goaltending, 469 was trying to get the balls into thier hopper, not block our goal. Sure it could have been called but, these poeple are VOLUNTEERS. They are giving up their time & quite often the opportunity to see their own teams to help out. Did you ever say thank you for the 3 days of work they put in for YOU.

This competition is about learning, the game is just a fun way to do it. I know it is tough to lose. Especially when you think you have been wronged by a missed call or ungracious play. The hard truth is, that's life. What doesn't kill you can make you stronger, if you let it.

Lastly for the strength of your robot, the robostness of it. I couldn't count the number of times I watched a team drive up onto us to try & keep us from hanging. I couldn't count the number of times a robot rammed, yes rammed us. We had cables snap, sides smashed in, parts bent, but we kept hanging because we have played against 496 before, we knew how tough other teams can be. My kids built it strong enough to take it & keep hanging. around.

[Don Wright]

Wow...posting people's private replies publically...that's pretty nice.

I was on the field and I heard 469 talking strategy... This is what I heard...

"Ok...in order for us to win this thing, here's what we need to do. When 93 opens up their net, instead of just dropping a 2x ball in there which would be too easy and nice, lets ram chomp-chomp in there. That way, we can get all tangled up and tip us both over trying to get away. Then, make sure we pick both of us back up to make it look like we are nice, and then release them so we can go and do what we really built our robot to do...go and be the best ball hearding, most offensive robot out there and cap at the end.

But, that might not work all the time, so what we will do next is position ourselves under our goal so they come over and try to push us out of the way. Then, we will tip us both over again, BUT WE HAVE TO BREAK THE MOBLE GOAL. This is very important and is a must. But, only pull out one pipe to make it seem not too intentional. Then, pick us back up and continue with our offensive strategy."

Come on. Sorry, but quit whining. Several times this year we have been broken by other teams (the Martians 494 did a nice job on us at GLR). But we understand it's a game. A rough game. And we fix what is broken, hopefully better so it doesn't happen again, and remember it for next year so we design something more robust. No HARD feelings...in fact...we like it. It forces us to examine our designs and go back to even more basics (like we are next year) to makes things stronger and easier to repair.

Maybe we should play next year like lego league...where the field is divided into four quadrants and we all have our little sections to drive around in so nobody can hurt anybody else. Yea...that will be exciting. I'm sorry, but to the general public which I think FIRST is trying to appeal to, to get more interest from, we need these kinds of matches. When things like this happen, the stands are roaring and everyone is running from the food stands to see what is going on. This is the kind of excitement we need.

And another thing...comparing some of the FIRST robots to the flipping robots you see on battlebots is silly. Sure, if someone uses a cylinder on a flipper and continuously flip robots over, they should be DQ'd. But, I didn't see anybody do that at all. Making a low profile robot or some kind of wedge shape is a very fundamental design to stop yourself from getting pushed around and bullied and that is the name of the game to fulfill your strategy...

Congrats 469. You did nothing wrong. Looking forward to being more competitive next year so we can be a challenge to you...

The only thing I can agree on is how the scoring was done. The balls are removed from the field and everything is reset before the scores are posting so if there is a disagreement, there really is nothing to "check". But, I don't know how to fix that...

[ellenchisa]

Oh wow...I never realized that our defensive strategy would get such a reaction... When I started following the thread this morning, it had three posts, and I figured it would blow over...

Now, I think, I should probably say something from our point of view.

You are correct in assuming that we were trying to mimic the idea of the hot bot capping 67 in Ypsilanti. I thought that play was brilliant, and as head of scouting, I was telling our coach all weekend that the way to beat 93 was to do that. My main fear in playing against them was that they would hvae an alliance that triggered in autonomous mode and we wouldn't be able to prevent them from catching all the balls. (Obviously, the point of this wasn't to interfere with their robot...it's just that when you have rollers and want to floor load, it's not good when someone catches half the balls immediately. Great robot design, though :) )

If you had met our arm driver, you would understand that it was a mistake to get the arm inside their robot. Our team was instantly worried about the repercussions too. I wasn't there during the rounds (as head of scouting, I had to watch Newton), but trust me, Weike would NEVER intentionally shove the arm into the robot. Our coach and I had discussed beforehand if we didn't have the doubler we could lay our arm OVER their robot the prevent the balls from going in. Definitely not inside of the robot.

As for tipping... going into the season we knew our robot was fairly unstable with the arm up... the COG was just too high. Personally, I worried throughout Ypsilanti about the problem, but the robot didn't tip. At Chicago, when it did, we were holding a doubler in a goal, and managed to get back up. At nationals when tipping of our robot became a common occurance, we were almost always able to right ourselves. As for 93 tipping... everyone knows when you build a robot that can tip, that is a risk you are taking. You could fall off of the steps, or happen to get into a pushing war with the wrong robot. In my opinion, they could have taken more precautions against tipping. But at least they managed to get back up, right? :) And as for flipping onto the goal...I guess I don't have much else to say other than "oops".

As for the referees on Galileo, I respect their decisions. (Although, of course, since it meant we won...I would). However, in Chicago when we were on the opposite side of a referee decision, we also accepted that after reviewing to determine if they were correct. Refereeing is a difficult positition to be in, and to say the least, I watched almost all of the qualifying rounds, and the rulings were consistent.

All in all, I'm sorry to anyone we offended with our defensive meneauvers. We were simply trying to win to the best of our ability with the robot we have. Some mistakes were unintentionally made. So I guess it's nice to see the different perspectives on what happened...hopefully this won't cause any hard feelings to last.

Ellen

[MikeDubreuil]

It's also important to note that the arm entering the basket could have been accidental. Caused either by poor control of the arm or a nervous driver.

[ellenchisa]

It's also important to note that the arm entering the basket could have been accidental. Caused either by poor control of the arm or a nervous driver.

Yes...that is exactly what I meant when I said Weike would never intentionally put the arm in someone's robot. She's a freshmen, fairly knew to the whole thing, and one of the sweetest people you'd ever meet. She's not out to kill anyone's robot, I promise!

[Paul Copioli]

I think some people are a bit confused. Ryan (the person who started this thread) is NOT from team 93. In fact, no one from 93 has even posted yet. IIt would be interesting to hear their point of view since they have competed with and against 469 for many years.

And Ryan, since you are making private remarks public, I will save you the trouble: You MIGHT have a legitimate beef, HOWEVER your bitterness is getting in the way. If you want people to address the real problem then strip away all the unnecessary bitterness and contempt and try again.

-Paul

[Gary Dillard]

And where is the spec for how much force or impact your bot must be able to withstand in a match? saying it must be robust is weasle-words - no matter what you build I guarentee you I can build something stronger and put an impact point on my machine, find your weak spot and take you out on the field

then all I have to do to defend my actions is point to the 'robust' words in the manual, and tell you its your fault your bot couldnt take a little rough play.



The specs are the laws of physics dealing with conservation of energy.

There is going to be a 130 pound robot coming at you at 12 feet per second, going after the same ball / goal / inner tube / whatever that you are. That energy is going to be transferred to your robot. It needs to either be strong enough to take the impact or flexible enough to absorb it.

There is going to be a 30 pound arm swinging at the maximum energy of the motors / pistons available to grab the same ball / bar / goal/ whatever that you are, and parts of your robot is going to frequently, very frequently be in the path of action. It needs to either be strong enough to take the impact or flexible enough to absorb it.

We had PVC wings to push the balls - should our opponents be penalized if they tear them off during a match? No - we understand that they will generally take the load, we keep them stowed whenever possible, and we keep lots of spares to replace them.

In 2002 national finals when we drove full bore into the goal and into Beatty, we had no intention of damaging them; if you saw their robot it seemed pretty likely they would have won that confrontation. Our only choice was to knock them off course so they wouldn't be in position to grab the goals. Worked pretty well - does anyone think we should have been DQ'd?

Our team used to have a rule for our drivers for aggressive play: if you break their robot you get to go their pits and help them fix it. Still a good rule.

Just remember, it's not about winning. Winning is fun, we try to win, but that's just icing if we do.

[scottm87]

Yes...that is exactly what I meant when I said Weike would never intentionally put the arm in someone's robot. She's a freshmen, fairly knew to the whole thing, and one of the sweetest people you'd ever meet. She's not out to kill anyone's robot, I promise!

The robot was at the opposite side of the field, there was lots of movement going on, the fabric obstructed the view somewhat as well... I was down on the field w/ the support team, and it was very hard to see... I even had a better view on the side of the field than our driver did! Besides, as the arm driver for a competition as well, I can say that the arm is very quick, and the slight change in position between "over" and "in" are very hard to make with the controls.

[KenWittlief]

I propose that FIRST puts together a video to be shown to all that shows examples of violations of the "standard rules." Actual competition footage could be used. Teams would get a better idea of what they shouldn't do, and referees would have actual examples to use to help determine what intent looks like.

good point, and it addresses one of my questions about the game this year

can anyone site ANY team at ANY regional that was DQ for damaging other bots or tipping?

was the penalty called at all? anywhere?

as far as I know there is no penalty for this except the bot being DQ'd - was it called anywhere?

[OneAngryDaisy]

For the record, I was watching those matches. When 469 got stuck in 93, two of the referees behind 469 sprinted to their booth. What they said, I don't know. All i know is they appeared to be talking to 469 about something regarding the entanglement. I just remember being suprised seeing a referee run in someone's booth, I never saw that in my 4 years of robotics....

about their aggresive behaivor: it was simply brilliant. They would fill a goal, sometimes both goals, and then cap. With twenty seconds left their offensive job was often done, and a opponent was getting ready to hang. Almost every time 469 succeeded in preventing them from hanging.. This is one amazing bot and I really didn't see them trying to get entangled.

[Andy Baker]

can anyone site ANY team at ANY regional that was DQ for damaging other bots or tipping?

was the penalty called at all? anywhere?


It wasn't tipping or damage, but we called a DQ against team 360 in Portland, for an unfortuneate entanglement. It was not intentional, but it was definitely damaging to their opponent. 360 was the #1 seed at the time, btw.

Also, with the leadership of Eric Stokely and Paul Roush, I NEVER heard any complaining from team 360 about this. They actually felt guilty that their robot could entangle another one, even if they did not mean to. 360 is a class act.

Andy B.

[ellenchisa]

[QUOTE=OneAngryDaisy]For the record, I was watching those matches. When 469 got stuck in 93, two of the referees behind 469 sprinted to their booth. What they said, I don't know. All i know is they appeared to be talking to 469 about something regarding the entanglement. I just remember being suprised seeing a referee run in someone's booth, I never saw that in my 4 years of robotics....
QUOTE]

They told our coach he needed to stop doing that, but when he explained they were genuinely trying to get out of the netting, they left and understood. Forgot to mention that earlier, sorry.

[Zzyzx]

I made myself a promise that I wouldn't post on this thread, but it seems I must break that promise.

At the time of the match in question, I was fairly close to the action when the event in question occurred. As you have seen by my team number, I am closely affiliated with RyanMcE, and I do admit that at the time I felt angry and upset that entanglement was not called.

After reviewing the footage of the match several times, I must agree with most people that it was not an intentional entanglement, and I do agree that it is difficult to control robots from the opposite side of the field and that netting is always in danger of being entangled with. However, it seemed that there was quite a bit of overly-aggressive behavior practiced by several teams this year, and that many aggressive moves were not called for any penalty.

If I looked at it from a same-team standpoint, it would have been an obvious entanglement. If I looked at it from an opposite-team standpoint, it would have been an obvious, and difficult to see, accident. If I looked at it from a judge’s standpoint, it would have been a difficult call to make, and as I stated before, since other overly-aggressive tactics were not called, that may have played a part in the decision not to penalize team 469 for entanglement.

If there are any hard feelings between my team and any other member of any other team, I wish that we may put any difficult feeling behind us and move on. Besides, FIRST is only the beginning.

[Adam Y.]

f I looked at it from a same-team standpoint, it would have been an obvious entanglement. If I looked at it from an opposite-team standpoint, it would have been an obvious, and difficult to see, accident. If I looked at it from a judge’s standpoint, it would have been a difficult call to make, and as I stated before, since other overly-aggressive tactics were not called, that may have played a part in the decision not to penalize team 469 for entanglement.
The same thing happened to our team too.:) We really did not care though because it was a great game and it was an accident Personally I think that the team that build the robot actually could have used a material that would have prevented entanglement. We used this lovely vinyl that Team 870 gave us. It's amazingly flexible and very durable even after it was pulled by a robot.

[Tyler Olds]

Wow, where do I begin??

First off, I would like to congratulate 1218, 469, and 868 for winning a hard brutal match against us. After the 20 minutes it took for me to cool down, I have realized that this is still all a game, and that the true meaning of FIRST is not to win, but to be inspired in the fields on science and technology. After four years of being in first and on team 93 I have truly been inspired by changing my career field from a pilot, to a teacher where I can mentor a team.

I am really going to disregard everybody’s post, and put purely what I feel, my opinions are my own and may or may not represent my team's feelings of these matches. However as alliance captain and driver, I feel that I have a pretty unique perspective on this situation.

First match: Our plan was to have 492 knock off the bonus ball, grab a 2x ball, than prepare to cap. We were to catch, deliver and than prevent 469 from capping.

What actually happened: 492 was able to trigger the bonus ball, for some reason our basket caught a little piece of the mesh netting and did not open. Result: the balls fell onto our bot with out us catching any. We than decided to go over to the other side and attempt to catch our opponents balls while 492 were to grab a 2x ball and be ready to cap. The only problem is that since we are a 2 wheel drive bot, when we push from the side with out our drive wheels we tend to sometimes tip (we also purposely tip our selves when the balls are jammed in our basket to get them out). Because I was in the heat of the match and not thinking properly, I attempted to push 469 with the non-drive side of our bot. As we started to drive 469 back, our bot rode up 469 and tipped over (469 also tipped over). Result was a loss for us.

Now after the match, I was told that there was a flag thrown, 469 went under the goal, and also broke a part of the goal. My first reaction was to go up to the head ref and ask what was going on. This is what he explained to me (I will try to get this as close to a quote as I can). (Ref) It is all about intention, 469 damaged the field only after they were pushed by us and tipped over. They also did not intend to go under the goal either and they went underneath as a result of us.

(This is what I now feel) The ref was right about the damaging the field, it was our fault for trying to push them and it was completely accidental. Going underneath the goal: To be honest I do not remember nor see in the video any time where 469 went underneath the goal. I can only assume that their "wedge" which assists them to release balls went underneath the goal. If this was the case, yes a DQ should have been called, however I cannot confirm that this happened. If somebody could please PM what happened to me, I would appreciate it.

Second match: What was supposed to happen: 157 was supposed to trigger the bonus ball in auto from slot 1. Seeing that 469 has set up on that side, and that 157 hat to hit the goal to knock off the bonus ball, I decided to switch the robots so that 157 would instead block 868 from potentially blocking our corral with a goal. From there we were supposed to wait the 30 extra seconds. If 469 was going to cap us, we would either close our basket, or drive over to the other side and catch their balls. 157 was to cap with 30 sec left, and than hang from the bar, we were supposed to prevent 469 from capping.

What actually happened: 157 did not have to prevent 868 from blocking the corral, so they grabbed the 2x ball and got ready to cap. When 469 came over to prevent us from catching, I did not move cause I knew that we would still be able to catch the balls. When we caught them, we were to drive away, except that 469 had gotten caught in our netting. Thinking that we would be entangled for the remainder of the match, I told 157 to cap and hang. At about the moment that 157 capped, we came unstuck and were able to deliver balls. Our HP (who I have to say was one of the best shooters in FIRST) had to shoot 24 feet to try to make it into the mobile goal. I should have instructed 157 to decap so we could shoot into the stationary goal. After we dumped we again went at it with 469. They tipped over and did a fantastic job of self-righting and went to go decap our goal. 157 was instructed to go and hang while to defended 469 from decapping. We were able to defend 469 from decapping, however 157 did not have enough time to hang. Result was in a red win.

Once again after the match, I went over to the head ref and asked why there were no penalties on the field because our robot was really disabled for about 35 seconds of the match. Here is what I got out of what he said: (Ref) Your robot was built with netting, because of this; you have to accept that you might get entangled. I warned 469 to get away from your robot and they were able to do so. There will be no penalties.

(This is how I feel) 469's original intent was to attempt to cap us, they lost the ball and decided they would try to block balls with their arm. However they placed their arm too low and went into our robot. They became entangled and after a warning from the ref, tried to get away. Even though they really disabled us for a good portion of the match, I do not feel/hope that 469 tried to cause our robot harm. They only meant to beat us the only way we could be beaten, prevent us from delivering the balls. However, I do feel that in this match, weather or not they tried to disable/entangle/whatever our robot, that some type of penalty should have been called. However, being a referee in the field of soccer, I do know how hard it is to call something. Referees are always put in a losing situation. If they make a call for one team, they get yelled at by the other. The key is to really just go by what you think happened, and that is what the head referee did.

Recap on everything: This year no matter what the outcome, was the most exciting to watch, and participate in. Matches are not won or lost because of the referee, but from good robot design and strategy. Coming into the elims I thought that we did that by picking two fantastic and reliable alliance partners who did everything they were supposed to do. 1218, 469, and 868 won what I feel was the best semi final match I have ever seen or been in. Losing in the semis to the second place alliance is nothing to be disappointed about and while I am sad to have to leave team 93, I know that this is an experience that I will never forget.

[Stu Bloom]

Please wait to reply to anything until I have read everything and responded..........

Thanks

Sorry Tyler ... this can't wait ... (oops :o - took me just a bit too long to finish ...)

And let me apologize now to the entire CD community for what is sure to be as inappropriate a post as the one that started this whole mess. I especially want to apologize to all those who seem to be able to keep a clear head and discuss only the relevant issues when the going gets tough (you know who you are Andy B, Joe J, Dave L, and many others). I know that personal attacks have no place here, but as a referee on the Galileo field I just can't keep this inside any longer.

I am not sure what specific direction this thread was intended to go, and after reading it over several times I doubt Mr. McElroy had enough foresight to "intend" any specific direction, but more likely, as his closing remark seemed to infer, he just wanted to start a "flame war". I interpreted his initial post as a direct attack on hard-working volunteers who have a passion for this organization and what it does for our young adults (but obviously not ALL of them), and the more I read, the hotter I get.

Mr. McElroy,

HOW DARE YOU challenge the character and/or competence of a group of people who are at the very core of this organization's ability to continue to grow and thrive (the VOLUNTEERS). I and the rest of the Referees in all of the Divisions at the Championships worked extremely hard to enforce the rules AS WRITTEN , and AS INSTRUCTED BY FIRST AND THOSE WHO CREATED THE RULES, as consistently and fairly as possible. In fact, some of the rules committee WAS on the Ref crew. If you think you can do a better job I invite you to step up.

Your posts in this thread are showing your age, as well as the justification for your obtaining substantial negative reps. You continue to "rub salt in the wound" by taking every opportunity to respond to others with sarcastic comments, publicly posting remarks that were intended to be PRIVATE, and blatantly ignoring parts of the rules that don't support your argument. I refer you to some of the KEY words in your often quoted, precious rule <G32> - "Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots ...". I challenge you to identify even one instance where you could say there was no legitimate defensive maneuver which caused any of the incidents you are so upset about.

And don't pretend that your purpose in this thread was to advance any noble cause. Your sarcasm and bitter criticism are exactly the opposite of graciously discussing the issues. I think you should crawl back into whatever hole you came out of and think about what GP means to you. Good luck finding a sponsor (as your sig line indicates that your team doesn't have one). With your "grace and style" I don't see much success on that front in your future - hopefully someone else is in charge of that initiative. I am truly saddened that a group of hard working, intelligent, motivated High School students has you as a role model.

And by the way, Ken W, I thought I was starting to like you, but ...... I guarantee you I can build something stronger and put an impact point on my machine, find your weak spot and take you out on the field...
... was that a threat? That is a lot different than what I saw in any matches in Atlanta. If you think "that's what FIRST is coming to" then why don't you try it. I would be interested to see if a ref would call that one ... I know I would.


I'm out ... until next year - when you will see me in zebra stripes again. And Ryan, I'll be sure to give your team some "extra special" attention (jk :yikes: ).
I apologize again ... OK ... I feel better now.
Also, thanks Zzyzx, for your sensible and timely post.

[P.J. Baker]

It wasn't tipping or damage, but we called a DQ against team 360 in Portland, for an unfortuneate entanglement. It was not intentional, but it was definitely damaging to their opponent.

Andy B.

This is the reason I felt that 469 should have been DQ'd in that match. I don't feel that they intentionally entangled or tipped 93, but their arm did become entangled with 93's basket. This did prevent 93 from doing moving for some time and it did appear to cause damage to 93's robot.

However, I glanced through this year's rules and I did not see anything about accidental entanglement and DQ's. The only references in the robot or game sections of the rules talked about clear entanglement risks (469's arm was not a clear risk) and intentional entanglement. As I read it, the rules did not require the refs to DQ 469.

P.J.

[ngreen]

My call would have been pinning. By placing there arm inside of 93, 469 effectively pinned 93 from being able to move for way longer than the allotted time.

I'll agree with the overly aggressive styles of some teams. 469 did a lot of things well but used that powerful arm maliciously a couple of times and should have been penalized. I know their were several other teams that employed this same type of strategies and it got them where they wanted to go this year. Hopefully next year we will make an effort to avoid this type of play. Teams shouldn't win championship by disabling and damaging other robots. IMHO.

[Sean Schuff]

Good Monday Afternoon All!

Now for Team 93's “mentor-not-on-the-field, like-to-look-at-the-big-picture, really-knows-what-FIRST-is-all-about” point of view...

First off, let me make it clear that I respectfully agree and disagree with many of the things said here. However, I will not be attacking anybody personally and would appreciate it if you would all do the same. I also feel you should all know that turning our team's misfortune into personal attacks against one another is not in the spirit of FIRST or gracious professionalism. (And don’t make me start in on the other CD post that refers to GP as mere lip service for the sake of winning awards – I couldn’t disagree more with that concept!) If you have a problem, fix it. If you would rather gripe about it and not propose any solutions you are merely becoming a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. Please don’t use the NEW Apple Corps’ misfortune as your own personal or team soapbox. We’re big boys and girls with broad shoulders and WE WILL RETURN!!

To quote the late, great Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers, the best defense is a good offense. This is the philosophy our team followed in designing our robot. We wanted to score points, oodles and oodles of points. If your robot is strictly defensive, points don’t come too easy. Las Guerillas (469) had a great offensive robot. Unfortunately for us their defensive maneuvers were a bit rough. Is that their fault? Most likely not. Perhaps the result of a rookie operator who, in the heat of battle, didn’t operate the claw as gingerly as she should have. Which brings us back to the whole concept of “intention”. No one can tell what is going on in another person’s head so we really can’t judge what someone’s intentions are or were. All we can do, and all the refs can do, is make a call based on what they see. Was it a viscous attack on our robot? Yes. Was it malicious in it’s intent? No. It was a defensive move that went bad quickly. And unfortunately for us we wound up on the short end. But, that’s the way it goes. Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug! The big picture – we had an awesome robot that did what we wanted it to do (most of the time) and we got beat by simple misfortune. Bummer.

I am disappointed in the way we were eliminated and feel there was some game play that was a little too “spirited”. Our robot survived two regional events and the national championships with only minor side panel damage from all three. We even had other robots reaching over our “laundry basket” and trying to block balls from dropping into it without inflicting the kind of damage Las Guerillas did in the elimination rounds on Galileo. We took some serious hits and sustained some major damage in our final match of the season. But that’s life and part of the game. Am I disappointed? Yea, a little bit. Am I bitter? I was for a while but I’m over it. Do I get it? You bet I do. It’s not about the end result – it’s about the process. And, most importantly, my students are wiser because of the experience. Great post Tyler! I’m proud of you!! The big picture – my students get what FIRST is all about and are better people because of the experience.

So, who is to blame? Las Guerillas? No! They played a heck of a game out there. I was always impressed by how their robot operated. Blame the refs? No. Pointing fingers at them is unfair. I agree that they should have been a bit more aggressive and, more importantly, consistent, in their play call on the field, however, they aren’t to blame. I did not personally observe any inconsistencies, however, both of my parents were volunteers on Galileo and witnessed these inconsistencies first-hand. Most inconsistency was from ref to ref and not a result of one ref playing favorites or not taking their duties seriously. Now, they may be a bit biased towards team 93, however, I can confidently tell you that my 70+-year-old parents (in their golden retirement years) get no benefit or satisfaction out of telling me about these things. They just told me what they saw and heard. And it bummed me out. FIRST needs to impress upon all refs the need for consistency. I like the idea of a video that illustrates what constitutes game play within the rules and outside the bounds of good sportsmanship. The big picture – the refs do their job out of generosity and dedication to the ideals of FIRST and do the best they can.

I’ve heard this before but it definitely bears repeating. FIRST needs to be less ambiguous with their rules. We ran into this same issue two years ago with the whole “getting-tangled-in-another-teams-tether” debacle. It cost us the title at IRI but wasn’t the fault of the refs – the rule was too “loose” to be interpreted effectively. Perhaps FIRST can leave the words “intention” and “intentional” out of their rules and just call it straight. If you damage a field component, whether intentional or not, you’re DQ’d. Be careful next time. If you use netting on your robot (as we did), be prepared for the consequences of entanglement whether it is intentional or not. We did not build our robot to be an entanglement hazard – we used the netting because it was light. I don’t want us all to begin building aluminum and Lexan plain-Jane boxes because we fear entanglement – that would be just plain boring! Just be prepared for the consequences. And be prepared for the calls of the ref! The big picture – the rules need to be crystal clear to all teams and all refs.

The bottom line is that the FIRST Robotics Competition, like the rest of the world and life itself, is not perfect. We want things to be black and white but it just isn’t that easy. Like I said before, I’m disappointed with the outcome of the matches in question but I’m over it and already looking forward to 2005! Great job Las Guerillas on getting to the national finals. You had a sweet robot! No hard feelings and best of luck next year.

As for this thread – my hope is that this is the last word and we can all move on to more constructive discussions on ChiefDelphi.

Can’t wait to see you all again in St. Louis, Chicago, and Atlanta!!

[Chris Hibner]

This is the reason I felt that 469 should have been DQ'd in that match. I don't feel that they intentionally entangled or tipped 93, but their arm did become entangled with 93's basket. This did prevent 93 from doing moving for some time and it did appear to cause damage to 93's robot.

However, I glanced through this year's rules and I did not see anything about accidental entanglement and DQ's. The only references in the robot or game sections of the rules talked about clear entanglement risks (469's arm was not a clear risk) and intentional entanglement. As I read it, the rules did not require the refs to DQ 469.

P.J.

This is where I see the problem. 469's arm was clearly not an entanglement risk. If you look at the design, all of the "fingers" of the claw slope outward away from the arm, which should've allowed it to easily slide out of 93's basket. When I review the video, it appears that 93's net was caught on a bolt that attaches a pnuematic cylinder to the gripper. It becomes pretty tough to design a robot if every bolt is considered an entanglement hazard.

On the other hand, 93 has a net. To me, that is an entanglement risk. It's hard to tell 93 they can't use their design because it's an entanglement risk, but at the same time, it's hard to penalize another team for getting tangled in it. If FIRST were to rule that 469 was at fault, then next year I'm going to put a net on my robot and hope to DQ my way through to the championship (okay - I really wouldn't do that, but maybe some team would).

In the past, the "clear entanglement risk" rule existed, and FIRST even stated in updates that nets would be considered entanglement risks and would not be allowed. Of course some teams skirted the rule (afterall what qualifies as a net and what doesn't? it's hard to define). Since entanglements were few and far between, FIRST stopped warning about nets. However, I know from experience that once before a team got too close to a team with a net and the robots became tangled - the team with the net got the blame for being the "entanglement risk". Given this history, I agree with the no-call against 469.

[KenWittlief]

And by the way, Ken W, I thought I was starting to like you, but ...
__________________________________________________ ____
... I guarantee you I can build something stronger and put an impact point on my machine, find your weak spot and take you out on the field...
__________________________________________________ ____
... was that a threat? That is a lot different than what I saw in any matches in Atlanta. If you think "that's what FIRST is coming to" then why don't you try it. I would be interested to see if a ref would call that one ... I know I would.


not a threat, an attempt to illustrate that the rules in the official manual use what we call 'weasle words' in engineering - when the person writing a spec does not know eactly what to say, so they put in something vague - like 'your robot must be robust'

whatever you build, to your definition of 'robust', I can build something stronger or faster.. that will disable your bot on the field - and the ref is left standing there with nothing to base his call on.

ok, how many PSI or joules/sec impact must we design a bot to for it to be considered 'robust'?

so far no-one has been able to come back and site any examles of a team being disqualified for damaging or tipping another teams robot - but lots of teams got damaged and tipped this year - so why do we have the rule?

for many years FIRST has prided itself on our teams good sportsmanship, and somewhat looked down its collective nose at professional sports - but every year things get more and more agressive and it appears to have reached the point where anything-goes is the only rule in the elimination rounds and the finals

as I aluded to - I have seen things at events this year that would not be allowed in football, soccer, baseball, basketball or even in a HOCKEY game - this is what Im talking about when asking if this is what FIRST has come to?

is this what we want? its like FIRST's dirty little secret - in all the promotional videos you dont see bots being smashed into flying pieces, or bots being rammed and knocked flying on their sides, but its happening in the games, and apparently teams are not even being called for it

so far one ref has pointed out one team getting called for entanglement this year

Im not picking on any one ref or any one event, Im asking - is this where FIRST really wants to go? is this what WE want FIRST to turn into

I vote no. I think the rules should be spelled out more clearly - its would not be hard to make a first draft of what the rules should have spelled out this year, based on the number of occurances of teams being 'taken out' of matches by their opponents at events all around the country.

[Allie]

I am more saddened by the fact that people have been personally attacked then I ever could be by the events which took place on the Galileo field at nationals. I must admit as this was my last year I was very sad to see my team go down the way it did. I will not pretend to be noble and say I was not angry and did not feel it was unfair. As in all competitions the easiest thing to do is point fingers. From our side it was easy to point fingers at both the refs and at team 469, but after looking back I don't feel anyone is to blame.

As a kid I grew up playing sports and once in the heat of the game I ran into a girl. She ran into the boards and broke her wrist. Of course I felt horrible at the time but I did not intend to hurt her in anyway. The refs did not penalize me and I am sure there were many members of her team who thought that was unfair, and were quite mad at the ref for the no call.

I look at what happened on the field between us and 469 in the same light. They injuried us perhaps but as long as it was not something they intended to do how can we really say they are evil or horrible. Accidents will happen.

As for the refs I personally believe what you do is amazing. You volunteer your time and energy to enable us to have this experience. The knowledge I have gained from this program has given me a direction I want to go in life and every last one of you in the pin stripes have been a part of giving me this opportunity. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was a lost little girl how had no idea where she was going before this and today I have an idea of what I want to be.

I would also like to say after all the time and energy people put into this program I find it extremely disturbing that anyone can critize what anyone else came up with. Some ideas and designs may have worked better in some cases however any robot out there that did so much as move is an extreme accomplishment and these people should be congradulated. You all put a lot of time into building robots you thought would complete the game the best and every bot I see amazes me in some way.

There is something good to be found in everyone's design please do not choose to point out the negatives. I know I do not like to hear people say negative things about my hard work and I would hate to hurt someone by saying negative things about their hard work.

[Andy Baker]

All,

We all are passionate about FIRST and we all like the competition. Some like more contact than others. Some want more defined rules. Some want to keep things streamlined and let the referees make the call when it happens.

FIRST, on the field, is a sport. A match is not an engineering specification, a statement of work, or a blueprint. It is an action that is subject to judged opinions. Things are not black and white like they are on a sheet of paper or a computer screen.

Did Michael Jordan push off to clear himself during the 1999 NBA playoff against the Utah Jazz? maybe. Was it called by the ref? no. Does is really matter? no. That was a act during a game... a sport where people try to make the right call and sometimes they miss a call. People are human, refs are human. The refs did the best they could do at the time.

Most of us are engineers or technical people. We want things black and white. We want things explained and justified. Sometimes, we just don't understand the "gray areas".

In FIRST competitions, entanglement, tipping, and intent to damage are all gray areas. The referees have no way to understand the intent of robot drivers, so they look for patterns.

Just some thoughts...

Andy B.

[Swan217]

I disagree - we had a few entanglement calls on Curie. Oddly enough, most were between two allied bots. I do think that we might have called more though.

There were a few borderline calls. I DO believe the referees made the right call on them, and I think all in all, the referees did an awesome job in the face of adversity. I am still in doubt of the "intent" of the rules being overlooked by the letter of the law, however. Dean said at the beginning of the season that we shouldn't look at the rules as lawyers, and yet I fear that that is exactly how some calls were made, just in the interest of "making the easy, fair call." Dean DID say that the game wasn't intended to be fair.

I think we may have given too many warnings, called things too conservatively sometimes, in the interest of the Letter of the Law. I think that the idea of "intent" to damage is a weak bridge to cross, and who wants to stand out by making that call? Ex. There is a team that is restricting another robot from moving, but it isn't "pinning" in the literal sense, because it's not against the edge of the playing field. My opinion is that I'd like to be able to keep the game moving by making the aggressive robot move away. Aggression and intent and all of those vague ideas are very conservative, and I think that the calls should be made more looking at the actual actions of teams.

I'm not saying call every entanglement issue that happens, but maybe more calls should be made when a robot is in OBVIOUS danger of non-natural damage. There was very little call for agressive defense in this year's game. If a team is successful at what it's designed to do, then there should be NO cause to be aggressive towards other robots.

Disclaimer: I am not bashing refs, nor the calls we made. I am exhibiting my opinions in hope that next years rules are made clearer and simpler, with no weak words.

P.S. I do believe that the rules, and the game in general, were a VAST improvement over previous years. Now we're just "raising the bar" so to speak for the rules and games for coming years.

[Edit]P.P.S. - I woulda put money on us Curie refs to be the first to be moderatedly bashed. Looks like I did a better job than I thought :yikes:

[RBrandy]

OK... My feelings on the situation.

There is NO way we are going to be able to anything about this. So complianing about it is not going to do anything. Team 93 was a little bitter at the calls (or lack there of) but, looking back, we had an awesome year. I know I had a good time. 469 had a great robot, and a great defence. To bad they accidently got caught in us. Congrats to all the teams just for being at the Championships. It was the best yet.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I'd like to just throw in a few cents here...

Our team drafted 469 at the Midwest Regional and not once did they display any ungracious play of the game. In fact, if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have stood a chance :] I've always respected Las Guerillas as a gracious and strong team, and I think it's just crazy to think they would intentionally do anything to harm another team's robot. Team 469 has a great robot and a great team, and I'd hope they'd continue to do what they do regardless of what others think of them.

[Zzyzx]

As a representative of Team 492 and a friend of RyanMcE, I would like to say a few words.

RyanMcE is our club's founder and main alumni mentor. He does get emotional about the club and does not enjoy losing, like most people. He is an excellent mentor and teacher, and he has donated much of his time to see our team succeed.

While I disapprove of his downright destructive comments and publishing private messages, I would also like to point out that he is human, and is too capable of sadness, happiness, and anger.

I may personally apologize to anyone that either I or RyanMcE or our team in general that has any hard feelings with our team, but RyanMcE does have a right to his own opinion.

Throughout my life, I have tried to be fair and insightful, trying to be the best person I could be. For this conflict, I have attempted to remain neutral, which I hope I have done. But RyanMcE as a person is knowledgeable, kind, gracious, and worthy of respect; again, I would like to say I do not agree with the way he expressed his opinion, but I do believe he is still a worthy mentor and still a good friend.

I hope that both RyanMcE and those who he offended may someday forgive each other, and that we as people remember the reason FIRST was founded. FIRST is only the beginning.

[dtk]

Ok, first of all just so everyone knows the position I am speaking from. I was the on field coach for Team 469, but more than that I have been mentoring this team since 2001 after helping to start the team 2000. I have had a large part in determining the team philosophies and interpretations of gracious professionalism. While many people agreed prior to the matches about strategy we would implement the ultimate responsibility lies with myself. It is because of these things that I can’t help but feel as though any accusations of unfair play are directed at me personally. I will, however, attempt to leave those feelings out of my following statements.

There are, as I see it, two issues in question here. The first being what was the intention of our actions, and the second were the referees decisions correct given the situation? While I can only speculate on what led to the final referee decisions I can with certainty address our intentions. I also think only semifinal 1.2 is legitimately worth discussing, and that any negative perceptions about the first match have only surfaced based on the results of the second match.

It was, as many have pointed out, our strategy to cover the basket with the arm of our robot and a big ball. After we failed to get the big ball the decision was made to attempt to block the drop with our arm alone. We wanted to pull up square to the front of 93’s bot and use the arm to fold up the front flap and cover the remaining opening while at the same time getting our robot under the drop as well. Due to the visibility and time issues we didn’t get into our planed position and attempted to cover the basket from where we were. The intention here was one-dimensional; block the basket.

After the drop we attempted to lift the arm and back away. Only the arm was stuck and didn’t raise. Once we realized that the robots were stuck together we proceeded to “jiggle” both the base and the arm of the robot in order to get free. During this period of the match we were aware of 93’s precarious position and consciously avoided tipping them over. The intent during this phase of the match was again one-dimensional; get free.

It is my opinion that our intentions were at all times within the spirit of the rules, FIRST and of competition in general. I guess this is obvious but I would never endorse any actions that I did not feel were within the scope of acceptable play.

The question left is the referee decisions. A referee approached me twice during the semifinal match against the 93, 492, and 157 alliance. The first statement was in the first match regarding the damage caused to the mobile goal. I was told that we were initially penalized for damaging the goal, but that that decision was reversed because we were pushed (tipped over) into it.

The second was during the second match when the ref stepped into our driver area. He told me to back off, and take it easy. This was I think in reference to the appearance that we were intentionally holding onto team 93. I told him we were stuck and already trying to do everything we could to get free. Just a side note here, I’m fairly certain we were stuck on the flow control fitting on the pneumatic cylinder.

I wont speculate or question the referee’s final choice. All I can say here is that I respect the referee’s decision and the difficult choice they had to make, and that none of us wanted to win in such a way. I also want to thank the numerous posters who have respectfully discussed this issue and hope this helps to explain our point of view.

Daniel Kimura

[Alex Golec]

Our team's strategy was never to damage other robots or to destroy the field, both of those cases were caused by competition with other robots. Nationals was great this year, especially watching all the other great teams play.
93 was a difficult team to go against, but it was not intentional entanglement because we did not grab at the fabric to latch onto 93, it got caught on our arm while we were playing defense. 93 got put back on its wheels after a while and the match continued. I do not know if any part of 93 was badly damaged, maybe the fabric a bit torn, but in the end of the match our gripper was bent up - 93 was tough to beat.
When you say "let the flame war begin" I do not agree. it is not in the spirit of FIRST to argue and insult each other.

[jgannon]

I don't think they broke that movable goal on purpose, particularly since it was THEIR OWN goal. As far as the rule itself, I think it's intended to keep you from breaking things on purpose. Team 47 (Chief Delphi) accidentally ripped one of the poles out of a movable goal with their claws during the qualifying rounds, and they weren't penalized for it at all. Why? Because it was an accident. (It actually worked out to their disadvantage, as they ended up lifting the pole into their hopper.)

[DougHogg]

Unfortunately, there is a tendency for people who have lost to get upset and start to find fault with everyone but themselves. Reminds me of a book about Tiger Woods. In his youth, if he missed a shot, he would sometimes get angry and throw his club on the ground. His father would ask him, "Who shot that shot? Was it the tree? Was it that bird?".

I watched the final matches and didn't see any rule violations. To me, 469 played brilliantly. In fact, in the pits after the event, our whole team went over to their pit and applauded them.

True, they got caught on 93, but 93 was easy to get caught on.

As for tipping robots, I didn't see teams deliberately tipping anyone. True, I didn't see all the matches, but what I did see was teams playing the game fairly.

In football, if a player is headed for the end zone with the ball, you are allowed to tackle him/her. In FIRST, teams are allowed to prevent other teams from hanging or capping, etc. as long as they don't deliberately try to tip, damage or entangle the other robot.

In the Galileo quarter finals, we were beaten by the aggressive defense of Team 177. Everything they did was within the rules. They were the only team who stopped us from hanging (other than Team 64 who handed us our only qualifying loss by blocking the bar). My response to Team 177 is: Very well played!, great match! (Last year, however, Team 177 repeatedly pushed their hook against the top of our tower, tipping us over the side of the arena, and in that instance, the referee turned off their robot. We have a video of that match.)

This year, FIRST tried to simplify the rules, and simple is good. However I think that in some areas (such as entanglement), we need to build up a body of guidelines over time as other sports do. That refinement helps to clarify things.

There were a couple of questions that relate to this issue in the Q and A system.

ID:
ID: 840
Section: 4.4.3
Status: Answered
Date$@#Answered: 2/24/2004
$@#
Q:
May we tow another robot around, such as a disabled one, given it is done safely? Does this count as entanglement?

A:
You may tow an alliance partner's robot. You may also tow an opponent's robot provided you do not impair its ability to break free. The rules regarding entanglement, damaging, and pinning robots apply.

ID: 257
Section: 5.1
Status: Answered
Date$@#Answered: 1/20/2004
$@#
Q:
Can the robot push and pull other robots?

A:
Yes as long as you do not damage the opponent or the field.

In my opinion, getting caught in 93's net and ripping it would not be a violation of this rule as the net could not be called "robust" and obviously could easily be caught in.

[Guest]

KenWittlief[/b]]I think after spending 6 weeks building these machines hands-on most drivers have a pretty good understanding of what will get entangled, how hard you can ram someone before you break them, how hard you can push a bot before it will tip overAfter 6 weeks you should know how your own robot will perform against rammming, crashing, bumping etc. But that does not mean that all other robots will be as robust as your own.

KenWittlief][/b]I saw a LOT of matches this year with bots getting rammed, pushed over, knocked over, disabled and seriously damaged, and I never once heard an announcer say the team was disqualified

does anyone have information to the contrary? Clearly many bots have been tipped and damaged this year - if no team was disqualified for these actions at any regional, then you might as well delete those rules from the manualIt is possible (but unlikely) that the refs ruled that none of these incidents were intentional and were thus fully protected by the rules of the game. Removing these rules just makes the situation worse.

KenWittlief][/b]its not a rule unless its inforced - or maybe they should take the 'weasle words' like 'intentional' out and state that any action that CAUSES damage or tipping will result in disqualification?If you take out the words "intentional" the competition would not be what it is today. Drivers would be scared into not playing the game (and utilizing their robots) to their full capability. For example, a completely un-GP team creates a robot that barely sticks together. Everytime they're touched, the bot falls apart and the team wins by default. This is an extreme, but extremes must be taken into account.

It also removes most of the willingness and need to make a robust robot. Our team puts robustness at the top of its priorities in building the 'bot. With any machine, shouldn't robustness be super-important? FIRST would not be supporting this at all if it prohibited all damage.

Finally, don't forget that this is also a spectator-friendly competition, no one wants to see robots avoiding contact in fear of "the law."

[RyanMcE]

Dang. I was having so much fun, and then someone levelheaded like zzyzx comes along reminding me that I really shouldn't be flaming people even its its fun for a little while. I'd like to thank him for his valiant efforts to defend me. But I already spent the time to reply with this ludicrous message, so I thoughtI would post it anyway, after makng a few changes to take out the purely inflamitory parts.

Once again, people, realize that this is just writing. It won't bite you or change the way you have to think. On the other hand, I hope it changes the way you think anyway, becuase I have a legitimate point here even if some people fail or refuse to see it. And in case you don't like reading between the lines, the point is that FIRST, seems to foster a culture where inconvinient rules are ignored by teams and referees. I provided multiple real-life examples, the most brazen of which is the 2002 tether issue, but this 2004 bully issue I think is another form of the same fundamental problem.

In the mean time, I have put my repuation on the line by being inflamitory from the get-go (just read the first post and see how many replies there are to it in under a day). But it seems that this was a pretty good tool to get people to provide real responses to the issue instead of some goofed-up edited-for-content don't-offend-anyone replies. It was also instrumental in helping me get over the pent-up emotion from the loss (I tend to carry this stuff inside). So I'd like to thank those of you who put up with it, and ask those of you who can't see past a little bit of biting commentary to take a chill pill.

All I ask (as you continue to degrade my reputation for posting this) is that you don't hold this against my team (zzyzx is a much better example of what our team is like than I am) and to hold everything I say or do solely against me. If you can't do that, then a little bit of introspection might be a good idea.

And finally to team 469, its drivers, coach, and mentors: I'm sorry that I felt the need to say such things about you, but that doesn't change the fact that I felt the need, and it doesn't change the fact that I will remain outspoken when I think I see a need for improvement. You guys had what was clearly an excellent game plan, as evidenced by how far you got in the finals. But that doesn't change the fact that, in my opinion, your team and other teams like yours used FIRST's reluctance to enforce inconvient rules to your unfair advantage. While many teams like ours took off us took off sharp spikes, and took pains to avoid damaging other robots, you guys consistently vigorously interacted with other robots. In fact, you bent our arm in the match we played against you. This is fine and dandy. But when your agressive play leads to something like entanglement, I think the rules should be enforced. When the rules are not enforced, or are enforced inconsistently, the entire legitimacy of the rules are called into question, which I feel is not a good thing for FIRST in general.

Now, on to the post which I was replying to:

First off,
I do NOT appreciate having PRIVATE comments I have made, posted publicly.

Then don't leave the comment while degrading my very public reputation. Everyone can see that, so why shouldn't they also see your reasons for marking me down?

Secondly,
I'm not ignoring the problem.
I watched the matches you specified, and I feel the same way as Chris Hibner. If we saw it that way, there is a dang good chance that is how the refs saw it. So that is how they called it.
I agree, if the refs had seen it another way, they would have made the correct call. But that doesn't make the way you and Chris saw things is more legitimate than the way I and others saw things.
In fact, I believe that your continual refusal to acknoledge that inconsistent enforcement and total unenforcement of rules throughout several years is ignoring the problem.

Remember, ref calls and interpretation are FINAL.
You have now attacked 469. You went as far as saying they didn't deserve to be in the finals. Now you're whining about some negative rep?
I remember. What I said about 469 is more or less that, in my opinion, their play was malicious. Its quite possible that I am wrong, I am not a mind reader and 469 vehemently denies any wrongdoing of this sort. But their pleas of innocence bring to my mind a driver of a tank who crushes a pedestrian trying to cross a road and then claims he was merely trying to stop the pedestrian from getting to the other side. So what if you didn't mean to entangle? Nobody means to entangle, because it results in disqualification. Just as noone tries to do out of bounds, because that too results in disqualification. But what 469 did do very purposefully was put its claw into a place that caused what was clearly entanglement. What I am saying, and what no amount of calls for me to retrat my statements will do, is that if I had been a referee, I would have called this as entanglement on 469. And the failure of the referees to do this is what I consider to be a bad call. Clearly there are differing opinions on this, so why much you call for me to retract a very valid statement?
And I'm atually excited that this post is getting so much attention, even if it casts a negative light on me, because some people at least are realizing that there is a problem, and that is more important than some clicks on a check mark.

I've gotta say, I saw a lot of difficult calls being made, and overall I was VERY happy with the officiating this weekend. I thought the refs were absolutely AWESOME.
I'm happy for you. As for myself, I didn't have any problems all the way through qualifications with anything I saw, including our match against 469. But to say that because the problem isn't universal it isn't really a problem is just another way of ignoring the problem.

I was also very impressed with 469, and the quality of their drivers and strategy. I think they earned every W they got.
Then clearly you don't agree with the math of 35+50-10=75. But yes, they built quite a fine robot. In the words of one of our drivers, it did everything that out robot did, but better....
UPDATE! According to a new post by someone more knowledgeable than I, the decision to deduct 10 points was reversed, so the final score was indeed 85-80 with our alliance on the lower end. Of course I guess this means referee decisions aren't really final, unless its convinient for them to be final. Which is another indication of the root problem. FIRST seems to encourage the selective enforcement of convient rules. Since this is the case, why not drop the pretenses of having those rules in the first place and let all teams compete on equal grounds instead of having some teams back off for fear of a reprisal that will never come, while other teams, well aware that an inconvient call won't be made, goes ahead with a strategy that is against the spirit of FIRST.

I watched the video of the matches you speak of.
So did I.

Based on these things I've gotta say... you're WAY off base in your post. You should consider immediately appologizing to team 469, and the Galileo Referee crew.
I appreciate the volunteers that make FIRST happen, including the referees. But once again, you are fishing for additional ways to ignore the problem. A bad call is a bad call if it is made by a veteran professional basketball referee or a first-time volunteeer FIRST referee. I don't hold any gruge or ill-will towards those that made the call. What I am looking for is a change to the system that encourages referees to look the other way when it is convinient, like in 2002 with tethers, and this year with tipping and, apparently, entanglement. I will not apoligize for saying things the way I see them, an I would not expect you to apoligize for calling me "WAY off base" either, since that is your very legitmate (if wrong) position.

John
~Ryan

P.S. - Since you requested it:

In another couple unabashed lowerings of y very public reputation, JVN wrote: "Feel free to post this publicly: I do NOT appreciate my private messages being made public, and will negative rep anyone who does. Have a nice day."
And in a similar incident, 2000vfr800 commented "Post this..."
Finally, Mike Soukup summed it up well by saying "posting private messages in a public form = no class, shame on you". For future reference, Mike, that comma should be a semicolon.

[RyanMcE]

The biggest problem I see is that each year the refs are told to "really enforce" certain rules. Normally these rules deal with human interaction. Last year the refs were really harping on the human player not going into certain places, not dropping the bins on their side, etc. I thought it was a bit too much focus on something that didn't influence the game (or safety) so much, except for HPs jumping over the rail.
This is an example of the systemic nature of the problem. Only some rules are really rules, and finding out which rules can be broken without consquence is a great way to win the competition (as in 2002 with tethers and this year with tipping and entanglement). Either enforce the rule or drop the rule altogether. Anything else leads to problems like this.

Pushing, bumping, and ramming will happen. The repeated ramming that is going un-penalized is getting a bit absurd. Teams are playing within the rules actually given to them (since the written words are vague, at best. Read "INTENTIONAL" - what a joke). I am a big fan for defense, but not battlebots. I guarantee that if a team gets penalized (I mean points actually deducted) for ramming they will not do it again. How many times did it take you losing by 5 points to tell your driver to stay at least 6 inches away from the corral?
I agree - a little bit of enforcement could go a long way, but since FIRST doesn't want to offend anybody, they end up letting bullies, rule-benders, and outright cheaters have their way.

Dittos on 1-4. I am not advocating having all robots to leave each other alone. I am advocating enforcing the rules in a consistent manner.

-Paul
~Ryan

[RyanMcE]

I think some people are a bit confused. Ryan (the person who started this thread) is NOT from team 93. In fact, no one from 93 has even posted yet. IIt would be interesting to hear their point of view since they have competed with and against 469 for many years.

And Ryan, since you are making private remarks public, I will save you the trouble: You MIGHT have a legitimate beef, HOWEVER your bitterness is getting in the way. If you want people to address the real problem then strip away all the unnecessary bitterness and contempt and try again.

-Paul
Thanks for saving me the trouble!

What Paul says is very important. Please, please, please don't think badly of team 93 because of my post. They have been totally publically gracious and professional. In fact, don't think badly of the team that is so unfortunate to have to put up with me either. They have been nothing if not gracious and professional. Think badly only of me! And think very badly of me for letting my bitterness and contempt leak over my posts like fresh lemon into filthy water. But then, don't ignore the problem because you disagree with my method of getting lots of people to read the post and have a fun time at the same time.

[gail]

In response to an earlier comment that "intent" should be taken out of the rules, I strongly disagree. Intent is often the deciding factor in FIRST, just as in the real world.

Can you penalize a team who breaks a field component as a result of being pushed by another robot? Can you penalize a team for breaking a field component when something goes haywire on their robot? Or when they get a ball stuck under them and it pops? The answer to these question should be "no" because they did not intend to break the field component. FIRST anticipates these problems and tries to design components that can take a beating.

Teams that continually break a field component such as a ball because of a design problem (something sharp sticking out of their robot) deserve a warning and usually get one. The refs are excellent at making these calls.

As for entanglement, if a robot is designed with a net and another robot comes by with the purpose of preventing balls from entering that net, and in the process gets entangled with them, which robot should be penalized? The one who was designed with an entanglement problem, or the one who stuck their arm inside them, not to get entangled, but to prevent balls from dropping in?

Let's examine the implications of each call. If you write a rule which penalizes the robot with the net then other robots could win simply by getting entangled, even if done intentionally. This hardly seems equitable. If you penalize the robot that is playing defense against them and inadvertently gets stuck on them, then you effectively eliminate all defensive actions directed at that robot. This means all other robots on the field can have aggressive acts committed against them, but this one cannot for fear of disqualifying the aggressor. Is this equitable when the rules specifically state robots should be robust and designed to expect contact?

Now if a robot goes out with the SOLE intent of damaging a field component or getting entangled with another robot this is a different story and one which should not be considered lightly.

Any rule must be written to examine the "intent" of the teams. The refs are in a perfect position to assess the "intent" by watching round after round, asking pertinent questions and listening to the responses before making a decision. It is not for us to second guess their decision.

[Ricecube401]

As 469's "Sharpshooter" or whatever the human player is called, I've seen a bunch of things when not missing the goals completely.

The quarterfinals against 93 and their alliance was interesting to watch from my POV, and while many consider that our drive team is an irresponsible, malicious and crazy bunch, our intentions were pure in the fact that what we performed was a defensive manuver carried out under pressure and frantic yelling by our esteemed drive team coach. :]

It was never our intention to use "chomp-chomp" to be entagled into 93's net, but at the time, we considered it the best defensive play we could muster against them. besides, the net was designed with the knowledge that entanglement would be an issue. I don't feel any regret for what happened.

So no, we're not crazy or intentionally trying to demolish all robots in our way, and we are not even UNINTENTIONALLY trying to demolish everything...

And come on, don't bag on our arm operater either, she did a good job with the coach hassling her about something that was so hard to see.

The whole drive team is down with the procedure and we acted within the rules. I suppose some teams don't like our strategy, which is at times hard-nosed and rough, but we came to play and do the best we could. people might be offended by our arm, but we utilized that 4 lb wonder well enough to stay legal and fit with our versatility.

As far as the Team is concerned, we should not be apologizing about our arm, our robot, our strategy and our field team, cuz' this is what we are.

Our drive team is not evil either, and they never meant no harm. That's probably why I was the Human player. :ahh:

[BFreund]

As a frustrated member of team 93, I must say this just sucks. Im not talking about the plays or the calls that were made or not made. Im talking about the feeling of having such an awesome robot and seeing the national championship within reach and fallign short. In the heat of the competition, I was furious. How could 469 do this? I wanted to point fingers and place blame. Well, I've cooled down since then, and so has most of our team. I realise that its all in the past and we can't change it. Whether or not 469 was trying to disable us or not we'll never know. What I know is that they were gracious professionals in semifinals match 1.2. They could have ripped their arm down and out of our robot and tipped our bot over. But, in the spirit of FIRST, they made sure we were on all fours before retreating. I thank them for that. They beat us and moved on and took second place. Way to go. Hopefully, no one holds any grudges and next year we'll have all cooled down. Seeing how it's my last year in FIRST, good luck next year team 93, and all other teams as well.


Brandon

[Andy Grady]

Ok guys....why don't we all take a deep breath here. This thread has been nothing more than a personal bashing between team members who are correct and incorrect depending on the aspect that is shared. I think its rediculous that instead of constructively trying to address an issue on agressive play, many are instead verbally mocking or trashing someone elses reputation (and I do not mean the CD Rep points). Keep in mind, that this is after all...a game. And as competitive as we all can be, our purpose here is not about winning, losing, bad calls, good calls, etc... If you want to yell at refs and umps and team members...call a sports radio station about a baseball game. If you want to address the issue of agressive play, or maybe some constructive ideas on ways that FIRST could possibly make sure calls are clarified in the correct manner (i.e. instant replay, more refs) then by all means go for it. Please, no more insulting other members and disrespecting their wishes...this isn't the NBA, this is FIRST.

Thank you,
Andy Grady

[Pat Roche]

I seem to be stuck on the fence with this one. I firmly believe that the netting should be an entanglement hazard even though it is a great material to work with due to its lightweight and durable properties. I saw a HUGE amount of times where teams got stuck in the meshing and were not able to "unright" themselves. But at the same time if you make a move that involves a chance to become entangled with another bot then you should be at fault. From the way this play worked out I believe that both bots should have been shutdown and warned.

Thats just how I would have called it.

-Pat