FTC Fields / Refs

[gillejr]

So who here actually thought the Refs were being professional at the Championships?

How many people were told every excuse in the book as to why their robot stopped working a minute into the match?

The refs refused to fix the problem with the Franklin Field, were many times during the two days, robots would just stop responding. Not only that they refused to admit there was a problem with the field, and blamed everything on the robots. I was listening to the ref in charge of the field telling my student that, the static electricity on their finger shorted out the memory, how the code wasn’t the right version, how the charge on the battery might have been low, countless amounts of techno babble, and I am surprised they didn't tell him that the stars weren't aligned, but it wasn't a problem with the equipment on the field.

When arguing with the refs about the problem with the field, the same thing happened, in the exact place it had happened three times in the row. But they refused to admit there was a problem with the field, and they refused to give teams a rematch they so rightly deserved. I am sorry but losing matches because its 2 on 1 because of a field problem just isn't right.

Also since the problem must have been with the robots, why did they feel the need to replace some of the equipment on the Franklin field right before the finals?

I know I wasn't the only one who was arguing with the refs, and I am sure I am not the only one who was disappointed by how unprofessional the refs were at the championship.

[Andrew Bates]

I thought that the Refs were being very professional. They were having to make do with what they had. We've known from last year that crystal interference had been a problem. This year I don't believe there was one episodes of interference from another robot/crystal. Unfortunately I do not believe that the Refs knew what the problem was so there was no way to fix it. However they were doing everything in their power to make sure there were no problems by telling us what could be causing trouble.

For example in our first round on Friday our robot moved in autonomous, not what it was supposed to do but it moved, and then during teleop mode we had no control until the last 20sec of the match. We had the two field tech guys down on their hands and knees trying to see what the problem might be. Eventually they noticed that one end of our quad encoders was on a piece of metal, i should clarify this, the quad encoders have two wires coming out one was on the metal the other was plugged in. They figured that since the other end was plugged into the robot it must be shorting. After the match we talked to them and they said that since there was no concrete evidence that it was a field problem that the match could not be re-run. They let us come over to their frequency analyzer and check to make sure that the robot and transmitter both had strong signals without any interference. After that we went back to the pits and to take steps against this happening again we replaced one of the yellow blocks on the robot, reloaded both the master and user code, and we tapped up the spare wires running from the quad encoders. In the next match we had intermittent control on our drivetrain in the first 20 or so seconds and them everything worked fine. After that match they told us that while watching the signal strength on our frequencies they had noticed no interference. We replaced the other yellow brick and in our last match everything worked as it was supposed to.

So to sum up, the refs and officials were great. They were extremely helpful in working with us to get our problems solved.

[gillejr]

I am glad to hear you had almost no difficulties. I do believe the Edison fields ran smoothly. My complaints are about how the Franklin fields were run. I do believe I remember seeing a rematch happen on the Edison field as well.

When the same problem keeps occurring on the same field with different robots, different crystals, fresh batteries, the only common thing is the field equipment.

[Rick TYler]

I am glad to hear you had almost no difficulties. I do believe the Edison fields ran smoothly. My complaints are about how the Franklin fields were run. I do believe I remember seeing a rematch happen on the Edison field as well.

When the same problem keeps occurring on the same field with different robots, different crystals, fresh batteries, the only common thing is the field equipment.

I didn't see every single match on Edison, but the only re-rerun I personally saw was when the head ref signaled the scorekeeper to not start the match, after he had already hit the start button. The scorekeeper then turned off the field and the match had to be restarted.

[fredliu168]

You may be mistaken. The re-run on the edison field was actually teams from the franklin division. I believe Mr. Roboto had a faulty crystal (or something to that extent) so a rematch was given. I believe the reason it was on the Edison field was because of scheduling.