FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Taken from the FRC Blog, 3/26/13: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...he-right-thing

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Hats off to both alliances on this one. That must have been a very tough call and I'm glad everything went ok.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

What? Wait a minute? Since when did we start deciding tied elimination matches based on obscure rules, rather than playing a tie breaking match?

Okay... I know the rule must have been changed at some point and I must have missed that in the rules book (and likely a lengthy discussion on CD)... but that is the part of this blog post that really bugs me. Bring back "Finals Match 4"!

Sorry to hear how the rest of it went down, but at least everyone agrees that an alliance won by outscoring the other, even if it took a couple tries to get it right. That's better than deciding such a close final based upon a penalty.

Tie-breakers! Tie-breakers! Settle the match the old fashioned way, where someone actually wins on the field!

Jason

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this rule was in place last year, and I doubt that they changed it at the beginning of this year only for it to be changed back in an update.

Edit: Section 5.4.4 of the 2012 game manual does describe the same tie breaker system in place now. Can't say for the beginning of this year.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

After the 2010 IRI eliminations, IIRC. You know, the one that had 3 or 4 ties in the elims at various points, leading to hours-long delays in ending due to the replays (I think one of the semis went to 5 or 6 matches)? I think after that is when FIRST said "You know, I think we can do this better" and implemented the tie-breakers, for the 2011 season. Of course, we were all so riled up about the minibots that year, and the coop bridges (and Einstein) the next year, that there was no lengthy CD discussion about the tiebreakers.

I remember IRI 2010 and it got to a point when I didn't care who won. I just wanted it to be over.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Ah... that would explain it, then... 2010 was the last year that I was actively involved on a team, so I haven't been following the tournament rules as closely since then... ::rtm:: and there was certainly enough 'new' in 2011 to talk about aside from something so rare as a tied elimination match.

I can't deny the efficiency of settling an elimination series this way, but really... in all the FRC, FTC and VRC events that I've attended that have gone "over time", I don't think the "tie breaker match" has ever been the main cause. No doubt it happened at IRI once, but it seems weird that an anomaly at an off-season event should impact 'real' FRC events.

Anyway, thanks for the update... and I should really be focusing on the GP shown last weekend, as described in the blog post... but I will be cheerfully grumpy for the next while about how "it was better in the old days when we settled ties the honorable way!"

Jason

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

IRI was the last straw, but not the only instance of this occurrence, and it was not an anomaly. 2010 was a particularly bad year for ties due to the low "resolution" of scores that year. The WPI regional had two different quarterfinals go to 5 and 6 matches respectively that year. Many other events had similar situations. Like others have mentioned, after an extra hour of quarterfinals matches, everyone just wants to be done with it.

There is a fairness aspect to it as well. Once again going to the WPI quarterfinals, the other two alliances both had essentially an hour+ of downtime waiting for their opponents to be decided. Meanwhile, the #2 seed had to go straight into semis after a grueling 3 extra matches, the last of which with only the standard 6 minute break in between. Their first semifinal was a tie as well, leading to another two back-to-back matches before they made it through to finals. 1735's drive motors overheated in the finals after having played 9 nearly consecutive matches. When all was said and done, 1735 and their partners 2370 and 663 played 11 matches in eliminations, only one less than they did through qualifiers.

This was an extreme example, but it and other similar episodes around the country did prompt the tiebreaker rules to come into play for the sake of the teams, as well as the audience and volunteers. I guarantee that alliance would have performed significantly better in the finals had their robot and driveteam not run through the equivalent of a second regional in just 3 hours. While the games since have not had the propensity for ties that 2010 did, it has come up a few times (including Galileo Semifinals in 2011).

I agree with you that it's much more exciting (in general) to play out ties...but after having been through WPI 2010, I understand the necessity of having tiebreakers in place.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

In 2010, ties occurred in ~10% of qualification matches
In 2011, ties occurred in ~4% of qualification matches
in 2012, ties occurred in ~3% of qualification matches
So far in 2013, ties have occurred in ~1% of qualification matches

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I went and took a look at the first 15 regionals of 2010... after all, 2010 was regarded as "a particularly bad year" due to the game design. 12/15 had no tiebreaker matches. 2/15 had one tiebreaker match. WPI had five tiebreaker matches.

I'll admit that five tiebreakers is a bit excessive, and could be seen as being responsible for delaying the completion of the event, however there were a total of 22 elimination matches played, including the tiebreakers. An event should be prepared for 21 elimination matches, assuming each of the seven series goes to three matches. So technically, even with all those extra tiebreakers, the event would have gone one match... six minutes... beyond what would be achieved in a "longest case" scenario using the current rules.

I submit that based on the 2010 elimination rounds that tiebreakers are an anomaly and are rarely (if ever) the root cause for an event running beyond time limits.

I'll admit that there needs to be something in the rules to allow events to finish at a reasonable time, however I'll also submit that saving six minutes is hardly worth giving up the "tiebreaker" match. And while I'm happy to admit that this totally falls into the category of "first world problems", I'll argue that we should settle ties on the field... in the finals at the very least!

Jason

P.S. at the other two events that had tiebreakers, they both ocurred in the finals... the perfect time!

Oh, yeah... full disclosure... I'm a bit of a hockey fan, and playoff games aren't considered "epic" until at least the third overtime period, so there might be a bit of a pre-existing bias.

Perhaps open up one tiebreaker match. If no team has two wins by the third match the team with more wins takes the set. If the number of wins is equal play a fourth match. If the fourth match is a tie use the tiebreakers. It allows for a tiebreaker match without the possibility of dragging things out forever.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I like this option it's sort of like NFL overtime during the regular season. Elimination rounds could only ever go to 4 matches and most years you would hardly ever need the tiebreakers. You keep the excitement of overtime and avoid the risk of events going to far over time.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I might be alone here but I think after what happened it's only fair to let both alliances go to Championship. Yes, one alliance didn't win, but to be given something, and then taking it back just seems wrong. ~400 teams will go to Championship. This is a rare mistake. What's 3 more teams?

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

It's unfair to the other 4 alliances around the country that lost a finals match by 2 or fewer points, including 2 that would have won the event if they had won that match.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

There are 4 alliances in FIRST that were declared winners of an event but due to a field crew mistake their win and ticket to Championship was taken away?

EDIT: 1,000th Post

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I mean that the same mistake could've been made and missed at any of those events.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Yeah absolutely. But since it was made at this event, I feel "Doing the right thing" would have been to allow the losing alliance to go on to Championship.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I think the officials caught it at an appropriate time, and handled it well. It was only a matter of minutes, and the level of certainty about the error was high. Once the error was realized, the choice was between deciding the winner on the basis of a human error, or deciding the winner on the basis of a completely legitimate match.

Given the circumstances, they rightly chose change the call and decide the winner based on gameplay.

(If they'd discovered it too late—like as the field was being packed up, after the awards—then it might be a different story.)

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

The same mistake happened in Israel, they had to go back to quarter finals after the semi finals started..
Something should be changed with the tie breaker system if the field crew are doing the same mistake...

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

While I'm okay with the resolution, I agree with Justin that allowing the losing alliance to go to Championship would have been the best possible call.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

We were one of those teams at IRI. Our matches against 1114 were epic on a level I will never forget. 5 matches of 5 or 6 robots lifting in every match. 5 matches of insanity.

If it were you in those matches, you would want the people in the stands to stay and cheer. Gracious Professionalism means understanding that those teams playing on that field are creating a memory that they'll never lose, putting yourself in their position, and cheering like crazy.

FIRST is about inspiration, and winning through penalties is hardly inspirational.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Alliances win through penalties all the time...

I hardly think a tie-breaking system that is clearly outlined in the rules destroys the inspirational value of a win.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

So all this talk of tiebreakers has me thinking:

Suppose for a minute that Central WA was being run under the pre-2011 tiebreaking system of infinite replays until a winner is found.

Based on what I've heard of the incident, it took a few minutes to discover the offending disc, likely enough time to have started the tiebreaker match. What happens then?

My guess is that 2pt disc gets counted in auto of F4, and now you have two matches whose outcomes have been affected by a sloppy count.

Do they still go back and award the red alliance based on their legitimate win of F3?

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Personally I am pro-replay/tie-breaker but there's a caveat. I am pro-replay because if the issue is possibly the result of unusual man made intentional interference it thwarts awarding the match to the person causing the interference.

On the other hand replaying a match as other's have noted carries with it the same risk of human error and the circumstances for each robot may differ. There is no reason to suspect that all the robots for any given match will be operational at the same levels from match to match. This can result in a match with a different mix of robots or different factors that directly impact the score.

Again, to me, winning the matches has an element of randomness to it and obviously strategy can impact the score as well as the robot designs and build qualities. I think making it to the competition at all with something resembling a finished robot is a major achievement for anyone that does it.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I was looking for this happy ending to this story and was disappointed this ruling was not made. It's not like this is the first time important matches have been botched due to errors on the field.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Einstein 2012 is completely different. That was due to problems WITH the field, interference from outside the field, and programming and wiring problems with some robots. Which added up to subpar performance from many robots. the implication being that if it weren't for the problems, the matches would have played differently and there might be a different winner.

In this case, the scoring error occurred after the match was played. The Red Alliance clearly won the match, but a scoring error gave the win to the other team. It's entirely clear who the correct winner of the tournament was. And hey, look! After the error was corrected, the Red Alliance was the winner.

For the record, I'm also against the "Everybody wins" solution. I understand the argument that the Blue Alliance was hurt and disappointed to discover that they didn't win after all, I just don't think it's valid. It's only slightly different from the more common scenario where they Blue Alliance thinks they've scored enough points to pull off the win, only to lose by 2 points because something. The only difference is a few more minutes of the Blue Alliance thinking it's won. Are you people really arguing that we should give people passes to Champs because they're disappointed and totally thought they should have won the competition?

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

No. You see, there are a specified number of red discs on the field. When only 5 turn up, none in the robots, there's going to be a hunt for the 6th. When they find it, they try to figure out how it got there. Eventually, the replay is called off due to improper scoring of F3 and the red alliance is crowned the winners.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Full disclosure: I am an alumnus of one teams involved, FRC 360. My opinion is my own, and in no way associated with my former team. I watched the webcast on Saturday and saw only what was shown there. Finally, I understand that as someone with an association with these teams I cannot be totally unbiased in this situation.

I believe the point being made here is not that the blue alliance "thought they had scored enough points" or thought that they should have won. It was the fact that it was announced to everyone in attendance that the blue alliance had won the regional, and the correction to the score did not come until 15 minutes later. While some alliances may think that they'd won a match, and therefore the regional, this was not just an assumption the teams had made - they were told that they had won. I believe that is why people are arguing that the alliance should be given a pass to Championship, because they were officially told that they had earned one and later had it taken away.

I also want to echo Frank in saying thank you to the volunteers at this event for coming forward and revealing what happened. I know how hard it must have been given the circumstances, but it was definitely the right thing to do. Thank you, and I hope that you continue to work with FIRST in the future.

Please know that I am not trying to argue in favor of anything, given my association with the situation. I just wanted to attempt to clarify what is being said in this thread.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I understand the argument, I just think we're talking about a difference in degree more than in type. There have been a large number of teams who have felt similar to the Blue Alliance did here, it's just that the Blue Alliance had it worse because they thought they'd won for 15 minutes instead of 2-3. Basically, I'm disagreeing that officially announcing it makes this a completely different situation that requires a completely different response. I really do feel very bad that the teams on both alliances had to go through this, but it's not as if awards had been handed out and travel plans had been made already. It's not like their robots were handicapped by field problems and couldn't perform to spec. The only reason for qualifying those teams for Champs in this case is that we feel really bad about how disappointed and upset those teams are. Which, it seems to me, opens up a lot of other circumstances for giving teams free passes to Champs.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

This is the most valid argument for sending them to champs. No one who watched them play will argue that they are of less caliber than teams who are already going to champs or may be sitting on the wait-list either. :)

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Aside from the fact that in this case 3 teams who had not in fact won championship bids would recieve them. Imagine if the mc at central had come out and said that a disc had been missed and the correct score was in favor of the red alliance but the ruling of a blue alliance victory was not going to be over turned. Should the red alliance then be given bids as well because they were told they had in fact won the match but would not be credited the win? How would the blue alliance feel knowing that their victory was false and empty?

In my opinion it is just a shame that it ended this way, and giving bids to the blue alliance would set a dangerous prescendent.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Giving bids to the finalist alliance due to things that happen at a competition event is not unprecedented. However, giving bids to the finalist alliance in this situation would set a dangerous precedent.

The most recent of these* was due to a verified bad call. SVR 08, F3 as I recall, the Head Ref ruled that a trackball on the overpass being contacted by an opponent was not scored (actually, opponent contact had no effect on scored or not scored that year by that method). But, instead of changing the score, and sending the match the other way (the direct effect of correcting the score), which is what could have been done, half an hour after the finals were over there was a replay. The "opponent" previously mentioned won the replay, "confirming" them as the winners. HQ stepped in within a week and said, in effect, "These teams should have won, our ref made a mistake, all teams in the eliminations get bids".

Central Washington 2013 is what SHOULD have happened in SVR 2008. (I wonder if the refs had that in the back of their minds?) I think the situation where a referee or scorer misses a call, or makes a bad one, then admits to and corrects it does not warrant extra bids being handed out--after all, they did admit that they screwed up, and they did correct the error, even if it was a bit later than teams would like. If, however, the mistake is not admitted to and/or corrected, and it is later discovered, then there is already precedent for giving the finalist alliance bids, in that case and that case only.

*I'm not including Einstein 2012 and its field issues; the only other one I can think of was Arizona 2004, which is not the same situation at all.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I don't think they're exactly comparable, and I think it both cases the refs made the right call in the end. At SVR 2008, IIRC (I was there) the refs had earlier made an incorrect call similar to the one that was made in the final match (that a ball being supported by an opposing robot did not count), and it was never publicly corrected or announced that the call had been incorrect. Again IIRC, a robot on the initially losing alliance spent a significant amount of time at the end of the match attempting to partially support the trackball rather than perhaps trying to score another way, so they were still operating under that assumption. That's why I think the fairest decision there was indeed to replay the match and send both teams to Championships. There was no such confusion about the rules here, only a simple miscount; thus, as unfortunate as it might be, I don't believe the finalist alliance deserves to go to championships any more than any other teams that did not qualify.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

So should any alliances that lost in the finals of a regional because of a referee's opinion of gameplay be given spots at champs? I do feel bad for the alliance that was told they won but actually lost, but they lost; I've been a part of matches where we were told we won but then were overturned and vice-versa, so I do know how this feels. But to allow those teams to go because of a regional staff mistake would open up a can of worms into the "but we lost because of x, but we think we really won, so we think we deserve a spot too."

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Eric, in reply to my earlier post, you implied field reset would have found the disc. Maybe.

They would have taken a quick look around, and if nobody saw it, they'd have grabbed a spare and played on. Game pieces go missing from fields all the time.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

HQ was the one who issued the invitation to CMP, well after the event. The replay was the problem call there.

Referees make that sort of call all the time. For whatever reason, a match is scored incorrectly. Usually, the score is quietly corrected later; only rarely is there any announcement. For this particular call, that was not an option. All the time through, they had the option to adjust the score. That was all it would have taken to correct the situation. However, the head ref called for a replay, which I will admit he did have grounds for (human error being one of the items a replay can be called on), but was probably not the best decision. I know that everybody watching via webcast and on CD was wondering what was going on, why is there a replay, why don't they just adjust the scores--and the real kicker was that some of the robots were already in their crates when the replay was called for!

The reason I'm calling that up as a close case was that there, even though the basis for the mistake was different, it was a VERY similar mistake, the type that changes a winner. In that case, however, the announcement of the error (and the handling of the results) were handled in such a way that maximum confusion resulted. In the case at hand, there was minimum confusion, though there was much disappointment.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

No, it would have been found. When the next match had started the counter would have immediately registered a disc even before a shot was made. That happened somewhere last week when 6 discs were left in the top goal. As soon as the match started the alliance immediately, literally less than a second, jumped out to a 36 point lead. The announcer realized it immediately and made the comment.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

I understand what you're saying, but I think SVR 2008 was different in one key respect: the originally-losing alliance was acting based on incorrect information based on earlier referee decisions. At that point, I think simply declaring them the losers based on the correct interpretation of the rules would be less than fair. Of course, declaring the replay was also less than fair. Obviously the fair solution would have been for none of the incorrect calls to have been made in the first place, but at that point that was not an option. I believe that telling the red alliance they lost, after they won by what the referees had previously told them the rules were, would not have been a better solution.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

To bring things back onto the track I laid a few hours ago, the point of the SVR story was to demonstrate how incredibly bad a finals has to get before it makes some sense to give the (eventual) finalists a seat at Champs. Contrast that with what happened in Washington where there was a simple scoring error and it was rectified 15 minutes later in the least dramatic way possible, given the situation. Minimum of confusion, no weird replays, no bad calls by refs, just an unfortunate scoring error that would have been completely uncontroversial if it had occured in Finals 1 or 2 instead of Finals 3.

Yes even Finals 2, where the same mistake would have turned a Blue win into a tie, with the rubber match in Finals 3. Because Blue would've felt the went down playing instead of having the win snatched from them with no chance to play for the victory. I'm guessing if things went down in this order, people wouldn't be calling for qualifying Blue for Champs, because when you look at it in this order, it seems "fair". This is the best argument against qualifying the Finalists for Champs, because while it's nearly the exact same situation, it feels totally different.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

Howdy folks.
I'm Cindy, a senior on 360, the captain of the blue alliance. There was a bit of a discussion about this topic (of all the teams getting to go to St. Louis) when Robotics Memes posted this article on Facebook. A brief summary of what our head mentor (Eric Stokely) and I had to say about all this:

Ellensburg was the last competition for 360 this year. But us seniors regret nothing. We built a fantastic robot, met great people, our drive team was wonderful, and we couldn't have asked for a better alliance.
When the competition finally ended, it felt like there were 6 winners, not 3. The teams who get to go to St. Louis were the best bots at the CW Regional; they won the whole thing fair and square. We ended that competition as a true community and because of that Ellensburg will remain a treasured memory of mine for years to come. After all, FIRST isn't all about the robots.

Nobody should feel guilty about what happened. In ways that are hard to explain it feels like, somehow, we took something away from the winning alliance. They were strong, they played hard, and deserved the win. 360's season is over, no regrets. We will have volunteers at the remaining Washington regionals, and Stokely be in St Louis, inspecting robots.

Todai.

Re: FRC Blogged - Doing the Right Thing
 

A colored disc, in finals, by a now veteran field crew, with the same six experienced teams on the field never having left the area, directly after a tied match? At least on the fields I've worked, we'd find that disc. White discs can go missing (presumably in someone's magazine) especially early in quals, but this is essentially the antithetical situation.

I feel for the blue alliance, but I'm (cheesily) really proud of everyone for the way the handled it, from both alliances to the crowd to the volunteers. It really couldn't have been handled better by anyone. Congratulations to both alliances. And to the human player--I know it might be difficult to celebrate, but that's pretty impressive.