Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

Well said Alex. I believe that is the best option out of respect for 233, 624, and 1902. I have the utmost respect for those three teams.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

I agree with you. The refs messed up big time in one of our games. They claimed that we had never finished up our autonomous balls. Because of that, they believed that a ball we had in-bounded during tele-op was actually an autonomous ball, and for some reason, even the MC believed that the ball was from the autonomous period.

What puts the icing on the cake is that our alliance partner had irrefutable video evidence that we had scored our two autonomous balls. We, Team Banana, scored our high goal autonomous ball, our alliance partner scored the last autonomous ball as soon as tele-op started, and our third alliance partner was a dead robot.

Unfortunately, we are not allowed to show irrefutable video evidence to the referrees.

This was only one of many isolated incidents where we felt that we were wronged. This year's Orlando regional was a rotten banana, and I really think that our team should not come to the Orlando regional next year.

The opinions in this post are solely mine and do not constitute the opinion of Team 945.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

Did you call dead ball on an autonomous ball?

If so, a new ball has to be inbounded and scored to finish your auto balls.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

i had an awesome time at the regional. after robot inspection was over i filled in on croud control and worked the saftey glasses table and it gave be brilliant idea that i hope to reveal at Ft. Lauterdale. thanks to the other voulinteers for working togeather so smoothly.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

If the final autonomous ball is declared dead, the cycle's should have started. The inbounded ball does not need to be scored in order to begin cycles.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

Thanks, proves me wrong for watching webcasts.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

We didn't have a dead ball. Our alliance preloaded 2 balls during the autonomous period and scored both. The other team decided to not put the third ball into play for autonomous, which according to G5, is perfectly ok to do.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

It's ok to be wrong sometimes on stuff like this, Gregor. At least you aren't a referee who could impact games with those kinds of mistakes.

<3

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

Not to toot my own horn, but go to http://theroboshow.net/ to see my post-Quarterfinal interview with WFFA Andy Bradley & mentor on the #1 Alliance for what I consider a pretty substantial explanation of what happened.

Oh wait, that's explicitly tooting my own horn.:yikes:

In addition, I'm told that the #1 Alliance will be coming out with an official statement in a few days.

Congratulations to all teams that competed. I really enjoyed seeing all of you this weekend, & had a wonderful time!

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

Just a quick note: Sorry, fellas. 2-week delay. http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/00.../#.UyUm1PldVXs

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

In trying to find the interview I clicked through a bunch of the video and wanted to say your content and production quality are insane.

The interview is at 2:13:30. Sounds like the worst possible situation happened with the team bringing their robot back to the scale/inspectors and believing they were inspected.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

I would really like to find out what exactly happened such that the #1 alliance got DQ'd. To me it seems like a bad communication caused this situation. I hope an official statement is made by either the alliance or FIRST comes out soon.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

Keeping in mind our interviewee wasn't the person who actually got the robot reweighed-but-not-inspected, of course. But yes, by that account it sounds like a pretty tragic misunderstanding or miscommunication about the nature of that reweighing.
I don't know what their practices are in Orlando, but our LRI at Lone Star usually makes a point of asking elim teams if they've made any significant changes to the robot since they were last inspected. Which wouldn't count as a re-inspection, obviously, but would hopefully have prompted the team to say "Why yes, we have...".

EDIT: Also, I agree that those production values are pretty impressive, aside from the bit of out of focus interview I saw while similarly hunting. Now I want to know how to get those guys at, say, the Lone Star Regional...

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

First off I want to say how bad I feel for 233, 624 and 1902. They beat us straight up and 100% deserved to move on from our match. We were packing up after quarter 2 and someone from another team came to the pit and told us to stop because they were going to replay the matches due to the extra batteries. We weren't aware of the situation but naturally at that point we were excited to get another chance and not thinking really about the ramifications. In eliminations there's a lot of pressure to keep things moving fast. So we stopped packing and went to see what had happened. A number of people and alliance partners said the ref's needed an alliance captain to challenge this to get a rematch. I approved of this and sent our alliance captain student to present the question. As we stood there and waited on deliberation I realized this could have been a misunderstanding on 1902's part. I seriously doubt they willfully would try to sneak something past the inspection. I'm sure they were too rushed to get the arm off to even think about the inspection. Batteries are the first logical choice to replace the weight. Old rules said you can't do that but I'm hearing after that its not a clear current requirement. I think I heard their alliance checked for the rule as well and felt confident in their decision. I also think the inspection process is more about weight and in their case a major change on the robot could have meant an extensive re-inspection that probably didn't happen in the big rush to get on the field.
That said after we challenged I started to get a sinking feeling that this was going to go bad for that alliance and I don't think it should have. We were excited about having the chance for a rematch just out of a selfish wish to compete again, I really didn't think it would happen but as a team coach you have to leave no stones un-turned, you have to be thorough and consider the what ifs. But when we were told this decision was not negotiable and the 233 alliance would be eliminated my heart fell and I can't describe how bad I felt for pushing the issue. I regret the outcome and sincerely apologize to your teams. I didn't expect it would come to that and looking back would have pulled the plug on our challenge from the start. I saw some kids really hurt by this and didn't want to continue. But when its go time, you go, and we did. But know that we weren't happy about this and hope you guys understand these were truly unintended consequences.

Re: 2014 Orlando Regional
 

I respect your opinion; however, I think you are directing your frustration of the game design at the Orlando volunteers. We followed the procedure and questioned a few calls knowing it would be difficult to overturn. Frankly, I don't see how the head ref could change a subjective penalty they did not see.

David