Missed Inbounder Assists
 

**Disclaimer** Not trying to call anyone out...just trying to understand.

While reviewing our match footage from the Waterford District F3 match, I noticed that one of our balls was only credited for (1) assist, even though it was passed out of 4994 in the red zone to 51, who had a possesion all three zones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...pDfBkQ#t=12 2

We specifically worked with 4994 to modify their robot to be able to pass the ball quickly out of their machine via their roller intake. Ball ball went in and out of their robot very quickly, but it was actively ejected from the robot by the intake spinning.

In the end, it's a moot point since we lost 130-95, so regardless of the additional assist it would not have changed the outcome of the match. But, I know that the fact that the lights were only showing (1) assist effected our strategy of where 51 scored that ball (low goal v. high goal). At the time the score was very close, and the difference could have been scoring in the low goal and starting another cycle v. trying to continue to score in the high goal.

It might be hard to tell in the video, since there are robots blocking the inbound but I can assure you the ball passed through 4994's robot. Is there a specific amount of time refs are looking for before a ball is ejected? Do we need to review our strategy with the appropriate refs so they know what to look for when we are trying to get a third assist with this type of machine?

I was told this was not the only time we were not credited for this assist in the elims. Although, this is the only video example I could find. Possible it was just an honest mistake by the refs.

I'd like to utilize this strategy in future competitions, and I want to make sure we are doing it correctly, to maximize our score.

Re: Missed Assists
 

I would personally would consider this an assist, but would also like to hear other's opinion on it...at Northeastern when looking at possible 2nd picks before alliance selections we looked into doing similar things to a few teams in order to do a similar assist.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Wait till the green dot lights up before they get rid of the ball? Shouldn't be necessary, but it might be a good way to ensure the referee noticed the possession.

Being able do do things very quickly, means the things might not be seen. Apparently the referees have a lot of things to watch.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

POSSESS: (for a ROBOT) to carry (move while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT), herd (repeated pushing or bumping), launch (impel BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or trap (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them) a BALL.

According to this definition of possess from the manual, it should've been counted as an assist, since they "launched" the ball, based on the definition of launch.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

This wouls seriously effect my strategy decision between running a 2 assist versus 3 assist strategy. We can run a ridiculouly fast 2 assist cycle. If I have to wait 5-10s (or more) for the lights to show that extra assist the extra 20pts isn't worth it.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

The sad thing is if our robot's shooter didn't decide to start shooting high blooper balls instead of our normal low trajectory, we probably would've pulled out that match. We really need to figure out what changed in the afternoon.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

This is a referees call. If it goes through the robot without the robot controlling it, I would not call it a possession. But then I am not calling your match. I would be happy either way as long as it was consistent.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

At 2:08? Wow that was impressively quick.

I think the problem is that you have to recognize that refs are human. To be honest, at a quick look you could have easily seen that and thought the human player inbounded and the robot didn't "catch it", or that the HP completely missed and it bounced off to the floor. (Looking at the video I do see that it went through the robot and the wheels spit it out and should be an assist as far as I can tell).

To make it more obvious and not have to wait an undue amount of time, I'd change slightly:

1- Have the HP inbound the ball and then have your driver enable the ejector wheels.

2- Inbound the ball, move a small bit and then eject.

Either should only add ~1second and make it more obvious it's a possession. An extra second would be worth the extra points to make it clear, and I agree waiting for the light 5-10 seconds is probably not worth it.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Having just refereed, my advice would be to go to the head referee before the match to point out that the particular robot being used does indeed eject the ball, so that the referees know to look at it.

For those who don't know, in teleop the near side (in front of the scoring table) referees can enter possessions, trusses, catches and scores. They are also the referees who can complete a cycle. Which is a different button from the score button. The far side referees can do possessions, trusses and catches. All four referees with pads can enter fouls. But to enter fouls you have to toggle between screens. As a result, at Queen City we tried to have the far side referees enter the fouls. The near side referees track the alliance shooting at the goal on their side while the far side referees track the alliance inbounding on their side. So if a far side referee is entering a foul they may be looking at their pad when the ball is put into play, and the far side referee can't always tell what happened. If they are expecting a quick inbound play they will be more likely to get it scored.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Adam,
I think you understand it perfectly well and the strategy for 2 possession is the best there is on how to do it quickly.
As MathKing pointed out, I would suggest making sure the scorekeepers/refs understand what you are doing, especially during eliminations when the same strategy is being used by the same teams.

Over 3 events, we have seen so many missed assists in our matches, especially during qualifications. In our last 2 events, we earned 610 and 670 assist points with the field of teams available at our respective events, as it was a focal point for our team that we carefully watched for each and every match.

Hopefully at Championships, the reffing is more consistent. I'm sure as refs do more and more events, the chances of missed assists will occur much much less.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

What annoys me most about this situation is if that had been a red ball, there would have been a penalty, no questions asked. I know at our event refs were far more reluctant to call possessions on your own ball versus an opponents ball.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I think the same burden of responsiblity for the match outcome could be said about ensuring that our robot maintains power for the entire match.

Unfortunately, 4994 was having an issue with their intake motor locking up when it was not running when the ball was inbounded, so essentially our only option was to inbound and eject it very quickly.

My plan was to do it as quickly as possible with as little movement needed. I'm not sure if the "burden of proof" falls on the teams or the refs for these situations.

I know there were (3) refs on that end of the field. And none of them were inputting a score or a foul at that time, since we were defending 1718 at the time and they hadn't scored their ball...and I don't believe there were any fouls in this match.

I think we will specifically point out or strategy next time to the refs in that zone, so they are aware of what we are trying to do.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Agreed, and not sure the burden falls on the team at all; but it wouldn't hurt in cases where you know it's not obvious.

Talking to the refs would be useful as the others have pointed out also.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

That is a clear and perfect possession. But it might just be too fast for this game with everything the refs do. We had issues at St. Joe with similar things and even with auto balls still on the field counted when ejected in teleop for points. Damage inside the frame perimeter was almost never called even when large components were ripped off in plain view, or major damage is done way inside the frame (think 10-12 inches). Calls had to be super, super obvious even after five weeks of play. If you know it happened and your alliance knows it happened, you have to be sure that it is obvious enough for a ref who may or may not be looking at you to notice too.

With all that said, I love the way the game is playing now. Rules are called better, the game is about as rough as it should be, it is way faster than it was even two weeks ago, and hopefully everyone else can keep up with how it will run from now on.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Glen,

You are SO correct, for both Qualifying and Eliminations! I tried to stress an assist first strategy for Quals this weekend, forgoing most truss/catch points just to try and get as many 2 or 3 assist cycles as possible.

We missed out on the #1 seed at Waterford by 20 assist points (:eek:) . In hindsight every single little missed assist, blown strategy call, mis-aligned shot, etc... factors into my post-event analysis.

My guess is that each Division qualification ranking at Champs wil come down to the assist tie breaker as well. Typically the quality of reffing in MI is much higher than the quality at Champs, since most refs around here are working an event each week. They are usually very qualified by this time in the season.

We will definately be discussing our match strategy and alliance robot characteristics pre-match with the refs at Champs.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

At the recent North Bay Regional, 610 tried to implement the "Pin Possession" tactic, which involves a robot ramming their ball against the wall, in order for it to be counted as possession by trapping.

On the first day that we implemented this for our matches, the refs were unaware of how it worked, and then didn't really pay attention to our robot.

However, we specifically asked each human player performing this technique to get a referee's attention as they were performing the pin possession.

While it may have been the ref at fault for not paying complete attention to their field, I think that if your human player was to get their attention and have them notice your possession as you do it, they would have no problems giving you the assist.

The results of our "Pin Possession" strategy over the day: The refs gradually got used to paying close attention to the ball as it's being inbounded, which gave the pinning robot a much easier time. The pin time was generally between 1 and 3 seconds, which is ample time for a human player to drop the ball, get the attention of a referee and yell "PIN" to them.

I think that the strategy employed should have been conveyed to the ref closest to your human player zone, so that they could've paid special attention.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

A piece of advice. When doing this inbound from the side across from the head ref and scoring table. That referee is the one tracking your assists. If you inbound from the same side as the head ref/scoring table, the referee tracking your assists will be across the field.

Are you using your definition of possess, or the manual's?

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

From the manual:
POSSESS: (for a ROBOT) to carry (move while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT), herd (repeated pushing or bumping), launch (impel BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or trap (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them) a BALL.

Also from the manual:
Examples of BALL interaction that are not POSSESSION are

A. “bulldozing” (inadvertently coming in contact with BALLS that happen to be in the path of the ROBOT as it moves about the FIELD) and

B. “deflecting” (a single hit to or being hit by a BALL that bounces or rolls off the ROBOT or a BALL slips through the grips of a ROBOT without arresting the BALL'S momentum).

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Emphasis mine. I don't see any way this could be argued to have not been a possession. The robot launched the ball because the ball doesn't come out without the spinning rollers, which are a mechanism in motion relative to the robot, and the ball is definitely going in a desired direction to a desired location.

I think the more likely scenario is that the ref missed it because it happened so fast. Alternatively, another possession zone could have been missed, although that is unlikely since 51 took it and scored it. Even though no penalties were called, the referee that would have been watching your possessions may have had his/her attention elsewhere watching a situation that ended up being a no-call.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Adam, I will start out by saying that I hope what I say does not end up hurting us this next weekend. I believe that what you did with the rookie bot is legal and should be considered possession. However looking at the video and not considering the back story, it looks like the ball bounced out of the inbound robot and that is what a ref would have seen. A move like this is a good one and in a game like this one needs to be pointed out to anyone including a ref that is not aware of what is actually going on.
That being said, see you in Lansing.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

No offense taken, hopefully we will be able to play together in Lansing. I will say that I am 100% certain that the ball did not bounce out of 4994. I can say that because I was watching the inbound, instead of correcting our driver not to defend 1718 in high gear....thus not popping our main breaker and being dead for the final minute of the match.

Looking forward to Lansing!

I will say that we had been running this same identical play for the previous (8) elimination matches, so it was not the first time the ref crew was seeing this strategy play out.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Having watched the original video, and having called possessions along with Gregor, I know this was a point of discussion for us as well. We agreed that if the rollers were going that it should be called a possession; however, in some of the robots I saw, it almost looked like the ball was being inbounded directly through the frame of the robot. We agreed to call it as possession, but I could easily see how a ref would not call it, as if the ref isn't familiar with your design, it may look as the ball passed through by mistake rather than intent.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Adam, knowing the back story, I have no doubt it was a possession as well. I just hope my suggesting you point it out in advance to a ref or anyone else, does not end up costing us a match against you, if that is how it works out.

Would be good to play with you guys again though.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Glenn and Adam,
We also thought pre match discussion with refs would help them understand our assist strategy and help reduce the number of missed assists calls...result was several more matches with missed third assists awarded and over a 100 pts not counted all together. Hopefully we can do a better job "educating" our refs next week;)

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

This is part of a bigger problem that refs are not able to count all of the scoring. We've seen this both at our regionals and on video we've watched--entire cycles are not being scored, even including the goal. We saw that in reviewing one of 254's matches at Waterloo, where we could replay the video to confirm it. FIRST will have to do something to address this at World's when the play will speed up dramatically.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

As a spectator for matches in between our matches, I found myself way more skilled in seeing missed call, if any. I guess the more matches you see, the better you get.
Its too bad this game puts a lot of work on the refs to see, determine, and input score while watching for game play.
With so many teams at CMPS and only 10 matches, ties will occur in the top 8, and assists essentially become win points.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I agree that this will be an issue. It's really tough for refs to see everything, and if a team notices that assists aren't being counted properly, what are the refs supposed to do? They aren't just going to trust what a random team member saw, and even if there is amazingly clear video evidence, they can't look at it. It's also not right to just say no to a team who says a match score is wrong. A replay might be a possible, but it ruins any surprise match strategy, and often doesn't give teams enough time to reset their robot.

Just out of curiosity, what's the policy on changing scores? Can a score be undone during a match? After a match? In eliminations/qualifications? Autonomous in teleop?

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Reffing at the DC regional, there was a bot like this and us refs were reminded by our head ref (who had been tipped about this by someone else - not sure if it was the team, the inspectors, someone else) before any match with them to look out for them launching the ball and to count it as a possession. It greatly helped us in scoring matches with that bot.

Like others have stated, the refs are human and trying their best to be as quick and accurate as possible, but they can miss things in the chaos. Just point out the launching capability of your bot to the head ref on practice day and it should help the refs a great deal when scoring your matches!

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

At this point, I have basically accepted that 5-10% of assists will be missed. Consider it the cost of doing business :)

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Agreed. Which makes me think that perhaps it's time to go back to a game that can be scored at the end of the match with static field conditions. (Think 2007, 2009¹, 2011², 2013³) Having the ability to recycle game objects into play opens up a wealth of options when it comes to game design, but until FIRST can prove that they can score matches with a much higher degree of accuracy, it might be time to scale back how these games are scored. This isn't a criticism, bu merely a simple understanding that there will always be scoring errors when scoring must be done in real time. Designing games to minimize the number of quick real time scoring decisions that need to be made will make things easier for the referees, and result in fewer complaints from teams.

1. Even with all scored balls being situated in trailers at the end of matches, there were still incorrectly scored matches. However, it was rare enough to be understandable.
2. Ignore the automated minibot scoring.
3. See #1, although these rare errors almost blew up on Einstein...

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Referees can and do adjust scores after matches. Once the cycle has ended the change has to wait until the end of the game. There were a number of matches at Queen City in which we adjusted scores after matches. Sometimes we would hit the possession, score and cycle buttons in succession and realize the possession didn't take. We would note the cycle number and add the possession after the match was done. A few times we weren't sure if a team got a possession (mostly it was when they shot or passes just as they crossed from one zone to the next) so we entered the cycle and asked over the radio if there was a possession, fixing any discrepancy after the match.

The biggest problem is that the pads have a bit of lag, and you have to toggle between the foul and scoring/possession screens. Most of the time the pads worked well, but they wouldn't always register a button press. The time spent looking down to insure the button was pressed meant time not looking at the field. If we spend even more extra time trying to figure out if there was another possession or not then the new cycle wouldn't start promptly. I would guess about 10-12 times we went back and added possessions that added assists.

In most of those cases (maybe all of them) at least one of the teams came up to ask about it, and usually I would just turn and say something like "The third assist in your second cycle? Yeah we got it. We are adjusting the score." and they wouldn't even wait in the question box. I don't have an accurate accounting of how many assists we missed (I am sure we missed some) but there were probably a half dozen more times when teams came up and we said "Team xxxx did not get all the way into the white zone before they made their truss shot, so you didn't get three assists." Also, a couple of times when we asked each other "Did that shot go over the truss?" (there were a lot of high balls shot to human players that were above the posts and it was not always clear) the human player of the opposing alliance said "Yes it did."

As has been said in a few previous threads, it would probably have been better if the fifth referee had been included from the start and given a pad to enter fouls. I was the truss referee from Friday afternoon on, and it would have simplified things. But I highly recommend asking about missed possessions right after the match if you think you were shorted. There is a good chance that the referees will remember then and be able to correct it.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

The flip side is when you don't have fairly accurate real time scoring people get really upset about not knowing the score as the game progresses. Just think about all of the complaints about the real time scoring last year.

After refereeing, I feel as though my first impression was correct. The problem is that we need at least two more people involved for scoring. If there were two more referees who were just tracking possessions (one for each alliance), and not ever having to toggle their screens, there would be few errors for possessions. Then the two near side referees could focus just on trusses, catches and scores. This would leave three referees (plus the head ref) to call fouls. Maybe you even call the first four scorekeepers (it might make it easier to recruit people) and the others referees.

I do think the problems will be much less at the Championships, when there are more experienced referees calling the games.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Do you recall significant scoring errors in 2008, 2010, or 2012? I don't, but that doesn't mean they didn't occur. While the real time scoring displayed on the screen has been an issue for many games (including most that are scored post match), I think this year and 2006 are the only two years I remember a significant quantity of discrepancies in the final tallied scores.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

2012 was fairly issue free as I recall. 2008 definitely had issues with missed hurdles, especially in those weird cases where balls didn't make a full lap. 2010 has issues in matches where DOGMA penalties came into play. Nothing nearly as bad as we've seen this year, probably a function of how overburdened the referees are this year compared to past years.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

This was not an issue in 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2011, which all had games where you could get a very good approximation of the score just by glancing at the field. That combined with some real time scoring for display purposes only, made all four of those games incredibly spectator friendly. To me, this type of setup is something we should be striving for.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

At livonia we had 2 matches in elims where the ref had missed 3 assists from 3 different cycles. They do have a lot to do but after it was brought to their attention the first time we thought it would be settled...they got it right the 3rd time though which is better than nothing. We have learned that sometimes you have to make these assists more clear than what we might think is a clear assist at the time in the match.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I am not sure that I would equate "being able to glance at the field and approximate the score" with spectator friendly. In most sports and sports-like competitions you can't just glance at the field and see who is winning. You have to look at the scoreboard. I think accurate scoring is certainly something to strive for, and something we have a right to expect.

I don't think I would list 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2011 as good years for spectators. The games required some real explaining to understand. I remember a parent asking me "Why aren't they just picking up that white tube?" at the Championships in 2011. 2005 and 2011 were undoubtedly our two best years in terms of the quality of our robots performance they were not particularly spectator friendly games. And the minibot issues in 2011 pretty much disqualify it from any discussion of well done scoring in my mind. By the Championships 2004 was pretty much a race to see which side could get two robots to hang. 2010, 2012 and 2013 were all easier to understand and follow, endgames notwithstanding. Yes I agree that you could get a good approximation of the score by glancing at the field, but really that means you could tell if one side was obviously winning. I think that in 2012, 2013 and 2014 when one side is obviously winning it is pretty obvious to someone watching as well.

As for scoring errors, it is my general sense that there have been plenty of years where there were at least as many matches where the winners changed after the end of the match due to fouls and/or scoring changes. Last year there were certainly many more scoring changes after the end of the match. From 2010 - 2013 we have co-hosted and off season tournament, and I have been either the head referee, the announcer or the MC each year. So I have been on the sidelines watching a whole competition (not involved at all in coaching my team) and all of those years we had issues. In particular I feel as though this year a larger proportion of the penalties are being assessed as they happen. This is good, as it gives teams a better sense of the actual score and allows them to change strategy. It is bad because it gives the referee scorekeepers (since they are playing both roles) more to do and the system is not necessarily well set up to allow this.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I think we can all agree that no one is perfect. The referees are humans and they often make mistakes that doesn't affect anything in the grand scheme of things. But when a call goes against you, it feels like you have used cheated out of something.

I know a few people who volunteered their time to be referees and if there is one thing I know about them, it's that these individuals are smart and pay attention to the most minor details. Am I saying that they made no mistakes? No! I'm sure they contributed to the "inconsistent calls" but if they made such mistakes, I know for a fact that I would not be a perfect referee in their stead.


Instead of discussing things you can't predict (such as whether refs will be consistently incorrect or inconsistently correct) it maybe more beneficial to think of ways to help these individuals make correct decisions.

I quickly glanced over the thread and I saw someone mention how they informed the refs of pin possessions to get the assists. That is something that actually changed something. The refs were able to make a correct call because the action was brought to their attention.

If a ref misses something, bring it to their attention and they will not make that same mistake twice. If you are trying something novel, talk to the refs/head ref beforehand to make them aware of what they should look for!

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I was considering 2010's DOGMA penalties to be a separate issue, but given that they were generated via the automated scoring system, I can see how they're related. I think the scoring system by itself was good at tracking score as far as I can recall. Once or twice there was an issue with multiple balls passing in quick succession, but I think that was an issue experienced less than once per event.

For an individual on a team, especially ones who are well versed in the rules, I tend to agree (with the exception of some 2007 matches). For a layperson, I'm less convinced. 2004 and 2005 were staightforward enough that most could get a good handle on the score once they learned the point values. 2007 and 2011 I don't think were nearly as easy. While it would be obvious in a blowout, there were too many modifiers and too many endgame points to make it obvious who held the advantage in matches were both alliances were competitive. It was easy to see who held the longest row in 2007, but the exponential scoring didn't lend itself to quickly tabulating score for most spectators, and it would rarely be obvious if an alliance's lead was substantial enough to overcome the potential points of the end game. The diminishing returns on lower rows and the doubling value of ubertubes led to a similar issue with 2011.

Granted, nothing will ever be worse than 2001 for spectator friendly scoring. That game was a nightmare to try and explain and calculate scores.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

The DOGMA penalties were one of the worst ways teams could lose matches. I hope Human Players never get put into those situations ever again.:mad:

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I was an inspector 2 weeks ago, and asked a ref about when does bulldozing constitute possession? She said they had a standard, but could not disclose it. I'm guessing it is the same for pinning. I'll be Ref'ing this weekend, and will be interested in what they tell us.

From what I see in the video from a distance, I am not sure if I would have called it a possession, unless I was told in advance.. By the same token, I might not have called it a possession foul either. IMHO, you really have to hold the ball more than a fraction of a second. The ones I am more worried about are: Bot is running across the field, and hits the opponent's ball. When is that intentional?

In addition to telling the head ref before matches, you might want to hold the ball for 1 second prior to ejecting it. Or, only eject it immediately if it is a bot to bot pass (with no carpet inbetween). Otherwise, it just looks like it hit your bot and fell out (regardless of whether the motors were running or not).

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Our team performed an assist strategy we developed now called "touch and go" I will link a video when it is uploaded. The basic concept is we have the ball in our roller intake resting on our bumper and we drive into our alliance partners. We do not release control of the ball but it meets the definition of trapped. We were consistently credited for this dozens of times. We had over 700 assist points because of this. We had one match where our alliance partners both played straight deffence and we drove around like crazzy running the ball into them and getting full assist points even though they did almost nothing other than deffence.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I hope they add more referees/scorekeepers at the division level in St. Louis. Although I've only used the assist/penalty panels (non HR panels) 2 or 3 times this year, I know how difficult it is to know exactly what assists went in while a match is in progress. As a HR standing in the middle of the field, the only things I could watch were truss score lights illuminating and high goals illuminating as assists occurred. Many times, I saw the third assist not lighting up because of possible FMS lag as soon as cycles ended. I hope FIRST can figure out a way to make assists more clear. There are a bunch of other things events can do to make things more clear, such as NOT rotating referees on qualification and elimination matches and letting us use more than the "allowed" amount of referees. Hopefully St. Louis will be better.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Possession <a-b>, to include herding, have nothing at all to do with intention.

“carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT or holding the BALL in or on the ROBOT),
“herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),

Technically <c-d> do reference non-physical criteria. Launch direction is "desired", though in practice I don't know of anything action that's met other G12c requirements and failed on "desired". Similarly trapping technically has a non-physical component, as it is "in an attempt to shield...", As A452 shows though, it hasn't been called purely that way, at least in recent weeks. (Side note: very frustrating, both for inconsistency in low goal possessions and the originally ruled-out viability of offensive traps like pandamonium's "touch and go", which we would've gladly designed for had it been described as legal during build.)

“launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT), or
“trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

Intention also comes into play in deciding the foul now, though there's another inconsistency zone for intentional+inconsequential, depending on how it's read.

Violation: FOUL, if unintentional and inconsequential (i.e. does not significantly impact MATCH play). TECHNICAL FOUL per consequential instance. TECHNICAL FOUL per extended instance. If strategic, RED CARD for the ALLIANCE.

Finally, intention is associated with advertency of bulldozing. (More inconsistency on whether these are identical--can one be attentive and advertent that they're bulldozing without it being intentional?) This is a lesser issue though, because deflecting has no positive or negative intention requirement.

B. “deflecting” (a single hit to or being hit by a BALL that bounces or rolls off the ROBOT or a BALL slips through the grips of a ROBOT without arresting the BALL'S momentum).

What you're describing as being worried about is deflection, which is not possession regardless of intent.


Re: 3rd assist high goal lights. Yes, the lag is terrible between the panels and the lights. You've really got to go by score. I've also seen it miss a last-minute possession entered by the far side ref while the near side hits end cycle. We have to fix this post-match.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

As a controls engineer who designs HMIs for machine control, this seems very much like a UI problem on the panels. I haven't used AB stuff (The pads are all Allen Bradley), but just about any plc will have trouble with very fast button presses, and will have a page change time. Any HMI design should try to minimize quick succession button presses and page changes. Humans can be way faster during something like an FRC event once they know where the buttons are, compared to the HMI designer who tested the panel.

Another thing is that the update rate of the HMI software may just not be fast enough. You can get a big usability bump from changing the screen -> plc communications rate from a typical 100 or 200ms down to 25 or 50.

I'd be interested in a list of the buttons on the possesion/foul screens, to see if I could work out a single page, minimal press version.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I do believe the ref just made an honest mistake and missed the assist, a similar thing happened to us in quarter finals 1-2 at WPI, where the ball went all the way around the field and went through a lot of different robots but was only scored with too assist even though it had three. we were able to win the match and advance and we didn't notice it until watching the videos over again.

Here is that match:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCWgkha78mI

At Hartford we were in the quarter finals and they weren't counting our third assist so we challenged it and they corrected the score but we also had a 50 point charged against us and we weren't able to overcome those penalty points.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

That's interesting. We had the same issue at Hartford with our semi match, which we lost by 6 points, but nothing was done. What did you tell/show the ref to convince him?

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I'm doing this from memory from watching a ref during a practice match. On the Score screen, there is something like:

9 buttons corresponding to each bot in each zone. You press the button, and that bot is identified as assisting in that zone. You can have zero to 9 buttons pressed.

Other buttons:
High goal
low goal
truss
catch
undo (undo's whatever you press next)
foul (goes to foul screen)
submit (or something like that, which ends the cycle and points are scored)

On the Foul screen there is something like:

4 buttons. Foul red, technical red, foul blue, technical blue.
Each press increments a counter for each alliance for each type foul.

Undo (removes foul/technical for next button pressed)
Card (indicates a card situation occurred, but I don't think there is a card screen)
Score (or something like that to switch back to the score screen).

There are 4 pads (pair for each alliance), and one HR pad. The pair for an alliance are tied together. So, if both are in scoring mode, both see what buttons were pressed. In other words, you update the screen based upon what was pressed at that pad, and what was pressed at the other pad.

I'm guessing delays could be reduced if pad communication was one-way. In other words, one ref had scoring, and one ref had fouls. Then the pad could update itself, and not have to get info from the scoring system, and the scoring system only sent info to the HR station.

One complaint I heard was the time it takes to switch from Scoring to Foul screen (and back again). So, one screen that does it all would be helpful.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

i just went up to the question box and asked if they counted our third assist and he went over to the table and came back and said he fixed the score but we still lost, that was all the infromation o gave him.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

I was a ref at Hartford, and while some of the difficulty is the panels, I think a lot more of the difficulty is just that it's just hard to see all of the field at once. There were times that I was on the panel tracking assists, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether or not the second robot made it completely 100% into the white zone before making the truss shot (especially as the opposing alliance was crowding around pushing the robot trying to stop it from getting there). I called it as I saw it the best I could, but it's certainly possible that somebody with a different angle on the field would have called some of those cases differently.

I do want to say that I was impressed by the teams there recognizing the difficulty of our jobs and thanking us for our work, and any disagreements that I saw were very respectful, even in the heat of competition.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

Mostly I found that a question like this to the head ref lead to the head ref asking us "Did blue get three assists on cycle #?" In general we remembered and were able to correct if there was a mistake. But sometimes we either thought there were only two assists or no one was sure and we couldn't adjust the score.

Re: Missed Inbounder Assists
 

That's just horrible and wrong and I'm hoping you misheard or there was some sort of miscommunication. Absolutely none of the reffing standards should be secret and undisclosed. All the information should be available to teams if they ask, otherwise how are we supposed to know how to play the game? The only reason for keeping something like that secret is so you can have a hedge against inconsistency in calls by declaring that particular instance of bulldozing didn't meet your secret standard.