Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

I reject Obama's reality and substitute it with my own.

Sorry, I had to do that, 16:40 is where Mr. Savage went political.

Tim

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

Touché...
FWIW I picked 1640, because it's an easy number for me to remember... it's both the major diameter of an 8-32, and a number of a very cool team. (Hi Siri)

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

Actually, I think that if there is a real world message that needs to be delivered here, it's something closer to the fact that following the rules (laws) as written is the responsibility of the authorities, and if those rules are bent or applied unjustly then you as the affected party should expect something better (and, in the real world, have the legal channels to argue so).

We seem to be forgetting how the system (the FRC rules) instructs a situation to be handled in favor of summary judgment and "tough luck, kid" responses over two pedantic violations. The rules as written, in this case, are pretty straightforward. That they are or are not followed is a far greater issue than teaching everyone some draconian lesson.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

*whips out Hanlon's Razor* Once again, do you guys have some on-site knowledge that said volunteers had lost their way and were regularly ignoring team concerns? The circumstances of the final match were pretty rotten, but one incident shouldn't be used to denigrate the refs' behavior for the entire event unless it's extraordinarily egregious. The specific circumstances of F-3 are probably a far better explanation.

Saturday at Dallas had to be extremely stressful for refs and volunteers. Thanks to weather, you started 2 hours late with a boatload of matches to make up. You ran straight through lunch. Whatever breaks those refs got for food etc. were bound to be short. That final match was played at 8:30PM. 8:30PM, with awards left and a regional to tear down by midnight to avoid an extra day's rental fee. I don't know about you, but even on a normal day, my brain's typically given up for the day by then.

So, unless there were incidents the entire weekend of refs needlessly penalizing teams for easily corrected problems, I don't think it's warranted to declare there's a problem with the general attitude of the refs. The more likely explanation for F-3 is the refs were tired, hungry, stressed, under a time-crunch, and confused the penalties for G7 and G10. After all, they'd just called some G10 violations, and G10 decidedly doesn't have any quick-fix remedy.

To my mind, the least excusable thing was that they didn't inform 987 of the disable. That communication breakdown is something that should be investigated, and the goal of "always communicate penalties/enforcements to teams" is a LOT more achievable than "always perfectly enforce the rules, but give teams the benefit of the doubt, except when you shouldn't".

Also I hope people here are honest enough with themselves to realize they're often asking for "always perfectly enforce the rules, but give teams the benefit of the doubt, except when you shouldn't". Because CD is always full of complaints of too strict/too lax enforcement and of teams getting away with stuff/not being given the benefit of the doubt.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

I have two things to say to this:

1. FRC has a competitor? I suppose VRC and VRC-U are the closest things to competition for FRC. (Someone correct me if there's another HS-level challenge of FRC caliber and size.) I'm skeptical that well-funded, highly ranked teams are going to abandon FRC en masse for VRC, since most (all?) of them already have VRC teams. For better or worse, FRC currently has the monopoly on the big, fast, hard high school engineering challenge market.

2. You know that whole motto of you get what you pay for? You're not paying for professional staff to entirely run and officiate the events. You're paying for volunteers to largely run the events under a (sometimes) paid regional director and a handful of other paid staffers. You're definitely not paying for an officiating crew. Just looking at regionals (FiM can do their own math), you'd need 12 crews to cover this season. Assume a 5 person crew, and $20k for full time reffing and training for the FRC season. That's $1.2 million. Divide that by the number of plays at regional this year and you get something like an extra $400 per play. So go petition HQ to raise everyone's fees by $500 and hire professional refs for the season, and then we can talk about not meeting customer specifications. After all, sometimes you have to tell the customer they can't afford everything they want.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

One thing I'd like to see incorporated in big decisions like these... and I don't think you need a blue box or several page document to explain what a "big decision" is... is to just get the teams' input.

Based on the comments from both alliances, I imagine that the refs could have easily called the alliance captain coaches from either side, explained the situation, and asked what they wanted to do. Chances are, an alliance captain in the final event might know the rules as well as the ref, and can say "hey, the rule says they get a minute to fix it"... everyone agrees, and they continue. Or perhaps, it's more egregious, but the benefiting alliance decides they'd rather play a real match than take a free win.

I hate to see an us vs. them attitude between teams and FIRST Volunteers/Staff... because they are often the same people filling dual roles, or at the very least they are the same cut of people that are there for the same reasons (inspire students and enjoy robots). Surely, just talking out an issue like this would be more likely to come to an agreeable decision.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

I'm pretty surge that post was meant to say that in the real world, you won't be warned that your product (the robots, not the competition) is out of spec until it's too late.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

And in the real world when you have passed inspection and have to punch out a recall things really go down hill...

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

I'd pay $500 for that.

I'd first argue that FIRST should instead find a way to be a tad more efficient with money (considering FIRST isn't covering event costs anyway).

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

With how much money registration for regionals already is, this almost seems like a drop in the bucket to the 4000-6000$ we're already paying for a regional. I know that money also goes to the kit of parts, but I always thought that a lot of that was donated, also, the second registration fee doesn't cover KOP, so that 4000$ per regional.

I don't know and I don't have time to find out today where the rest of that money goes, but it seems to me like we're paying a lot for what we're getting, and if an extra 500$ would make it better, that might be worth paying.

However, I'm not sure if a paid staff would actually solve anything; it might make it worse. Right now, our amazing volunteers volunteer because they love the program and want to make it the best they can, they just don't operate perfectly under stress(and I see no reason to believe that paid people would be better for this). If we paid people, they would probably enforce the rules more harshly, which in this case would help, but in many cases, I think stricter enforcement of rules could cause more problems if they don't keep in mind the mission: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Our volunteers usually do a good job keeping this in mind, they just have minor lapses every once and a while, and I think the best method of action is to have reminders of that mission every once and a while, maybe with concrete examples on where rules can be bent(or followed more closely, in this case) to inspire students. I know that the volunteers have the teams' best interests at heart, but sometimes, in such a stressful time, they don't think with their heart

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

Sign me up to be a ref. Some back of the napkin calculations suggest you want refs to be paid around $50/hr.

Say they work 8 weeks, 3 days a week, 9 hours a day, and then double that for good measure to account for training, travel, errors in guestimating, etc. You're only at 432 hours per person for a total of $46/hr.

I'd argue you could probably pay refs $20/hr or less...but I'm still not convinced you even need to pay them. I would not at all be opposed to paying head refs, because 90% of the time they are the ones driving a decision for or against a team and it's a lot easier to ensure consistency and proper training amongst 12 people than 60-70.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

Kevin,

I will send you a PM with the details from my team's point of view. It is not fair to the many volunteers at Dallas that were cordial and friendly, but there were some that just simply shouldn't be volunteering at these events ever again.

And it wasn't just during the finals. The finals incident is the one getting the PR, but it was merely a symptom of a bigger issue.

Paul

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

This was also our experience - kinda disturbing.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

These things are so disappointing for me to hear as a young volunteer. Maybe it's just because I've been through 4 years on a team and "get it" when it comes to what they're facing, but I could never imagine doing anything less than the maximum to get teams to play. I volunteer at events because I want to help other students be inspired in the same way I was, not for any other reason.

It's upsetting to me that this is a problem, and that there is no easy solution.

Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
 

Looking forward (ish) to the PM. I'll agree that problem volunteers are certainly a possibility, as I've had run-ins with them before. Up to having one re-assigned and/or banned for a history of bad team interactions and one rather inappropriate comment to my students. As you've noted, the semis/finals incidents are getting the PR, and I'm concerned we're extrapolating a whole pattern of behavior from two high-profile incidents.