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What should happen? Lets suppose this is the only event that one of the teams attended. This team spent almost $6,000 just for the privilege of playing, plus thousands on tools, equipment and parts to build the robot, plus travel costs. That could easily be $10,000-$15,000. If I was on that team, (assuming the allegations made here are true) I would want that money returned to me. If an error was made by an official representative of FIRST (like a referee) then the onus falls on FIRST, not that referee, so FIRST should pony up the bucks. Remember, we are customers, even though that point is rarely made. We pay money in exchange for a product. If that product is defective, we should get that money back. |
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I have nothing more to say about that call or enough time to fix, but I do wish to say that the 987 is one of my favorite robots of all time... that and team 67's robot in 2012... good job guys!
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As for should they be allowed to rectify it (delaying game) that's much more of a grey area rule and seeing how the event was running late they made a call not to allow the extended time. ...which is one of two options... extend or not extend..a judgement call. IMO a robot should never exceed 78" as part of its design in any conditions or placement and should not need to have the benefit of alteration on the field to be under 78". That rule has been there since DAY 1 same as 120 lbs (those are absolute limits)...now if High Rollers got smashed and bent out of shape the prior match then I would agree allow the time but that did not happen and they were out of their usual auto score everything spot....adding scrutiny from new eyes at the center of the field as it took forever to get that match started. I have no issue with the ruling and High Rollers will still get into Worlds somehow they are an amazing robot/team and always tough. In the end 78" is 78" and over that can trigger a disable...live with it. Robonaghts/Kryptonight alliance also deserved the Dallas Win they were amazing too and also had disabled bots too to get there....so lets not take away from the Winning Alliance...that let I remind you used only their 2nd robot in a quarter final match and it scored 95 solo. |
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What we are discuusing here are the rules as written, not opinion. Rule G7: Quote:
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3802 did not qualify. |
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What do you want FIRST students to learn? Life handed to you OR deal with adversity and make your own luck in life. This was a good life lesson. Be prepared. That alliance should have never invited scrutiny over 78" height. Best alliance of three teams won in Dallas. That's what happened. As for best bot...148!!! High Rollers and Robonauts were similar in Teleop. High Rollers AMAZING auto! Did you see that Superbowl where 19-0 Patriots lost are we complaining over that? High Rollers and Robo-Wranglers will use this as motivation. |
Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
Such an uproar... Yes, it was a huge call at a large event. Yes, referee calls had a huge influence on the outcome. However, there are some things to consider....
The bigger picture: * FIRST is not all about the robot or all about winning championships. It is about Gracious Professionalism and Inspiration. A part of Gracious Professionalism to me is not jumping to conclusions and making accusations without having all the information. * Referees are volunteers who spend countless hours helping FIRST to become a fantastic competition. I am certain that none of them are doing so simply for the opportunity to undermine a bunch of kids' robots. * We do have rules to follow for these games. If one team wins a championship by being permitted to skirt a handful of rules, does that not cheapen the event for the teams they beat? * At this point we have heard from one person who was directly involved in the incident. Almost every time there is an incident of any sort, all witnesses to an event only have "part" of a story. It is very likely that the poster from 987 does not have the entire story - and may not even realize it. Also, the mere fact that the poster is from 987 means that the poster has a natural bias. His/her reporting and understanding of the events could very well be skewed unintentionally. Before jumping to conclusions, therefore, should we not at least hear from a referee who was a part of this call? This particular scenario: Folks have found plenty of reasons to "blame the ref" so far. Here are some possible situations that may have been at play that would justify the referee's call. Was I there? No. I have no idea if these were a part of the decision or not - neither does nearly everybody else on this thread. * There had been repeated warnings in the event about delaying the start of the match. 987 had already been disabled in the semis for this. It could have been that the time (however short) to fix the height issue as "yet another delay" and they were not being given any more room to adjust. * It could be that 987 had been playing too tall all competition and that the referees never noticed it. However, somebody on the opposing alliance did and brought it to the ref's attention in the finals. * It was reported that "pushing a button on the solenoid" would have remedied the problem. I am reading this as "pressing a button to release air pressure in a pneumatic system." This certainly would have been quick and legal. However, if I am not interpreting this correctly, could "pressing the button" be something that required the robot to be enabled? This would have been illegal. * For all we know, 987 had already taken too long to set up for that match and "one more delay" was just too much. Again, we overall really don't know all the details and never will. |
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On behalf of all the students and mentors of 148:
Dallas is our "home" regional, and we're proud to have competed here for all 7 years of its existence. We love having so many of our alumni, peers, sponsors, parents, and supporters able to attend. To see the overwhelming support of the Greenville community is an amazing thing. Like all FRC events, this weekend had many, many, many incredible moments. Being able to play with our long-time friends from 987 for the first time was a privilege. As anyone who has interacted with them can attest, they are a class act worthy of the highest praise and accolades. We've similarly known 3802 for a long time, and enjoyed getting to work with them. They made huge contributions to our alliance being able to put up the world-high score, and helped (almost literally) through a weird semi-final series. This event was filled with friends, and even some teams we consider family. The camaraderie around the field and in the pits throughout the weekend was unlike any event we've attended. Special thank-you to our fellow #TeamIFI teams 1296 and 3310. If you think our robot is crazy, you should see what these two teams have going on. :) We feel no disappointment in losing to two #TeamTexas powerhouses, two of the best teams in the world, and some of our closest friends: 118 & 624. Many of you noticed 3802 sitting out our first quarterfinal match. This was because all three of our alliance teams were working to upgrade their machine (with the oversight of the inspectors & within the rules of the game) to pull cans off the center step. We (as an alliance) discussed them "sitting" to give us more time for the modification, and 3802 eagerly agreed. Everyone on 148 was thrilled they were around for us to pick, and could not have asked for a better 3rd partner. Like during most competitions, there were a some frustrating moments during the playoffs. Many of you have commented on a few of those. Regarding SF2: -148 was informed we were not allowed onto the field because we were late to the match. The ruling on the field was that we were called several times and did not respond in time. -987 was disabled. The ruling on the field was that they took too long during setup, which is something they had been warned about multiple times. Regarding F3: -987 was disabled, their robot was measured by the inspectors and determined to be over the height restriction after setup. This was not an "added" mechanism. That mechanism was always on their robot (all weekend), but was not used in "can grabber" configuration until F3. While we are disappointed in the results and disappointed in the way some of this was handled, it in no way detracted from our team's experience at the regional. We had a great time at the event, are incredibly proud of our performance and are thankful to all the event volunteers for donating their time. We appreciate the referees always taking the time to explain their rulings to our student representatives even when we did not agree with their interpretations of the rules. We are all learning the new playoff format, and as such need to be especially careful about setup time, and getting to the field on-time. We are somewhat disappointed by the guidance, information, and warnings our team received from event officials during "the strangeness" of these playoffs. However, we understand that if the field staff feels that our alliance was adequately "warned", there isn't anything else we should expect, and appreciate their openness in discussing their feelings on the matter. The "snow delay" schedule caused a lot of problems this weekend. The event management, teams, and volunteers all did their part to overcome these problems and hold a GREAT event. Our team is eager to continue our competition season in a few at the Las Vegas Regional, and then showcase Batman & Robin at the Championship Event in St. Louis. We have 3.5 weeks of iteration in front of us, and a lot of motivation. :) On a personal note... I am extremely proud of our "kids" on how they handled themselves this weekend, even in (abnormally) stressful circumstances. The students of Greenville High School continue to astound me, even all these years later. I'm proud to call myself a Robowrangler. |
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You also gave a lot of what ifs, maybe they were warned before, maybe.. maybe... etc. but the rules don't say anything about a quick fix being allowed if they haven't been given a past warning, they say Quote:
Note that I do not know anybody on any of the teams involved, I only know what I witnessed. If there is an explanation that fully accounts for what happened, and agrees with the rules that were published before the start of the competition, I will apologize and retract my statements. |
Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
Martin,
All I am really saying is this: I am in Washington State. According to you bio, you are in Georgia. Both of those locations are far enough from Dallas that we are not likely first-hand witnesses. (Okay, you could have traveled, but from the sound of your comment, you did not.) We do not know that it was a bad call. We don't have the information. Yes, I have lots of "ifs." That's because you and I do not know what happened and, from my perspective, there were all sorts of things that could have justified the referee's decision. As for GP: Yes it is a competition. Yes, we want to win. However, the desire to win does not excuse us from Gracious Professionalism. In fact, I would suggest that one of the most important lessons of FIRST is to learn to maintain GP in the heat of competition - or in its aftermath. Is it not professional to listen to both sides of a story before jumping to conclusions? Do we really want to condemn a referee without at least hearing his justification for a call? Read the well-worded response from the 148 mentor between our two posts. In his mind, the rules were followed correctly, they only question the "guidance" and "warnings" given- something that is certainly not defined within the rules. |
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Not sure whats so hard for people to understand that BOTH 78" and 120lbs are absolute limits? They were by all accounts at the time in violation...that's the thing about regular math there is only 1 right answer. We see what happens when tolerances/limits are not followed in science....sometimes tragedy. If the uproar was they were under 78" on the field I would join the crowd. Actually good this happened in Week 1 for every team to be made aware...and double check those two absolutes. The answer would I be upset sure, who wouldn't?... would I understand YES totally, just as the 2nd place in Dallas alliance members already stated. Their responses should be your answer. |
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These "kids" handled themselves as they did because they are following the example of the finest mentors and leaders in FIRST. There will never be a competition where 100% of the calls are good, or every match schedule is even. Inspiring the students to accept these facts with grace and humility is as important as teaching them to build a robot. Hat's off to all of the mentors on team 148, you are inspiring leaders who will succeed no matter what path they chose in life. |
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Also, I was there. They were using a tape measure and it had a significant curve in it while measuring. That simple math means that the length they measured was not accurate, or at least that's what simple geometry states. I mean, the curve in the tape measure was severe. Extremely severe. I am certain the way these teams were treated at Dallas is NOT what Frank and his team intended and I expect a clarification soon. I will be writing a letter to Frank explaining what I saw, in detail, from watching right by the sidelines. My entire team and I saw the same "strangeness" with no explanation at all from the referee. In all of my years of competing I can't remember a more "strange" interpretation of the rules than in Dallas this year. |
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I agree there needs to be a more unambiguous way of measuring. Put that in your letter please you have a legitimate observation and expertise. IMO they should remove the "quick fix" sub-rule. It is what it is at time of competition. Up to team to ensure compliance at all times. |
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I wish they had the "inspection device" out there to do the measurement properly (an L shaped PVC piece exactly 78" that they swung around to make sure it was under). It is entire possible that something was tweaked and was above the 78", in which case we could probably have just bent it back or as Chad said we could have switched the pneumatic solenoid, but it was, for lack of a better word, a "strange" ordeal.
We really did have a great time at the Dallas regional meeting so many great teams and great volunteers. Finally getting to work with the Robowranglers and 3802 was one of the best experiences we've had. We need a little bit to decompress from all the excitement, rescheduling flights for the entire team due to the inclement weather and packing up a crate for shipping. Congrats to the awesome alliance of 118 624 and 2613 on a well deserved win. What an awesome finals for week 1. We're very excited for the future of this game and can't wait to see you guys again at champs. |
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These are my closing comments, replies, and opinions on this thread having posted to it many times.
I agree with some aspects of Boltman’s opinion and with Martin's too but the important point here from a RULE's perspective is NOT that the robot was too tall, or too heavy, with dimensions too wide, or anything else that makes a robot non-compliant even after passing tech inspection, it's that the RULES, all of them but especially G7 were not correctly applied in this situation, a situation where referee opinion would have the most devastating effect on the outcome of the game. As I posted earlier, the robot 'may' have appeared be too tall by just a fraction of an inch given the angle at which the referees were viewing the measurement as seen from MY point of view, but now with eyewitness report from Paul Copioli that a severe error in measurement technique was applied by the referees using a flexible measuring tape, I take back the concession that the robot may have been too tall. Two errors in measurement is two-too-many and that's a problem. Jay O'Donnell and Boltman pointed out that a measuring device like a stick (calibrated of course) could be used and I agree. A measuring tape is best used to measure dimensions closer to the ground along a FLAT PLANE and not held over your head away from eye level. They don't need to use a special, single-purpose, calibrated instrument for every aspect of the tech inspection but a stick with the measuring tape applied along the edge with a bubble level to correct the plumb of the stick would do the trick, would provide consistent measurements across all robots, and is cheap too. This approach is not unprecedented as I'll assume that they are using a scale to measure the weight of the robot and not simply picking it up and saying 'yeah - that feels about right'. And since we are rolling football into this thread, don't the refs use a calibrated chain to measure 10 yards for a first down in everything from JV football all the way to the NFL? Martin, Boltman, and others pointed out that the time it took to make a [poor] measurement and debate the issue probably took longer than it would have taken to 'quickly' correct the issue in the first place, and I agree with that completely. Here's another place where a calibrated instrument could have been used to measure a suspected violation and provide consistency and fairness for all teams and remove the ambiguous word 'quick' from the rule book. The calibrated instrument in this case is a stopwatch. In the case of a properly measured violation, a team would have exactly three minutes to enter the field, correct the issue and leave the field; after that, the violation is re-assessed and the decision is rendered. That's exactly what happened to 987 when they were warned for taking too much time for setup in a previous match, a referee or judge somewhere started a countdown - can't argue with that unless the Team was not advised that the timer was started. Robots like 2613 and others were similarly affected by not being allowed to apply the 'quick fix' which was also surprising and unfortunate. The 987 robot was in a new, never used configuration along the edge of the landfill in this final match as anyone can testify that saw every match, just as I did. Their typical autonomous configuration was within the totes and containers in the backfield where the rear extraction arm was usually in a lower position than in this match. If the robot was tech inspected in this lower position then in may have been overlooked by the inspector, and if was inspected in the raised configuration then is was improperly measured by the inspector but either case the tech inspection should have caught it. Nobrakes8 is also correct in his assessment of the ref that spotted the suspected violation. She is the ref for the Blue Alliance's rear-most scoring platform and it appears, after repeated viewing of the recorded video, that she spotted the issue independently and brought it to the attention of two other refs on that side of the field who immediately raised their hands to stop the match and pointed at the top of the robot. MrJohnson - I don't think anybody is seriously 'condemning' a ref but instead pointing out that refs are people too and people make mistakes, and when they do nothing says unbiased like having more eyes/ears on the issue, which is what we had here. That should convince anyone that there is no conspiracy or collusion in this judgment. What is in question is why the refs/judges did not follow the wording of rule as outlined in G7, a rule which I'm pretty sure ALL TEAMS were expecting to invoke if at any point there bot became non-compliant during the game. Instead, summary judgment was the rule of the day. That they were not allowed to even play was the most surprising and devastating aspect of the refs decision. Had they applied the 'quick fix', competed, and then lost the match, everybody involved would have felt better knowing that the Red Alliance was truly the better alliance of the two. For sports' athletes who train tirelessly for competition, do you think they feel satisfied when they arrive to the arena and are awarded first prize when they find their opponents immobile in a full body cast and unable to play? Do you think they consider their time well spent in training? Would you? Hat's off to the kids on both alliances for practicing Gracious Professionalism but also for the coaches and mentors from both alliances who quickly approached the judges and referees in order to debate this important decision at the critical moment, in spite of the warning that the refs ruling would be final. |
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As a fly on the wall at this regional, there were certainly some judgement calls from field volunteers that I believe were questionable, but your analysis of the video is not correct. The female ref was passing information from the blue alliance to the head ref, nothing else. |
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If the ref... has issue and brings out the tape measure... run out with your flag... say... no, no, no, look! see!. |
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CGuenther - OK I'll give you that. My angle was from the other side of the field and I didn't see anyone from the Blue [?] Alliance point it out to the ref although I did hear the word 'height' reverberate through the audience. Upon reviewing the recorded video many times after the match, I was paying close attention to both sides of the field to see if anyone walked up to the ref to give her that information, so from that perspective she acted independently as the refs that stopped the match appeared to be acting on her observation alone. Again, I'm not pointing fingers at any referee, just saying that I didn't see any wrong-doing in the neutral staff for initially stopping the match.
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I just wanted to say congratulations to Keith Buchanan for winning the regionals Woodie Flowers Award! You definitely deserved it! I also wanted to say thanks to Team 148, 987 and 3802 for showing the upmost gracious professionalism during the stressful and highstake finals.
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Let's face it here, being overly critical of FIRST and refs is not going to solve anything. Unless you have been a referee for FIRST it is very hard to understand the immense pressure they are under. Rather focus on the positives.
1. People from FIRST read Chief Delphi, they will make minor adjustments for the upcoming regionals. 2. There are some awesome FIRST volunteers out there. For example at Palmetto, one of the FTA's, Jerry, understood that teams had spent 6 weeks building a robot and was not going to deny them of the opportunity to let them play because of one stupid error. One of the teams on our alliance actually had a laptop suddenly restart and Jerry noticed and quickly called to get a classmate for the team to use just in case. Would it have been as helpful as the team's own laptop? No, but it would ensure they at least got the chance to compete. Hats off to Jerry. Rather than criticizing referees and the volunteers for FIRST and demanding an apology, lets make suggestions to make it better. Additionally all teams know what they are getting into when they sign up for a 1st week regional, they chose to take that risk, not FIRST. Quote:
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Whoah, whoah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 987 was the one who issued the prematch inspection against 2613 regarding robot height, yet their own robot is too tall to be competing anyways. Anyone see the hypocrisy here? If 987 had taken the time to properly measure their robot and not jump to immediate conclusions regarding robot height than there should not have been any problems. And either way, rules are rules, I can't see how the referees would allow an illegal robot to perform, especially in a final. As always, congratulations to 118 and 624, and 148 and 987.
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As far as the "rules are rules", yes, they are. And the rule reads, verbatim: "If fix is a quick remedy, the MATCH won’t start until all requirements are met." 987 was ruled out of compliance with a reinspection. This put them newly in violation of G7 on the field, after they'd left for the Alliance Station. The 'penalty', as stated in the rules, is to allow them a "quick remedy". This portion of the rules, assuming the quick remedy was known to all, does not appear to have be followed. But it's not 987 that violated it. |
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While G7 has been referenced multiple times in regard to the referees ruling in 987's situation, G7 is not applicable to what happened. G7, section A, specifically stipulates that the robot must be in compliance with all Robot Rules.The only Robot Rule regarding Robot height is R3 which specifies that the robot must be no more than 78" tall when in TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION and the duration of the match (eg. the robot can be any height pre-match and post-match when not being transported). When the robot was reinspected, it was not in TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION nor during the duration of the match. 987 was never in violation of G7 nor were they disabled because of G7 because when the robot was left on the field, it wasn't in violation of any robot rules.
I think that the real reason 987 was disabled was G22, which states that the robot may not exceed 6'6" during the duration of the match. While this would warrant a foul in most cases, if the head referee believes that its strategic, the robot will be disabled. While this rule seems quite subjective, it is quite plausible that the head referee that it was their strategy to briefly exceed this height limit. While I personally am not happy with the aftermath of this ruling, I believe that the referees followed the rules throughout. If the rules aren't changed or clarified, this situation could be repeated at other regionals. If I am misunderstanding the rules or missing something, please feel free to correct me. Regardless of what occurred, both finalist alliances performed very strongly and I would like to congratulate them for that. |
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bstew, Re: G22. Very interesting point, but any G22 violation would've had to occur after a violation of G22, and thus during the match (even if at the initial start). At least according to the reports in this thread, 987 was deliberately disabled before the match and not even informed of the fact. This is strict G7 ("Pre-Match Rules") territory. It is a brilliant (and overly picky, IMO, but that's not at all on you) rule reading, though, if the penalty implementation had been executed with similar strictness. But now either way G7 or G22 was being used improperly, and it's improper rule execution on at least one party, if not two. (The second being 987, if they were in fact over height.) Separately, the G22 argument would hinge on whether 987's transport configuration was at the same height as its pre-match configuration at the given time. It appears that it was, which becomes a clear G7 issue again.
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As for calling opposing robots into question for possible violations, I'd argue it's a personal practice issue. But there's absolutely nothing illegal about it, and if I'd worked hard for 6 weeks to get your twice inspection-passed 77.9"* robot to function as well as 987, I can see the argument for holding others to the same standard. They had every reason to be confident they were legal: they were legal [at least in terms of the Game Manual, until they were reinspected for the third time]. You and I might disagree with the practice, but it's anything but hypocritical. *this is made up; I don't know their actual intended height. |
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As to 987's height being different than that of their TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION, it has been implied that they started in a different "can-grabbing" configuration that had never been used during the competition. While I cannot verify that this is true, it has also been implied that their robot was inspected and transported with this mechanism lowered.
Whether 987 were disabled before the match or near instantly at the start of the match will probably have to be left to speculation, but I am still of the opinion that G7 was never violated. If indeed they were disabled before the match, I will have to agree that the rules were not followed perfectly, but the result would have been the same as if they were disabled within the first second of the match. While we will probably never know if 987 was indeed over the height restrictions, I find no reason for G7 to be called. If they were, according to my "picky" reading of the rules, they should have been disabled as soon as the match started as they violated G22. If they were not over 6'6" (which I think is quite possible), the match should have proceeded normally. My point is that according to the current set of rules, there is no room for the referees to have let them remedy the situation. Even though I wish 987 would have had the chance to at least verify that they were over the height limit or have been told they were going to be disabled, the head referee's decision is final and the head referee decided that they were indeed over the height limit. I would like to see G7, Section A be expanded to "in compliance with all ROBOT and GAME rules, i.e. it has passed Inspection. For exceptions regarding Practice MATCHES, see Section 5.2 – Practice MATCHES." This would allow robots over the height limit to be slightly adjusted in situations like this. |
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This seems to happen every year when it comes to reffing. Most likely due to a common side effect of being human is making mistakes. It is indeed sad, but when it comes down to tough times, someone has to make tough calls. I never envy the person that has to make that call though, but I will always respect the fact that they chose to shoulder the burden.
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With referees seemingly taking center stage at multiple events every year (was hoping this year would be an exception..), I have to wonder if this isn't what's going on.
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Forest vs. trees. Ends and means. Process vs. Result, Project Management. The teams are here to dance and celebrate the beauty, elegance, and creativity of STEAM education. This thread could have been closed after JVN's GP comments. Is anyone else here bothered by the reference to a FEMALE ref? |
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Blog post from Frank this morning:
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It's this retroactive use of G22 that strikes me as peculiar ("picky"), and I wonder what would lead someone to make such an argument in real time. Of course, we don't know that this was the argument made. It could've potentially been legal at t>0s, if significantly more complex than a G7 version. And yet, if I'm following the rest of this incident correctly, that means that the argument for disabling the over-height robot and the argument for disabling the barely-over-the-landfill robot are entirely separate. So I'm thankful for Frank's blog post. As far as the rules themselves, I appreciate your proposed G7 change. However, I disagree with your argument that there was no room to allow a quick fix under the current manual. There was no mandate to do so, but that's not the same thing. As far as I can determine (and you seem to be better at this), there is nothing that mandates these pre-match events or the sequence thereof. There would have been nothing illegal about allowing 987 back on to at most press a solenoid or at least be a party/listener to the conversation. Was failing to do this illegal? Apparently not, had the correct order of operations been followed. But do people have a right to be upset that it wasn't done, given doing so also would've been legal? As it stands, it appears that the only sure, known rule violation is G22 on the penalizing side, and it had no practical consequences. I'd argue this is indicative of a rather severe rules issue, given that their implementation here had such drastic ones. |
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I don't think there's anything wrong at all with teaching art, but don't try to lump it in where it doesn't belong. |
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I tend to agree that adding arts into STEM defeats the purpose of the acronym. Adding more letters of curriculum that people think is important will only end up with a giant acronym that essentially means "All education"... |
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This is a pleasant diversion from the topic of this thread.
I've been on both sides of this....and I really don't mind including art. Good engineering, and good science, seems to include a lot of creativity, which could be argued to be art. |
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Siri: I have to agree that the referees could have proceeded to let the situation be corrected. While not required by the rules at this time, I concur that this probably would have been the best course of action. Thanks for discussing this with me. It was quite enjoyable.
martin417: My argument is not that G7 was not followed through correctly. I don't think that 987 violated G7 in the first place, so all requirements were met to start the match. However, as soon as the match started, if 987 was indeed over height, G22 was violated. Either G7 or G22 was applied incorrectly if 987 was disabled before the match began. |
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bstew: and thank you, this has been great. I think we've reach a rather robust conclusion based on available evidence. EDIT: answer, yes, 2613. |
Re: 2 v 3 in Dallas
Another clarification, in the interest of stopping misinformation. Several have commented on our alliance calling for a height measurement of 2613. This is not the case.
Immediately before the start of Final 3, 148 alerted our drive team that we believed 2613 was inside the landfill zone. During the confusion and noise of the situation our drive team thought we were asking about 2613's height, and requested that they be checked. We were told "they are already disabled". 148 asked for a height check. We at no time advocated that 2613 should be disabled, or removed from the match. 987 was not involved in the specifics of this incident. |
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SS: Social Studies S: Science T: Technology E: Engineering A: Arts M: Mathematics E: English R: Reading *toot* *toot* All aboard for a general education! |
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I was sitting on the scoring table side in the front row and everyone around me clearly felt that 148 was calling for a height check. Kevin was running to the scoring table side of the driver station during the match start countdown screaming "Height Height" at the top of his lungs. Why else would he be doing this? Technically speaking there is nothing wrong with this action, but you can't deny that it happened. From my perspective, the blue alliance called for a height check on 2613 (who was already disabled) and got their hand caught in the cookie jar when their own partner was also over height. I would have liked for both teams to get an extra min to set up so we could have seen a 3v3 finals, but the facts are the facts and skewing them is not productive. |
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Thanks for clarifying. I was the one who signaled Kevin about 2613 being "in the landfill" but as you know things were loud down there, so I did not realize he misheard me, and did not realize what he said in his interaction with the referees. I stand by my statement that we did not advocate in any way for 2613 to be disabled or removed. I've edited my post, and do not want to skew facts in any way. However, I do not appreciate your implication that we did that intentionally. If you have any other concerns about the facts from our alliance's perspective, please PM me. We value unbiased viewpoints of these events. I'm sure all 6 teams would have preferred to play those matches 3v3. We're excited for the rest of our competition season. :) |
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Watch this around 16:40... Agree or disagree, but you gotta have some respect for Adam Savage. I see and admire artwork in robots built each year... and appreciate teams taking the time for that. |
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You are correct that intent is hard to view, I just interpreted what I saw on the field. I should have been more careful and worded my response with much more care. I think that 148 is a great team (with a great robot) and I am sure you guys will have a very successful season regardless of this setback. I just wish that everyone officiating the events remembered that these events are about celebrating the student accomplishments. While the rules need to exist in order to maintain the integrity of the game, it felt like things were being interpreted to an excessive standpoint at this event. I hope that FIRST/the GDC takes a hard look at Dallas and fixes the wording (and blue boxes) for future events. |
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I want to commend 148 for handling this unfortunate situation with both professionalism and class. They didn't even need to comment here, but they took the time to clarify exactly what happened and help sort the facts from rumours. This was very impressive to me, especially at a time when it would be very easy for emotions to boil over. Looking back at the official statements made by JVN on behalf of the team, it makes clear to me why they've developed the reputation as being the most professional team in FIRST. Thanks to everyone who was directly involved and impacted by this situation for taking the time to help the rest of us understand this weekend. All six teams who played in the finals should be commended here. It's no wonder that four of them are known as being some the best teams in all of FIRST. I've a part of my fair share of controversial matches, on both the winning and losing side, and I understand just how not fun it can be. Quote:
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I am in the same boat with you on this one. See my post in the Dallas 2015 thread. However, I do not believe more effective wording and blue boxes will fix the issue. In a game that I believed to be fairly "error-proof" from a referee perspective, the lack of a "Teams FIRST" mentality still results in decisions that negatively impact the teams and students involved. It is a larger issue than just better rules. A culture shift like this has to start from the top. -Mike |
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Hopefully everybody will understand that the missing 3rd bot in some of the early elimination rounds for both alliances was the result of a calculated effort by both alliances to develop additional capability to grab center cans to boost stack values...not to make additional room for the major bots on the alliances. With a greatly shortened time frame after qualifications and no break after alliance selections there was simply no time before the elimination rounds to complete the modification our 3rd partners to grab cans.
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Take G7 for example. Quote:
That's what I mean by putting the students first. Looking at each situation objectively and always asking "How will the students interpret my decision" and "how will my decision inspire students to keep achieving and pushing themselves" People who volunteer for FIRST are wonderful but sometimes it is easy to forget in that specific moment why we all spend so much time supporting this organization. |
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Having been on the sidelines, I overheard the conversations of several students on both alliances.
I heard cries of frustration and anger from the students on 118 and 624 when 148 and 987 were not allowed to enter the field and disabled respectively in the semifinals. I heard the same students feel excitement but disappointment at the same time when they won the 3rd finals match, wishing for an "actual" match, win or lose. Immediately afterwards, I saw students from 148 and 987 congratulate the winning alliance, and even assuring them their win was 100% deserved. Never before have I seen students on any robotics team act so professionally, and it is quite a stark contrast with the behaviors of many of the adults both at the event and on the forums of Chief Delphi and the chat of the livestream. It is quite unfortunate that many people chose to discredit the winning alliance with the fact that 987 was disabled. From my point of view, both alliances looked incredibly strong. The second seed had pulled off wins against the first seed in both the last semifinal and the first final, with all robots functioning. According to the announcer, Team 118 had even broken something on their robot and was running around with three wheels for the finals. It is unfair to the winners to write them off as victorious simply because 987 was disabled in the last match - 2613, a hidden part of their strategy, was also disabled. As shown in the second final, both 148 and 987 are incredible machines, and I am sure they will pull an even more dominating performance in Las Vegas. |
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As a ref this year, and for last year, making calls can be hard. You want to make them fairly, but you also want the kids to enjoy their experience. I don't have a team anymore to actively "care" about, however that doesn't mean I don't care about teams in general. At the events I ref at we always err in favor of the team. Can't tell if they tripped slightly out of the driver's station? No foul. Need to adjust robot slightly to be within rules? Yes, we want everyone to be able to compete. |
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We're missing the real world message that needs to be delivered. If your product is outside the customer's specifications, you might not hear about it from them until the purchase order is cut. To your competition.
Regards, Tim |
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Sorry, I had to do that, 16:40 is where Mr. Savage went political. Tim |
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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) |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 $500 and hire professional refs for the season, and then we can talk about not meeting customer specifications. After all, sometimes you have to tell the customer they can't afford everything they want. |
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One thing I'd like to see incorporated in big decisions like these... and I don't think you need a blue box or several page document to explain what a "big decision" is... is to just get the teams' input.
Based on the comments from both alliances, I imagine that the refs could have easily called the alliance captain coaches from either side, explained the situation, and asked what they wanted to do. Chances are, an alliance captain in the final event might know the rules as well as the ref, and can say "hey, the rule says they get a minute to fix it"... everyone agrees, and they continue. Or perhaps, it's more egregious, but the benefiting alliance decides they'd rather play a real match than take a free win. I hate to see an us vs. them attitude between teams and FIRST Volunteers/Staff... because they are often the same people filling dual roles, or at the very least they are the same cut of people that are there for the same reasons (inspire students and enjoy robots). Surely, just talking out an issue like this would be more likely to come to an agreeable decision. |
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I'd first argue that FIRST should instead find a way to be a tad more efficient with money (considering FIRST isn't covering event costs anyway). |
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I don't know and I don't have time to find out today where the rest of that money goes, but it seems to me like we're paying a lot for what we're getting, and if an extra 500$ 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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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It's upsetting to me that this is a problem, and that there is no easy solution. |
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