Re: Eliminations replay card
 

Har. I'll believe that if it stays up through the 2016 Einstein. No joke.

That being said, I've seen cases where a team was insistent that they got points that weren't scored, and the head ref finally pointed out that three refs saw the same thing and nobody ruled it good--and that particular item would have been difficult to see from any full-field video. To put it mildly, I'm not in favor of official video replay unless and until someone can demonstrate a system that doesn't add much time, clearly shows any area needed, and doesn't add much cost (I don't want everybody's registration fees to go up).


Folks, a challenge card/review card already exists. Have you ever noticed that somewhere on the floor (usually near the scorer's table), there is a box neatly taped? If you want to challenge/review/discuss a call with the refs, one of your precollege students with field access goes and stands in it. This triggers the review as soon as the head ref can get over there. Discuss the call, why the call was made, if the head ref thinks it necessary they'll call the ref who made the call over to tell what they saw. Any corrections can be made coming out of that discussion.

And, BTW: the events I've worked as a ref, generally the head ref was over as soon as somebody stepped into the box...

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

I don't support a re-PLAY, but I do support a re-START. In other words, once in all of elims, a team can call a timeout within the first 30 seconds of the match, and may have a little bit of time to fix things before restarting. 30 seconds is likely enough to notice if your bot isn't working without having to run into teams complaining faking com loss for the sake of a re-do. I would suggest tacking on a 2.5 minute timeout to it, allowing teams to re-run preparation routines and for field reset to try and fix everything without the issue of everything taking forever to restart.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

This sounds better than replaying after the match is over (which could lead to an alliance demanding a replay simply because their score wasn't what they wanted), but this could lead to an alliance calling a replay because autonomous didn't work out as they wanted. Additionally, this would make things less exciting for the spectators, since it would be hard to tell if any given match would get played all the way through (perhaps a bit of a stretch, but you get the point).

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

Be honest, how often does a call ever get reversed because a student was there? It's a "feel good" mechanism that makes teams feel like they have a "fighting chance" against a call.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

More often than you might think, but less often than the students might want.


As often as not, it's a matter of interpretation of a rule and how it applies to an action the team made on the field, as well as the POV of a referee vs. a team. Or a referee forgot something during the match.

Seeing as you called me out on that:

Be honest, how often do you get clear enough footage that you (or an unbiased observer of your choice) can tell with at least 90% certainty that the referees got the call wrong?

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

The biggest problem I have seen is that many times both alliances will disagree with the ref's call even though it would have hurt one of the alliances and ref still didn't reverse the call or at least replay the match. It seems that if during elims both alliances think a call was wrong or the scores were wrong then that match should be replayed.
(This year is different because it could still, score wise, be beneficial for both alliances to replay a match, but in a w/l system the opposing alliance would get no benefit from agreeing to a replay or call reversal other than to be GP.)

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

More often than the refs would want.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

I am glad that you mentioned point of view because a camera would more than likely offer a different angle that the refs didn't have. Secondly if the refs can see the action again instead of making a call on the spot and then sticking to their call because there's no way prove otherwise.

And with the question box, it doesn't help in Elms when they make the call officially log it and then go to the next match before you can get to the question box and get your question answered.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

Yup. Make a call that might be controversial or potentially game changing, and as soon as the score goes up I'm moving toward the question box. I've often been pleasantly surprised to not meet anyone there; they accepted the call without question.

Hey, did anyone get a picture of my "question box" at Troy? I didn't think of taking one.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

Many times. Not a majority, but enough times to make it worthwhile having the box. Examples:

• Mis-score: Forgot to score something, miscounted objects, or scored for the wrong team (e.g. a foul applied to the wrong alliance)
• Team points out a rule or interpretation that we didn't consider when making the call
• When discussing with the ref who make the call what he/she saw, we realized that the wrong call was made

Certainly we don't see everything. We miss things and don't recognize other things. "He said / she said" isn't a reason for changing a call, and that's what most of the questions are about. We can't change something that we didn't see just because a team says it happened. In some games, things are much harder to see, that's the way it goes, and we really feel badly about that.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

So let's say each field had a go pro setup like Michigan districts usually have. Why not give teams a single challenge card that allows them to have refs take a look at the field video or video the team captured? I know we've had clear video evidence against several calls in just the last 5 years I've been with the team and if we could have challenged I'm 99% sure we would have won those calls. Now let's say a team challenges and the angle wasn't good or video was too bad. Well then there is nothing that can really be done and the team loses their challenge card. At least this gives teams a chance though.

Re: Eliminations replay card
 

Using the standard field video: All for it.
Using team video: Not quite. This would cause teams to have a competitive advantage over teams that maybe don't have the resources to produce a replay video for the referees to review.

I'm all for the possibility of replay. But the logistical nightmare will be standardizing it across events. Different districts/regionals have different video capabilities. FIRST is a long way from standardizing video replay for events, but I'm personally intrigued to see how this could be developed and implemented.