Real week 1 update for you.
 

Well we are in the midst of competing (very tired). I promised I would update as to week 1 going's on. So teams competing know what to expect as they head into competitions.

Here it goes.

In all it was a blast, can't wait for tomorrow!

1. The field is way different than team fields. For instance the bar is much further than our team prop. Its a very wide gap. We can nail the bar in practice but have failed every time on the field... hooked it twice but ran out of time because we could not hook it first time (working on that)

2. There will "likely" be missed defensive crossings , we had to run over one defense eight times to destroy it (its game 1 for officiating crew too) no hard feelings, but be aware the defense crossings are scored by eyesight. This did affect our ranking that 'should" be higher in terms of RP for breaching. Still happy where we are. We know we did it and in the big scheme probably won't matter.

3. Yes (as in other thread) some calls were missed like using SP for exit from opponent etc.

4. EXPECT to be broken.... We broke a tomahawk, sheered off our shooter "had to re-tap with six larger bolts" and had the Andy Mark tank treads break luckily we had the "improved" parts with us... so our bot has now reinforced tread pulley's and shooter that has now broken twice. I hope we are past the break stages since we have all day tomorrow then next week in CV too. That's nine games and eliminations most likely, fingers-crossed.

5. Games will run late, we cut off two games and shortened lunch (30 minutes) to get through today. None w only ttree games behind... two regular one a makeup for a field fault.

6. Vision is lame "smeared glass" especially for low goals a working camera is a must, still working on our auto HG routine.

A rookie team is winning! They have a super sleek super fast breach bot..wow. Its beautiful. Awesome job rookies!

Anyhow off to bed, any questions feel free to ask them and I will answer when I have time. Good luck.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Can you give some more details on how the AndyMark tread drive was broken? Was is only the drive pulleys, and if so were the breaks similar to what is discussed here?

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Yes the middle pulleys disintegrated we ended up replacing four of them because that is what Andy Mark sent as replacements ahead of our first competition. They ordered eight more overnight yesterday. We should have them by CV next week.

It lasted about 4 games before they failed, happened in game.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

The comment about defense crossings was intriguing.

Are those 8 attempts crosses according to the manual or did you do something like driving back and forth over it 4 times without completely exiting the outer works every time?

If you did make 8 crosses according to the manual definition of a cross that would mean you had to actually go across the defense 16 times. It's just a frightening concept. Are you sure you're fully crossing and making it obvious?

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

We went over same defense 8 times total (not 16) clearing it each time in order to register two lights out....contributed to a failed a RP twice. Yes we cleared the defense each time. Its frustrating, seemed to get better after we lodged an inquiry. Happened earlier in games then we did not have an issue later.


My suggestion if it happens to your team stay on the field until its resolved. They said they could not change it after the fact.

We petitioned but nothing will change. Even have video of it...this happened in our first few matches.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

These are the biggest similarities i have seen up here in Spokane, 5920 has been leading most of the day, our lead screw mechanisim broke in our 5 match (we are still 5th!) and just the first match was 45 minutes behind with early lunch being called before match 3 and running till 8 last night.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

To some extent, this (behind schedule) happens every year with week 1.

This game is certainly rough on robots. Be sure you know your wiring and mechanics well enough that you can see what's going on when something breaks.

Robots who are playing in 5 or 6 events will either be super robust or held together with spit and duct tape by the end.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

What is the extra height on the hanging rung?

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

i will jump in on this one also. i volunteered at the Duluth events fri and sat.
1. the portcullis opens very easy
2. had a few problems with the sally port zip ties braking and broke a few draw bridges
3. i didn't see anyone open the sally port or drawbridge from the neutral zone
4. i didn't see any captures tell quarter finales
5. one breaching bot and two shooting bots seems like a winning alliance
6. most qualifier rounds 100pt or less
7. as mentioned in another post "hard core auto" teams are crashing hard into drivers stations, at least once knocking a computer off to the ground.
8. coordinating with alliance members is very important.

this event was run very well and was ahead of schedule many times

any other questions feel free to ask

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I totally agree with everything up top. One thing to stress... use the question box for missed crosses. We got the score changed (it was initially 42-47, us losing), but we managed to have them count 2 missed crossing, ending 50-47. That was good.

About defenses. Most defenses are sturdy. At Waterbury, some problems arose with a bent rough terrain, which put the field on hold for ~20 minutes, and a broken sally port (on the side supports).

Most importantly, bring tools, and be able to fix most things on your robot. After every match, our team was bending something back into place and tightening bolts and collars. That's important.

Waterbury was great today, looking forward to tomorrow!

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

it was hard to see only sometimes, our drive team did not have a camera. However, by being careful in choosing defenses it was not a big problem. We just line up by hitting the tower and backing off the batter. Just for credibility I will add that I am on the drive team, also we have a sub 14" robot.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

For our team, the camera is key. We have to use it to line up with defenses, especially the drawbridge and sally from behind.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Some things I've noticed is that sometimes defense damage is called late, although that's expected to some degree since it's called manually (afaik). (This can sometimes waste precious time)

Visibility is very poor, although the defenses do play a role in it the plastic/glass that drivers must see through makes it much more difficult as it's difficult to see through and very smudged and scratched up.

Apparently our team (and a couple others) were having connectivity issues because safety blocks in default lab view code are getting info "too slowly" from FMS (as far as I understand it) causing the roborio/radio to restart(?).

Tech also had us (and other teams) place the Ethernet port on the radio in the socket nearest to the power adapter port. However after connectivity issues our team (and a couple others) switched it just to see what happens back to the regular port (further from the power port). Didn't see any issues after that from radio :confused:

Ramming the driver stations is really a BIG issue, especially for teams that have large setups. Ours remained unaffected even when slammed against directly since it's just a laptop thrown on there, but other teams with "raised" stations had theirs fall off often, often causing them to lose the match, connection, or sometimes entire laptops.

Cloth was removed from lowbar as expected (as others have pointed out)

Announcing (at least at waterford) was spectacular, although would like to see more involvement and care taken with the stream (and auto archiving on twitch turned on guys!!!).

Bandwidth for the school was a bit of an issue, and power cords/cabling even more so.

The drawbridge is REALLY floppy. Not at all like expected, turns into one big bump and may actually flick your robot right off if it's light (ours is <60 pounds!!)

Human players bowling across the field seems to be okay.

It seems at the start no teams had auton working with any of the defenses. Nearing the latter half of day 1 a lot of the bigger teams had it working to some degree and almost all teams had proper auton (cept ours of course) even in qualifiers in day 2.

It also seems scrimmages/something must have gotten some times misinformation about the dimensions of some of the defenses. I remember the ramparts perhaps being a bit wider or the opposing side having a little less height.

Field durability repair (at Waterford at least) definitely improved at an increasing rate.
There were a couple of issues with people using hotspots, although i'm not going to pretend I know if that does/doesn't affect connectivity.

Don't know how I feel about the bagging rules. It's got it's fair share of positives and negatives, even for a super small rookie team.

Penalties (as the driver) were hard to notice, although that might just be an issue localized to us.

Other than that I didn't really observe any negatives. Everyone was polite and super helpful people, tons of jamming out to the music by just everyone (even refs, THANK you to whoever did the playlist at Waterford haha), judges were extremely professional, nice, and listened to anything we had to say. Volunteers and all staff was great (even if their job meant I had to be hindered by goggles!!!!).

Overall for the first competition ever attended by our team it was certainly an amazing experience, mixing just the right amount of professionalism and understanding good-will. We learned a ton, broke a ton more, and most importantly met some of the best people ever. Thanks week 1! :D

(sorry for any repeating ideas that mighta been mentioned before!!!!)

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Well back from week 1 in San Diego, we made it to the semifinals and managed to beat as the #1 alliance we were alliance #8 ..in two games . I pretty much helped get our alliance together as lead scout mentor and we had a real shot at winning it all. However we failed.

In all we proved we could Scale/Breach and shoot some low goals. Can do high too but did not feel the need to do so.

We had to rebuild our shooter between Quarter Finals and Semi-Finals as our hex shaft snapped in two...luckily Top Hat technicians had the very part we needed and we had time (since we won 2-0) to wait/work for other quarter matches to play , so in that hour we fixed our shooter. Another team lost their drive train in semis.

Then another problem arose... the boulder getting stuck in our shooter..we saw that happen in practice but it worked "well enough" we took a chance that it would be fine we were working to scale. Then it reared its head in semi's. We were done. Not sure if humidity had anything to do with it but the boulders were tighter at the coast than inland

We are fixing (with out 30lb) both the shooter and strengthening it with steel hex shaft with our allowance as we head into central valley next weekend , surprising enough with our alliance partners Midnight Mechanics. we feel good about SD and how we performed and feel very confident with all the matches we played and driving experience , going into Central Valley next week.

Some lessons from today..

1. Bring EVERY spare part, we left a perfectly good hex shaft at home and were too far to grab it during eliminations , we were VERY lucky one was in the building. Also hardening connections is a must.

2. Be ready for DEFENSE (primarily in elims) when the ball was stuck we even played defense as well as many other robots and it was violent so be prepared for defense even if a team has never shown it...I saw at least four teams play defense in eliminations today that were not "defensive" bots and they affected the game dramatically. You should watch some SD to see effective defense played. Many shots knocked off course.

3. Don't over scale.... we winched all the way up and it failed with one second left.. we did not get scale points... we did get then another time and the first time the driver started 2 seconds early. All fixable now that we are consistent at hooking. Not sure what we had to go to the top each time ...looks cool but it failed once that high.

As for the bar question...its not taller but further from the wall so there is more room behind the bar for a hook mechanism. However in practice it was easier than on the playing field we tried to scale almost every match and did not get it down until the last few matches , in fact it was out last qualification we scaled successfully. Then twice in eliminations.

We are content with how we did and look to do even better next week. Ramona Rampage and Midnight Mechanics were awesome and it was us that had the mechanical issue that held us back in semi's . Hopefully that will not happen with the changes we make going into next week.

The teams that won(agency, paradox, coconuts) had three real decent shooters and all of them together could beach. We lost to them. Learned a lot though and excited to get back on it next week. Warlords got engineering and Catz got to go too as captain of losing alliance. That #1 "breaching only" in qualification rookie team won Rookie all-star (SMBLY required) they did awesome.

Anyhow good luck , I'll give a week 2 update next week . Any questions continue to ask me and I'll let you know what its like. In all we had a great time and look very forward to central valley.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I assume you were volunteering at the northern lights regional, as there actually a qualifications breach at Lake Superior. It was qualifications round 32 with teams 359, 2823, and 2538. There's thoughts that it may be the first qualifications capture in the world and even if it wasn't it was really awesome to see and have our team be part of :D

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

towards the end of the quals at West Valley this morning 4980 started to really show off their capturing skills,scaling a couple times.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Its further out from castle wall than team version. Lots of room behind it.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I'll weigh in real fast--the refs would tend to signal the result of a crossing attempt pretty quickly. Either the lights would go out, or a "cut" motion would be signaled. Gotta be fully clear on the NZ side beforehand AND on the Courtyard side afterwards.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

They missed ours twice in early matches and as I said it got better as time went on. We fully cleared on both ends. I saw it with my own eyes.

Its a bit frustrating not getting a RP or two one day 1... I understand the difficulty but from a team perspective the rank matters for stuff you did especially for overnight rankings. It did not matter in long run for us (we assembled a great alliance so no harm or foul) but it is something refs need to be aware of , I wish there was quick instant replay ability as I have a feeling this will creep up again since its human scored and not sensors. They should allow teams to provide video and dispute it up to the end of the days matches IMO.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Counting the crossings as a referee is a lot harder than it appears. It's very easy to get tunnel vision on one robot trying to cross, and missing others who are crossing. It takes practice as a referee to get used to it – it should get better further into the event.

Also, be careful when using the LEDs under the outer works as a reference. At certain angles from the driver stations the LEDs will appear to be on when they aren't (this is also true for some referees). If you want to know for sure if you got the crossing quickly check the screen.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Well that's unfortunate for drive teams they cannot see the screen in the middle of their matches pretty sure all are using field indicators to decide what to cross. The biggest issue I see is on ranking points... those "challenges" should be allowed to be reviewed by video as it means likely a 3-6 place swing (of three or more teams) on end of day 1 ranks. For teams really trying and earning crossings and breaches trying to be a captain that makes it much harder with a few games left in day 2... it can be the difference of captain or being the other pick or even not selected. Many scouts only go by stats and stats for them are important.

I suspect its a week 1 day 1 thing and as the season goes on it will improve as refs become more aware of it. No hard feelings at all just trying to put the issue out there for future events ...like next week in central valley :)

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I don't have enough vacation time for them to start allowing video replay.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Neither do I ..but sometimes delay is good when you need to repair the bot. :) We had an hour to do a massive major repair to our shooter shaft in eliminations it was awesome to have extra time...but....

In regards to not credited RP....

It would not have to be during matches just in between as time allows before end of the day. Not every match should be reviewed just those that affect extra ranking points (Captures/Breaches) of tree or more teams. Since RP are the highest order sort they should be accurate. A couple minutes for an official to review sometime during the day does not seem to be a burden and can change the rank of multiple teams.

I could only see a handful of matches that would need "by end of day 1 video review" by a lone official
This would mainly be a day 1 thing to tidy up the RP's which this year are huge and mainly on breaches since those are human scored.

I can see this becoming and issue in upcoming weeks a team request for video review on RP no-calls would make sense.

That would be better than "wasting time" challenging during a match and keep matches flowing. As of now teams may complain during the match and the net result is wasted time and really no change will occur anyhow as its a human judgement call. No ref on the field is going to say "yea I missed that".

This could be handled during the day with a simple video review with visual evidence and perhaps the "missing" RP added back in thus corrected and this offline adjustment would speed up match cycle times.

I'm just putting a spotlight on this because its the end of week 1 and most of FRC has many games to play in next five weeks. Better to come up with a solution now than have this become an issue down the road and possibly even in the Championships.

Remember a single not-scored RP is at least a 3-5 rank swing down..for three or more teams at end of day 1. That's a lot to make up with 2 games left day 2. It can make the difference on a multiple teams even being selected and certainly affects who the captains are.

Every outer works has ten possible 5-point scoring plays (40 points to earn a RP) so upon "video review" each missed valid crossing credit should be added to the initial human scoring and then determined if it met the 40 point breach threshold by adding in those missed crosses , then that RP should be adjusted for all three teams involved by end of day 1. So we have a proper ranking for all teams.

If teams have to repeatedly "waste time " by crossing a lighted defense four or six times to get credit they should be compensated for that as there is only 2:30 in the game and having to do multiple crossings of same defense just to get the lights to go out wastes time the team could be moving on to other scoring or defensive possibilities.

I see no down side to a handful of reviews when it is determined ahead of time to convincingly lead to a missed earned RP issue especially on the last defense to be destroyed.

Trying to help all teams with this spotlighting of an issue from week 1 and to improve game flow as well. Hope this helps everyone or at least brings the issue to the minds of refs as we go forward. I see my suggestion as being doable, efficient and improves ranking accuracy.

The very fact we beat the #1 alliance in two straight QF games decisively as #8 (first time I recall that ever happening since I've been if FRC) shows how initial ranks were skewed down "by mistake" for us and several others (and skewed up for the rest).

In a way its not fair for any elimination alliance selector to select based on RP that may not indicate actual strength of teams..

Teams should not be told its "too late" to change the RP score..we were not the only ones lodging a challenge. Happened twice for us.

I know FRC officials read my posts here so please consider this change for improving flows in matches by avoiding on field "complaints/challenges" and by getting teams the RP's they earned in game play.

Kids should be taught as part of FRC that errors can get corrected with indisputable evidence.

This is one of our scales yesterday. One such scale helped our alliance to achieve 130 points during quarterfinals.

And yes, I agree that auto is going to be necessary this year to stay high in rankings. That's just too many points available and shooting is dang hard without vision processing.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

A scale is worth TWO high goals we plan to use it early and often in CV now that we worked out the kinks.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Just a thought: My standard response to any and all "we need video replay" posts is as follows.

1) FIRST does not allow any referees to view video replays.
2) Technical challenge is huge here. There are threads about this.
3) Feel free to ref an event and see just how hard we have it as it is.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I don't doubt its hard and I thank the entire ref team in San Diego. If First does not allow it then that's it. I don't see a solution to the skewed ranking if it occurs. We'll just do the same procedure of asking for a review during each match where it occurs.

We are all human and there is a lot going on...of course I'm laser focused on our bot during a match so I see its every move , refs need to keep track of six on a fairly complex field.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

One solution to missed points would be to design a game where points are totaled at the end of the match. This way, refs can spend the match watching only for fouls.

I think FIRST needs a fundamental change in how it refs these games. I just do not think it is possible for them to watch for everything this year. It almost seems like the GDC designs some great game without thinking this through and then passes it off to the refs and say "make this work. thanks!".

Does anyone know if FIRST reviews the accuracy of their refs similar to what the NFL does? I'd be curious to see the accuracy percentage across years.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I'm surprised FIRST didn't use scales in combination with sensors to determine when a crossing was completed or not. Yes, it would add to the cost of the field and greatly complicate the field staff's lives during set-up and maintenance, but it would help resolve some of these issues.

There have been years when the method of scoring has switched (from mechanical to human, anyone know if it went the other way?) due to issues.

Can any of the people at the events tell us how many Refs are watching the field? Is one Ref responsible for watching all 5 defenses on a side? If so, would it be plausible to get a two more Refs for future events to split the load up? (Yes, I realize it's difficult to get enough volunteers in the first place.)

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

How can sensors determine if a robot started in the neutral zone without touching the defense and ended in the courtyard without touching the defense? How does the sensor know what alliance the robot is from?

I am currently assigned as a ref assistant for this upcoming week. Maybe I will be looking at the crossings. I suggest you volunteer if you think the process can be improved.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

1 head ref, 5 other refs. 1 ref is actually enough to tell all the crossings if they're backed up by their partners (and they are).

And by "difficult to get enough volunteers", you hit the nail on the head with a jackhammer. A bobcat-mounted jackhammer.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I am seriously considering reffing OC in week 5 since I was sought after in SD. I too will watch crossings if I do that.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

If the sensors were used in conjunction with scales (weight bearing devices), they would be able to determine it. Even electronic scales that fed some external program should be able to handle it. Depending on the type of sensor used, I don't see why it couldn't determine the alliance. It may take some work, but this is FIRST.

As for volunteering, I did for 12 years. I would have again (after a two year break), but I am mentoring a rookie team and the teacher wants me available to the team.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

What the sensors would need to determine:

1) There is no robot ON or OVER the ramp to the defense.
2) There is A robot ON or OVER the ramp to the defense.
2a) The alliance of said robot. If of "wrong alliance", ignore all following items.
3a) That said robot is ON the defense.
3b) That said robot's bumpers are below shield level.
4) That said robot was OFF of the defense, and NOT ON or OVER the ramp off of the defense.
5) That any robots following closely meet the same conditions, even if their bumpers are locked.
6) The direction of all such robots, that they are going in the proper direction.

Additionally, it would need to determine this for Category C defenses. These have the extra determination that the robot that just crossed was, at some point, not in contact with the door (and that's going to be the nuisance). They're also notorious for creating the 5 situation above, or messing up the 6 situation.

Sure, you could have weight sensors in the platforms, and tare them right before match start. That takes care of part 3a, and to some extent part 3b (though the Dukes-type crossers will throw off the scale portion a bit, I'd think). Sure, you could have some sort of distance sensor pointing upwards in the ramp (1 and 2), and maybe even a color sensor (2a).

Guess what? By the time you've finished your sensor system, you'd probably be better off (financially) paying the ref crew to use their eyes and press the buttons. Besides, they're easier to reprogram all the units. ;):p

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Drive teams at our regional were told all crossings to damage defenses need to be easy to see to count. There were very few individual robots that could damage Sally port and I didn't see any that could damage the drawbridge on their own. I didn't see any issues with the way the referees were not calling damages that were close with this being specifically stated in driver meeting at our regional.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

People have been talking about damaged defenses but nobody has seemed to say anything about the low bar curtain. I noticed Kettering had no curtain in the playoffs. We lost our curtains at Guilford County with about 5-10 matches left in day one. Some amazing person in NC made what seemed to be completely duck tape curtains for day two. Those held up with no problem but did act a little differently than the original low bar curtains. Curious to see what material they will be made of for the next few weeks. I also did notice bending rough terrain, but it never was as big of a deal as the low bars were.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

Actually, I was thinking of three scales per defense, one for each ramp and one for the center. Then this morning realized that all of the ramps are probably just one long piece. Oh well. At least I was coming up with a potential solution instead of just adding to the issue(s) involved.

It will be interesting to see how the PNW Districts I attend starting this week will go.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

It was a team effort, but there may or may not be a picture of Mark Koors showing off his taping skills.

The idea was suggested to us from FIRST support, after San Diego implemented it and had positive results - and it was gorilla tape.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I know better than to join this discussion, but here goes...

To those who are advocating video (or photo) review of disputed calls, go back to the photo of the successful scale from earlier in this thread. Take a straightedge and put it parallel to the black line on the tower that indicates a successful scale. Note where that line falls with respect to the robot's bumpers. Was this a successful scale? Does the photo tell the truth? Why, or why not? If the blue alliance had this picture, (or similar video) would they challenge the call? How much time would they waste arguing about it? For most matches, there are at least 6 video recordings being taken. Which of the 6 recordings should be taken as the authoritative version? When reviewing videos, should the refs be required to view all available recordings, or only the one(s) that the challenger submits as evidence? Does the alliance being challenged deserve the right to collect and present their own recordings refuting the challenging team?

Still cameras and video cameras produce results which often distort reality. The difference between standing and kneeling when taking the referenced picture would produce a totally different perceived result.

My own feeling is that the scores on the scoreboard are subject to variation based on the methods used to generate them. What's up there is only accurate to some +/- tolerance. It's similar to the fit of a dowel pin in a round hole. Each part has a nominal dimension and a tolerance. If you specify a .251 hole, and a .250 pin, with a .010 tolerance on each, chances are about 50/50 that the pin will fit in the hole. To ensure a good fit, a good engineer makes sure the nominal values are far enough apart that there is no chance of interference.

With FRC matches, there will ALWAYS be a discrepancy between the reported scores and what happens on the field. FIRST and the volunteers do their best to reduce the discrepancy as much as possible. As engineers, it's our job to understand that to ensure the result we desire, without leaving it to random chance, we must score a certain amount of points greater than the other alliance.

Missed calls are a fact of life. In a well designed game, the opportunities for missed calls are reduced and the consequences of missing a call are minimized. As much as I love this game, I recognize that with 8 required crossings for a breach, the chances of error are high, and the consequences of a miss are huge. As drive team coach my job is to teach my team to play in a way that minimizes the chance we'll get burned by a bad call, not whine about it when it inevitably occurs.

So, I teach them:
- Be blatant when making crossings. Hit the obstacles full speed. Be a spectacle. Go far past the defense, so there is no question you crossed.
- Don't trust the lights. Count the crossings yourself. Even if the lights are out, be sure that we actually crossed twice. Even if you know we crossed twice, if the light is still on, cross again.
- Don't let the fact that we won a close match go to your head. With close matches, we won the luck of the draw. It could just as easily have gone the other way.
- Don't let the results of an FRC match/competition/season be the measure of your own self worth. Nothing about this game is worth getting so worked up over that you behave dishonorably over it.
- If you lose, don't blame others. Just be better. We didn't lose because the ref made a bad call. We lost because of that night back in build week 2 when you played video games instead of coming up with a better climber/shooter/autonomous routine.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

I agree very similar to NFL sometimes you have to play above the calls. With crossings it seems video that everyone has would be verifiable by an unaided eye. That is why I brought it up.

I was not aware that FRC did not let referees use video. So unless that changes then the best is to play above the calls and protest on the field if needed immediately.

RP makes a huge swing in rank...so its magnified this year. That is the only reason I wanted to bring this issue to light for every team and every ref that reads this or hears about it. Its not just me that was miffed the entire team was. Especially in the first several matches..its like c'mon man.

Trying to do my part to improve the games in Weeks 2 through 6 and Championships for all teams not just ours. I want every team to get every earned point and give their absolute best game .Then if we win we know we won honestly and the ranking is earned as well. I hate when calls or non-calls change the game outcomes but it is life. That in itself is a good lesson for the kids.

Again no ill will to the San Diego reffing team.... its not anyone's fault there is a lot going on. I thank you for all the excellent reffing throughout the matches...awesome job.

Re: Real week 1 update for you.
 

If you are looking in tracking defenses being crossed I seen the volunteers that reset the field all stand right by the field and not move during a match. Could a few volunteers be responsible for one or two defenses and have a button to shut a set of lights off and trigger a score for that defense line? Have the volunteers rotate so they are not stuck there all day. And truthfully most of the defenses are obvious.