Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Thank you for the kind words. I've had my fair share of competing with and against you guys, and its always been a pleasure to see what awesome mechanisms you make.

This will be the first time our team is going to worlds, and its all thanks to our students that have put in the time and effort, and the mentors that have given them the possibility to achieve it, along with our fellow Alliance teams 5855 and 2202. Thank you to all the teams that attended. I wasn't there, but from what I saw on the stream (which was actually pretty good quality) there were some good matches. It took us 6 years to get a #1, so if you didn't win this year, don't be discouraged.

Reflecting on our robot, Bob Ross, many didn't have high expectations due to its simplicity and how much we changed around ideas and mechanisms. It turned out that for this competition being fast and reliable against defenses and ball scoring was atleast 1/3 of what you needed in a team.

To give some details to others out there, our robot runs a standard 6 wheel Pneumatic tire andymark chassis, with a basic limit-switched arm and a rotating wheel of surgical tubing... otherwise known as "Spaghetti'.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/43004

There is a wide-angle USB camera relied upon for lining up the arm and increasing visibility when obstacles are in the way.

You can see it all in action at the Lake Superior regional here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6fukP6fKiI

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Yep, the ref on that side said we ripped 537's radio out, when they were blocking us from the batter in the last 20 seconds. Unfortunate.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

At the end of the event the emcee, Tyler Olds, said this was his last time at the Wisconsin Regional. It sounded like he might be moving from our area. He will be missed and we wish him well in the future.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Congrats to the winners and semi finalists. Great matches with great teams in the hunt. So many friends involved it was hard to cheer for just one alliance. The defenses certainly came out to play. It was unfortunate that advancement was delayed by a 10 minute referee meeting of the minds. I'm still personally bewildered on the ruling. But I do not want to take anything away from the winners. Congrats to IE and Chairman recipients.

In my opinion this regional had the best overall talent for any regional so far. And definitely one if not the best hard fought wisconsin regions we ever had.

A special shoutout to the Rookies of the Year. We were delighted to have a small part in your season preperation.

For me, I need to go back to team updates and the rule book to truly understand this game better. Thought I had a good handle on it until eliminations started. The pinning rules and the 20 second rule are now confusing to me. I also need insight to G22, G24.

Great job planning committee.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

I think this is the perfect example of how silly FIRST's philosophy of "if you break or tip an opponent, it's a penalty. If you don't, it's fine". The play in eliminations was some of the most intense I've seen (robots driving onto other robots, robots using arms to get under other robots and then lifting arms in what appeared to be an attempt to tip them) and this foul would not have made the top 20 in most egregious robot to robot interactions. But since the red alliance hit a blue alliance robot (which lost communication three other times in eliminations including 35 seconds earlier that match) and that blue alliance robot lost communication, red gets a match deciding penalty. It has gotten to the point where many teams would be better off building extremely tippable, breakable robots than trying to tackle the game's challenge.

All that being said, my issue isn't with the refs at this event (I appreciate them letting teams play), but the rule books insistence on calling some penalties if and only if the opposing robot breaks or tips.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

The blue box with G24 is what really gets me.

At what point is an action deliberate? If having a lighter robot and high bumpers means that every single contact leads to your robot riding up on their bumpers and crashing into their tower or arm, then would any contact within the perimeter be deliberate, even though you were only trying to play legal bumper-to-bumper defense? You can't really plead ignorance if the exact same thing happens over and over again.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

They were not called for bumper to bumper contact leading to a G24. When a part of your robot outside of your frame perimeter contacts another robot within its frame perimeter, then you have a huge risk of a G24 if anything bad happens.

If you have a high mounted bumper, and it rides up on a robot with a low mounted robot, then I think it takes a much more deliberate act to warrant a G24 - like trying to continue into/over the robot vs. backing out. Also, at that point it is likely that part of their robot is in contact with your robot too. So at worst, you have offsetting penalties.

It is not the bumpers you have to worry about, it is anything of yours that is outside your frame perimeter. In prior years, the penalty was any contact, not just deliberate/damage causing. I personally believe in the "any contact" rule. Ripped wires can take a long time to replace. If you are going to play defense, then make sure everything of yours is inside the frame perimeter.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Sorry, I should have used team numbers to begin with. My comment was mostly in reference to 5855's defense during eliminations. An example of what I'm talking about was in QF3-2, when 5855 repeatedly rode up on 2498's bumpers and made contact within their frame perimeter with their tower/shooter, which seems to me like it could be a repeated G24 violation.

The wording of the rule mentions deliberate or damaging content within the frame perimeter, nothing about continuing into/over the robot, but I agree that the current wording is not the best. My biggest problem is that you can never really know what is "deliberate," or what the drive team is trying to do. I disagree with what you said about offsetting penalties, though, but again because of what is deliberate. You cannot make deliberate contact within the frame perimeter of another robot if they drove up onto you, for example, while you were trying to score a high goal from the batter.

Agreed! I like good, legal defense, and sturdy robots that can get around it. I think the current wording of the rules leaves too much up to discretion.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

I think I disagree with you on the rule book insisting there be damage to cause a penalty. I didn't actively participate in this year's game so I haven't studied up on the rules, but I think G24 is the relevant rule. This reads to me as an intent penalty which allows the refs to use their discretion on calls. If a ref thinks a robot is trying to damage others, there is a penalty/yellow card. If the robot is actually incapacitated, then it's a red card. Maybe it's just my interpretation.

Watching the webcast, I thought the defense was out of control. I'm interested in watching some video so I can see if it really was as bad as I thought it was at the time. I was hoping the refs would call some penalties to get teams to calm down a bit.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

After watching the archived webcast again, 1306's intake is above 537 during the pushing match, but 537 is definitely still moving at 20 seconds, which should be an automatic scale awarded to 1306. If somehow 1306's intake did reach down into 537 when the camera cuts away and rip their radio out, then so be it, but where is the automatic scale? Red ended with 25 challange/scale points: 5 for 2826 on the batter, 5 for 1306 on the batter, and 15 for 2194's scale (and if 2194 wasn't high enough and 1306 WAS awarded the scale points, my point still stands and 2194 should be awarded a scale since they were also interfered with at 20 seconds).

I know it's a tough game to ref but I question some of the calls, or non calls, that were made this weekend. I watched a robot enter and exit the opponent's secret passage from the neutral zone several times in one match near the end of quals, and they were flagged each time as they should have been, but the results screen gave 0 foul points to the opponents. We were impaled and entangled by another robot in our QF tiebreaker match for about 15 seconds but no call was made (contact was made with our intake in the up position while it was within the frame perimeter) and we were told "that's the nature of the game". We were also given a warning for hitting the portcullis too hard (we have a pair of arms that flip down and wedge under it so we can just drive under, not lift it) yet I saw no such warning for the team that broke the portcullis polycarbonate.

On the positive side, the teams were great this year. It's always great to see lots of friends at this event. Thanks to 2530 for picking us and to 2574 for being great partners. I had several teams attend the team social I worked hard to put together and it appeared that everyone had a great time there! I am thrilled that one of my students was named a Dean's List finalist and have to send a huge congrats to Arrow for his Woodie Flowers finalist award as well!

I also have to send a huge congratulations to 2202 for getting their bugs worked out and cruising through the elims. I expect great things from them at Championships this year.

While our WI regional went about as well as it usually does, I am pleased that we are hitting our stride as we head for Champs as well. In our 13 matches, we weakended the tower in 10 of them, but only managed 4 captures due to some unfortunate circumstances with our partners :rolleyes:

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

You're right. My comment was a little strongly worded. My argument works best in regards to tipping (ie: a robot can push another robot with the same amount of force for the duration, but only gets a penalty if the opponent tips).

I do think that the refs at Wisconsin were not going to call any penalties for robot to robot interaction (other than safe zones) unless a robot tipped or had clear damage.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Do you have a link to the archives?

Thank you for the kind words. It took a while for the programmers to settle down the code. That's what happens when you finish building right before bag and tag, and don't give programmers access to the final robot.

You guys have a solid robot too. 15 point auto, fast cycle times, and can do more defenses than we can. Heart breaking close losses in the QF.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Twitch archives are here:

https://www.twitch.tv/wisconsin_frc/profile

Twitch automatically mutes portions of the archive due to copyrighted audio.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

When we had to switch to defense in our second quarterfinal match I kept looking to the ref for the pin count to know when to backoff but the count never came and it honestly should have.

I wish the refs would have given the whole regional a heads up on the type of defense they were going to allow, would likely have changed our strategy in multiple situations. After coming from Central Illinois, a well reffed regional with little controversy to my knowledge, to this was a huge eye opener into how inconsistent games are reffed (2014 anyone?). They even changed how they were calling penalties involving the outerworks halfway through the regional.

After doing so well and falling short of champs, I can't wait till we get districts.

Re: Wisconsin Regional 2016
 

Thanks.
Seems like the two bots became entangled around the 26 second mark. Since Red had the extended appendage (reaching in), G11 may give Blue some protection against the 20 second rule. Unfortunately, the feed cut away during the crucial following seconds. When the video of the robot action returns, 537 is unable to move, and only moves after that when it is pushed by another red robot.