121 Carpet Damage
 

I was there for the match when the carpet got pulled up. I got to see what happened both from our booth and I got a close-up view of the carpet.

I think everyone can agree that there was some damage done to the carpet, this shouldnt even be a point for debate. However, I agree (after much thought) that this was not reason for a DQ. However I do think that the carpet being insecurely held down caused it to bunch under Rhodewarrior. This helped them stay in the corner.

Ricksta-
How can you say you were pinned? It's pretty obvious to everyone that we were pulling you out of the homezone. From a strategy perspective it would have been stupid for us to hold you there. Just think about it, also it is visible in that picture that you would have had to be driving into the corner to pull up the carpet like that.

The most annoying thing about that match was Ken (the head ref) counting us for a DQ. All he had to look down to see our wheel spinning AWAY from Rhodewarrior. Our driver even detached and pulled away to show him our intentions. He just kept on counting, oblivious to what was actually going on.

We had a match where our battery fell out of the robot. Sigh... Everyone's worst nightmare. It wasn't fastened in correctly by a rookie on our pitcrew. What made this humiliating moment worse was when we looked up and found our distinguished head-ref pointing and laughing at our robot. How graciously profesional. I thought this was off-season? This was my first offseason comp, but I'd heard the rules would be relaxed, and everyone would be there just to have fun. I found this not to be the case. The referees were stricter than at any FIRST Regional I'd been to in my 3 years of competition. Overall it was a fun weekend, but we had a couple of moments where I, and several others I talked to, were appalled by the actions and rulings of the referees.

I hold no hard feelings against 121. We enjoyed a good match working with them in the qualifiers. We also had fun in some very competitive matches against them later on in the day. I just can't wait for next year's competition when we can play with/against you guys again!

I hope you feel the same way. Ricksta, you came over angry at us for shutting you out in that qualifier match. The truth was we couldn't have beaten you any other way. Our options were to lose, or to play a defensive match and possibly win. You guys have a great robot, I enjoyed finally seeing it in person and marveling at it's simplicity. I still wonder why you didn't just drive into the endzone and at least score 10 points for your alliance. And it was the hardest fought 0 score I ever won, the most fulfilling too :D

I'm sorry for ranting, these are just some of the things that have been bouncing around in my head. Please feel free to post how off-base I am.

As for now, I'm just going to add this weekend to my previous experiences and prepare for the next step... UTC 2003!

I thought we got pinned at first since we were trying to leave our homezone to put the goal in our zone. The reason i got mad about not letting us score is because it happened to us 3 times on saturday. teams realize they couldn't win against us and overpower all the goals. the match where we got nothing against you we tried to get home but were entrapped inside 3 goals and other robots. there should never be hard feelings, those matches were fun.

the match when our wheel fell off, we had no clue what was going on. No wonder we couldn't move that goal. A wheel came off in nationals this year too. It spun off just as we came back to our home zone. after that match on saturday our team from the stands told us how they watched the wheel basically gradually turn itself off the axle. that was the same wheel that had the tape measure attached to it. coincidence that the wheel later feel off???...probably.

You wouldn't have any entanglement worries if you had a 10lb. Moose! :D

If we compare this with the calls at regionals, anything would go. It just depends on the regional.

If we compare this with the calls at nationals, 173 would have been disqualified. Let me give an example.

In our semi-final match on Einstein field (Einstein division) at nationals, our parter, 303 was trying to push Heatwave (312?), into our scoring zone (they attacked them head-on at the beginning). They got flipped up while pushing them and rode up on top of Heatwave. They rode up on top of their tether mechanism, which came off the robot and got stuck under 303. It remained there for the rest of the match (Heatwave was also disabled in the process). Point-wise, we would have won the match.


In the end of the match, blame was placed on Heatwave for not having a secure tether mechanism. They were disqualified and our alliance won the semi-finals.

What did you use to attach the wheel to the shaft??? I hope you didn't only use set screws because thats proabably why the wheel came off.

Not to get too off-track, but we had this problem with our Skyway wheels all year.

Those 8’ skyway wheels are pretty good pneumatic wheels that severed us well, however they had some serious defects.

When you want to re-treed them, you had to take off the wheel, unscrew the screws, and separate the axle and the hub. However when you do this, you significantly weaken the bond between the axle and the hub. We quickly found out that the axle slips out of the hub, and our wheel falls off. The only solution we found, that worked pretty good, was to put set-screws right through the axle and the hub. The wheels we had on @ Bash at the Beach were used, and extremely prone to this problem.

I recommend anyone if you plan to use the 8 inch skyway wheel (which many teams did), to fill the inside with some kind of epoxy glue so you have a sold wheel and axle.

Well without actually seeing how your wheels were attached, but by how you are describing it.. I would say that a ROLL PIN would have worked better, and you dont have to worry about them coming out or unscrewing... just my $0.02

As for the refs, they were just doing their job. Like someone said in a prior post (he has apparently been a referee in the past), you can't take out your aggressions on the ref. As for the "you must have your controls above your robot," I believe that was more making sure that the teams knew they what they were doing, and also that they were correctly plugged into their corresponding port, which in a few cases, they were indeed plugged into the wrong competition ports.

Again, as for the rulings, the refs try to be a little lax because it is an off-season, but at the same time, try to enforce the rules so that they arent broken, such as at the MD state fair. This is a reason why BattleCry is such a success; and realize that the head ref at Bash, Ken Stafford is also the one in charge of running and organizing BattleCry, so he is definitely not a "newcomer."

ken stafford was fine as head ref AFTER lunch. this was the last match before lunch. it wasn't about controls under number, it was robot under number that the first guy tried to call us on.

First of all, you are a poor sport Ricksta, and you dont symbolize the true meaning and intent of FIRST. You always try to pick fights and then hide behind your scapegoat excuse which is denying your intent. It was very clear that your teams intent for the "entanglement match" was to cause damage, by REPEATABLY running over the tape measure to try to cause it to break. A tape measure isnt some flimsy device that falls and breaks off, it requires some effort and force. So its team's 121 fault for having it break off and getting entangled.

The head ref Ken Stafford is also a better referee and part of FIRST then you will ever be, so you have no right saying he sucked and made bad calls. If you are looking for the man who best represents the FIRST spirit, it is him. Maybe you should talk to him so some of it will "rub off" on you. All of his calls were made in justly and in the spirit of FIRST, so you'll have to find some one else to blame. (Im sure that wont be too hard)

BFireball8 don't you think that your post is a little too harsh. Rick is a unique person, which sometimes writes something he doesn't mean. His post might be a little too "candid," but I don't consider it to be inappropriate.

Your statement that we intended to cause damage is completely false. We never meant to get entangled. The only thing we were trying to do was to block Rage’s tether. Since I was behind the glass that match, to the best of my recollection what happened:

1. We saw Rage and position, and stood ready to block there tape measure

2. The first time they launched their tether we blocked it, and they retracted it

3. The second time they launched it we went to block it, but this time our robot didn't move forward, then our driver jerked back and forth figuring that it was the carpet or something

4. Then we released the goal figuring it was that. (Than 999 pushed it into Rage's end zone)

5. In trying to get home, we found that the bot was very jerky, and found it a real struggle to get it home.

6. First I thought a motor went dead, or a wheel fell off, but then I saw the hand sticking out of wheel.

I have this on video and digitized if anybody doesn't believe me.

Also I have to say that Rick was not to disparage Ken in any way. I think you completely misunderstood his intentions. He was merely disagreeing with a call not only he made but other refs. Ken and others discussed the match for several minutes during the lunch break, and ultimately had to reach a settlement to move on. Tape measures were organdy banned because of reasons like this. That is why DQ's are so shady, and really depend if the refs personal opinion. Ultimately, Ken had to make a non-bias decision, which he knew it could or could not be right.

I might agree that my post might be harsh, but my philosophy is that if you can dish it, you should be able to take it. And on that note I have read many harsher things by ricksta.
Also, if your intent was to "block" RAGE's tether, than why were you repeatably running over it after the tether had successfull reached the endzone???

in case you didn't know ken was the head ref after lunch. before lunch he was a regular ref. he did a great job. it was the guy who was head ref before lunch that i dont agree with. ok. i know ken is a great guy and this post hasn't been harsh on my end.

as for running over the tape measure, how else to you remove it from an endzone?

Thats the point of a the tape measure. You can run over it and it won't move. The only way to is to block its initial path.

I suppose you could run over it repeatidly, but then it could get stuck in your wheel and hinder you:confused:

You just said it yourself. The fact that it did move and got caught in their wheel makes the tape measure illegal by FIRST rules.


But anways. Fighting over this will get us nowhere. It's time to put the past behind us and move forward. Look towards January and I'm sure FIRST will have a rule book for us that will rival most legal documents :D


Hey - then FIRST won't just be for engineers, but also for laywers :rolleyes:

Even though we tried to avoid getting the tape measure caught on anything at all costs, it did. It was entaglement. No arguement there. Done.
So yeah, we should've been DQed.
It was intent to damage the tether by doing a happy dance on top of it. There was four feet around it even with us retracting as they turned. You have to try to get that much wrapped around. There was intentional damage caused to our robot. No arguement there. Done.
So yeah, 121 should've been DQed.

Personally I think it should've been a double DQ match, but then again that's just me...