Most of us have concluded that the initial match was not level due to some confusion caused by driver stations being moved.

There is not honor in beating a team that is not at thier best.

The rematch was granted for the right reasons and when things started to go wrong any good driver knows to wait until the end of the match. FIRST sometimes refuses to grant rematches in cases that call for them simply due to time restrictions and such so it is always a good idea to wait until the end of the match no matter what. Also I think penalties can be aquired by summoning refs and leaving the drive team box during the match in certain cases.

hello
 

hello i am the captain of team 902 and i would like to say thank you to all but it will not matter what we say here or anywhere, it is over. we will get another chance and so will the rest of the teams in the competition.

Re: hello
 

Finally, somebody from one of the teams inflicted by the decision that is being mature about it.

Re: Re: hello
 

No one from the Martians have complained and not all the team members from 226 or 902 have complianed. It easy for all of us to say 'Get over it" but if it happened to any of us can any of you truly say that you would handle it as well as these teams have?

When I posted the original thread, I never meant this to be a $@#$@#$@#$@#$@# Session I just wanted to know how others felt about it. Based on the long delays between the rematch I would bet FIRST was also unsure on what to do either. So let's let this one fade into a memory.

We are VERY happy to have been picked by 902 & 494 to help them in the alliance. We had qualifying matches with the opposition and they were great also.

Some minor mods to the tracks and drive chains at Great Lakes and the waters will once again be Shark Infested.

Time to move on......................................

Judges Decisions
 

The Delphi Circuit Stompers (Team 378) have been a member of FIRST for four years. Through it all, we have seen judges miss items, make mistakes, and make bad decisions. In Cleveland, the judges disabled our robot in the first match because they though we had broken a box. After the match, the apologized to our team and said it was the other robot. It cost us 25 points on the top of the ramp! Through it all, I think there was one other time the judges reversed a call against us (in Orlando 2001).

Through all of this, we try to keep the motto gracious professionalism and just mention the problem to the judges. If nothing else, they usually correct the error in the next match or the next time it occurs.

I was very surprised this time that the judges reversed their call and IN OUR DIRECTION! What a surprise!

If you live long enough with FIRST it goes both ways! Also, in this type of competition there is a lot of luck. If we had gained the 25 points in that first match, maybe we would have be ranked higher and maybe we would have not been going against your team. There are a lot of judgement calls.

All I know is if you wait long enough, those judgement calls will come your way team 902, 226, and 494.

Remember Gracious Professionalism. Here is where it applies. It is a difficult concept to actually do.

NOTE: 835-378-85 won the first match fairly. In past years, there would have been a third match but there was a rule change this year...... another judgement call. All these changes make a difference, its not just one call.

Tom












:)

Tom is correct in his manner of discussing this topic.

Team 85 has been around a long time (we started in 1996) and we have had our share of bad luck, good luck and success.

If you are new to FIRST take a second and think of how many things have to go right for you to get to the finals and win.

I will admit that I thought the day was over when we lost the match in question. I thought about how far we came this season and what we had learned from Buckeye. I was so proud of our team that the possible loss would not have been too big a deal.

One of the greatest parts of FIRST is that it IS the real world. I gaurentee that if you work hard you will have success. It took us 3 years to win any award in a FIRST event and we could possibly never win an award again.

The point is it really dosn't matter what the call was, we have to deal with it and move on.

I hope to see some of you in Grand Rapids and all of you in Houston.

Take care
Steve Yasick
Teacher
Team 85

hola team 85 i am the captain of team 902 and we are going to grand rapids and i hope to see you there. Who knows maybe we will be alliance partners or maybe we will go into the finals together.good luck, C U there

I did not want to start a ref bashing
 

I love most of the talk on this post about this contrversial call. The reason for my poll/post was just to see what other people thought on the issue, not to bash the refs.

I love the job the refs do and I know they did the best job in their eyes. We are thankful for refs and crew are so good in what they do.

I have been a member of team 274 for 4 years and I have only seen one other replay in any match. This was in 2000 when we were in the National Semis.

Thank You

Re: Re: Re: hello
 

actually yes,

IRI last year with the whole beatty getting disqualified in the finals because they were in-tangled with the feds. We lost IRI because of it and I was in the players station on the 111,71,93 alliance when it happened. Sure there was a little ruckus about it, but we all got over it and I do not blame Andy Baker or Sean about it at all. They made the call, did the best that they could. I did not go to cd about it, I dealt with it.

Too many people don't understand how hard it is to referee, so they get all ticked off about everything that doesn't go their way. I've noticed that this year even more than previous years, the calls, the game, the animation competition, the webcasts etc..... not everything is going to be perfect, the people who work for and help out with FIRST try really hard to keep this competition going and I personally think we all (including me) take the competition for granite. Be happy that you are there, inspiring science and technology, and making friends in the process. That is what FIRST is about, not winning the competition, or how good the refs are or how cruddy the animation judging booth is. But learning and helping our society in the future (yes I know I am being redundant).

Refs do a great job!
 

I apologize if anyone inferred that I was bashing the refs. The refs are volunteers and do a great job during the competition! Its crazy on the field during the competition and they do everthing they can to keep things running smoothly.

TOM

Regardless of the refs.....
 

Regardless of the calls made I believe that the team should have a selectable autonomous mode to do nothing. For this reason I think it was the team's fault. Not trying to sound rude or anything, but hopefully for the next competition teams that want their machines to do nothing in autonomous will program it that way!

Wrong Autonomous Mode Activated
 

Its not that one team autonomous mode did not have a selector switch. Its that the wrong team's autonomous mode was activated due to the error of the judges and the team that was suppose to have the autonunous mode was pentalized a 15 seconds in the match. This clearly gave an unfair advantage to the opponent teams.

Its not the autonomous selector switch at all. The unfair advantage was the time penalty.

Suppose your team was trying to win a difficult match and you were given a 15 second penalty due to the error of the judges. It definitely influenced the match and threw off all the strategy.

Not the jugde's fault
 

the wrong autonomous mode was activated b/c the human players were on the wrong side of the field not that first engaged the wrong robot.

Please re-read the entire thread. If you do you will realize two things. #1The confusion was caused by a mix-up of who should have been where. You can see this in the video. If you want to blame someone it would have to be FIRST. I am sure that it was not intentional. #2 If Zeeland had been set in a mode that did nothing then BOTH teams in our alliance would have done nothing at the start of that round! That was not our game plan and we had no control over that situation.

Please move on! :cool: