Did the refs make a good call in the semi-finals of the Cleveland Regional
 

This is what happened:

Seed #2 (835 - 378 - 85) had won the first elimination match by a fairly large margin (~60 EP pts). In the second elimination round it was up to seed #6 (902 - 494 - 226) to make up the margin which is very hard to do this year because as stated elsewhere, if you are losing in the second round but won the first it should be your goal to stay off the ramp and eliminate any stacks that could be doubled for your opponents score.

What appears to have happened is that #85 didn't want to have autonomous code run (most likely in an effort to stay on the opponents side of the field and take out any stacks), but one of the FIRST event staff either accidentally or purposely stepped on the pressure mat for that team and activated the #85 robot. The match continued the martians defended a stack and made it to the top of the ramp and seed 6 had won by enough of a margin to advance. At this point seed #2 went to the judges to inform them what had happened, as they should have. The score was posted showing seed #6 as the winner but then it was announced of a replay of just match #2. It was VERY clear that the staff was unsure of how to handle this and be fair to both alliances involved. Match 2 was replayed and this time seed #6 won but not by enough margin to advance due to some quick thinking by seed 2 to stay off the ramp at the last second.

My question is this, if something like this comes up again on the second of 2 matches, would it be better to play both matches again or similar to what FIRST did and play only the second. I would argue that both matches should have been replayed to be fair to all involved. It is over now, while I was somewhat upset when we left, I do understand that it wasn't seed #2's fault either. After seeing the state of confusion that the event staff was in I would like to see at least something on an update if it happens again.

(from Matt Reiland's Post)

Was this the right call??? I think seed #2 should have got the refs attention right away (via the human player) by the ref doing this, it gave an unfair advantage to seed #2 because seed #2 would not have said anything if they advanced anyway.

I voted No. I also voted before I read through your post assuming I knew what happened.

I thought it was 85's error to have stepped on the pad, not FIRST staff. If it was FIRST staff, then 85 should have grabbed the attention of the ref, and not waited to see results.

Because they let the match play out, lost, then talked to ref's, I think they shouldn't have replayed. Would they have asked for a replay if they won? I highly doubt it. Would their opponent ask for a replay if they lost? I highly doubt that too.

Through the string of circumstances, I don't think it was all too bad that it was replayed, and would expect it to happen again (replay again), but I don't think it was a fair decision. But hey, Life's not fair.

I would vote for replaying both matches.

My second choice would be no replay.

I'm on 226, and our team is upset with the ref call, but once the match played out there's nothing that could be done to be fair to both sides. I was thinking that one fair way to handle it would be to give both alliances qualifying points for nationals. Anyone else have thoughts on that.

[Edit] I talked with another student on my team who watched the video and he said it was the student that stepped on the mat. I'll have to go find a video and watch it myself.

I commend the staff at the event for doing what I thought was thr right thing to do. I'm assuming that the string of events was correctly communicated and that the human player from the team DID NOT step on the mat. I think in all fairness - the match should have been stopped as soon as it was discovered that an error by a non-team member had occurred (preferrably before the end of the match and before an outcome was determined). This was a tough call either way - I would have expected the same courtesy if a team was clearly ON the mat, and their autonomuos program wasn't turned on. I know that didn't happen - but it just helps me clear up how I feel about what did happen. All in all, I would like to commend the teams that eventually lost for not making a bad situation even worse. And I hope evryone learned something about the game, and the importance of getting the referees attention RIGHT AWAY. Like I said, too bad it couldn't have been stopped before the match was over.

If they wanted there robot to not do the autonomous code why didn't they just hit the emergency stop button?

I thought 226, 902 and 494 got absolutely screwed.

Thank you.

Yes.
I must commend you guys at showing true gracious professonalism in light of a very unfortunate situation. You guys truly showed what FIRST is about.

Do nothing Automaticallly
 

If a team doesnt want to execute autonomous programing, they should have a switch to select an autonomous program that does nothing. This would eliminate any need for the human player to be on or off of the pressure mat. I dont trust that sensor anyway, cause I think it will malfunction at least once during competition. Day One I realized the need for multiple auto modes, for different routines, left and right and a do nothing routine. The selector switches for Geroni-MOE are on the Operator Interface and are stored into a variable each loop so when autonomous mode turns on, it reads the variable to choose the program. Plan ahead and a problem like this will not happen. The only reason not to step on the mat is if it is a last second decision based on human player box placement or something.

First I would like to bring up the rules. In section 9.2 General Match Rules GM3 starts "ABSOLUTELY NO REMATCHES WILL BE AWARDED. FIRST reserves the right to re-play a match due to obvious catastrophic failure of FIRST-provided field materials or human error." The human error brings the point here. I don't think that there is no human error if the FIRST personal trigger the mat, but was it a catastrophic failure? I don't think so, it would be like a sports team asking for a rematch because they scored too many times. Definitely some thing was not right however the party that was negatively affected (in this case 902 - 494 - 226) should have the say as to a rematch. In football (one example ) if their is a pentaly on a play but the negatively affected team still gets a touchdown they have the option of taking the points or accepting the pentaly, it should be the same here. As for who step on the mat the way I saw it team 85's human player step on the mat when the FIRST personal came to close the gate and activated their own auto mode.

It should also be noted that 378 did not engage their auto mode in the first match but did in the second. This being different should not have allowed to happen since 494 auto modes did not work correctly and they were not allowed to fix it. the replay of the auto mode should have been identicle except that 85 was not engaged.

The rematch had no way of being fair after the first score was annouced. There was no way for 494 and 902 to be excited and perform their best after earning their way into the finals and having it ripped away from them, but 378 and 85 were give a second chance and most certianly were "pumped up" for the match.

Good job 494 and 902 I know we would of gone far.

one more thing

if any one wish to review the matches in question their are on the web at http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts/buckeye.htm so go take a look and decide for yourself

i have to say i think the judges did the right thing

the team did the right thing by playing out the match anyway and waiting until the end because there was always the chance that they would not be granted a rematch.... they definitly deserved a rematch though.... if thier autonomous mode was not meant to be activated and through the fault of FIRST it was and it affected the match then they deserved a rematch... it is true that quite often teams deserve rematches and they are not granted so they had no choice but to stay and play it out just in case

the way i see it, the first match was fair and square, so why replay that one? the second one obviously wasnt so they replaced it with a fair match... two fair matches, nobody should be complaining

i understand its dissapointing to the non advancing seed, but trust me it would have been much harder for the other team if they hadnt advanced due to something they knew was unfair..... and its takes a lot of the sweetness out of winning if your opponent aquired a handicap in the match (unless you induced it)...... i think anyone who has ever beat a team because they lost power or control or something along those lines will agree

There are two stories. One is the ref stepped on the pad and the other is the ref told the human player to and they did. Watch the video. I think the latter is true.

When their auton was activated they knocked nearly the entire pyramid onto their side, giving them the advantage. If they had won they would not have asked for a rematch.

If you go watch the tape it looks like it was 85's error

of course they wouldnt have asked for a rematch if they had won.... because the only reason they have to complain is that it affected a possible win and if it didnt theres no reason to complain

as for who was at fault, that is hard to decide from the perspective of a bystander... only that ref and that human player/drive team know what happened

even if it was the human player who stood on the mat, if they were told to do so by the ref and it is not in the rules that they must, then that still makes things unfair..... the human player may have listened out of fear of disqualification when it was not something they wanted to do

At least at BAE, we were told to wait until the end of a match to bring up complaints with the refs. The refs are very busy during the matches, and can't be constantly bombarded with complaints. The team did the correct thing by waiting until the match was over before lodging a complaint.

If you watch the webcast (just before 23 minutes), what it looks like is that the FIRST volunteer walks back to the scoring table after closing the gate, accidently stepping on the mat on his way. After the bell sounds, the 85 human player steps back on to his mat (although I don't know why). Regardless of whether the human player meant to step on the mat or not, it looks like 85's mat was activated by the volunteer, not their human player.

Stop complaining.
 

Hey guys no offense but back off on the refs. They are volunteering and trying to do the best that they can. It's not like there out to screw your team or anything. Trust me I know what it is like. At IRI last year I was in the players station at the finals when we were on 111 and 71's alliance when we got dq'd. Now that I look back on it, I realize that Sean and Baker were right in calling it, they did the best that they could. My point is that maybe you need to put yourselves in their shoes and relieze how hard it is to actualy referee, trust me it is not that simple as I ref soccer.

Re: Stop complaining.
 

Actually I have been watching these posts very closely and I don't believe that anyone from any of our teams has complained about the refs. This poll was started by a third party who is interested in the opinion of the FIRST community. Many of us are.

There is no intended criticism.

Matt B
Coach
Team 902

I beg to differ............

from what i remember, the first mention of an appeal did not come up until about three minutes after the score was posted. i was standing right there changing our battery and excited as could be, when i heard the coach for 85 metion it and i was worried. but then i thought 'wait, there's no such thing as an appeal in FIRST' - just a thought.

the refs were great and i don't blame them at all. anybody from my team who did, i discredit (as Matt has already explained).

however, there was no way for the driver, our coach, and i to be in the right state of mind to replay another match so soon. my thoughts were bad and i know our driver was upset. although we might not have won the semi-finals, i do believe we should have been recognized. so i can only hope for better luck in grand rapids... cya there

ok first of all there was no quick thinking they tried to get up the ramp the whole time i am the driver of team 902 and i had a hard time to hold the 2 teams off the ramp by myself

Here is what happened that caused the problem. If you look at the start of the match, there was a large amount of confusion from FIRST as to where the drive teams should be on both sides of the field.
85 and 378-switched positions for the drive team (as they were told to by first) in the confusion the human players were not asked to switch. When play started the 85 player was on the 378 pad and the 378 player was on 85's pad. This meant that when the human players wanted to stop team 85 and run team 378 the opposite happened. The second the match was over the Zeeland coach went to the referees.

Again I wish it was all clear and clean and that it was explained better by an announcement. I am glad we got the chance to play the match again and am proud of how everyone on both sides handled the controversy.

if that is the case being the fault of the human players and not FIRST then it seems it should be no rematch or alliance #6's chose.

What was the complaint to FIRST because we were told a FIRST personal steped on 85's mat?

If it was the team's fault then there is no rematch under rule GM 3

im sorry to the alliance who did not benefit from the refs call.... i still think the refs did the right thing though.... if FIRST switched the driving stations and made a mess out of who was supposed to be where and the human players expected the mats to activate the opposite robots than something was unfair and trust me you dont want to win if the other side doesnt have a fair chance.... besides they still had to win in the first match and prevent you from beating that score in the rematch........

keep in mind whats important..... if you genuinely think your robot was better than everyone who was there and saw it will know that.... theres too much luck involved with the actual competition to judge anything on that basis

sometimes dissapointing stuff happens at FIRST and it sucks.... last year my team lost the divisional finals at the nationals due to a bad battery... it was the battery first supplied us with (basically it looked like a good battery but died the minute we put a load on it).....not out fault but we didnt get a rematch.....this dissapointment was recovered when we got to play the champions at one of the summer competitions

but what I want to know is what 85 and 378 told FIRST at the competition?

Secondly it is not FIRST fault that the drivers had to switch places and the human players should have know better so the match was just as fair as any other match and by no means have enough reson for a rematch

both teams driver stations were messed up we switched our human players without being asked so both sides had the same disadvatage and 902-494-226 win. Next time FIRST should stick to no rematches

hello
 

Hello, I would just like to say on behalf of the robohawks team 902 that it was a good competition over all. being captain and driver I hope i speak for our whole team when i say we had alot of fun. and we are just happy we made it so far. so thank you to all the teams that competed in the regional and hope to see you at another competition. and i would like to thank the staff and volunteers at the buckeye regional for devoting their time and efforts.

personally I think that we got screwed out of going to the finals and I do NOT think that a replay should have been awarded, its just like in almost any other sporting event or activity if any refferee gets in the way of the game play u just take the hit and keep playing.........i think the refs at the buckeye regional made what they saw was the proper decision. but at the time in awarding the rematch/replay they did not take into account that they needed to ensure that it was replayed fairly and without any variation to programming or robot configuration................what else they didnt consider is that fact that in the second match that is the one in question, that a strategy was used there and that both alliances would change their strategy and therefore making a replay/rematch not valid and totaly different from the original match also the mood that each team would be in, greatly affects the outcome of any match, put ur self in alliance #6's shoes, u r the underdog in the match and u lose the first match, then the second one u come back and win but then they say u must redo the match, and ur like come on whats with this u dont really have a clear answer as to why u must do this and u r probably thinking that u may have did something wrong in the match or any # of other things that could be racing through your mind........... i think that in order to have this resolved FIRST officials need to have a meeting with all six teams involved and review any evidence and determine what is to happen....... I dont expect to have our team crowned regional champs or anything but what i want to mostly see happen is a rule created to prevent this from happening again to any other team b/c what it feels like to be on the losing end of the ref decision is horrible and it can only be worse to be the ref. that had to make the decision.........i will stop boring u now so im out all peace!!!!!!!!!!
Would u like a sucker?
Or maybe an inflatable hammer?
Hmmmmm.....maybe one of our foam shark hats?

Hey all. I am one of the drivers for team 378. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what really happened in the match in question. This I think was partically cleared up by one of our alliance partneers in an earlier post. As they said what happened was originally the FIRST officals had our driver stations programmed with the wrong teams. In the first match of the round team 835 was in A1 and my team 378 were in A2. That match was fine, everything worked how it was supposed to. In the second match the first mistake was done by FIRST themselves. In position A1 they had 835 when it should have been team 85 the 3rd team in our alliance and we were in A2. They had to reprogram the drivers station. When they did the put 378 in A1 and 85 in A2. They didn't give us time to switch our human players. As an alliance the 3 of us planned to have 85 not enable during autonomous since they didn't have a autonomous that did nothing and they wanted us to the hill first. Once we pointed out what had happened FIRST granted the replay since most of the confusion was their own fault. With the replay the right robots were enabled and the rest is history. Sorry if this seems unfair to some, but for us to be shifted around like that right before we were to drive wasn't right either. I think the dicision FIRST made was right in the long run and I would hope that if faced with this same situation the officials would make the same dicision. Thanks for the time and I hope this clears up the problem.

First things first both sides had to switch stations #6's human players switched without any problem and there was more than enough time for the other alliance to do the same. So there is no reason to blame FIRST for this, it is the fault of the human players for not switching, i mean come on it common sense if the drivers are mixed up so are the human players.
The way I see it 902-494-226 are the winners no rematch needed. Before disagreeing make sure you read the rules exspecial GM3 and watch the match http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts/buckeye.htm
make up your own mind but look for what has been talking about.

I am the driver for team #378.
I feel that these events occured for a number of reasons.
1:
The officials incorrectly assumed since team #835 was the original #2 seed, that they would not defer to team #378 to play every match of the finals. Therefore, when they set up the positions for the second of the two matches, they had team #835 on the display instead of #378. The refs proceeded to switch not only the driver's positions, and the human player positions, but the radio frequencies as well. This caused the human players to be located in the wrong positions. This affected my teams autonomous mode, team #85's autonomous mode ran instead of team #378.
2:
I personally witnessed a FIRST official step on the pressure mat, causing the autonomous modes to be corrupted. However, at the time, I did not realize the threat this posed to the outcome of the match. Also, with the heat of the competition, I felt it better to play out the match rather than abandon my controls and pusue the attention of the referees.

I regret that there is a great deal of controversy about this match, but I feel that Playing the second match with all the factors being equal was the right thing to do.

Jacob Hahn
Driver, Team #378

Well, I just reviewed the video, and it is obvious that the Field Gate closer stepped on the HP pad, bell rang to start autonomous, then the member of #85 went to the pad.

However, 85's bot was the first to the stack thus starting the team off with a major advantage. At this point the drivers of the red alliance should have made the decision to notify a ref what happened. I don't think they would ask for a replay if they had won.

I'm surprised at the reaction of the Blue Alliance in this thread, very calm and collected with a 'it happens..' attitude. I have not seen a post by the winning alliance though.

I feel Blue should have been awarded what they had earned, but I'm glad they are being professional about their undeserved loss.

yeah well "animatorsarah" what ever, the "second" second match's factors were not all equal. strats were tried in the "original" second match and obviously if a team tried something once and it failed they arent gonna try it again......am i right or not??????????.............. i have heard that you guys changed ur autonomous mode codes and all this other stuff i mean im trying not to get all mad at the parties involved *one of which is my team* but i mean come on take into account the factors that would have to be changed in order to make it fair or equal.!!!!!!!!

1: If the autonomous mode was set to allow your 3rd partner, your controls would have the same problem. You would not have been able to drive your bot at all. This I could see as means for a rematch.

2: I saw the official step on it too also (via video, and clearer from soap's video). You may have decided to keep driving yes.. but you could have easily told your Human Player or Coach to get the attention of a Ref nearby. (They could have also).

Your human player should have been the first to say something when he saw your autonomous start going when he knew it wasn't supposed to.

dear God you're not kidding about confusion. I switched places twice (902) with 494. and, i was scared as heck when the guy said 'uh oh, that'll be a penalty, because i dropped all the boxes, and had to rush to get them up. you shoulda seen it, it really sooo sloppy i am now believing that the ref misunderstood the announcer (who was advising me) and either convinced 85's human player to step on, or did it himself in confusion.

however, thank's alot to all the teams who have encouraged us through this and i will not forget the kind words.

but i do have a question: my dad's company (a sponsor) wants a video tape of the regional (or atleast a few matches) where can i get one??

you can get video for the soap web site ( www.soap108.com )

The confusion equally bad on both sides. But you can tell that the ref stepping on the didn't affect when 378 didn't engage auto mode being that was what 85 wanted ( the whole backward human player thing caused it to be the wrong bot ) had the human players been in their right spots their would not have been any problem, but unfortunatly they were. But under GM3 (section 9.2 ) that is still not reason enough for a rematch ( first one in five years i've been told ). The way I see it the first time around was perfectly fair and next time make sure everyone is in the right postions.

As for me, one reason why i've been pushing this so much is I believe that we would have had a good chance at winning and it will be way harder at our next regional being one of the few ways for a even team to represent at nats I thought this was our shot and was extremely upset over this. My view is that all three teams in alliance 6 get the chance to go to nats being that we were denied the right to earn it.

Also I like to apologize to AnimatorSarah for Shark Mascot. The way his opinion was expressed was wrong and didn't actuatly represent our team. Most likely he is just upset and has been known to say things with out thinking. Sorry for team 226.

GM3 states that FIRST reserves the right to replay a match in the event of human error. There was an error made on the part of FIRST personnel at the event and the officials decided this warranted a rematch. End of story.

You were given a chance to earn it. You didn't. You lost in the semi-finals and had no chance whatsoever at qualifying for Nationals at this event. Sorry, but those are the breaks. You definitely don't deserve a spot at Nationals because you think, maybe, you might've done well enough to get there. What you think is irrelevant.

I think that, given the unusual circumstances, we should just live with FIRST's decision and move on. This matter, to me, doesn't need to be discussed nearly as much as it has. There are other more pressing inconsistencies in the way regionals have been run that, I think, warrant our attention.

If everyone that thought they 'were denied the right' earn their way to nationals went, there would be 800 teams competing at the event.

In any case, it's done. The call was made, the competition is over. There's nothing that can be done now.

- Katie

The point here is the only error made was the decision to play the rematch. Every advatage and disadvatage was given to both side for the driver station mix up leaving the first time perfectly fair. Being that the human players stayed mixed on the one side is not the error FIRST but that of the teams involved. So why should they be rewarded with a rematch because they failed to switch human players. I do relize that this most likely was not infomation that was brought up at the competition, but it does show the vaildness of the match.

As for the whole nats thing, I know not everyone would agree but in this case it appears to be the only fair thing to do. By no means would I want to discredit those who did win. But we did everything required and weren't even allowed to try. Just try and look from Alliance #6's point of view. Here you have three bots that work great together, they manage a come from behind win then are force to replay a perfectly fair match still win the match but fall just short of offsetting the first lose.

the right call
 

When they first made the call to replay the match I disagreed. But once it was explained that it was a FIRST error - and once it became obvious that the FIRSt error cost 85 their first move (manually knocking over the big stack after auto-mode ended), I agreed that they made the right call.

I don't think it makes sense for people to suggest that a team should stop in the middle of a match and complain to the refs. Any complaints should be taken up afterward, so that people can play the game.

Ken

hey all sorry for any thing said earlier that sounded really stupid and messed but im kinda like ya *my gf broke up with me today so im kinda looking for anything to complain about* but sorry for any inconvience I may have caused *sorry scott* i would like to know though what will become of this issue and how is it going to be resolved.

Nothing will become of this, and it has already resolved itself. Sorry to sound so harsh, but in the overall scheme of things, this has no importance, and noone cares.
Moral: Its called life, get over it

Cory

*i was appologizing for my earlier action*

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: