Unfortuante luck...
 

As my team member Gope already pointed out, our ultimate loss in the Semifinals was likely thanks to an illegally placed bin which hindered team 525's ability to make it to the ramp in autonomous mode. Such bin placement had occurred throughout the day, but nobody bothered to mention it to referees. My position on our team requires me to understand the rules, so I was aware that the bin placement was illegal. Sadly, I was unaware of the illegal placements that had occurred earlier in the day, so it was too late by the time it happened in our alliance's final match. Although the outcome of our match would have perhaps been different, there's no telling.

I wish to congratulate teams 877, 1178, and their partner (whose number I could not remember) on their achievements this year. Your teams have shown great progress, and I hope to have the opportunity to meet you again!

Sorry, my mistake. I must've confused human player with human player bin.

It seems that FIRST disagrees with you: http://jive.ilearning.com/thread.jsp...ge=3256&q=6875

Also, if we used the logic that several people who refereed this weekend used with bin placement, then when the rules say that a robot must start "within" the grey area that would mean that the robot only has to be touching it, not completely contained in it.

The FIRST rules are so vague and poorly written that the bins could be hanging over the scoring area and they would count.

Frankly, it makes no sense, unless you want to block a bot using wedged boxes, to stack your boxes somewhat outside of the scoring area.

Dave,
I agree that Jive post you pointed out contradicts my statements. I was merely saying how it was called this weekend, and the rationale behind it (at least in Manchester). The Head-Ref in NH was someone from FIRST authorized to make "official" calls like these... this was how we called it, which leads me to believe that is how FIRST wants it. I'm not sure how much faith can be put in many of the Jive rulings... As mentioned in other threads, there is quite a bit of contradiction in there...

Hopefully FIRST will prepare the week 2 ref's accordingly, with a TRUE answer to this dispute. We'll just have to wait and see...

I'm no longer on the "official" side either... 229 is competing at UTC, so I guess we'll see first hand how this ruling goes.

Hopefully things will be ironed out WELL before Stang's week 3 regional.

Thanks,
John

Interesting. I know what you mean about the Jive postings as many of them seem to contradict each other. The reason I referenced this particular Jive post is because it seemed so definitive, unlike many of their other responses. I'm just very surprised that FIRST would allow bin placement in the grey area especially when it means touching the robot in there with the bin. If this is allowed, what's to stop a human player from using a bin to push a robot back further into the grey area before setting down their bin right in front of it? I guess I feel like the intent of the rule was to not allow the bins to intrude into the robot's starting area.
I'm not worried about our team. This "strategy" of bin placement hurts others a lot more than it hurts us. If it is legal, it will actually work out to be an advantage for us.

We suffered from the bins being placed right in front of us in one of the qualifying rounds, but we were ok with it, as we did not lose the match...

When it was done to 525/16/356 in the semi-finals, I was kinda ticked...I was hoping that alliance would win! (They beat us, and I would like to be able to say that we were beaten by the winning alliance) :)

Thank you very much.:D I myself, being the Alliance Captain, had talked to the refs. earlier that day but unfortunatly they would not sway on their earlier ruling. Which made me a little mad. However, I do want to say that I hope FIRST does come to a final conclusion on this before nationals. Good luck to all the teams.

I am amazed that such discrepancies could occur between the regionals. At Sacramento, if a bin hung over ever so slightly into the grey zone, you received penalties. Also, we received a DQ of our autonomy for the HP leaning over the rail. Not once did I see a HP intentionally violate any rules.

I know my team would get really mad if someone wedged bins in front of us. I really hope this issue gets ironed out before Week 3. The discrepancies between regionals are unacceptable.

FIRST has spoken
 

It looks like FIRST reiterated its initial ruling concerning illegal bin placement. Thanks to all who asked questions on the jive forums, and thanks to FIRST for clarifying the rule.

http://jive.ilearning.com/thread.jsp...rt=0&trange=15
http://jive.ilearning.com/thread.jsp...rt=0&trange=15

FIRST says they'll advise the referees of the rule, but you'd better print out the forum post to show to a referee if they rule a different way.

Mike

I dont think the referee's would like that too much =P

same thing at New York
 

Something like that happened to us at the New York Regionals. Our bot needs to fall down to get going, and the pius princesses put one of their boxes right underneath us. The match eventually got replayed and we got 193 points (box points).

I agree with many on this thread, there is too much illegal bin placement going either unnoticed or unheeded. Although this is a little unrelated, this is one of my least favorite games. It definately beats a few years, the floopies come to mind, but in my opinion this year's game itself is flawed.

Heh John, you beat me too it I was just about to mention that Princess dealy.