Human Player Accidents During 10 Seconds
 

While in our last practice round at the AZ Regional, our human player tripped while getting out of the field as quickly as possible. She tripped and fell, and we were disqualified for the intire match when she was not able to return to the pressure mat within 15 seconds. She sprained her knee and it is now well swollen and she has to limp when she walks. 10 seconds is a very short ammount of time to move the boxes around the scoring area and to get out as quickly as possible. If FIRST is so concerned about safety, then why dont they make the time limit longer so the players dont rush? Another solution may be to modify the field so that there is no step to get out of the playing feild. FIRST could modify that part so it moves, similar to the bar that goes over the entrances to the field. Has anyone else seen or heard about anyone tripping or falling on the exit of the field during the 10 seconds?

-thanks
Dave

Driver, team leader - Team 987, Las Vegas, NV

2003 AZ Regional Semifinalists, w/ teams 696 and 222
2003 AZ Regional Xerox Creativity Award
2002 Highest Rookie Seed Award, Championships, Einstein Division, 5th seed

The whole idea behind the timed human player start is to make things complex. Go for a simple tower, or go for something more complex and mabey your bot will be disabled? But as for the trip, FIRST should have enabled your bot if it looked like she would have made it in time.

As for the barrier, it's there from last year and the year before and the year before that. It's for pertection from the bots hopping the railing and driving off into the stands. It's almost happened twice at Annapolis.

Don't Want to Sound Rude
 

First off, you can't change a rule for the game just because of one incident. Your HP tripped and hurt herself for that I am sorry for her, but FIRST is very close to a sport in which people get hurt some times cause it is there fault but most by accident. I have dislocated a shoulder and broken 2 fingers, in the last 2 years.
Secondly, FIRST wants to hold a certain number of matches in the 3 days alloted in order to provide ample competition and fairness, so your HP time can't be too long.
Thirdly the ten seconds was supposted to be a challenge, there is no challenge when you can walk out there, do some laps, play a game a solitare and return to the mat. I think you should be more worried about your friend than the 15 seconds that you lost.

-Janus-

A comment on the human player stacks-- As the human player for my team (449), i was one of the few hp's who actually tried to do something other than getting the four boxes inside the barrior ASAP. I ran across the field to make a combination stack w/ alliance ~5 times over this weekend, every time made it back in time, (although strategically we didn't want our auton to come on, so i waited a few sec's b4 i got back on the pad). I can clearly see the possibility for injury, esp. with that lip on the way in. Did they (the officials) make sure your hp was fine before going on? and after the match?
(As a side note, the other HPs need to try more interesting moves, not just quick-4 right inside, or sliding)

--Aaron, HP-449

In practice rounds, kristen took the stack on the field when the ref was counting down to show everyone how it'd work. Very funny as it was the first practice match of the regional :) I think she was embarassed enough.

During qualifying, one human player put a stack of 4 bins into the gray trying to stabilize it and also stepped into the gray. It added up to 4 minor penalties but the refs weren't trained well and took 30 seconds to disable us.

During finals, while trying for a stack of 5, 3, our human player didn't get back in time (11 sec) even though it was quite routine.

No, there were two crew people standing right near her, and never offered her help and did not help her get up. The crew personell continued to lower the bar at the entrance to the field and leave. No one came up to me (the driver/team leader) or as far as i know, my teammates or advisor showing any concern about her. I am aware the field has been the same for the past few years, but i think it could easily be modified to suit better safety standards. Also, the human player for that practice match, probably wasnt the best to do the job, but she was the only team member avalible to do the job. feel free to instant message me on AIM : JoeAssMan22
later
dave

I understand where you're coming from...since I don't want to see our HP get hurt (seeing as how it might be me :P) ...but I don't really see how the field could be made 'safer.' I mean, if you just kinda watch where you step, you should be alright. I understand there are slip-ups, but what can FIRST actually do to make it safe? Put padding around the entire thing? I don't think it's possible to make it so nobody gets hurt and still have the same game.

if you made the human player period longer, teams would try to do even harder things, and would still rush and have trouble.

as one of the two HPs on my team, i think the 10 second limit is cool, cause we can BARELY stack 8 in ten seconds, and doing other combinations is even more difficult, though possible.

I've never tripped over the barrier myself, but i do go running back to the pad to make sure our autonomous turns on, basically flying through the open gate with a sort of running jump and landing on the pad :D

One of our human players did fail to get back to the pad in time, and our autonomous period was disabled. They didn't disable us for the entire round though, so I don't know what's up with that.

Your bot is only disabled for the entire round if you don't get back in 15 sec. In the 10-15 range, it's only auton that you lose.

Glad to hear that other hps are trying interesting stacking choices.

there will definently be some tricky stuff going on when our team takes the field. I am able to get over to the otherside of the field (with 4) stand there for 3-4 seconds drop the stack and return back with about 2 seconds to spare. I have a couple ideas that will give our team eight stacks everytime, now that idea will only work once in a while, but we will have six stacks all the time, (I guess that's why my team picked a runner to be a human player)

Should they do pirouettes while carrying stacks across the field? :-P

Sliding a bin across to your partner to create a 5 stack is a very fast, safe, and efficient way to get the job done. It also looks very slick when done correctly. Our human player, Uriah, is a pro at this, as well as the 3-2-3 maneuver. His advantage is that he can handle the stack of 4 without difficulty, and he can do this while busting his tail to get everything done in time - he hasn't yet dropped a bin or been late to the pad. Many HP's seem to have trouble carrying the stack of 4 or moving fast enough to create more complex setups.

i can't believe no one went and checked on your HP to make sure she wasn't seriously hurt.....thats so inconsiderate....

As for interesting moves - one alliance had 4 stacks of 2 boxes all lined up in front of GeroniMOE for the auton mode. Our auton was disrupted, but we're pretty sure we didn't set the robot up correctly so it wouldn't have hit the top anyway. But it was cool looking :cool: .

Also, ReggieB, I remember you being appalled that we wanted you to NOT make it back in time for your Auton mode. I still think it would have been funny for you to do a waltz on the way back to your pad!:D ReggieB was definitely one of the fastest human players at the Chesapeake Regional!!

I think FIRST should make an exception if a Human Player trips and gets injured. It's not fair to penalize a team if they would have gotten back in time, but their HP got injured. It's like punishing them twice (injury and DA).

As for making other stack combos, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve... we've been practicing some interesting tricks.

I have been at 2 regionals so far and have played Human Player at both....my closest accident was in my first match when I stubbed my toe on the field border coming off, but I didn’t fall thank god ;). If I were to fall and make a total fool of myself Id rather not be penalized for it.

This may sound harsh...
Accidents do happen, but if an HP has proven himself or herself to be a total klutz on the field, they shouldn't be the HP.

Heh, someone tried that on us in one of our matches. Little did they know that our robot wasn't in dead reckoning mode for that match; it was is stack-finder mode. It knocked down three of the stacks and was about to get the last one when autonomous mode ended:) (It actually worked to our advantage that it didn't get the last one since we ended up winning that match, but we got to see our stack-finder at work in competition for the first time.)

Regarding the injured player, I am sorry to hear that your friend was hurt. How is she doing?

-Eva
Team 891
"The pi team"

HP
 

One round, our human player that was subbing in for me, cause im the best one around, took all four bins at once and knocked them over, than he STEPPED INTO THE GRAY CARPET AREA (mistake #1) to PICK THE BINS UP (mistake #2) and last but not least he went WAY OVER THE TIME LIMIT (mistake #3), they DQ'ed us for the whole macth!!!:eek:

Once we decided it would be best for us not to use auton so I was told not to get back in time. Yet, I still wanted to do it fast to hon my skills while not standing around looking silly. so I ended up moon walking all the way back to the pad!!! Quite stylish yet still simplistic!

Human Player Option
 

One way of eliminating the rush to return to the pad would be to allow human players to place bins for a 10 second period, after which a buzzer sounds. Any bin not placed, or any bin in contact with the human player is removed for the match. You would not necessarily start with 8 bins in your scoring zone. This encourages hustle, but doesn't make the HP run or jump to get to a pad.

Yes, the call as to whether a person is touching the bins at the buzzer or not will put more responsibility on the referees, but it will also improve the safety aspect.

I did see two slips at Annapolis, though neither resulted in injury that I could observe. 10 seconds to rush back to a pad is just ridiculous in terms of safety.

Our human player fractured his ankel when he tripped on the edge and rolled it at cleveland. He managed to make it back in time, what an effort huh? But what was even worse was the paramedics did not know what to do.

Pressure
 

If you were to trip and still had 3 or 4 seconds, how much pressure does it take to register the mat? Could I (or my teams human player) crawl or roll onto the mat and still have it register? Or does it need to have a full bodyweight (100+ Lbs) on it?

Just planning for the worse,
-Jamie

Errr, yea, HP do have accidents, I should knwo this being the HP for my team. At the Central Florida Regionals, I took a nose dive off the field...heh...


Let's put it this way, I made a stack of three, but they fell over, sideways, and it is to my understanding we HAD to have then bottom down, so I scrambled ot fix them all, and on the way out, I was so absent minded, I forgot about the raised area, soooo I tripped, and did a nose dive out of the field. And I scrambled to make it to the pad (which I succeeded in doing in 10 seconds BARELY) and No, they don't stop the matches... I had my arms on the pad shoving myself up to pull me over, so I think it only requires some pressure, needless to say, I just sat there for awhile, tore off the top of my knee, the palm of my hand, and now the Medics know me on a first name basis, this was about the 10th or so time they had to fix me up.


I think the 10 second HP is fine. Even though I got joshed on for all of the days (by refs, judges, other teams, mentors, parents and my own team) It make it more fun. We had stack of 8 at our comp, and not once did anyone get DQed, so needless to say, much much fun. But it hurts being HP....

Btw, I have the video of that now. It's at:
www.orbitreview.com/~temp/639movies/MOV01961.MPG

.. goody, my embarassment gets to live on, lol.

I watch that video and my face turns red.