What would it sound like?

"We're sorry we provided you with this amazing experience, and organized this incredible competition, and this incredible event for you to participate in. We apologize for providing you an opportunity you cannot find anywhere else. We're sorry we only have a small staff, and are a not for profit organization. We're sorry we only have volunteers working for us, and not paid proffesionals. We're sorry mistakes were made, that we did our best to fix, and we'll try better next time."

Maybe your just looking for that last part... but I think you should take the other parts into consideration before you DEMAND an apology.

I'm not going to dignify this with a responce. Just read the whole thread and try to put yourself into our position.

Read the rest of MY post, and put yourself into FIRST's position.

Believe me... I sympathize with you and what happened. I understand your position. I believe I said so above... but I still don't agree with much of what you said. I'm just trying to make a point, which apparently isn't working.

I agree, FIRST is a great experience. However, I have beein doing this for 4 years and two teams and have never seen FIRST make an error such as this. The experience goes sour when an error FIRST caused may have jeopardized your chances in the final.

Then think of the irony, the same people that taught us gracious professionalism can't apologize for their own mistakes.

You just did.

You don't deserve an apology. You're a victim of circumstance and you'll just need to learn to deal with that.

What's particularly disheartening is to see that you're a college student -- someone who should be setting an example to their students by acting and reacting with professionalism and respect. Your job is to provide your students with the same amazing experience that you probably experienced while you were in high school. This isn't about you or your robot. It's about your students.

You're complaining about something that's so far removed from being even remotely important that you sound childish. Being picked by an alliance is an honor, not a privilege, and it's not even terribly important. Your emphasis on this -- and worse, your emphasis on receiving an apology for this is as good an example as any of all the perceived problems with gracious professionalism you listed previously.

You didn't get an apology at Philadelphia and you're not going to get one here, or from FIRST. Step outside the situation and re-examine what is really important. Was your students' experience any less valuable because of this error? Was it a waste of your time?

I hope not.

It seems to me like your "position" is that you are upset because you weren't picked and want somebody to blame. From my experience with FIRST (3 years), seeding means almost nothing when it comes to alliance picking and what is displayed on the big video screen means even less. During UCF, I didn't see a single Alliance Captain consult the screen for information as they all had team numbers written down on a piece of paper. Also at UCF, my team (6) was picked in the first pick of the second round despite the fact that we had been seeded 40th out of 41 for most of the competition.

Other things that go into picking: how well your robot complements theirs, how easy your team is to get along with, how reliable your 'bot is, etc. These are the types of things that teams use Scouts to find and not merely your ranking at the end of the day.

Also, you guys are already registered for the Championship, so why not just work towards being picked/winning there? If you're worried about sponsorship (which I know you say you aren't), wouldn't winning nats look a whole lot better than just a regional?

Finally, give FIRST a little slack. We've all heard about the issues their scoring software has had this year, especially in the elims, and I'm sure they're doing everything they can to fix it. As has been stated previously, events are under-staffed, and those that they do have working for them are volunteers that are willing to spend an entire weekend working their butts off so you can have a good time.

I was working as a volunteer during the allience picking, I was actually sitting behind the scoring table, and I noticed how frantically FIRST was trying to correct the mistake.

When I first saw my team up on the scoreboard as 8th seed... I did doubt that it could have been true (because I did know we were 16th). But if it was a reality, my real concern was "oh crap! does my team know who to pick?!?"

I only wish that when FIRST told us to "disregard what is on the board" that they told us specifically who to disregard, or take the board down completely my shutting it off or going to another screen. I have a feeling that teams were still using it as a tool because they knew it was "half true."

I agree that there is no proof that my team would have been picked otherwise. I believe that the big reason we seeded so high was because we were allied with decent teams during most of our matches. Also, out of the teams that WERE picked to play Saturday afternoon... I didn't think that any of them didn't diserve to be there, they all had good robots as well.

Neither my views nor Mike's represent the views of our entire team, and I apologize if any of you are misunderstanding our arguement. I know on a first-hand basis that FIRST is trying to be as fair as possible to everyone but that they are only human and mistakes do happen. An apology is always appreciated, but demanding an apology almost makes recieving one pointless. No doubt that the FIRST staff are also trying to live up to the "gracious professionalism" ideal, and although there is too much going on for them to express their apologies individually, they do still intend to make everything as fair as possible.

I only hope that this incident will be prevented in next weekend's regionals and at nationals so that other teams may have a fair chance. As well with the "light color" problem and the "purosely tipping other teams" rule. Actually... I do know that FIRST staff will try to correct these problems. Refs have a lot to think about during the matches and sometimes things slip, and after working a long day on the field, sometimes things just become unnoticed. It is unfortunate, but it is only human error. But I do believe that if something is mentioned to them... they will take action (aka: light color thing)

By the way, congragulations to the teams who did win Philadelphia... it was a very fun event.

ByE

erin

John -- some good statements -- I agree with you 100%.

FIRST does not owe anyone an apology for anything I have read in this thread.

1) The tipping issue was legal based on the fact that the referees did not call it. Thats the way it works -- it is their opinion at the moment it happens that counts -- not yours days later. Even if you produce a videotape "proving" your point that you were flipped, it doesn't matter -- the refs made their call from what they saw at the moment -- suck it up and move on.

2) The light issue warranted a minor match penalty, which the team was probably given. You may not like the rule, but it has been the rule since Jan 4th. Suggest a change for next year.

3) The video selection board is more for the audience than for the alliance captains. You make it sound like picking an alliance partner is like throwing a dart at the list of eligible teams and taking whatever you get. In reality, 2 1/2 days go into the alliance partner picking process. An hour before the end of qualification rounds, any top-16 team that doesn't have an ordered list of 24 potential alliance partners is putting themselves in jeopardy -- many teams do not prepare such a list, which means they do their picking based on their impressions of who is "good". It is you're responsibility to have your team in their heads as one of the desirable teams. Also, each alliance captain should keep track of the picks themselves as they happen -- this is not the first time there has been a problem with the selection screen, and it will not be the last.

If you are so hell bent on an apology being made, perhaps your team should apologize to itself for not doing a much better job at selling yourself to your competitors Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Or, perhaps, as a team mentor, you should apologize to your students for setting such a bad example of Gracious Professionalism yourself. It is your duty as a mentor to teach and show your students the true meanings of FIRST, including sportsmanship, humility and positive attitude. It is very disappointing to lose or not be selected when you feel you should be -- there is a word for that though: life -- and, as Dean explained to you, it is not fair.

Lastly, I think you have the direction of the apology backwards. I think that you as an individual owe FIRST an apology for publicly slandering them with your claim of incompetence. The claim is so ludicrous that it didn't even deserve a response here. The reason I responded is in an attempt to reverse the negative energy that is winding its way through this year's competition.

FIRST is changing as it grows. Many feel that it is losing the awesomeness of the experience. This seems to be somewhat true. However, the reason for that has nothing to do with the handful of people running the organization in Manchester. It has
everything to due with the attitudes of 20,000 participants across the country.

Well thats my 45 cents -- and Mike -- before you respond, if you respond, take a deep breath, think about why we all do this, take a step back, and go re-read your original post.

Aidan
:)

I agree with this, thank you for posting Aidan. I think it is important for all of us to "reverse the negative energy" as you so eloquently put it. I've been trying to do so more and more lately. Thanks again for helping.

Philadelphia Regional Referees
 

I appreciate all of your thoughts about the competition including the referees. OGRE has already responded to several posts about our calls throughout the day but I thought I'd take a quick moment to let you know what we did in Philadelphia to prepare for this past weekend. I have never posted before and registered today for this opportunity to share with you.

It is true that we are all volunteers. Some of us gave up time from work to be there, others took time away from their spring breaks or schoolwork and others had to arrange for their children to be cared for. Just like you, we have busy lives but believe that FIRST is an organization that is worth it. We did all have one thing in common. Each of us has been involved with FIRST in some capacity for more than one season. No one that came to Philadelphia to referee was new to the whole idea of FIRST. We had volunteered in various capacities before, been on teams, etc.

We met each other officially on Wednesday night and immediately began discussing the game. Most of us also spent the entire day on Thursday, watching the practice matches, going through the rule book, reading all of the updates and highlighting potential "hot buttons". We set up practice scenarios and discussed among ourselves how we interpreted the rules. We didn't end the discussion until we all agreed on a consistent way in which to rule. That included but wasn't limited to the type of paper we would use to measure whether a robot was on or off of the ramp! :) We felt that it was most important that we have concensus among ourselves to provide consistent rulings. There is no official training course that we could take so we did the very best that we could and know that many of you realize that.

OGRE kept a duplicate set of scoring sheets throughout the competition which came in very handy for that scoring error that was detected. It was simply a human error that was quickly and professionally corrected.

There are few if any sporting events in which everyone agrees with a referee's call. This past weekend's competition was a true testimony to the fact that you all understand the meaning of the words gracious professionalism. However, that doesn't mean that you cannot come and question a call or ask for clarification about a ruling. It's HOW you do it that's important. The referees would have been more than happy to explain how/why we made a call.

As FIRST continues to grow, it will experience growing pains and all of you share in its success or failure by the way in which you support the organization and offer it constructive feedback or destroy it by tearing it down. You can be part of the problem or be part of the solution.

My congratulations to all that participated in Philadelphia. I had a wonderful time watching the competition and cannot wait for next year's season.

Good luck to everyone that is participating in Houston!

I'm not ready to respond quite yet to the other posts but would like to respond to MOEWidow.

Perhaps my judgement that the officiating was bad and was off the collar. I was still angry about the allaince picking session and just threw the refs in for good measure. For that reason I would like to apologize to you and all the other refs. To be honest, I think you made the correct call during every match I watched. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we trully appreciate you volunteering for that extremely tough position.

I have volunteered to be a referee at the Championship this year, and while it will be my first time as a referee, I can say this. I will do my very best to make the correct decisions, but I can't guarantee that I won't make a mistake or make a call that some people might question. There are a number of situations, tipped robots being one of them, where it is not easy to say if something was intentional. There are no instant replays in FIRST, even for counting scores, and scores have been counted incorrectly a few times over the years. The people working as referees and most other positions do not get paid, but we will be spending two long days with few breaks, and will have a training session on Thursday. We will do the best we can. I have been on FIRST teams for eight years and have enjoyed it and think it worthwhile. Otherwise I wouldn't be spending my own money to go to Houston and wouldn't volunteer several hours of my time to help with the event when I could go on a cruise and take it easy for less money.

Have a good Championship, everyone, and rest assured the people running the event will be doing their best.

I was one of the scoring system volunteers at the Philadelphia Regional. Most of the time, including during the entire alliance selection process and the elimination rounds, the head scorekeeper (another volunteer, not me) did everything except the real-time scoring display. When he went on breaks, I took over operation of the scoring system. Allow me to describe the complexity of the job.

During Practice Rounds on Thursday, all we had to do was to depress the space bar when the announcer said "GO!" to start the match. Did we get that right 100% of the time? With a task so simple, you might think the answer would be yes, but everyone who was there the full day knows better.

Prior to the Elimination Rounds on Friday the true complexity of this year's official FIRST scoring system were revealed as the head scorekeeper went over the process with the rest of the scoring volunteers. On Friday afternoon, he needed a break and turned over operation of the scoring system to me. I was glad my son was by my side to call out each instruction to me. To say it is not a simple process would be the understatement of the year. Even so, it involved entering instructions into only one computer.

During the Alliance Selection process, I watched from the side as the head scorekeeper frantically tried to correct the errors on the display (125 was not the only team listed in error, and one of the other teams that was listed in error WAS subsequently picked). To correct the erroneous listings that were automatically introduced by the FIRST software, the head scorekeeper had to enter data on one computer and then enter instructions on another computer. He was totally focused on correcting the errors and getting the correct information displayed on the big screen. I really don't think that the full ramifications of what the incorrect display of a team number would or would not have on the alliance selection process was in the forefront of his mind. He just knew that displaying incorrect information was not what we wanted to do.

Members of my team who work closely with me know that I am a consummate perfectionist. I have worked with computers my entire 30 year career and know from first-hand experience that the old adage "computers don't make mistakes -- people do!" is absolutely true.

Did FIRST write the software for the scoring and alliance selection system? No. A FIRST volunteer did. A volunteer who could not start writing the software until after the game was announced. In writing this software, did this volunteer do everything they could to make sure you had the best possible experience as a participant or spectator at a FIRST Regional Event or The Championship Event? Yes. Is this software completely error free? No. Can this software ever be completely error free? No, not even if a paid professional were contracted to write it.

FIRST has very few paid professionals. One of them is Michael Robbins, hired just three weeks ago as their Director of Operations. He and I discussed the problems inherent in the complexity of this year's scoring system on Friday afternoon. He already was aware of these problems and we both agreed that there was not much that could be done about them at this point. But to his credit, he pledged to find a better way to run the scoring system for next year.

I believe that Mr Robbins is a man of his word, and here's why. When I subsequently told him of the simple but effective scoring system that I wrote for last year's Duel on the Delaware invitational tournament, he was very interested and asked me to send a copy to him. Even though I protested that it was only a simple PowerPoint presentation linked to a set of linked Excel spreadsheets, he still was very interested in seeing it. I believe that he will make sure that next year's scoring and alliance selection software and display system will be much simpler than this year's.

So, what is the point of all my rambling? Just this. There were mistakes made, both before and during the Philadelphia Regional. These mistakes were made by volunteers, of which I was one.

I am disappointed that some members of team 125 felt that the incorrect display of their team number during the alliance selection process cost them the chance to be picked by one of the alliances. The Philadelphia Regional was run by a lot of volunteers who did their best to make sure that everyone had the best experience possible. I think they should be thanked, not criticized.

Wow...
 

That is the worst thing i have heard in a long time and i believe that should of been called. Sorry about your sponsor though that is just sad.

I appreciate the volunteers responding to this thread. It really helps me to put things into perspective when the people behind the event respond.

I apologize for calling FIRST incompetent, as we all know is clearly not the case. However, I still believe that the error by FIRST jeopardized our chances in the finals. I also am disheartened that a FIRST official did not stop by our pit and inform us about the situation, the same way as the volunteers responded to this thread did.

The FIRST organization is growing by leaps and bounds, but I don’t think the infrastructure has kept up with the growth.

It is for this reason that I would like to volunteer and assist in writing and or debugging of the FIRST software in the 2004 competition. I’m sure all of you appreciated the new real time scoring. Obviously the FIRST software team is being stretched to its limits by all the new features.

PS: Great job with the new real time software feature. For those who didn’t see it, when a human player returns to his or her mat a check appears next to their team number on the video wall. White if they got back in time, yellow if they did not and your autonomous will not be starting.