Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I really am not one for whining or moaning or complaining about calls in general, however this has really gotten to me. If you feel this deserves negative repuation, so be it, it has to get off my chest. I am only an outside observer, but actions like this, should be pointed out.

The reffing at New Jersey was horrendous. Many of the decisions made by the refs directly contradicted what was told to the drivers in the drivers meeting. One major point was the clock and music for the autonomous mode being off a second or two. Drivers were told when the clock turns to 120 to step to the controls and start to drive, and to ignore the music. However, Refs were constantly throwing flags for crossing the line "before the music sounded"...I know for a fact this happened to numerous teams and reversed numerous outcomes to matches. I am too tired/upset to think of more, but i really feel this was horrible.

Then Finals came around...what happened there... They replayed a match that was the cleanest of all the Finals. Every match before and after had more robots on the ground broken. I echo all that Elgin has said. This call was probably the biggest mistake that could be made, and DEFINITELY reversed the outcome of the champions.

I have nothing personally against anyone involved. This has just really upset me, to see three teams who truly deserved a win and two that would have gone to Nationals, get thrown out because of a bad call.

I know nothing will change the outcome, but i feel that this tragedy should not go unnoticed. Sorry if this hurts anyones feelings or anything, but i really needed to get this off my chest, anyone that knows me saw how much this has torn me apart the past 29 hours. I have been in a constant state of unrest. Yes i know this is only a game, but people who have dedicated months of their young/or any age lives to building a robot that can truly perform are being hurt. Many teams did not have the privilege to sign up for nationals without first seing what their robot could do. They may not have had the money from themselves or sponsors or for whatever reason. But events like this are just disheartening.

And i also know they are only volunteers, but still, kids or mentors who know the rules can do this job better. Humans will make mistakes too, but still this really was too big to overlook. And yes they are volunteers, but why volunteer if you dont really want to learn the rules and make sure the best teams win.

If this comes out as broken english, I'm sorry, I cannot think straight.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

well, i was feild control/ score keeper at the regional. i job shared and watched after by 2 other people. (Walt, Josh) During that replayed match in the finals no robot was dissabled at all. infact there was a question afterword that if the robot had been having any problems whether we should have dissabled it. the refs infact never came to me to say anyone needed to be shut down. And from my end i did not even think that there where any problems with the match because i did not notice on my screen any flicering communications. its not till the IFI guy came over to me and asked if i had seen anything that i new anything went wrong. now the refs also never talked to me after the match they where talking with Walt so i dont know anything more about the call.

Next year, and or next week since im going to philli, i hope they get all the bugs worked out of the FIRST system. Scoring was hell, and real time scoring had so many problems it hardly worked.

But congrats to all the teams that won, and even to the ones who didnt. up until quarter finals we really didnt have many problems.

George again great job! you where awsome! thank god i didnt have to fill in for you that one match! i would have needed to get out the mittens!!!

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I noticed the same thing. Even though we managed to win the regional our bot was beat up pretty badly. we were pulled over 2 times in a row by the same robot in our quarterfinal match by the same team! If we were pushed by the base of our robot and we were unstable i would have let it slide, buit one time the robot hooked the tetra we were holding 8 feet in the air and pulled us over. The other time our arms got tangled and, unfortunately after sotting on our back wheels for three seconds balanced, the other team pulled us right on our backs and didnt even try to let us right ourselves. I thought the refs could have done a better job with the pushing penalties, is this battle bots or first? I shouldnt complain too much tho because as the driver of 1279, i did do my fair share of pushing in the finals and accidentally pushed 56 and 237 over in the same match (they were a bit unbalanced and had a tetra in the air, i also pushed low). I felt bad about it though because I knew what it felt like to be non-operational for the remainder of a match and to watch your team lose.

In regards to the finals, excellent matches teams 56, 237 and 303. I have heard that they were some of the best matches at any regional yet. Thanks are in order to team 103 and 375. You guys really held your own out there. Also i would like to thank team 56, our mentors from our rookie year in 2004. We learned alot from some of you guys last year. It just proves what a great team you are. And team 303, our neighbors, right across the highway BR- excellent job, another successful bot from the panthers. 237 what can i say except you were so reliable and consistent- the only team to cap the vision tetra in autonomous i believe. Excellent work.

-Mike
co-capt/driver of team 1279 cold fusion robotics

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I'll second that. Some things definitely get you.. almost like you got shot up the butt. Very few of us know what some people[no names] are going through right now because of bad calls, bad judgment, politics etc..

This could've been better, way better.

Sorry, I could not resist posting away from the GP side. This hurt way too much.
-Bharat
p.s. no offense to any of the award winners

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

The conditions on the field this year were not up to snuff compared to last year. We had a horrendous amount of problems with autonomous not starting at all because of the field, or losing control of our arm, or having autonomous finally start with only 5 seconds left. The IFI guy told us he had nothing to say about it, but obviously we were not the only ones negatively effected by field problems. The pressure pads were a problem as well and it took the officials half of the day to realize that Pad 2 on the red side was malfunctioning. During practice matches on thursday I was on Pad 2(as HP) and when I would step off the pad and be half way to the robot the robot would drive backwards! We alerted the field staff of this problem but it happened again in later matches and on Friday as well which resulted in a match having to be replayed! Both player stations were behaving very strangely and I hope we don't have the same field at Philly!

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

As one of the volunteers, I'd like to say this. Don't get offended I'm just stating what was going on from the other side of the field.

The refs, along with all the other volunteers, are just that VOLUNTEERS. They take time off of work and away from their families to make sure that the events are run as smoothly as possible. They aren't experts, and are human. They make mistakes just like everyone else.

I understand that you guys are upset, and you have every right to be.
You might not like the call but you have to respect them as a whole. I know it must be torture to ref 100+ matches. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. I can only imagine what was going through their heads knowing that this call was going to effect the outcome of not only the match but also the regional.

You also may not have noticed it but the refs switched sides every match in the elims. For example in the first match refs 1,2,3 would be on red and 4,5,6 would be on blue. The second match 1,2,3 would be on blue and 4,5,6 would be on red. Then if a third match was needed the refs would mix it up. 1,3,6 on red and 2,4,5 on blue for example. This made it so there was a fresh set of eyes watching each robot each match.

So that's that. Let's just try to put this behind us and make the next four weeks the best ever.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I will emphisise what The Voice of NJ just said, the refs are volunteers, and well they dont have to do what they have to do, you should all be lucky we are able to put on 30 regionals, because of the vounteer base we have

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

he's right, they are only volunteers and they are trying the best and hardest they can, there were over 100 matches for 3 straight days, human error is going to come into play somewhere with that many matches. I salute any volunteers for helping out, there were some mistakes, but nobody's perfect, i was happy and i'll be happy to come back for more.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Hey Mike, or any other mod.

I would like to post the video of the match in question before this gets closed if that is where it is heading if that is ok.

If not.. whatever.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I will second what Corey and Bharat have said, the referees calls were very inconsistent. I do not want to get into all the details because most have been stated already, but it could have been a lot better.

And just a little side note to 1279, we were the alliance against you in the quarters, our partners were 1626, the team you were entangled with twice. No offense, but you guys were battling, they were not trying to knock you over, but just detangle themselves from you. They did their best to keep you from scoring, and it just ended that way. ( sorry if that sounds agressive, it isnt meant to be in anyway, it was a great quarterfinal )

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I will be a Ref at philly next week and seeing this regional really gave me a lesson in what not to do and what to specifically address during our meeting together. I was a volunteer so I got to watch everything from the field level and just absorbed information. There were a lot of missed calls and such for pushing high, and the entire sound/timer thing should have been better handled. I spent four years on team 303 and two of those years as a driver. After going through numerous ref calls that I disagreed with, I decided to become a ref myself. Every year I studied the rules and made sure that if anyone had a question of legality involving the robot, I would know. At Philly I hope to make things a little more fair.


On a side-note about the field:

The fields electronics were COMPLETELY redone this year, new computers, new cabling systems, new scoring system, etc. Unfortunately, I don't think FIRST fully bug-tested the system, hence the problems. This is also why the FIRST website didn't get match information for the NJ regional, they couldn't sync up with FIRST at all to send the data. After the computers crashed during the first attempt at alliance pickings, all the QF match data was gone. As I was leaving one guy was sitting there re-entering every match from the score cards. Hopefully the coding issues will be sorted out by nats, hopefully earlier.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Thats deffinatly true poor john had to sit there and re-enter all the scores into the computers. 2 computers there as a back up and a main. he must have sat there forever. and thats saying if he even got the system to work. did anyone also notice that this year we were not working out of our huge computer desks, they where just little lap tops. everything was new and rewired.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I totally understand that they were just playing defense, but twice in a row that somebody got tangled in our arm and pulled us over? i just thought maybe a penalty should have been called or at least the team should have been warned. Not to mention we were yet again pulled over by the arm later causing half of one of our arms to bend. I do agree, there were bad calls, but I expected it. Hopefully the last couple regionals will be made that much better because of it. It was a fun quarterfinal tho, very intense. Congrats to the other catholic school 1626- St. Joe's, you guys really amazed us here at Immaculata.

Also in reply to what 237 said. I know your alliance had nationals on the line, as did we, but I ill have to disagree with your calling that the cleanest game. I'm not trying to create any arguments, but two robots fell over and one wasnt responding to controls in the last minute... do you know what it feels like to watch none of your alliance robots work and the other team continue to pile on the points? i did accidentally knock two of your bots over in the very next round, and i really felt we should have returned the favor and redone that match as well. I am sure that if your robot wasnt responding correctly to the controls (due to field error, not human) throughout the match you would have been upset. Thats just my two cents tho, you guys did a great job. Oh and as a side note, i think the first game we played was the best one of the whole competition, red beat blue 39-38. that match was very clean and very fun.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Ok in that quote you said that the match that was cancelled was the cleanest out of all of them. What match were you watching. Our alliance had two robots on their sides and one robot disabled before the match was even 3/4 of the way done. I understand that they all played by the rules but it definitely wasn't the cleanest match. You people talk about the championships like our alliance was supposed to get spanked by 56 and their alliance. In the one match that was 100% fare without anybody getting falling or becoming disabled, the match was decided by only one point. You talk about how three teams that deserve to win don't get to go this year, are you saying that our alliance doesn't deserve to go? Thats what it sounds like to me. We all worked hard and the cards just happened to fall in our favor I personally thought we were two evenly matched alliances and luck just happened to be on our side.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Please, if you want to criticize referees, do it in private. These people take time out of their lives to come help you. They are human, they make bad calls, but it is not fair to come out and put blame on them for problems at the regional. Things like pushing high and causing a robot to tip are completely subjective. Some referees may know the rules well, but haven't seen a FIRST competition before to know what an acceptable level of rough play involves.

And also, FIRST told us last week they wouldn't be updating match results online due to unreliable results. Personally, I think the new setup is much cleaner than the old, and will be fine once the bugs are worked out.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Although I wasn't involved in any of the finals matches, I did witness all four from the stands. From what I saw, I have to completely agree with the decisions the referees made. I think they let the robots battle it out without putting any robots in direct harm of being severely destroyed.

After watching a few regionals on webcast in the weeks before NJ, I feel NJ was the best refereed regional. Their interpretation of the rules was excellent. This regional wasn't burdened by unnecessary penalties. I know in one of our quarter-final matches, a robot touched us while we were in the human loading zone. However, the refs did not count this as a penalty. I politely asked why, and they explained the our robot was in, but not 100% stopped so they didn't feel it was any threat having their robot touch ours. The opposing robot backed away immediately thereafter and no flag was thrown. Even though the penalty would have helped us, I think the refs made the right call. I suppose if they had followed the rules EXACTLY, it could have been a penalty... but they didn't feel the action merited a penalty. I tend to agree.

Just like any other sport, the finals are always the most physical/rough. It's over now.. so who from NJ is going to Atlanta?

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

be consistent in what you plan to call for the violations at both Human and Automatic Loading stations. That was a bit of a problem at NJ

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Ok guys, calm down. I agree, bad calls suck, but venting on Chiefdelphi won't do us any good right now. Instead, take it to the offical FIRST meetings that will be held after Champs. I too think next year rules need to be enforced more, and rules should be final after ship, but there is nothing we can do now, only hope that FIRST and the refs realize what has happened and learn from it.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

..OR maybe some refs just dont make up rules and penalties themselves and give out penalties just because they feel like it or does not like the way a driver is standing in the driver station.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

I feel terrible about some of the things that have been occurring and I really want to see everyone find some sort of balance. There were so many amazing teams competing at NJ and all teams should be congratulated for their outstanding efforts and successes because everyone was just that, successful. So many teams and their alliances were worthy of winning the event. NJ was perhaps one of the most competitive, aggressive, exciting competitions I have ever witnessed, despite many of the issues that have been noted. I cannot say that I was not terribly excited about winning, but I can recognize why many people are upset with the outcome. All the teams that we went up against throughout the finals were fantastic and deserving of the regional win. I can easily understand both sides of the situation and concur with many of the things said by both sides. Mistakes happen, unfortunately, and I feel very upset that people have been hurt by what transpired, but at this point in time the outcome cannot be altered. All the FIRST judges, referees, and volunteers, and all the teams as well, should be thanked for all their time and effort whether or not mistakes occurred. Everyone should be terribly proud of what they accomplished, because, sincerely, whether or not you were recognized with an award you have truly done great things.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Video..

And let's just make this a Y.M.T.C. scenario for laughs.

http://www.team237.com/videos/finals_nj.wmv
Warning - (19.8mb)


As you can see, the 375 robot hit the center goal as the announcer says 21 seconds remaining, and yet..
The blue light in their players station (far left blue side) is still activated in turn making it a team fault, and not making it a field error by any means.

This is why some people are very upset. So, try and be understanding and not just sweep this incident under the rug as a alliance of sore losers...

Thanks.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Well first, 237's hit on 103 should have gotten them disqualified because they clearly hit 103 *very* high...

And they may have ran into the center goal due to the loss of control. Through out the day, they did not have that type of driving (turning and almost flipping, running into goals, and if you look, its almost a coast into the center goal, not a drive) Just my observations from actually being at the regional as well as watching that video.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Do you recall what happened in the next match? 2 of our alliances teams were tipped as well.. Video coming soon. (cause I knew someone was gonna comment on that)

Explain the blue light not flashing then in their alliance station?

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

In reply to us not moving the last match. The release valve was left open and we were pretty much stuck in neutral. It sucks yes, nothing can change from it, and trust us, most of us on 303 feel terrible about it. All i can say is that, all who competed deserved to win, i give full congrats to the winning alliance.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Indeed everything stated above is true...375 hits the center goal and stops moving...yet their light remains lit.

From this it would be assumed that this was a team fault, unless they were disabled for some reason that was not legit. It is a tough call to make.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Ok guys, this has gone on far enough. The moderators, were kind enough to open the forum back up to allow Elgin to post his video in the hopes that this would straighten things out. Bun instead it has just lead to more sqwabbling. This isn't what FIRST is all about. Why is it that when a robot breaks down in competition the other allaince will take their time out to give the broken robot a chance to get back in the thick of things without a second thought? But here we are just going around in circles and pointing fingers.

Last year at Palmetto the winning allaince team 11, 122, and 281 were faced with this decision. A robot of the other allaince needed repair and they took their time out, when the time out expired the robot was still not working so the other allaince took their time out to help out the broken allaince. Then when there was confusion about robot placement 11,281, and 122 were faced with the choice of either going 2 on 1 with the legal robot or, in the spirit of FIRST allow the "illegal robot" to compete. What happened? IN THE SPIRIT OF FIRST that allaince let the "illegal robot" to compete, knowing full well that their decision could cost them the regional.

HOW IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT HAPPENED IN NJ? That allaince did what they did for the love of FIRST and they wanted to see the best match possible. If a robot said they were having communitcation errors, than that is FIRST's fault and they should be allowed to compete to the best of their abilities, the refs recognized this and made their call.

Let's let this be the end of this. Put this behind us and get on with our lives. No amount of finger pointing or name calling or any of that will reverse what has happened.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

That is one indicator that they were not disabled. However, those lights are new and malfunction frequently. At Pitt, the red ones just stopped working on Sat.

The best indicator that they could not have been disabled is the blue LEDs on their bot were still flashing. The LEDs go solid when the bot is disabled (just watch 237's solid red LEDs while they are loading). However, the pattern of flashing seemed to change, it is hard to tell b/c the camera moves (makes it hard to focus on it and it lowers the encoding quality). This might indicate a loss of signal. The operators should notice a flashing No Data/Radio LED on the OI if that happened. It is always good to train your operators on the control systems so they can tell the electrical team what happened.

So in summary, they were not disabled, but they might have lost signal.

Hope this clears things up and cools down the arguement.

EDIT: Sorry I was posting when the announcement ^^ came out

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

that is a good point never thought about the LED lights its hard to tell if the pattern changes, and i dont believe their was a problem with the lights at the operating station just the numbers when it came time for semi finals and finals kinda weird but we delt with that

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

We should really just stop arguing about how things went down. Bound Brook should know how thankful we are for all the help they've given us, especially last year when we got to use their practice field. The calls weren't ours to make, but the games were finished fairly, even though many robots, including our own, were tipped. That's just how the game goes.

I'm kind of worried that some are complaining that we didn't deserve to win, but my team mates put in so many hours building the robot every single night at our only mentor's house. We didn't have a single engineer and no real sponsorship. We raised all the money ourselves and the only help we got was from a student's father who took time off his construction business to encourage us.

After Trenton I was just so proud of all the teams, no matter if they came in last or anything, we all worked hard and everyone did fantastic. Anyone who attended Trenton, we can't wait to see you at Nationals if we can manage to raise the $5000 by then. We're running out of sources for sponsorship.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

we all can make remarks about bad reffing but in the end everyone got a fair share of both

however some of the finals were a little crazy
but i rather liked it that way

i mean sure we got hit really hard and it ended up making us unable to move our arm for the next 2 rounds
but that enabled us to experiment with the pushing capabilities of our robot

the refs did their best and everyone has a right to complain but that will do nothing to change what happened THEN

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Alright, as an old 237 member I do agree with what 237 claims. The alliance of 303, 56, and 237 are the winners of the New Jersey Regional of 2005. I have also seen the video which shows 237 clearly winning this competition. It seems the opposition had some mis fortune and I recommend looking into the FIRST Robotics Competition Manual for a ruling.

It is not fair to take away a win from those who deserve it. That call has nothing to do with gracious professionalism. That one small call cost 237, 56, and 303 a 1st place.

If 375, 1279, and 103 wants to be considered for gracious professionalism, they should give up the 1st place award and graciously take 2nd. My opinion!

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Unfortunately this is not their decision to make.

I'm rather disappointed myself at what happened during the competition. I certainly feel bad that it had to come down to this, and I feel bad for the teams that feel they were slighted because of bad calls. We know that these bad calls were made in abundance throughout the qualifying rounds, but to have it happen while everyone was watching in the finals really demonstrates why officials should be better trained before they are made in charge of such a task. I'm not saying that I don't value their work, I just think that some were ill-equipped for the jobs they were given.

What bothers me more, however, is that we're more concerned about winning the competition than we are about the FIRST experience as a whole. Sure, not having it happen to our team makes it a lot easier for me to say, but I know that our team was esctatic about the regional (minus the little outdoor excursion at the end) and all we walked away with was 25 bronze medals, a headful of ideas, and a renewed energy that will carry us to our next competition.

I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't be bitter about the outcome -- what I AM saying is that, in my own opinion, you will need to look beyond this before it becomes too destructive for you to take back.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

That call has everything to do with gracious professionalism. In the second match which was redone, 1279 and 103 are on their back due to being flipped. 103 is hit high, as can be seen at 1:44, by 237 who drives over to it for that purpose. I'm sorry if I sound un GP, but how did our alliance not deserve the win? Two robots flipped and one disabled, and the match was supposedly clean? 103, 375, and ourselves worked very hard all season to get where we are, and then we go into a match where we're told we will lose, but don't, and now we're told we should lose anyway because what people expected and a call that's final and done with.

We have to stop arguing about what should have or will happen, and focus on something like the rest of the season. I know 56 is going to Philadelphia this weekend, so good luck to them and anyone else who is attending! I know they can do it.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

In my heart right now, are the true winners. Enough said. The answers lie with FIRST right now. 303, 56, and 237 are the champs! For words of wisdom, watch out for these guys in Atlanta.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005
 

Ok, I really do not want to join in this fight, but I feel a responsibility now to throw in my two cents because this is starting to get out of hand.

One of the first things I learned when I joined robotics was that members of our team were to accept the outcomes of matches and the decisions of referees gracefully. It would not be acceptable for a team member to scream, blame, or otherwise hurt other people over a loss or a bad call. The aim of this expectation was not to tell people that it wasn't ok to be upset. Instead, this expectation was meant to prevent bad feelings from getting out of control and hurting people. With that said, I think that it is time for everyone to move on. Step back, take a deep breath, and remember that this is only a game. Do you want FIRSTers to be known as being no better than soccer moms screaming at the referees unnecessarily from the sidelines? Do we want to continue to be divided over "who should have won" and continue to hurt those who were involved?

We all experience big disappointments in life, and life is never totally fair. Same goes for what happens in FIRST. There is nothing we can do to change what happened, and I feel that pointing fingers and venting frustration is not helping ANYONE here. Sure it is ok to be upset after your team loses. Sure it is ok to be frustrated when a ref makes a mistake. But you know what...? It is NOT ok to post hurtful things in a public forum, where people from both sides - winning and losing - are able to read about what happened. It is extraordinarily upsetting, and it does nothing but fire up people's tempers. It does not help us to MOVE ON.

I don't want to pick on anyone in particular, but the post that I have quoted above really makes me feel upset. To tell teams that they are not "graciously professional" and that they should give up their win because of factors not even in their control is crossing the line for me. Again, I want to remind everyone that while it is disappointing, it is NOT OK to gripe over something as trivial as a regional win. Yes, you heard me - trivial. Step back for a moment, and think about what FIRST means to you. Is it really all about the "winning" and "losing"? If so, I think that you need to re-examine what the whole experience means to you. Because FIRST is not just a robotics competition, nor is it about "winning" and "losing"... the name of the organization speaks for itself. For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Are we inspiring anyone here by saying hurtful things and arguing about something that we cannot change? No, we are discouraging. Are we spreading a good message about science and technology, or are we making people divide into factions... therefore retarding the promotion of science and technology to young people?

I apologize for this rant, but I felt that I needed to tell everyone to just CALM DOWN, take a deep breath, and move on. Reflect about the positive experiences that you have had this year, and focus on the good things that have happened. Think about your audience before you post. Put yourself in the shoes of the people involved. Whatever it takes for you to put this experience behind you - don't speak, write, or act in a way that will ruin the experience for other people, because FIRST is not about discouragement. Encourage and inspire, and you will be fulfilling the real intention of this competition.

I am done now,

-- Jaine

Oh, and if I were a mod, I think I would close this thread in a hurry, if things don't start to improve real fast.

Re: New Jersey Regional 2005