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.