AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

**PLEASE NOTE:**

We know it's too late to change anything; regionals ended yesterday, but we want to bring it to your attention that we don't think FIRST's scoring software is working correctly. Here's why:

**

As of Friday evening (the second day of the AZ Regional event), the FIRST Robotics scoring software was down, due to a program malfunction. The score board was back up on Saturday morning, and all was fine...or so we thought. Throughout the course of the day, our scores were messed up, including at one point on Friday as well. It was brought to our attention by one of our mentors that they had messed up on the win-loss-tie portion of our score, which subsequently misplaced us in the ranking. We spoke to the judges and the error was corrected, no problem. We had a running tally of our points and ranking on a huge white board at our pit, so we knew where we stood in the game at all times. On Saturday afternoon before it was time to choose alliances, we noticed that again, our score was messed up. We were posted as having won 6 matches, lost 6 matches. Instead, it should have said that we won 7 matches, and lost 5. So, a friend and I from the team went up and spoke with a judge, and we were told that due to software malfunctions, the scoring that was currently up was incorrect and considered void, and not to worry because it was going to be corrected.

Well, it came time to pick alliances, and in the whirl-wind of it all, I was chosen to represent my team on the field and we were, in turn, picked by Chandler High to be in alliance with them for the finals. I was under the impression that we were in 11th place at the time, because that was how we we were told that we finished...but during alliance picking, the top 8 teams became consolidated, and so #9 and #10 were called in to be alliance captains. I expected us to be #11, and when it came time to call in an 11th captain, there was a debate...the FIRST officials pulled off to the side and had a discussion for a few minutes as to who was to move up in the ranking list...and we weren't called. It struck me as odd, but I let it go. I guess my gut was right and I should have asked a judge what was going on. Thanks again to Chandler High though, we were picked and made it to finals, even though we didn't win.

Here's the catch: the final scored posted for the AZ regionals put us in 15th place, with 6 wins and 6 losses. Unless the judges changed something without my team's knowledge, we are all still under the impression that we won 7 matches and lost 5. If you check out this site of the final scoring positions: http://www2.usfirst.org/2005comp/Eve.../rankings.html , you will see that we should have come in 9th place, or even tied for 8th. That means that with the way alliance were chosen, we would have been team #8 or #9, making me, (as representative for my team #698), an alliance captain.

I've spoken to my mentor. He told me I could take this to FIRST (and I am) to at least find out why the scores are incorrect, or if they changed it for a valid reason. I know it's probably to late for any hope of nationals (we lost the final matches), but at least maybe this will be an effective word of warning to other teams about the scoring.

**IF YOUR SCORES COME UP INCORRECT, FIX IT IMMEDIATLY! YOU MIGHT EVEN CONSIDER TALKING TO AT LEAST TWO JUDGES TO BE SURE OF YOUR POSITION.**

Best of luck to all teams that are preparing to compete, and watch out for that scoring software!!!

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Oh wow, that is quite a mistake they made. You would think with FIRST they would have a programming error fixed immediately. It sounds like a simple program that can easily be fixed. I wonder what happened and why? Are you suggesting that FIRST find a better way to score and have a back up system in place? If so, I agree with you!

When it comes to scores and rankings, believe me, I don't want any mistakes to happen. 1 position is crucial to whom you may be allied with or competing against. I guess this is very valuable lesson for programmers at FIRST and hopefully the same mistakes won't happen next weekend at other Regionals.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I do not know if the actual rankings at the end of regionals were off, but I do know the scores and rankings on FIRST right now are off, and that they were screwed up during the playoffs on Saturday (they looked correct at the end of qualifiers on Saturday, but for some reason changed during the playoffs despite the fact no new qualifying matches were played). At the end of competition, there were 5 teams that finished 9-3 and held rankings 1-5. Last check on the site (and on Sat.), 2 of the teams were listed as 10-2, two of them were listed as 9-3, and one was listed as 8-4.

We wrote our own program for our scouting team to keep track of records (as well as stats like caps, total points, autonomous caps, etc.), and relied on that the later part of Friday to determine the rankings as closely as we could. We do not have the qualifying points section set up in our program, but I might be able to check it and see how the records of your team as well as the team that moved up to #8 (team 64) compared.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

We agree that the scoring should have been fixed immediately!! That is unexceptable for a first event. We think the score is wrong too. Team 842 Falcon Robotics, we thought "they" knew something we didn't.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

FIRST always knows something we don't lol!

But I will agree with you, scoring errors due to programming is very unexceptable. Yes these things happen but they have to be fixed immediately.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I hope that FIRST gets a handle on this stuff before the rest of the season. That's terrible that we've all struggled to make our robots and teams ready to compete only to be stymied by blunders like these.
We pointed out an issue with the ranking system early Friday morning. The errors were in our (991's) favor. FIRST thanked us for our gracious professionalism and informed us that when scores/rankings are posted they are final.
There were apparently also issues with the competition control system that we all plug in to. The buzzer to end a match came on about 5 seconds into RC mode in one of our matches and that, oddly, coincided with disablement of our robot. The IFI rep told us that our backup battery hit the controller reset button. We jiggled it around and it didn't look to us like that was possible, but like all FIRST judgements, that was final (it is what it is).
Regardless of the problems with the sanctioning body, The AZ Regional Planning Committee put on a wonderful show and we all had a blast playing the game!

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Ranking errors are definitely unacceptable. I was under the impression that the current issues were only with the web results and occasional oddness during matches the we experienced at GLR. I can deal with bad web results and MCs having to tell teams to ignore the extraneous buzzers and gongs. If it appears that the actual rankings are off, then the issue is either isolated to some incorrect entries by scorekeepers or it's a much deeper issue with the software possibly improperly updating records or some such. I've made scoring errors in the rush of a regional, but I've always had the matches on paper and a heck of a Head Ref at Lone Star that'd figure the scores himself and let me know if there was a discrepency. If there's no paper backup this year or the game is too complicated for refs to score themselves, then this could be a factor.

Also, to repeat what I've said in a few other threads..

From what I've seen of all the scoring displays, etc., it looks like FIRST has gone with a completely new scoring system this year and they're still working all the bugs out. Last year's system was mostly brand new as well. (I think the software was based on some team's prior efforts) Last year there were lots of glitches and oddness in the first couple of weeks, and even all the way till Lone Star when I was running it. By Atlanta, last year's scoring system was working very well, so one can hope that they'll get all the bugs out of this year's new system by then as well.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

At Sacramento, we won one of our early qualifying matches. There were no penalties, and it looked from the stands like we had been beaten, so I was surprised. Later in the day, the win disappeared from our record, and our ranking dropped significantly. When we talked to the officials, we were told that there had been a mistake. I don't know where the mistake occurred, or if it is at all related to the problem at hand. However, I know that the officials were far too busy to be double-checking everything, so the way that the mistake came to light was probably by someone pointing it out. I don't know how many other problems like this were missed. It's hard to be critical of FIRST, but I hope they get this all straightened out soon. It's a real bummer to do everything you need to do with your robot and your alliance, only to have it fouled up by the computers.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

The link you point to here is also wrong, we were 9-3 not 10-2 neither was 555, we were all tied for 1st place and we got it because of 15 qualifing points against 12, I am sure they will fix it before it gets posted on the FIRST page.
Hey but how about the good things ? For the smallest Regional this year In think that the highest score in the nation must be when 498,1492 and 1290 managed to score 112 points!!
We really enjoyed the week-end , the game is exciting and we will keep working on that elusive vision tetra.
see you all in SVR.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

We had many similar problems for our team at the Pacific Northwest Regional.

Friday morning we first competed in round 3, which was announced as a win for us (17-6). We were 4-0-0 at lunch when the placement screen suddenly changed and put us as 3-1-0 without us ever hearing any reasoning. After talking to the pit administration and field officials, we were told sometime in the afternoon that this was because round 3 had been miss-scored and was really supposed to be a loss for us with a score outcome of 4-6. We questioned the scoring having been changed hours after the match but were disregarded and told that the judges call was final. This disagrees with the regulation that scoring disputes must be settled within minutes of the round conclusion - especially considering that there were no questions raised from either side about the outcome. This severely impacted our ranking at the time, dropping us from 2nd to below 10th.

After Friday's matches concluded the ranking for teams was also unavailable, leaving many teams including us unsure about our placement and unable to do our needed scouting research for the Saturday afternoon alliance selections. Friday night we found we were able to pull up the placement sheet online, but we were again shocked to see our record saying we were 6-3-0 when we had only run 8 matches during Friday’s rounds. Further research of the lists available online showed that we had lost a match that we hadn’t even played yet with a score of 0-3. This also affected our ranking, which would have screwed up any other teams that were resourceful enough to check online while doing their scouting research. Saturday morning’s match ended up being a win for us (25-23) after re-running the match due to field equipment malfunction and one of our allies unable to control their robot.

Our greatest concern was with the errors made during the alliance selection process. We were ranked 7th before alliance selection began, but as teams shifted during the first two alliance selections, we disappeared off the list rather than moving up. One of our team leaders immediately brought this to the attention of the nearest referee and a judge on the field without much response and after persistence the ref finally went to talk with someone about it as alliance selections continued. At the same time, our student coach who was in the pits watching the screen noticed and went directly to the pit administration desk where he was told that they would look into it. Somehow we reappeared on the screen when it came to calling the 5th seed alliance captain and we were called up, as we should have been. The problem with these multiple errors and not stopping the process was that we were not visible to representatives on the higher alliances who may have otherwise chosen us. Other team’s representatives were questioning where our team was on the screen and claimed it impacted their selection. Our team leaders went to speak with the head computer person as soon as possible. No one could figure out how the error had occurred. At the same time, another team also came to report that they too had been dropped from the seed team lists at the same time. We were told that the alliances have been selected and they didn’t think there was anything that could be done but would discuss it. When we checked later during lunch, we were told that nothing could be done and that our team would receive a personal apology for graciously accepting the circumstance. Paul Shay apologized to the driving team while they were waiting for their first quarterfinals game.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I don't know all the details of the situations and I do know FIRST is trying very hard at the job they have to do, but from what I read here this is just plain unacceptable. I'm terribly sorry for anyone that had to go through this. One can only hope that the future brings success.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Oh boy, you have NO IDEA how much I would appreciate it if you could check your records. If you can't, I'm totally fine with it, but it you have that availability, I would be so happy if you could. If you'd rather, you can email me personally at CaitlynMcH@aol.com.

Just to let you know...I am still going to contact FIRST personally and see if I can get any more information out of this dispute. I know our chances of nationals are over, but I would rest easier if I knew the judges made a scoring error or something and had legitimate reasons for changing our wins/losses tally.

Keep an eye out for any errors! :ahh: We are obviously not the first teams here to have experienced problems!! Thank you all for your gracious support in these mess-ups, and best of luck to each and every team.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

We had ranking problems at the Pittsburg Regional. It wasn't a problem with wins and losses, but rather a problem with the rankings in the alliance selection program. During the first round of alliance selection, teams picked among the top eight seeded teams. The selection program needed to fill the voids with new alliance captains. Unfortunately, the program did not pick the next highest seeded teams to fill the voids as it should have. They went through both rounds of the selection process without noticing this.

During lunch, they had to hold a second draft, starting with the new alliance captains in the seventh and eighth spots. Everything worked out ok, and I commend the FIRST officials for holding a second draft to fix the problem.

FIRST still has to iron out the bugs in its new software (which runs on Windows :rolleyes: ). If you are in a potential picking position (ranks 9-15) make sure you know your ranking and the rankings of other potential pickers so you will notice a problem as it arises.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

At the UTC semifinals, we lost our first match, but then in our second match, we won by two points. However, the judges didn't count one of the tetras, and even though we had the entire field on video, they didn't want to watch the video - we ended up losing by one point and falling out of the finals. We told them right after they put the score up! I guess that I can see where the judges are coming from in that they don't want to waste time reviewing every single play, but perhaps there should be some contingency for ties or 1 point differences in scores?

Then again, we were blue, so perhaps it was part of the communist scheme? :P

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

If I recall correctly, the process at Lone Star Regional usually involves the Head Ref checking the score with the teams before it goes in, so we'll hopefully avoid most of these problems in Houston....

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

There are some problems with that system. The major one we noticed at UTC is that we were up against ourselves a few times.. They would display the scores, and the red and blue alliances would be the same. They should fix the buzzers sounding in the middle of the match.. I can't see any reason why they should.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I'm not 100% sure on this (but lets just say 99.9%) but FIRST isnt using TacOPs this year (as they have in previous years) ..

The sounds of Windows XP playing throughout the arena (TacOPs ran on freebsd), and the numberous problems they've had (Sac had trouble with finals selection also). When I was watching the FL regional, they also had a problem with the arena computer (kinda funny, caused like a 10 minute delay). Lets not forget the real time scoring. The only time I saw real time scoring was in the FL webcast, and it was only there for about 2 matches.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, we shold be respectful to FIRST, and allow them to deal with the scoring problems .. keeping in mind FIRST isnt just about robots. Getting mad at the officals for scoring problems probally wont help. If you're worried about your rank for the alliance selections, I wouldnt. The best robots will be picked for the final matches (1038 and 175 - 4th ranked alliance on Curie in the 04 CMP, picked us .. ranked 52 out of 73, and we went on to win the division) Pure evidence that ranks done matter.

With that said, I think it would be wise for FIRST to have the scoring system/arena computer fixed .. since they probally payed a pretty penny (and we dont see "Hatch Technologies" as a sponser) for that custom system, it might as well work right :rolleyes:

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

You are right, and I have the highest respect for FIRST and all that they do. FIRST isn't just about robots, but I still cannot just bypass all of this without just the slightest hint of dissappointment. I know we lost, and I am perfectly fine with that, but I do want to just express that my original post was more a word of advice to other teams to be careful and keep an eye on scores...as replying posts have proved, we aren't the only team experiencing scoring issues. Please, please don't misunderstand me. Without FIRST, we wouldn't have any of this...without FIRST, we wouldn't have these forums to post in, we wouldn't have that availability to build robots, and we wouldn't be able to compete. FIRST is the #1 best thing that has ever happened to me to help me advance my future and career, but I just want other teams to know that the scoring isn't perfect, so players beware. Please, enjoy your regional competitions, enjoy the nationals, and if you are involved in FIRST robotics, pat yourself on the back! You are one of a select group of us that have these opportunities, and we are the future of engineering. :) It makes me proud to stand beside each of you out there, knowing that my ideas count for something greater, and a better future for all of us. So, thanks is in order to FIRST, and we will continue to do our best to catch mistakes and errors, just as they have for us, whether it be in robot inspection, in competition, or just in working throughout build season.

Thank you to all the teams out there that have helped in any way, your support has already fixed so many issues!!

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Ranks most certainly do matter. If a team should be ranked #1 and they end up ranked #4 or something, then it's not a good thing. They even matter if you're not in the top ranks. When #14 or #15 ranked teams end up picking alliances, they often have poor scouting and end up picking the higher ranked team they can find. When it comes down to it, though, teams and their sponsors are also investing a pretty penny in this program. They deserve a well run event without all these glitches and problems.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Not sure if this is the same issue or not, but GLR had problems with the end match buzzer as well. The sound effect wouldn't play, leaving the announcers to make their own "bzzzt!" noise or to wait for it to trigger.

This might have been related to the timer, though; the match timer was about five seconds fast for most of the competition.

We're going to have to keep an eye on this one next week. If anything weird happens at Detroit, it should be noticed by someone - lots of established teams there, and Paul and Dave emceeing if memory serves - but being a bit paranoid about it can't hurt.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

IMHO you hit the nail on the head here. I was reluctant to post at all at first, but now that I think more about it, I agree with Kevin here. We can sit back all day and say "oh it's new" or "their trying hard" or "it has some glitches" or "they'll get it fixed soon" but the bottom line is we are customers of FIRST The first rule of business is that the customer is always right. You can say FIRST is not a business but in the end we pay them money and they provide us product and/or service so it can be thought of as a business. We pay $6000 to attend one of these fine events and we expect better. If I order dinner at restaurant and it comes out wrong, I expect them to fix it and make it free. While I certainly don't expect FIRST to be reimbursing teams for the unfortunate mistakes, I do believe these mistakes are wrong, no matter what the cause. A formal investigation, appology, and correction should be made as soon as possible.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Exactly. We were basically told "too bad, go pack up your robot and get out of the way", without any form of appology or GP. I don't demand that they fix the outcome of the match, but it would be nice to at least get an apology and some sort of assurance that such problems would be prevented in the future.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Teams do have to pay to get into the AZ Regional...it is a $5000 entry fee; just to enter in those doors and compete. It's well worth it, but no good if the scoring software doesn't work right. :(

I hope they get it fixed for the regionals to come!!

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I believe (hope) that FIRST is hearing all of this and understands how upset some teams are and is just too incredibly busy with regionals and fixing things to say anything at the moment. They handed the PNW regional mix up in a very admirable fashion. Hopefully they will handle this in the same way.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

YIKES!!! do a little checking before you explode. 35 teams at a regional paying $6k each come out to $210,000.

I think you would be shocked how much more than that it costs to put on a regional, and thats not counting the kit of parts, the year round work that has to be done

and the fact that almost every person working for FIRST at a regional is an UNPAID volunteer.

You are not even coming close to paying for what you get at a regional.

FIRST is a program designed to show students what a career in engineering and science is like. The robotics competition is only the platform, the bridge we cross, the project we take on in order to go through a quick engineering design/build/test cycle.

the competition is the 'test' phase - the chance to see how well your team did against the specifications of this years project.

What do you win if you win a regional? a trophy that is about 98¢ worth the plastic! If you goto the nationals and win, what do you win? 10 million dollars? full scholarships for all?

When you start thinking of FIRST as a robot building contest you have left the pavement and you are in deep weeds. That sort of thinking throws your whole perspective out of wack, and you end up in serious trouble.

Thats not what its all about.

That is not why thousands of people volunteer their time and their own money to be a part of FIRST.

That is not why sponsors give millions of dollars each year to host regionals, and to fund the nationals.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Whoa whoa whoa. Ok, please don't blow this up. I only posted this as a way of informing teams that yes, there has evidently been some software issues, but please don't make this out to be what it's not. FIRST is NOT just about the robots, it's about getting the opportunity to make your future better and to enjoy the chance that we all have to be engineers.

Please please please don't think that I'm dissing or complaining about FIRST. Think of this as an informant that teams should just keep an eye out and inform FIRST of software issues. I've learned that the program they are using is relatively new, so they've got bugs to work out. In other words, give FIRST a hand and use your GP to help them make the program better for future regionals, nationals, and years to come. FIRST is my hero, without them we have none of this, and I would never want to bite the hand that feeds me. I owe everything to FIRST Robotics. This is just a heads-ups to everyone to use your GP and give FIRST a hand in working out the bugs.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I don't believe that the rankings on the FIRST website are correct, at least for the AZ regional. I know that team 555 was not the 1st seeded team, we were the 2nd and did not have the record that is shown on the website, so I don't know how reliable the information there is.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

First, team registration fees are obviously paying for something. They wouldn't have jumped 20% if they were a pittance just necessary to pay for the kit of parts. And don't think $6K is all teams are paying either. They have to pay for hotels, travel, other robot building expenses, etc. More than $6K goes into most teams as well.

Second, yes, FIRST is about more than the robot competition. Despite this, the competitions are obviously rather important. Else, why have them? They get kids excited about FIRST. Building a robot is fun, but watching it compete is also fun. Feeling that your team has missed out because of a simple software glitch in a new scoring system that's being beta tested on the field? Not so fun. I wouldn't want to go to my sponsors and tell them that we missed out on winning a regional because FIRST is still dealing with scoring software bugs. I think our team's sponsors would be just a bit upset with FIRST.

The point of this is really that there are quite obviously problems with the scoring system and we haven't heard anything about it from FIRST. A team member from a team that attended a second week regional is the first person to let other teams know that they might want to double check their scores and rankings.

EDIT: Another thought. We always talk about how we want FIRST to be more spectator friendly and be taken seriously as a bowl of smarts and a sport of smart people, etc. How seriously would John Q. Public take one of these regionals with random buzzers going off or announcers having to fill in for the end of match buzzer?

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

you dont get it. FIRST is everyone. Your sponser is as much a part of FIRST as the people at the headquarters in Manchester.

If there is a problem with the scoring system get some people down by the judges and volunteer to keep track of the scores manually.

FIRST is not a company. Its a non-profit organization. Everyone who is involved in it (including your sponsor company) IS FIRST.

Sponsors dont care about plastic trophies- they care about the students as individuals - they care about what career you choose to persue.

If they wanted fame and glory and attention, they would be sponsoring a NASCAR team instead of a FIRST team.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Please calm down, FIRST knows of the problems and the guys who wrote the software have been working on fixes and bugs that weren't caught before the regionals almost, if not daily since the first Wednesday of the week one regionals. If you look at past years, this years scoring system is more solid and faithful then any years past on both ends, what you see and what the scorekeepers see. It is good to hear of any problems you may find but please leave the insults and smart remarks at the door. Also judges (the guys in blue) have nothing to do with the game at all, please don't approach them with a game issue. Also the Refs (guys in zebra stripes) have nothing to do with the scoring beyond whats on the field, if you do see a problem alert the field manager or head ref with what you believe is an issue and they will try to have it resolved. Keep cool and hopefully this weekend will be better.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

But it is. Do you think a bunch of nerds and geeks would travel to the middle of the Arizona Desert just to have a good time being together? Absolutely not. And to quote myself from a post a few months ago
Without them, none of us would be here. It IS about the robots.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

In a somewhat related note, you may be interested in hearing that in Pittsburgh, some of the first round and all of the second round picking had to be re-done due to problems in the ranking software.

The team that was ranked 7th was inexplicably ranked much lower on the screen, and subsequently was not allowed to pick. During the initial picks, this team was picked in the second round by one of the top alliances, and so given an excellent opportunity at winning the championships, they did NOT file a protest. They had a much better chance being a 2nd pick of a top alliance, than being the 7th ranked picker.

The alliance that ended up with the 8th pick in the inital selection I THINK filed a protest, because had they not been 8th picker, they would have been a 2nd pick of a top ranked alliance, giving them a much better shot at the win.

At any rate, all the initial alliances at Pittsburgh sat and discussed strategy for 15 minutes, started to have lunch, and then were all called back to the field for re-selection.

It was slightly frustrating, and we were forced to change our 2nd selection on the second attempt. However all in all, the right decision was made, and we were very happy with both results from the picking. It was weird picking team 337, discussing strategy with them, only to have them picked by a different alliance the next time through, and have 337 be a part of the alliance that eliminated us :o .

-SlimBoJones...

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

First off, this year's scoring system isn't more solid than past years'. I was scorekeeper at Lone Star and the only problem I had was a delicate computer system that had been shaken up rather badly on the back of a semi. It frankly astounds me that we're having scoring problems this year when things were working perfectly well last year.

Secondly, despite FIRST being a non-profit organization, it still answers to a board of directors. I'm quite certain that they have more say in what happens than I do. Anyways, it's about perception here. If I asked my sponsors to get me some volunteers to manually track scores and rankings because the scoring system that worked last year is no longer in use and the new scoring system doesn't work.... Well. Sponsors probably don't care about plastic trophies, true. They do care about how programs they are investing money in are run.

I think I've said my peace and certainly can't make my point much more clear. I'll save the rest of my comments for Team Forums and whatever other effective channels of communication are available to me.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

YES!! YES!! YES!! I love this post. I would give you a few rep points except it seems to indicate I already did..

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

After reading this thread, I am a little disturbed by the fact that the scoring problems were not just confined to Phoenix. I just hope that the issues are resolved by the next batch of regionals.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Howdy folks.
I'm the student coach of Team 1425 that Jeffrafa mentioned and I thought I would put in my $.02.

Regarding the scoring change hours after the match: Its not so much they changed the score, its that they didn't tell us (or anyone for that matter). We just found out the score was changed, and we had to go contact the proper authority to find out what was going on. The official response was that the the communication between the judges and announcer/scoring man was the problem, as the score was not properly conveyed. Not that I think they are lying, but I find it suspicious that when they saw the score on the screen, no one brought anything up.

I do commend FIRST though, as Paul Shay came and personally apologized to us and the other team involved in the seeding and alliance selection fiasco.

Not that the mistakes should be excused, but its not like we didn't have the opportunity to show our stuff and win.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Before we go any further I just wanted to clarify that there are two types of people in the FIRST events.

Judges: Blue shirts, determine which teams to give awards to.
Referrees: Black and white striped shirts, give match scores and penalties.

Okay, carry on. :)

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I don't agree.

FIRST is not just about robots. In order to see what FIRST is about, just look at the name (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). There is no mention of a robot in there.

What FIRST truly is about (in my opinion at least) is spreading the inspiration of the technology field to other people (kids, females, minorities, etc) than what is considered "normal" for the technological field. FIRST helps people succeed. In some areas, FIRST keeps people off of the street and changes their life. FIRST is just another one of Dean Kamen's methods to change the world; we are merely his pawns. FIRST teams make a huge difference in their communities (just look at all of the chairman's award winners. So far, I have not even mentioned anything about a robot. The robot is just merely a side effect, an instrument if you will, of the goals of FIRST. Heck, in FIRST there are PR people, Animation people, Inventor people, and only about 1/2 (my rough estimate) actually work on the robot.

I guarantee you if you walked up to Dean Kamen and asked him, "Is FIRST about robots?", he would immediately say no.

Ok, time to get off of my soapbox

-Daniel

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Don't forget about the white shirts: the volunteers who setup, reset, and take down the field before, during, and after the competition. There's also that long line of people sitting down the back side of the field who are trying their best to run things smoothly and get information out to everyone. I think everyone at the regionals are doing their best, and they are not the source of these problems.

I think the problem lies with the people who work on the software and the logistics of the competitions before the regionals start. I believe they need to find a system that works and stick with it. Have you ever helped setup and take apart an official FIRST field? I had the opportunity after the AZ regional to get close and see how the fields were built. I was amazed at how efficiently the field was constructed and able to be assembled/disassembled easily. There were many small touches you could tell were added because of lessons learned from previous years. If the computers and the software were as good as the field, then none of the problems mentioned would be happening. To me this suggests that the people working on the software aren't as experienced with it as the people who design and build the fields year after year. I predict that if the software doesn't change radically that in a few years they'll learn just like I'm sure the field designers have, but only time will amend the current software instability situation.

However, even if the rankings and scoring records were perfectly accurate, I believe that they are still inadequate. This year especially with penalties, I don't believe that the information provided in the rankings is valuable. They don't include penalties, they don't say which team was penalized (or what for), and they aren't accessible anywhere but at one end of the pit (at least at AZ anyway). Teams with limited numbers don't have the ability to scout the majority of the matches and can't choose good alliances based on the limited data provided. I wish FIRST would record more of this information and find more places to display it to make life easier on teams during the regionals. If not more screens on the field side of the curtain, I would love to see FIRST ensure a wireless internet connection at every regional and post information rapidly on the web.

I hope that FIRST listens to the feedback from teams this year like they have done in the past, because this year I think most teams will be expressing their concerns about the topics brought up in this post more than others. Maybe the reason for this is because FIRST has improved a great deal many other things so well in recent years.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I'd like to start off with saying that I was a scorekeeper this year at VCU. I was also a scorekeeper with Ken Leung at SVR in 2003. That is what qualifies me to talk about the scoring system.

I had a long rant with the details of most of the issues we had at VCU. I decided that the details are not really necessary to bring out the point that there are major issues with the scoring system, and the scorekeepers often are to busy to check the scores and rankings. If you have a problem, have two clear headed individuals talk to the field manager. Write down the pertinent information and have that with you. When you have 10 team members crowding around the head ref asking why a score is such, you will have a hard time getting a good answer (if you get one).

I would request that the conversation not related to the scoring issues, including the importance thereof, be moved elsewhere. It is much easier to find the root of a problem without a lot of distractions.

I would also like to personally apologize to anyone who was slighted at VCU. We tried our best to deal with the issues that arose, but I know for a fact that we were not fully successful. I will be sure to talk to the scorekeepers at Annapolis this Thursday to attempt to prevent such problems there.



Wetzel

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I was Field Manager at GLR.

First of all I would like to apologize for the problem we had with the sound controls. The problem seemed to be introduced when we downloaded an update to the scoring system during the lunch break on Friday which corrected the team ranking and alliance selection process. Paul Copoli did an amazing job of immediately telling teams to ignore the extraneous sounds. We found a reboot would correct the issue for what appeared to be about 15 matches before it would reoccur.

Due to the problems at Regionals in week one we were constantly reviewing the W-L-T records. I don't believe we had any discrepancies, however if anyone knows of a problem please let me know.

Mark Terelli from FIRST did a excellent job of staying ahead of the bugs found.

I fully agree with the post above, if you believe there has been a problem have a team member calmly contact the FIELD MANAGER and if possible bring evidence. The Judges (Blue Shirts) have nothing to do with the game. The Refs (Zebras), give the match score to the scorer, who inputs it into the machine. The FIELD MANAGER can sort out the issues, the scoring team is working hard enough to stay on top of each match.

Again I apologize for the issues at GLR, and I want to thank all the teams for their patience and for giving us some awesome competitions.

Also, huge thanks to the teams that helped us with teardown and all the other volunteers.

Ben Tower
GLR 05 - Field Manager

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Most all of the other aspects of FIRST center around the robot. The animation team does and animation of the robot. The inventor team draws the robot. The chairman's team uses the robot to show off some times and talks about the robot building as a way to get people interested in engineering. The robot could actually be anything however. It's just an interesting technical challenge. But you need that challenge there for the other teams to play off of. It's the hook that gets people in and it's the vehicle of transferring engineering knowledge from mentors to students. It's the only way Dean will be able to get students to look at engineers as heros. How many teams have you seen with a chairman's award and absolutely no robot? Now how many teams have you seen with a robot and no chairman's award?

EDIT: BTower, great job with GLR. Despite the weirdness it was a well run field and I never noticed any scoring oddities there.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Now, first, remember guys, FIRST people. LOTS, read these boards. I know that the scoring system is not perfect, but when these things come up, we don't help them. They know there are problems, they know there are flaws, issues, and bugs. Remember, constructive criticism. :)

Also, I remember last year the software was downloaded onto antique hardware at the VCU regional, it took all day long to do it! I remember the manual ball drop, and no ranking information AT ALL. While it would be nice to have a good software program, and only one, over the years, I think that's what this Hatch program is for; an open, expandable program that allows for as many teams as is needed on the field at one time. I have a feeling that not only Hatch will control the FIRST fields, but the VEX field at Atlanta.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Posted By Kevin Sevcik

"First off, this year's scoring system isn't more solid than past years'. I was scorekeeper at Lone Star and the only problem I had was a delicate computer system that had been shaken up rather badly on the back of a semi. It frankly astounds me that we're having scoring problems this year when things were working perfectly well last year."

I'm struggle to see where you came up with that idea, as many of you probably are unaware of, there were serious problems first week of regionals last year. I was up until 3am both wednesday and thursday night making the field and scoring system functional enough to run practice rounds. There have been less updates this year then last year as you might not be aware. This years software is leaps and bounds ahead of last years. Don't get me wrong, TacOps was a great idea and worked well in the end.

I have been scoring regionals for the past 6 years, this year in no way is near as bad as past years. Yes there has been some issues with rankings which is a top priority right now. I'm not sure how many of you know really what it takes to develop a piece of software like this or the time constraints that were in this particular situation.

I know its very easy to get upset at mix ups and such with the scoring, but i'm not sure how many of you have had to be in that seat and be responsible for the scoring at an event. It is a stressful thing and takes alot of patients to deal with team members upset with something.

Posted By JonBell

"At the UTC semifinals, we lost our first match, but then in our second match, we won by two points. However, the judges didn't count one of the tetras, and even though we had the entire field on video, they didn't want to watch the video - we ended up losing by one point and falling out of the finals. We told them right after they put the score up! I guess that I can see where the judges are coming from in that they don't want to waste time reviewing every single play, but perhaps there should be some contingency for ties or 1 point differences in scores?"

I'm not sure who you talked to, I was the score keeper for UTC. I remember two teams approaching me talking about how a tetra was there and the ref's missed it. You must realize any video tape or pictures when brought to the attention of the ref's, really is a moot poin as they will not review it as stated in the rules.

I think people need to realize really what it takes to put this competition on. FIRST is very aware of the issues at hand and are working at them in a timely manner. I think people need to step back, take a deep breath, and calm down about this whole situation. When issues come up, they get resolved, simple as that.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

We may very well be leaps and bounds ahead of where we were at the same time last year. The question is whether we're leaps and bounds ahead of where we were at the END of last year. It's somewhat silly to ignore all the patches and fixes that were made and the fact that at the end of champs last year, TacOPS was working much better than this Hatch system was working at the beginning of this year. To munge some old adages, if it ain't broke, don't reinvent the wheel.

If the time frame was so very very compressed and forced FIRST to go with buggy software.... Well why not spend a transitional year patching last year's TacOPS to work with 6 robots and concurrently develop and debug the Hatch system so that it can be released in full working order? There would be atleast 200 teams available for testing in off-season competitions. All FIRST would have to do is provide a field. There would be more time and less expectation of perfection. Instead, the system is being tested and debugged while it's being used. 1000+ FIRST teams have become beta testers.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Uki,

I am really surprised at your response considering your extensive experience with FIRST. As a group, we are probably the most knowledgeable as to what it takes to develop software to do scoring and placements. The basic algorithm for the scoring and placements is not rocket science and could be written in any programming language, spreadsheet or database program. I realize that the graphic display and web interface can be complicated but that is not the part that the teams are upset about. The accuracy of recording scores, ranking the teams and alliance selection needs to be guaranteed by FIRST or else their reputation will be tarnished.

The tens of thousands of team members, that have spent hundreds of thousands of hours and tens of millions of dollars, deserve and accurate system for scoring. Any less is an insult to time and effort they have spent building robots to compete.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

This is the key. We don't build robots with the intent to win by pure luck or chance or the whim of some malfunctioning computer system. We intend to win by the effort we put in, the skill we develop, and the strategy we create.

If we come to expect to have a computer messup ruin our score/rank, why should we try hard to win?

And for those of you who say it is not about winning, it IS. Without a "win" to strive for, there would be no competition and we would be years behind where we are now. This is not an exhibition, it is a competition. In the real world, people notice you when you put on a show, they notice you when you are better than the next guy.

Competition is the key to this, well, competition. And innacurate scoring reduces the energy put forth in attempt to score well.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Hatch has been working on this scoring system since before Kickoff giving them plenty of time to get it working. Why did FIRST decide not to use TacOps? Well I have several ideas but it definatly wasn't because it was too hard to change TacOps to support 3 teams per alliance, that would be extremely easy to do since TacOps was written to be used year after year.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

My theory of why goes back to the nice, new wall-o-attennas that we have. I heard that the new Hatch software controls the atennas along with the robots for autonomous, the field components, etc.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

TacOps did all of that too, minus the anttennas which are new. TacOps has been used for years at competitions, mostly in the off-season which is why it worked so well last year. It never had the problems we have now it just didn't have all the features which were not necessary to run a competition.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I was trying not to get into specifics or hurt anyones feelings but I guess i've gotta let the real truth out.

TacOps was a great program, but there are many reasons why it wasn't continued. First of all, as you said it was, "TacOps has been used for years at competitions, mostly in the off-season which is why it worked so well last year. It never had the problems we have now it just didn't have all the features which were not necessary to run a competition."

That wasn't true, he was working on it 3 months after championship fixing things, we didn't even have live scoring till late in the season. And this big problem you seem to think we have, was not caused by the scoring system. It was caused by the game design commity changing the rules of the rankings before last week's regionals. I'm sure most of you got the latest update that states that.

The other reason why TacOps was not used was because Alan Bradly donated a enough PLC's to be used for this years competition. And at the time, there were NO unix or linux drivers for Alan Bradly PLC's. There would have had to been drivers written, which would have cost FIRST even more money to do, along with the fact they would not retain ownership of the code written specificly for there use.

They also wanted to get to a more commonly used operating system, the reason for that is they did not want to ship the large crates used for the scoring system last year. All this years off season competitions will get is disc, as of now FIRST will not be providing laptops.

One of the other big contributing factors is that Hatch only had a month to design and test there software. I will tell you right now, TacOps had far longer then Hatch did for this, as people who said in this thread before, the software had been developed for years, why did it have so many issues last year then? If it was such a great and wonderful program, why was there so many updates and glitches last year?

So we don't have another thread about this next year, can we all just encourage FIRST to continue its development of the software we have now, so we aren't fighting about this the same time next year? Lets not go 4 for 4, 3rd time is a charm.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

The rule change (released 3/10) shouldn't have impacted w/e #1 events (released 3/3-3/5) , though. Also it should not have impacted win-loss in this example: I saw a team in Florida, 1390, have two wins and one loss, yet their stats showed up as 1-2-0. Their first was an outright loss, no penalties. Their second, an outright win. Their third they won even without the opponents penalty.

Are the scoring and field controls closely tied together?
If so, why? Could the scoring be modular and extracted out? The only thing the field should need from scoring are the team numbers for the display and maybe the match number. The clock can be started and ran outside scoring, if not done already.

Scoring (calc of QP and RP) is virtually the same as last year, minus update 15. If match scores and rankings are being adversly affected, why not switch to an excel spreadsheet and "hand compute" the seeding? That would at least preseve the integrity of the tournament.

KA-108

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

The number of half-truths, mistakes, and just plain wrong statements in this post is staggering. To touch on just a few of the issues:

"the reason for that is they did not want to ship the large crates used for the scoring system last year." The shipping of large crates had absolutely nothing to do with the reasons for the change in the field control system. In fact, the new field control system is almost exactly the same total volume as the previous system. There is no change in the number or size of the crates involved, and the shipping volume was not a consideration in the change.

The statement "It was caused by the game design commity [sic] changing the rules of the rankings before last week's regionals" is complete farce. The errors in the scoring/ranking software have been there since the beginning of the season. They were masked by the other errors in the system, so they just were not as obvious to the audience and teams (e.g. Richmond Regional; it is hard to concentrate on the rankings when the field is running two hours behind schedule). The changes to the ranking structure were made in response to the errors discovered during the first week regionals, not the other way around.

The statement "Hatch only had a month to design and test there [sic] software" is garbage. Hatch Technology has been developing the new control system since last August (and for the record, Hatch Technology is represented on the Game Design Committee, and Hatch has known the tournament structure and scoring rules since they were developed last summer/fall; if anyone says that the GDC did not let Hatch know about the game/scoring structure until too late, then they are demonstrating their ignorance of the subject).

These are just a few of the errors in the referenced post, but I think you get the idea. This NOT the "real truth," it is "real fiction."

As an aside, one might be well served to take the advice of this post.

-dave

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I've got to agree with Dave on this one (cringing as I type that ;) ). It's one thing to post thoughts, guesses, opinions - that's all good and is what makes discussions on this forum interesting and enlightening. However, it's a whole other thing to make statements claiming first hand knowledge & facts without actually having first hand knowledge, facts, or accurate information. I agree with Dave that being irresponsible in that manner is at best misguided and incorrect, while at worst just plain fabrication and mis-truths.

Just to be crystal clear so that people don't make any assumptions based on purely wrong information:

1. There were a number of reasons for going with the new scoring software this year, and none of those were mentioned in the post Dave replied to.

2. Hatch Technology did two things for FIRST this year - they improved /streamlined the field hardware setup and they created the scoring software. They did a very nice job with the field hardware improvements - it's slick, well organized, much easier to work with, and is working well. They've had problems with the software, are aware of it, and are working on getting it fixed. I'm sure Hatch would be the first to tell everyone that it hasn't worked as well as they anticipated and some glitches they didn't intend to exist got by their testing and into the competition season. It is what it is, they are working on it, and they very well may have everything working perfectly and as originally planned from this point on.

3. Hatch has been a part of EVERY SINGLE GAME DESIGN MEETING AND CONFERENCE CALL since JULY. Uki - that's OVER EIGHT MONTHS! NOTHING has changed regarding the alliance selection, the playoff brackets, the team rankings and pit displays - these are all things they were able to be working on since the summer. I'm sure you were just given wrong information by someone who didn't know what they were talking about, but the people at FIRST are smart enough to ensure that the people doing the software were aware of the game, the scoring, and all the needed displays well over 3 months ago. Claiming FIRST only gave 1 month to design the software is nothing short of 100% innaccurate. The Hatch people will tell you they've known the game since the fall and have known the scoring/ranking/display needs since well before the kickoff.

4. FIRST was assured the software was tested and working before the competition season began. In week 1, it became evident there were some glitches in the system that went undetected. They tried to fix this problems for week 2 and weren't successful, with more glitches being found.
Again, it's as simple as this - some mistakes were made, they weren't intended, and they are working hard to fix their software.

5. We worked with Andy Baker and Joe Johnson this week to help us create a backup system just to ensure and validate all the match scores. They came up with this system in 24 HOURS, truly amazing. Is it perfect, of course not. Might we find some glitches in the excel spreadsheet? Of course we might, it was done in 24 hours. But the fact that Joe (Andy and myself helped a bit, but we both want to commend Joe for all the time and work he put in - he did most of the work) got this backup ready in one day is truly amazing and we can't thank him enough.

We anticipate that Hatch will have the system working well this weekend. They are good people, working as hard as they can, who have every intention of having the system working to their own high standards from this point on. If all goes as planned, we probably just had Joe and Andy spend a lot of time creating something we won't even need - but it is nice to know we have a backup program available to double check and verify everything. Let's see how everything works this week. The season is going great so far, the teams and the competition in the first two weeks have been incredible, and the software issues are really the only major problem we've had this year. And I want to repeat - Hatch did a great job on the field hardware, they are working hard to complete their software and I'm confident they will.

LAST - Dave addressed the post by Uki, but I will add one piece of advice that I think all FIRST teams have learned from experience at some point or another. At some point in almost every large undertaking, some mistakes will be made.
A) The key to fixing those mistakes is to find them, acknowledge they exist, be accountable for them, figure out what needs to be fixed, and do it. If all energy is focused on that, then solutions and results will come as quick as possible
B) Wasting time trying to avoid being accountable, wasting time being in denial or trying to redirect blame for something or trying to deny the true facts of a situation (or create false facts) is only misdirected energy which guarantees that it takes longer to address the problem and fix it.

Uki, I'm assuming you don't work for Hatch, so that advice doesn't apply to them in this case - they are working hard to fix it. Sorry if Dave and I are being a bit blunt, but your post did border on "B" and not "A". I'm sure you didn't intend that, it's just a by product of posting statements about something you weren't involved in, didn't know the facts about and had been given false information about by someone else. I'm sure you didn't know that whoever was giving you information did not know what they were talking about - and whoever that person is, they really do owe you an apology.

Like I said - here's to the rest of the season. Good luck to everyone, keep up the great work, and have a great time at your events.

Jason

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Thanks Jason. That cleared a lot of things up.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Its good to know we have people who are on the ball like Dave Lavery and Jason Morella working on this problem. I am fully confident this problem will be fixed.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Just to let you all know, your team mentor or leader for the team (the one that is registered with TIMS and FIRST) should have recieved an official email from FIRST with a formal apology for the scoring errors during the regionals.

I did write to FIRST Robotics in an INFORMATIVE email to just let them know that we noticed some scoring/scoring software issues at the AZ Regional 2005. I am NOT mad at FIRST, nor do I hold them directly responsible for the mishaps. Every program has it's bugs, and this one still has a few to work out. Once again, I do NOT hold FIRST or the scorekeepers responsible for the software issues. Things happen, it's a part of life.

I am not sure if I am allowed to post the offcial FIRST email on here, but if I can, please let me know. I recieved it via my team mentor/teacher because I am an officer on my team.

The email also said that the final scores from the first and second regional weekends would not be posted due to the scoring errors, so if you look at the AZ regional scoring URL that I posted in my original post, it has been dissabled. This is due to the fact that FIRST wanted to check over scores.

Just thought I ought to let you know. And please, if I am allowed to post bits and pieces of that email, let me know. I don't want to violate any rules or regulations of FIRST by posting it, so I'll wait for a definate answer.

Thank you all for the support and information on this topic! It is all greatly appreciated and I have read all of your posts in-depth.

Thank you again,
Caitlyn
Team #698

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Everyone on FIRST's mailing list received the email. It has come out as team update 16

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Thanks Cory. :)

So there you have it! Check out Team Update #16 at http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2005/tmup.htm. (Just scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see the link to the PDF.)

Thanks again for all the team and FIRST Robotics support, you guys have been wonderful.

Always,
Caitlyn

Team #698

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

You guys are all right FIRST needs to get their software de-bugged and fast. I did scoring and Field control at NJ regional. man did i have problems. we had to delay the alliance picking so that we could figure out where our data base had made a computing error. Then once we got into the Quarter finals CRASH :ahh: We had no elimination tree. we had no scoring cards. and the computer itself crashed at least 4 or 5 times. The system would keep saying that no matter how the matches ended that the Blue alliance would always advance. and then we could not use real time scoring. they would not link to the computers. Then i had to manually punch in the team numbers and make my own half baked system of quarter all the way to the final matches. talk about a pain. i had to score every match as qualifying match 1. and every time the score was showed on the big screen the team numbers where wrong even if i manually punched them in. it was a crazy time on my end. its a wonder i got the field going some times!

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

We had similar problems at Detroit, in fact I think they were as bad if not worse than the previous weekend at Great Lakes (same field kit). Thankfully we kept a offline system (Dr. Joe's Excel Sheet) running continuously throughout the qualification matches. At each break we audited the data and scoring between the two systems. All worked well until Sat morning, when we had to re-enter DQ's into the FIRST system. Alliance selection went well, then during quarter finals we suffered the same failures listed above. On a positive note, the field control worked better this week, buzzers and bells sounded at the appropriate times. Many thanks to Nick Wagers and Keith Jones (Volunteers) for keeping the two systems up to date and correct during conditions, that were at times extremely stressful.


My suggestion to all scorers is to use Dr. Joe's Spreadsheet (Available in the White Pages Section). Many thanks to Dr. Joe, the sheet made auditing of the main db much easier and increased our confidence in the system.

Cheers,

Ben Tower
05 GLR Field Manager
05 Detroit Field Manager

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I can say that there were also mistakes with the team numbers at SBPLI. According to the field display and the online match results, teams that weren't even in the finals were winning quarter- and semi-final rounds.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I am not a big fan of Hatch, especially knowing the politics around why they are doing the software this year but I have to give them credit for fixing several of the problems this past weekend. Before this past weekend buzzers and other sounds would go off randomly, it seemed the computers needed to be constantly rebooted, and the displays never seemed to work. Most importantly the rankings never worked before this weekend, they had this cool live scoring feature but couldn't do the simple thing of ranking teams.

This past weekend most of these were fixed. There were still bugs that have been there since the beginning like the clock not displaying correctly (i.e. it would stay on 42 seconds for 4 seconds then jump to 38), buzzer sounding a few seconds after the match is over (at least it isn't random anymore), the team numbers still not displaying correctly during eliminations. The biggest bug that annoys me now is on the rankings when the Hatch logo becomes animated everything else stops waiting for it, if I was Hatch I wouldn't want my logo on any of this software. I am sure there are other problems with the software but at least they are not as apparent as they were the first two weeks.

Now for my opinions: the bugs that still exist in the software should have been the only bugs the first weekend. If they didn't have live scoring or other features that did not affect the game play I wouldn't have minded as long as the other items worked. It seems Hatch did not have enough organization to realize what was more important and to implement that first then do the extra glitzy things later.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

http://www2.usfirst.org/2005comp/Eve.../rankings.html

Question for you all...

Last time I checked this week (about a week ago), it was disabled due to FIRST not knowing the accuracy of the scores.

Well, now it's working again, but my team comes up in 23rd place and half the teams show that they have competed in 3 matches, while the other half says 2 for W-L-T. Are these the scores for just the finals part of the regional, or are they work-in-progress?

If anyone knows what these scores mean, can you please let me know? I'm a bit confused and I don't know whether or not FIRST is trying to reestablish the scores for the entire regional, or if they are just posting the scoring from the finals portion on Saturday.

Thank you tons!
Caitlyn

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

If you notice, the link to that page has been removed from the regionals page (http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2005/rgevents.htm).

As far as I can tell, those rankings mean absolutely nothing. My suggestion is to ignore that page until when (or if) it is linked again from the main regionals page.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Scoring system seemed to be working much better in Colorado. They only had a few crashes and they scorekeeper was experienced with the software and was able to quickly recover. Real-time scoring was on and off, IMHO it would be best left off, it covers too much of the viewing area on screen and in many cases the volunteers scoring real-time are not fully aware of how to score the game. This can lead to questions when the last seen score varies by a large amount and no penalties are involved.

Over all the Colorado Regional - venue and volunteers are awesome, if you haven't been before I'd put them on your short list.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

http://www2.usfirst.org/2005comp/Events/AZ/matches.html

Eh? Half our scores are missing, and those that are in are either a 0 or a 10. Riddle me this? Our team # isn't even listed in the Semi-Finals Qualifying matches.... ?????

Compare that to the Florida regional, the same weekend: http://www2.usfirst.org/2005comp/Events/FL/matches.html

They have all their scores in...why don't we? I know that old link that I originially posted was removed because it was incorrect/under construction, but this link is accessable under the Regional Events portion of www.usfirst.org/robotics, and the AZ Regional<Match Results.

What's up with that? :confused:

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

I'm really interested to see how many issues we have at the championship, and how many people are willing to complain about them. If you have something to say about it, bring it up to the people responsible, not post on here where theres nothing going to come from it. Its ok to be upset, everyone has there own opinions, but without talking to the people who wrote the software, it seems rather pointless. I'm sure they would love to hear what you had to say.

Re: AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?
 

Funny you mentioned that. If you attended the drivers meeting tonight, you would of noticed that issues that people posted on this website (aside from a couple of amusing parts, like the question about the human loader triangles/squares, and the kid with the "HARDCORE EVERYDAY" shirt) were addressed by the FIRST Head Ref's for each field. They seemed to assure us that the scoring system was fixed also (and asked us not to mention problems at the regionals .. which is completly fair - FIRST knows their was problems, and there isnt anything you can do about it .. so why bother arguing with them?). Besides, bugs are to be expected. Was TacOPs completly bug free on the first year they used it? Of course it wasnt. Same thing goes with any piece of software.