Running Out of Tetras
 

Before anything, I would like to congratulate teams 330, 67, and 503, they played well and beat us fair and square.

However, after our first match with them, an Innovation First guy came by (I honestly don't know who) and told me (I was wearing the bib) that they would not move tetras from the human load over to the auto load if it ran out. Distressed by this, I went to our head referee and asked him if this was true, didn't the rules say that they would move tetras? He left, the referees conferred, and he returned to say that they would not move tetras. He said told us that he spoke with the head of all head referees and that it was decreed that tetras would not be moved.

So we played our second match, and lost 60-63. We had no rows while blue had two rows. The Autoloader had one tetra left. At the end of our third match, the Autoloader had zero tetras left. The last tetra was picked up by the Chickens at around the 10 second mark. I honestly do not believe that our team could have grabbed another tetra and capped it on the needed goal in the last 8 or so seconds when we made it back to the autoloader, however, I was wondering if anyone could tell me why, when, and / or how the rule involving not moving tetras came into place?

Once again, this is not meant to be begrudging at all, we were beaten, and beaten by a strong, quality alliance, congratulations to you, all of you. Congratulations really to everyone who put a robot on the field and made it move, that, in and of itself, is and accomplishment.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

My team, 175, was told the same thing after we were knocked out of the semi's on einstein.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

According to team update #2 that should not have happened.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

According to the Driver meeting on Thursday night also. I distinctly remember the head ref saying that the field hands would attempt to keep the stacks balanced so nobody runs out. I can only assume that the logistics of having so many people standing around the field made it impossible or too difficult for einstein, though one would hope an attempt would be made and the answer would actually be "We'll try to keep up with keeping the loaders full, but we might not be able to" Or perhaps letting the teams dictate if they needed more tetras on the human or auto side....

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

We did ask if we could simply move one stack from the human side to the auto side before the match began. They said no.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

I think it makes sense that they don't make an attempt to put tetras on the autoloader. It would just add one more distraction to the drivers/human players/audience to have yet another thing running back and forth with tetras. It would (IMO) be a waste of time. Just go to the human loader. It takes (on average) about two seconds longer.

Dave

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

Not if you're already on the opposite side of the field, add in drive time, if you're good at the auto load then it's more of a 3-4 second time loss in loading. At the 10 second mark, you can't waste time driving across the field, getting a tetra, and driving back across again to cap, it just doesn't make sense.

They moved tetras for us on Archimedes, and it was not in any way, shape or form a distraction.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

MANY robots out there don't have that option. There's a lot of robots that are strictly human/auto. Running out on either side would be crippling, thus the need to restock. In addition, the teams were running all day under the assumption that there would be restocking, so forcing a potential last minute strategy change is kind of odd. I'm confused that they wouldn't just move a human player stack over there if the team requested, since that would've solved everything with little real trouble.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

Hi Guys,

This is the arm operator from team 503. We were having those troubles too. O man i was dying with how many close calls there were. I was honestly scared about that thunder chicken/atom bot alliance. When we lost that first loss, I was nervous. But we had made the mistake of letting you guys down into our home row. We sprung back, and boy it was a good two matchs. WOW! This season has been a lot of firsts for our team. Regional chairmans @ detroit, highest score of the season (132), newton division winners, national winners. Congrats to all the teams this year for another great FIRST season. Hope to see you at nationals next year.

BHOP

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

In out match with 71 AKA the beast, I was down to 1 tetra left and they actually ran out. So I had to give them my last tetra so they could load their 4th tetra on the robot. Right before I had to load our robot they brought us new tetras

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

Yes, they didn't bring us any tetras. They stopped doing that as of Einstein, what I want to know is why.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

considering the strength and obviously exceeding talent of the teams at the competition, they should have had more tetras at the auto and human loading zones in the first place. it was their job to make sure that they never 'run out'. as a human player, it was annoying having to ask our alliance partners to share their stacks.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

There's always been a limited number of tetras, though. This has been defined since day one, and hasn't changed. It's the same every year. The only real issue is that tetras were being shuffled and then suddenly weren't.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

I worked the autoloader on Einstein. We were told to have 9 tetras for each loader and we had a backup pile of 4 if we needed them. We never actually ran out, so I didn't see that it was much of a problem, but there have always been a limited number of tetras on the field.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

That is incorrect. I was the referee standing in between the red alliance autoloaders, and they never ran out on Einstein. At the end of one of the matches, there were only the two sitting on the autoloader, but there were never zero left.

I am unsure of what caused the no tetra shifting decision to occur, but I became aware of it a few matches into the finals. I questioned it, was told that a decision had been made, and we finished the finals this way.

I would like to clarify that during no match of the finals were there zero tetras available on the autoloading station for the red alliance on Einstein.

Wetzel

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

You should not have a "backup pile"

There is a finite number of tetras on the field. Adding 4 more goes over that number.

Red Alliance Autoloader Was Under Control
 

Sometimes, the tetras would not seat properly on the loader. The clovers would twist, causing the tetra not to sit flat. This was usually rectified by rotating the tetra to another side. It also happened that a tetra would break when stacked, and would be broken when picked up.


Wetzel

Re: Red Alliance Autoloader Was Under Control
 

If I understand you correctly, you're talking about a pile of tetras off to the side that the field reset staff can withdraw from when one breaks on the field, AFTER a match.

What I interpreted him as saying is that if they load all 9 tetras onto the field (There should be 8, and one on the autoloader, at any rate) they can then withdraw from the 4 in the backup pile and introduce those into the field also, which should NOT happen.

Re: Red Alliance Autoloader Was Under Control
 

Oops sorry, didn't mean to confuse people...I meant to say we had the 9 per loader and the 4 in case one breaks, those wouldn't get introduced during the match

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

yea i was going to comment on that as i watched in a few matches where the tetras had almost ran out (1-2) left.. whoa you guys ! can you say StackMasters? .. you guys stacked so many tetras .. it was amazing.. to all of you who made the stack go that low, congrats!

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

We never really ran out of tetras on the autoloader side, but that is not the point. It did get to a point that there were no tetras in the piles and one on each loader, though.

what matters in all of this is a last minute rule change (or rule interpretation) that was explained to us that the auto loaders would not be "leveled" like was clearly described in update #2 that the field staff will make reasonable attempts to make sure no area is depleted. I was told after semi #1 on Einstein that the ruling on Einstein was no replacements. It seems like on the fly changes ran pretty rampant this year.

One last thing, this situation had absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the Final Four match between 245, 217, 766 and 330, 67, and 503. Those three matches were the most exciting I have ever been a part of in all of my years of FIRST. The last second move by 503 was analogous to a 3 point hail mary toss in basketball ... simply amazing!

Paul

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

I disagreee. During the kick-off, it was stated very clearly that there was effectivly an 'unlimited number of tetras' and they would move them to keep up with the robots.

IF there was a limited number, that would have brought more defense into the game, and the focus was clearly on offense.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

Limited as in a limited number of total tetras that could ever possibly be put into play assuming you had the mythical alliance of three 71 bots playing against air, or what have you. The total came out to 41 tetras, which is a heck of a lot. It's unlikely an alliance would run completely out of tetras, but it's apparently possible to nearly run out of tetras in a particular area in a match with several highly skilled teams. The confusing thing is just the last minute rule change. As Paul said, it had little or no effect on the outcome. Since the tetras never ran out, the only possible effect could be the drivers worrying about it in the back of their minds, and I'm sure they were far too busy to do that.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

Well, it's very fortunate that it sounds like teams didn't run into problems with having no tetras to autoload, but unfortunate that the decision didn't follow clear rules stated early on. Update 2 clearly states that the crew should make reasonable attempts to refill depleted stations, which I think was a result from a few Q/As addressing this exact situation.

I wonder why, if the refs had access to all the rules and updates as they should, would make a decision that could have potentially been a problem for some teams. We were counting 19+ tetras for each alliance in those finals, and if they had been all autoloaders, could have been a big issue. I don't think there's any reason a field volunteer couldn't have run a small stack of tetras over to the autoload side if depleted.

Oh well - lessons learned to improve for next year. Those final alliances were tough, and provided truly amazing finals rounds.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

i do belive that FIRST said all rule changes would be made 42 hours before the start of the match they were implemented in....Please correct em if im wrong

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

hey , im one of the kids who scouts the finals for my team and tells the drivers the other teams game plan is. i was trying to find out what your alliance game plan was but i couldnt get it til i was looking at it from above, after you had beat us.lol really late i know but very good idea i like.

Re: Red Alliance Autoloader Was Under Control
 

In the last semifinal match, i counted 19 tetras capped by our alliance. Subtract 5 from our robot, which used human loader, 14 tetras were picked up by 245 and 217 from the auto loader. Plus, i think 245 dropped two. So there was suppose to be two left.

I talked earlier to one of 245's team member about how they could have added more motors to their arm. We would then probably have ran out of tetras. I saw several robots that used the auto loader and could have capped over 9 a match using our alliances strategy. In the future, First needs less rules and more physicals restraints such as a finite number of tetras and a enclosed arena to protect officials, operators and teams (less safety penalties for refs to worry about).

Thanks 245 and 217 for being such great partners. You guys made our wildest dreams come true. Thanks to all FIRST officials for running a very complex event. Congratulations to 330, 67, and 503, it was a honor to have three well fought matches with you guys.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

The Tetra rebalancement question/concern was brought up to the "Head Ref" on Einstein and he stated that he did not allow this on his field for the divisional (Galileo) and would not allow it during the championships. Since the Head Referee's ruling is final we conveyed this to the team and operated accordingly. I know that on Curie the tetra's were balanced when some stations became low as per the update but given the amount of rules and updates this may have been forgotten (Ref's are human and do make mistakes) but the field was ran consistent with how the Head Ref wanted it.

Re: Running Out of Tetras
 

yes.. i think a safety sheild would be a good idea.. since i saw SOO many refs almost get clocked in the head with a tetra or arm. . its scarry.. and it would HURt