relying on realtime scoring
 

Some concern based on my observations this weekend:

We have always in the past had someone (usually the coach) keep track of the score during the match so we can adjust and time our strategy. This year because of the rapid scoring of balls (and inability to see how many 1 point balls are scored) we are relying much more heavily on the realtime scoring on the screen to track the match.

There were numerous problems with scoring at UCF, such that they reverted to manually counting balls during the match for the final tally. I don't know the details of how this was done or adjustments were made so I'd like to hear from some of the refs.

The errors in the realtime system causes 2 real problems:

1) Selection of the winner of the autonomous mode. Hopefully the manual tally was used to correct awarding of the 10 point bonus if necessary but I don't know if this was ever the case. Regardless, the ability to start on defense is a big advantage in the match.

2) Decision to stop ball scoring / defending and go to the ramp. In eliminations we made this decision a number of times since we had 3 ramp bots, and frequently we made it early based on the point differential. There's always a risk of penalties (although the change to all 5 point penalties is very welcome compared to last year) but we leave some margin. However, if the realtime score is off by 20-30 points as was sometimes the case, it becomes a case where changing the score after the fact could cost us a match that we would have played differently had the score been correct.

What to do, what to do........

Re: relying on realtime scoring
 

The autoscoring was used throughout the competition. The human tally just served as a backup. A few field reset people had those quik-tally clickers that they use with large event crowds, and they (2 or 3 resetters on EACH goal for redundancy check) would count the balls entering each goal (including each center). One of the referees was specially delegated to check with these counters to make sure that it correlated with the realtime system (which is why I switched sides on Saturday).

The few times where I saw a questionable score that I didn't believe was accurate, the final score was compared to the manual tally, and I was wrong on most of them - the autoscoring was just as reliable compared to the manual count. It was a wakeup call to me that I might not be the best counter when I'm busy watching robots and humans and everything else on the field, like most coaches and spectators are.

Edit: I estimate out of 20 questionable scores, I was wrong and the autoscore matched the manual score about 80% of the time.

Easy fix for that - play to win by as large a margin as possible. Either that or whoever is keeping an eye out on the scoreboard, take note of any large point jumps and be wary that they might not be accurate. The glitches are usually of the 10-20 point variety, and not the 1-10 variety.

Barring either of those, don't care if you win a match or not. It's just a game anyways.

Re: relying on realtime scoring
 

I disagree, Dan. At least in part. True, each match is just a game. But what's the point in trying after you've quit caring? The experience is more than just a game. It is built around and pretends to celebrate professionalism. It should at the very least try to live up to all that means. Professionals get it right!

I'm sure that posts will follow to point out that the credo is Gracious Professionalism, and we must adhere to both. In my opinion, professionalism needs no adjective. It is one ideology. The adjective at best works to dilute the meaning, and worse gets used to hide incompetence.

Re: relying on realtime scoring
 

This might have been accidental or intentional yet if it was intentional then they were probably checking the ball score count. Sometimes the game mode would start 10 - 15 secs after auto mode ended. Whether or not they were checking the scores is unknown.

Re: relying on realtime scoring
 

Normally so. That pause is to make sure everything gets scored properly, particularly in the center goal, because some folks just score balls Too Dang Fast. (Those at Florida who saw Pink in autonomous know what I'm talking about.)

Re: relying on realtime scoring
 

Here's another side of this. It happened to us in the finals this past weekend at GLR.

In the second match, the scoring system said we won autonomous and gave us the 10 point bonus. Our strategy was if we win autonomous, prevent the other team from scoring at all costs. So, we went on fell defense.

It didn't work anyway because the pair of triplets were really good and 67 did a good job of blocking for them, but the change of strategy was caused by the faulty scoring system.

So, maybe we need a manual verification of the winner before going to manual mode to make sure that the score isn't screwed up at the beginning, causing a possible change of strategy based on those 10 bonus points.