Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Absolutely. That was the best penalty announcing I heard this season.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

They also came up to me and I told them to go to the head ref but I said don't expect much because:

• Everything is recorded already and they can review the whole match through the official video
• The head ref already called it and officially that means the match never happened
• The scores on the screen are approximate and always adjusted after the match
• The last thing they are going to do is take a video shot by the "winning" team for proof that they won

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Oh man those welds. The best part about that whole situation was that 302 broke their drivetrain at the same time... So I was trying to help 302 get their robot working and I look up to see the score of the match and our claw is snapped down the middle. That was the worst feeling ever.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Great Job to everyone at West Michigan. As someone who had to watch via the Webcast, a big thank you to the Webcast People and the announcers. I especially liked the reading of the penalty calls. As Team33 had more than 4 matches decided by minor penalties (:( booo), the announcing made it easier to understand why:confused: . This should be an example followed by all regionals. Refs in football do the same for a reason. It helps the spectator experience a ton. The footage was really solid too. I got to watch Woody working on the robot during a time out. Stop slacking PUNK!

Also, the rookies at this regional looked great. 2 out of 7 Rookies in the elims and they were very strong leaders and/or assets to their teams. 2337 has the most visually exciting launcher (kicker?). I hope someone helps them submit a great package for the book submission. 2604 not only had a visually solid robot but showed outstanding D. I am not a big fan of Defense, but I have to admit nice driving/strategy when I see it.

Again nice job to all teams. Almost every team was scoring auto points, There were only 17 out of 170 scores under 20 points (huge achievement considering penalties), and only 2 winning scores under 30. I heard from a lot of people that WMR might be softer this year, but after watches the footage, I think this has been one of the strongest regionals so far.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

So, here's the lowdown on what happened with the field to the best of my knowledge being the scorekeeper and not having a great deal of insight on the intricacies of the event management software.
Going into the finals, the software did not advance the 2604, 71, and 2171 alliance into the finals and even the FTA and FIRST homebase couldn't figure out how to get that problem fixed. According to the software, all of the prior matches had been completed, and it moved into the finals like it should, yet no alliance was moved into the red alliance position.
Because of this, the red team numbers were all '0'; we tried to manually put in the correct numbers, but there was no way to do that within the software. The FTA (Derek) and the head ref (Larry Lowell) came to the conclusion that we could run the matches, but the team numbers for the red alliance just wouldn't be showing.
So that was the huge delay before the finals.

We then ran the first match of the finals, everything went great until we posted the match results...
The moment we put up the match results, the software decided to erase all of the scoring data for the match that was just played and displayed the score as 0 to 0. Since we had no other official record of the scores, the head ref ruled that we had to replay the match, but not until us at the scoring table had worked out what was wrong.
*Another long delay*
After again conversing with FIRST HQ, our FTA could not figure out why this occurred, but figured it probably had something to do with the red alliance problem. We had observed that the scoring had worked perfectly in the previous match until we committed the score and displayed it to the audience. Larry Lowell and Derek decided to hand score the match, using the software before we committed the scores as a confirmation of what the refs had for the rest of the event. From there, the matches ran without a hitch.

Ironically, the scores for all of the finals matches other than the first one, were recorded by the software. However, we did not input bonuses or penalties into the system, nor did we have it switch to display match results mode.

I am confident that they will have weeded out the bugs in the system by next weekend when that field is at GLR.

Also, for the record, the delay on Friday night was unrelated to the problems on Saturday. The problem Friday was a malfunctioning arena controller, not scoring software related.

*Edit* Wooo, post #500!

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Don't forget about 2405, they were in the eliminations too. So there were 3 out of 7.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I agree. After making it to the finals, and having two of our three robots down was a nightmare. It was just a horrible feeling. I really think that cost us the win, because from what I saw- 33, 141, & 302 would have taken it all the way.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Another great WMR COMPETITION! Thank you to people who put this event on and to Mike and crew for having a awsome team social. Its not your fault the weather didnt cooperate but a good time anyways. The competition on the field was fast and furious. as usual at WMR. Congratulations to teams ( 33,141, 302,1677) for some great matches and going on to the finals to give us all some great matches to watch!!! Congrations to our 2006 IRI partners team 71 for your WMR win and also to 2171 and 2604 with the great D. Thank you to team 1504 for picking us,you guys rock and good luck in Atlanta. To 2337 what can you say but ROOKIE SENSATION and a powerhouse in the making!!!!!!!! You also will represent our area well in Atlanta and odds on favorite to bring home the ROOKIE ALLSTAR AWARD there also .But the best part of the weekend was when our leader John Crombie won the Woody Flowers Award .CONGRATS !!!!!! ps : Mike, it was my pleasure to weld the field for you and the competitors and would be glad to do this any time its needed.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Wow, amazing competition, I always love West Michigan and this year was no exception. The quality of teams is second to none, and the classiness is even better.

Congratulations to 2171, 71, and 2604 you guys played excellent. We almost had you but those darn penalties lost game two for us. You guys proved that you were the best alliance there.

Also, way to go 141, 33, 302, and 1677 you guys played great together. Awesome job 141 for both the Finalist and Engineering Inspiration award, you guys are an amazing team.

Team 33 I was rooting for you, wearing my Killer Bee hat all weekend, you guys are one of the best examples for a team in FIRST.

Thanks to team 537 for being such great partners, you guys are an excellent team and should be very proud of the way you played. Maybe next time when the three of us play together we will make it to the finals.

Way to go to team 494's Animation team, back to back victories, you guys do a great job. Also way to go to everyone in team 70's pit. You guys helped keep the robot running all weekend.

Finally thanks to the referees and all of the people who helped run the competition. This was very smooth and a nice competition. Those that organized the Team Social in the parking garage in the snow storm, thank you for making one of the most memorable and fun socials I have ever attended. To the refs, even though I disagreed with some of your calls (mainly the ones against my team;) ) you guys did a great job. All the penalties in this game are judgment calls, and you were able to stay consistent and fair with all of them. Everything you called you explained to the teams and told us your reasoning. Mr. Lowell is one of the best head refs in FIRST and I wish every regional got to have him.

So thanks again to everyone who made this competition so great, I look forward to it every year, and once again you guys hit it out of the park.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Hmm...i have mixed feelings here...

First i would like to say thank you to Teams 70 and 494...you guys were great partners again. I was the driver from 537 who controlled the arm and i have to say we did make a good alliance.

It is a sad thing that with all of the excitement over the messed up finals matches the fact that we actually did beat the beatty alliance is so often overlooked. We won the first match fair and square and the second was taken away from us due to penalties, the third we lost with and without penalties.

I respect the refs very much and am glad they do what they do but at the same time i feel that the way these matches are being officiated is sometimes sadly mistaken. We lost to beatty because the martians committed a G22 (broke the plane) and a G42 (interrupting a hurdler).

It has always been said that when reffing the "intent of the rule" must be considered. The intent of this rule seems to be to prevent robots from moving in a clockwise direction throughout the track, not to take 10 points from them for crossing back over with the tip of their bumper when attempting to avoid a traffic jam. Even so i am ok with the way that the game was officiated if it was equally called for all...if we are going to be such sticklers then a ref needs to be watching those lines at all times because there was at least one occasion where i saw Beatty cross back over with no repercussions.

Secondly, looking at the G42 rule...the intent of this rule is to streamline hurdling, protect arm bots from tipping, and help the game to flow better overall. The martians were called for this while stuck in a traffic jam with about 4 of the robots in the back corner (an area not even beatty can score from) I saw one instance where a bot...i believe it was firebots...they backed up into beatty to get away from the wall when beatty was about to shoot and they were called. That small bump did not affect beatty's ability to hurdle the ball and move on, but it did affect the blue alliances chance to win that match.

Also, i noticed that many rules were being overlooked and only a select few were called. I was informed by my coach that at the drivers meeting it was said any robot ramming a robot who has fallen over would be administered a 10 point penalty, and if they broke the robot on the floor there should be a disqualification. Well, we (537) tipped over in the second match and were rammed repeatedly by 2171 to no repercussion. Our robot was also mildly broken in that fall by that robot and there was no penalty. Our robot was not blocking traffic and 2171 clearly had a lane to get by.

Lastly, 2604 clearly had the strategy of keeping our balls away from us which they were very effective at doing. I was extremely annoyed by their defense which was completely legal, to bad no one else figured out how to do it so well.

Again, I respect the refs and their decisions but I think there is a problem with the way they are being taught or their judgment in calls. I would think that it would be advantageous to keep the number of matches decided by penalties low, especially in finals, unless the penalties were obviously affecting the outcome of the match.

I'm not looking for an argument here i've just been thinking about this for the past day and im interested to see if anyone else has any of the same feelings.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

The intent of many rules has been clearly repeated by the GDC in the Q&A. They continue to affirm that any slight incursion of the robot into the previous quadrant is a <G22>. Any bumping of the robot while it is hurdling other than incidental contact is a <G42>.

Cite?

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Wow, what an amazing set of elimination matches!

First off, I would like to thank all the people that took time to explain all or parts of their machines to me. This was my second FRC event, and the first I wasn't sick at, and I was amazed at how great all the teams were about me wandering into their pits and looking at their 'bots. Special thanks to teams 33 and 85 for being exceptionally accommodating of my questions.

Congrats to the winning alliance of 71, 2171 and 2604. The 71 machine looked great with the new roller pickup; I especially liked the catches off the overpass and the pick-ups by smashing the ball with the side and popping it up and over the edge of their 'bot. 2604 played some amazing defense on the ball in a number of matches. If video gets up before MN, I will likely get some videos of 2604 in elims to show to my drive team as well as alliance partners; that's what defense in this game is about. 2171 seemed to sneak through both quals and elims without getting a whole ton of attention (from me at least), but they played solid the whole way through and definitely got it done.

Congrats to the runners-up, 33, 302, 141 and 1677. A great alliance, I wish we could have seen the finals with all the robots working (not to take anything away from the winners).

Congrats to all the award winners, especially Chairman's winner team 226 and EI winner team 141.

Kudos to all the volunteers that made the weekend run so smoothly (field issues aside, and even those were handled well). I think the MC/announcer did a great job of making sure all the penalties were announced. I also think the refs did a very good job of reffing. I didn't necessarily agree with the way G42 was being called, but it is definitely a judgment call and it was called consistently all weekend. I saw a number of hybrids over or under scored and hurdles scored when they shouldn't have been or not scored when they should have; these errors in RTS were always corrected in the final score.

This was a great event, and everyone involved definitely made it worth coming all the way from MN for.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

Alright, im sorry i didnt have a chance to look at that Q and A...in that case i just overall disagree with first but the ruling was completely ok, although i do still think if we are being such sticklers about it all the lines should be monitored at all times.

As for the removing balls from the field comment...apparently i was mistaken. I thought i read it somewhere but i looked over the manual and i think it was told to me by someone. It might have been at the drivers meeting or it might have been my coach, im not quite sure.

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I just want to say congratulations to all the teams at west michigan for an absolutely AMAZING competition!!

Congratulations to 2171, 71. You guys were awesome alliance partners and I look foreward to seeing you guys in Atlanta.:D

Also, way to go 141, 33, 302, and 1677 you guys played great together and were fierce competition. Awesome job!

i'm not just saying this because i am a mentor for 2604...It was another amazing year at west michigan!!

And...

I can't wait for Great lakes... There our (team 1718) is competing!

Re: 2008 West Michigan Regional
 

I think your coach misunderstood something the refs said. You can't ram a fallen robot at high speed, but you can push it out of the way without penalty. Determining whether a specific action is one or the other is up to the official.