Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

That is not accurate, because the new scoring software cannot swap alliances. We were denied our request to stay on red alliance despite being the higher seed.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

It is close enough. The only time it isn't true is if an alliance beats a higher seed alliance. Either way most of the time in the eliminations the red alliance has a higher chance of winning which then would make these stats inaccurate if eliminations are included.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

Despite dead blue robots, This trend seems to pop up every once in a while. "The Red alliance wins more, bla bla bla, not fair, bla".

I saw an article a while back saying in a lot of 1v1 Olympic sports, red was more likely to win, but by the same small amount shown here.

I chalk it up to random chance, as at every regional I've seen the amount of No-shows is far more than the amount of dead robots, so I can't imagine the dead robots making a huge difference overall.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

Not at Waterloo the blue team beat the red team in the quarters #4 and in the semi's #2.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

Not when the FTA is not letting teams play 6-7 times a regional.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

You were on the blue alliance 4 times, and the red alliance 3 times. Yes, you were "mostly on the blue alliance," but you're not going to get any more even than 4 and 3 in a 7 match regional...

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

This is purely anecdotal, of course, but we also suffered issues on the blue side of the field on practice day at BMR. In one match our robot remained unconnected (No Comm) for the whole match. The FTA advised us that the WPA station may have fat-fingered the WPA key, but we verified this afterwards and the WPA key was correct. In the next match we ran fine, without changing anything on the robot. Even though we ran fine in that match, however, I stood behind the FMS computer and watched the statistics. Before the match started, our robot was connected, then dropped out for 20 seconds or so, then connected (and this repeated 3 times). Evidence that it dropped out included a rapid-flashing signal light on the robot and a rapidly-increasing Lost Packet Count on the FMS computer (in addition to Raul throwing his arms up in the air as the DS said No Comm). This issue did not occur while we were enabled in the match and as far as I know we had no further issues. In both of these cases I believe we were on the blue side of the field.

Another team at BMR (135 I believe) spent several practice matches dead as well, and they triple-checked everything on their end too. Not sure if they were red or blue though.

There's definitely some gremlins lurking in the control system at this time.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

Does anyone who has set up or torn down the field know if the drive station control boxes for each side are marked as "red" or "blue"? I believe the Chesapeake field came from Boston, which had experienced the same problem with the red middle station. One match at Boston was restarted at 4 time because of this. Is it possible that this station became middle blue at Chesapeake?

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

[bias (I'm an FTA)]
I suggest that a better way to have phrased this would be "Not when non-functional robots are placed on the field 6-7 times."

At each of the four regionals I've worked at this year, the number one problem on the field has been teams forgetting to plug the Ethernet cable back into port 1 of their cRIO.

Throughout practice and early qualification matches we've given teams the chance to correct their error, and given them warnings that we would not continue to let them hold up everyone else if they continue to make this mistake. By Friday afternoon the Head Refs have usually taken the position that if everything else on the field is ready to go and a robot fails to link up because of this error, we would disable the robot and go.

I just cannot fathom how a team, who has put in countless hours and effort to get this far, does not take a checklist with them to queuing and spend the 30 seconds it would take to make sure the Ethernet cable is plugged in correctly, the battery is charged, etc. One of the things FIRST does a pretty good job of teaching is responsibility. Once they sit idle for a match we rarely see a team forget to plug their cRIO in twice. I call that a success.
[/bias]

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

I do not believe such a warning was given at Chesapeake, and a pit announcement doesn't count as you could barely hear the PA. If a team received a verbal warning and failed plug it in the next match that is one thing. You have to remember this is a new control system and teams are still learning. On the IFI system we had a dedicated tether port but on the cRio we must use the same port as the wifi bridge, as such if the cable is not pushed in all the way it can pop out of the lan port. Plus you are not only punishing a team this year but an alliance who had no fault in this teams error. Finally the new system links up very slowly compared to the IFI system, teams used to know almost instantly if all is well, not this case here.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

I'm biased too and this is only an opinion, but I believe it is the responsibility of the teams to make sure their robot is ready for each match.

I don't think that anyone is getting "punished" for anything. If anything, I think it makes it more fair to the teams who are more prepared, and that do make pre-match checklists. If a team forgets to plug their radio in it's unfortunate for everyone on the alliance but no one's fault but the team themselves. If you as a team member want your robot to successfully run every match then why not take the initiative to do double checks on your radio cables, batteries, and all other connections. Similarly as an alliance member, why not remind your partners in the queuing line to check their connections as you check your own. You wouldn't expect the field crew to make sure all your drive motors are connected and check to make sure your battery is fully charged before each match so why should they be the ones responsible for making sure your radios are connected properly?

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

Liz and Pete are both very good FTA's that I've seen in action. I agree with you guys completely on this. The team is responsible for their own robots and connections. This being said, I know many people had trouble connecting to the field in Chesapeake and I think it should be the responsibility of the field crew to let the teams know/give a warning if something was connected wrong or something was not done right. I personally don't know exactly how the field works and when someone doesn't tell me that I'm doing something wrong (and I usually do check after a match if something doesn't work right), I wouldn't know what to change. I think this is a big problem for newer teams who haven't been to as many competitions.

In short, I agree with the FTA's, the teams shouldn't blame everything on the field....it's really not their fault. But I also think that the FTA's should provide feedback to the teams on what went wrong so they do not make that mistake again (thank you Liz :)).

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

One other theory:

At Philadelphia, there were four referees, each with varying levels of experience. With six payload specialists, plus alliance stations and robots to watch, it takes a lot of skill not to miss anything. Where particular referees are positioned on the field can definitely make a difference when it comes to the amount of penalties spotted.

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

I can't believe some of this conversation. Are we here to make the competitions run more efficiently or are we here for the high school students and make sure they have as enjoyable time as possible?

Everyone should be answering we are here for the students. How every goes about that is different but I feel we should be out there doing our best to let every one compete. Not to punish three teams for a couple of peoples mistakes. Yes we are trying to teach real world lessons but we are also trying to teach everyone that engineering is fun. Which is more important learning real world experiences or being drawn into engineering?

Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
 

...and looking at it another way.... the field is run by volunteers doing their very best with what they are provided. Is it fair to speculate about what they did and didn't do, what they should and should not have done, what did and didn't happen, what was and was not said, when you were not there on the field looking at the robots, discussing the issues and monitoring the FMS? There is a lot of misinformation in this entire thread. It is much different watching the occasional match from the driver's station or watching all the matches from the stands, than it is when you are on the field for every match.