2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Across the street from 10K Lakes, another competition appears.

The first dual regional continues the tradition.

Wondering who all is going, I'll compile a list of robots with pics/vids over the weeked.

171
537
648
1652
1730
1764
1816
1939
2129
2143
2164
2175
2177
2207
2220
2225
2239
2472
2480
2491
2506
2512
2525
2529
2531
2535
2549
2606
2654
2667
2709
2823
2883
2977
3023
3026
3042
3055
3058
3090
3102
3122
3130
3202
3206
3277
3278
3290
3291
3292
3293
3299
3610
3633
3690
3691
3699
3723
3750
3848

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

2175:

Unveiling
Ship Day Testing

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Kevin, the robot looks great. I like how the gripper release does not interfere with the robot backing away from the tube and the natural descent of the elevator mechanism.

We are going to miss not being at North Star this year. Best of luck to you and the rest of the Fighting Calculators.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Does anyone have the webcast information?

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I can tell you that there should be one and that the link should be posted here when it's up:
http://robotics.mnmsa.org/webcast.php

It should also be posted at the NASA Robotics Alliance page:
http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2011_frcwebcasts.php

They better get it up and running smoothly! As a former Fighting Calculator now located across the country they know there will be consequences if they don't :p

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Fantastic. Our "older" sister school (1730) will be playing with you guys this year, and we are hoping to watch and cheer for them from afar. :)

After watching them (and losing to them) in person at the GKC regional I think they've built their most competative robot yet. :yikes: They are one of the premiere robotics teams in the KC area, and their technical prowess and community outreach efforts inspire us to aim higher.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

North Star webcast is up. Link can be found on the two pages I linked to above.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Webcast has been moved over to Ustream due to problems with Windows Media Encoder. Not sure whether it is going to stay there or move back.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/frc-mn...-star-regional

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Thanks everyone for a fun first day! Catalyst went from a triple-red card match to hanging a logo by itself.

Also, today is (was) FIRST Robotics day in MN.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Alliance 1
2512
1730
2225

Alliance 2
171
1939
648

Alliance 3
537
3130
3293

Alliance 4
2175
1816
1652

Alliance 5
3290
2491
3691

Alliance 6
3690
2506
2472

Alliance 7
3278
2177
2549

Alliance 8
3026
2220
3042

1 vs 8
vs
4 vs 5

2 vs 7
vs
3 vs 6

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Congrats to the winners 3278, 2177, 2549. Congrats to team 1730 on the Chairman's Award and being Finalists. The other finalists 2512 and 2225 also deserve congratulations for giving us some very exciting final matches. Finally congrats to EI winners 1764 and Rookie All Star winners 3750.

I will be joining 2175 at the Championship and hope to see you all there!

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Who watched the last 2 games? It seems to be a general consensus that the refs missed several should-be red cards on the blue alliance and that the wrong team was given the win. There was also a dispute about a mini bot that hit the pole so hard that it didn't register. I'm looking for some opinions.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Bringing this topic up under a new account without a team number, may not be the best of ideas...

That being said, from the webcast it looked like a blue alliance robot was touching the one tower while another blue robot pushed a tube into 1730 who was attempting to deploy their minibot. Of course, the webcast was not at the correct angle to determine if contact was actually made with the tower and robot. I assume the refs, who had the correct viewing angles, made the right calls.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

All I will say about this for now is that everyone should make sure to take some deep breaths before posting.

I will be working on getting the FIRST feed video recorded by 2175 of these matches up as soon as a I can, probably tomorrow morning/afternoon.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I was present at the event and saw all three matches. I have this to say:

1. As we all know, the decision of the refs are final. Still, the behavior exhibited by the losing alliance, while understandable, was unprofessional and not in the spirit of First. After seeing the pointless arguing that occurred, I don't disagree with the ref's decision to stand firm with his decision.

2. With the #1 seed having 2 of its 3 teams pre-qualified for nationals, I feel a majority would be content with the results of the regional. (7 robots go to nationals rather than 5) In fact, I think this regional highlighted a fatal flaw in the tournament system that limits the number of opportunities for teams to experience nationals.

3. I don't know why the red cards were assessed, and I don't know the specific rules on the situation in match #2. So I would like to know if anybody could clarify. That said, I feel the blue alliance did win match #3 fairly, so without a match #4, the red alliance cannot claim a stolen victory.

4. I'm a vikings fan. Anyone who saw the NFC championship game can agree arguing the penalties doesn't solve anything....

Those are my thoughts...

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

The 2 red cards in Finals match 2 were assessed to:

1) Team 2225 for contact with an opposing robot in the scoring zone <G32>
2) Team 2512 for coach touching the controls <G56>

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

According to team 2512 the coach never touched the controls, he was just leaning over it to see why the connection was lost.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Ok, 2225 still earned a red card in that match so the result would have been the same.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Hey great job everyone who went to North Star. I'm the driver from team 3042, we are the team that had the wings that fold down for defense. On behaff of my team I can say we all had a blast after our technical difficulties were worked out. A special thanks to the Robettes(2177) and Charger robotics (537) if they read this, without the students from your teams that helped us with our electronics issues, we would have probably missed more than one match throughout the weekend. And also a thanks to The Kuh-nig-its (1939) for helping us through the course of the weekend to get a working minibot up the pole, sorry that we were unable to make it up the pole for points (we did get it up once but only after we went a second early).

What is everyone's opinion on defense this weekend? I feel that defensive teams are underestimated every year so we tried to fill that niche this year.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Hi All,
OK I'll give this a second try. I had a nice long response written and then it didn't submit properly and I lost all I typed. I'll try to keep this one brief.

I am the lead mentor for team 2225. We are very grateful to team 2512 selecting us for their alliance. As was shown in the championship rounds 2 bots on offense with 1 on defense is a winning combination.

We have a very small team and have been beaten often and by the best in FRC regionals over the past 5 years. Don't mistake anything we say or do for being sore losers. Being beaten by a better team is easier to accept than being beaten due to human opinion or technical difficulty of the field. We've always licked our wounds and came back. Next year we will come back stronger, it's just these wounds are a little bit saltier than any we've had before.

We know the rules and abide by the judges decisions. I only ask that those of you on this forum but your self in the red alliances shoes and having won the second final match and getting excited about going to St. Louis, have that taken away.

Penalties and judges opinions are Human error and Human success. The averages never seem to work out for everyone but what can we do. Professional sports administers penalties and fouls the same way and we all hate it but we end up having to live with it. Technical accuracy in scoring is, on the other hand, something we can address. I don't foresee the results changing and am not asking that they do. I only ask that we as a FIRST community look at this and see if all of our expertise (there's a lot of engineers and scientists in this thing) can find a way to handle discrepancies (like team 2512 minibot hitting the scoring disc and not registering) with the technology at hand. We all know technology can fail or hiccup. These are easy things to administer. Especially when so much is on the line.

One last request I have for us all is to focus on making FIRST better rather than fight over who is right about the way today went. Lets effect change so that we won't be back here in 12 months talking about the same thing.

Thanks for reading.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Two things: 1) Championships, not nationals. :D

2) I think the fact that "seven" robots have qualified for championships (I am unsure of how you get that number - three champions, one chairmans, one EI, and one Rookie All-Star) rather than five should be a completely moot point. I would hope none of the volunteers (and I doubt they would) would do anything to try to cause more teams to qualify for championships. First, it is just plain wrong. Second, one team from the #1 seed is not qualified for championships. Third, all of the teams lose a blue banner and the recognition that can come from that.
I don't think you were saying, "Someone was wrong. Oh well, I think the benefit was better than the other possibility."

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

First, to AlexGrant - I was the inspector you guys were working with there, and I have to tell you that working with your team there was a real joy. You were all open to the process and open to learning how to do things right. It was great watching you guys drive out on the field, and from hearing other teams talk, you guys were definitely noticed by a lot of teams as a great defensive robot. Keep working towards it, and with your attitude, you guys have a great future ahead of you.

Next, to our alliance members (3278, 2549) - You guys were awesome out there. After talking with our drive team, I really want to make sure you guys know what sort of affect you had on us. The amount of respect and team work both of you offered really meant a lot, and it's not something we always get. At some past events (I'm not going to list years/events), the drive team has come back (both from quals and elims) to tell us that their alliance members were condescending and refusing to listen to anything our team had to say - you guys were different. For once, the drive team truly felt like equals on the alliance, not like "that girls team".

To our competitors, I'll say this - you all gave us some great games. In the quarter finals, the semi finals, and the finals, it came out to three very rough games. You were all great competitors, and I can't wait to see you guys at Championship or next year.

And lastly, for this issue that's been raised about the last two matches... I agree with dna4engr about the minibot issue - The tower not triggering was a pretty big deal. I don't think any of us can say 100% sure why it didn't trigger - something wrong with the field, the minibot not hitting with the required force (as outlined in the rules), or the minibot simply hitting the tower at exactly the wrong point with respect to the sensors.

The question about "several should-be red cards on the blue alliance"... All I can say is I didn't see it - but I also didn't see a lot that happened on the field. We've all seen questionable calls in sporting events, and cases where calls should have happened but didn't. The refs only have so many eyes, and they can't look everywhere at once. For those that are really passionate about it, I would strongly encourage you to work on designing a cost-effective video review system that would allow the refs to review questionable calls on the field (maybe even give each alliance a "challenge" card during the elims). The problem with such a system is the number and angles of views that would be needed to provide coverage of the field and properly show penalties refs have missed, or penalties that were called incorrectly. This would be an excellent engineering challenge for anyone to tackle, and I'm sure a lot could be learned by anyone attempting to tackle it.

Our team had a great time this week, and the end was very emotional for all of us. It's our first time qualifying for Championship, and it's amazing to see how far the team has come over the past 5 years - both technically and team structure/ student leadership. It's gotten to the point where myself and another mentor on the team have the opportunity to expand out to volunteer at the events, while knowing that the team can handle any problems that come up.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

It's fantastic to see the Robettes qualify for Championships and finally pick up a Blue Banner. I've said it in other places, but in my opinion you have been the best Minnesota team over the past few years and have come up just short an agonizing number of times. The Robettes are a great team and I'll definitely be trying to stop by in Saint Louis.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I totally agree with what you have said dna4engr It should be about bettering each other and first in general. To everyone who competed in north star the competition was great to watch. The refs are human just like all of us just continue to keep your heads up, you all are great! I feel that no one should leave a FIRST event sad because you all have accomplished something that is impressive with in its own, You took parts and ideas and put it into motion and created a robot and now that is an achievement because the things you learned while doing it. Great competition teams!

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

As far as the minibot / tower problems, there are 4 bolts hanging out the bottom of the sensor which are firmly attached to the top plate of the tower, so hitting them wont trigger the plate. These are in the field drawings (Page 37, 38, and 69, the bottom-left drawing on page 37 is upside-down, the collar should be on top), and a reminder was sent out in TU18 that these bolts will not trigger the sensor. Also discussed to great length in this thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=93650

The bolts themselves have a pretty significant weight, if they were attached to the bottom plate (and thus would trigger the sensor), the mass of the bolts and plate would take much more force to move (probably double, maybe more)

A number of teams who had problems with the bolts came up with some pretty innovative solutions, including one I saw today at North Star which added a piece of surgical tubing to the top, inside of the bolt radius, that would trigger the sensor and then collapse, so their switch would still turn the bot off, even through their switch (The original point of contact) may hit a bolt.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Congratulations to Team Driven (1730). You’ve had a Chairman’s worthy portfolio for years and it was wonderful to see your dedication to spreading the message of FIRST and STEM recognized in Minnesota.

Special congrats to Clint Ott and his Dean’s List Finalist Award. Your gracious nature has made it easier for two schools who traditionally fight each other as athletic rivals to work together to promote FIRST in our community.

Four teams from the GKC Regional made the trip to North Star, and all came back with some hardware for the trophy case. You’ve represented yourselves and our home area very well. I couldn’t be more proud of what you all have accomplished.

1939 – Imagery Award
2164 – Quality Award
1764 – Industrial Safety Award and Engineering Inspiration
1730 – Engineering Excellence Award, Excellence in Design Award, FIRST Dean’s List Finalist Award, Regional Finalist, and Regional Chairman’s Award

We were at North Star last year, and I remember all of the wonderful friends we made. It was a pleasure watching everyone compete again on the webcast.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I can tell you the second match results, the decision not to replay did not come from the regional - a call was placed to FIRST headquarters, and the result was "a red card DQ means that alliance lost the match". Being able to see all the field management system and all the information it has available, I find it hard to believe there were robot communication issues that they were not aware of. The FMS gives them very easy to read information about the comms and battery voltage... It even goes so far as to display the number of dropped packets between each robot!

For this comment about battle bots... I suggest you re-read section 3.1.9 - Robot-Robot Interaction. There are no rules against playing a physical game, so long as contact remains in the bumper zone and no attempt is made to damage robots. While I may not be impartial, everything I saw on the field those last few games was simply a very defensive match which included some hard hits - that's to be expected. There is nothing in the rules this year like G37 form 2008 (Overdrive):
There is no rule about that this year. It's expected that there will be physical games... and at times our team had to handle someone playing a physical defense against us.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

After 7 hours of deep breaths and reflection on Saturday's events during our drive home last night, I wanted to post a few thoughts after reading everyone's comments.

First, thanks to everyone responsible for the execution of the North Star event for putting on a great weekend. We had a great time.

Thanks also to everyone who stopped to talk to us, look at our machine, offer us congratulations on our performance throughout the weekend.

Congrats to the winning alliance of 2177, 2549 and 3278! Advancing to the Finals and ultimately becoming Champions as the #7 Seed is impressive and highlights both the importance of scouting and strategic alliance selection as well as reminding all of us that 8 alliances participate in the Elimination Round and ANY one of them has the capability of taking home the Blue Banner!

As for my assessment of the Finals round matches:

• The Red Cards issued to the Red Alliance in Match 2 were not something I personally witnessed BUT they very well may have been legitimate. As has been mentioned, there is no way 1 person in live, real-time action can see everything happening on the field and in the Alliance Stations. I'm guessing we'll be able to see (at least) the on-field violation when we review the video footage. The real problem I had with this match was the officials posting a Match Score and THEN "retracting" it to announce the Red Cards and DQs.

• The lack of a G48-C (ALLIANCE ROBOTS may not work together to blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH.) call in the final match against the Blue Alliance was surprising to me. Having now been on both sides of this specific ruling (or non-ruling) in elimination round play, the match where this call was made against our opposition in the Kansas City Regional semi-finals seemed to be a FAR LESS egregious violation than the events in Match 3 of the Finals yesterday. Again, I understand that 1 person can never see everything that is happening on the field during a match BUT there are a minimum of 3 officials specifically charged with watching the area of the field where this action was happening. In addition, the length of time the action went on made it apparent this was a "strategy" being employed and not just a random instance of 2 Blue Alliance members momentarily defending the Red scoring zone at the same time.

• Finally, the ONLY thing that really bothers me (don't mistake the lengthy recap above for things that bother me because those items are truly just reflections on the event) was the failure of the Officials to recognize Team 2512's minibot score in Match 3. Through 5 weeks of Regional competitions, officials have been manually recognizing minibot scoring time after time (even setting finishing orders in near "photo-finish" matches) but in this particular instance, with the event Championship at stake, no such recognition was made. In a match decided by only 3 points, recognition of this minibot, even if only for the 3rd place finish (2 minibots were officially recognized due to successful target triggering), would have changed the outcome of the match.

Now, Team Driven will get to work rebuilding parts for our significantly damaged machine and we'll show up in St. Louis ready for some more LogoMotion action...hopefully, with and/or against some of our new friends from the North Star Regional!

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

These are my thoughts:
-One red card in match 2 was legit, one was not. Only one red is not a DQ, so that match would have just been a 0-0 tie. And yes, retracting the score was cruel.

-The minibot in match 3 clearly hit the pole, and judges refused p look at video proof.

-During end game of match 3 there was a blue robot sitting against the red pole for the entire duration, in an attempt to block it. This should have been a redcard. And, again, there were many recordings.

They should have at least replayed the match, rather than just giving the win when there was so much discrepancy. Or send the red alliance to nationals too. I don't know, but there had to have been a better solution and that's why everyone is frustrated. And I also know that team 2512 lost communication halfway through match 2 and was not able to regain it.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Judges have nothing to do with this. I'm not surprised they refused to look at videos proof. If you ment refs, the rules state that replay or video will not be looked at. They made the right decision.

Also, the rules state (and backed up by one of the most recent team updates), that the minibot race is who can trigger the tower first, not get to the top of the tower. A team update said that only minibots that trigger the tower will be counted.

In this situation, the refs made all the correct calls.

EDIT: Also only 1 red card IS a DQ.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

This is completely wrong and really undermines your credibility regarding rules matters.


The rules have always stated that a target must be TRIGGERED to score with the appropriate definition in the Introduction section. FIRST has further clarified through Team Updates how the sensor system works. There are a number of reasons why a minibot may not trigger a tower, bu the Refs made the right call according to the rules and are not allowed to review video evidence.

I have been told that the ref closest to that tower was paying careful attention to 3278 and determined they were not touching the tower.

There are no grounds in the rules to replay that match unless a field fault could be identified. There are a whole ton of reasons a robot may lose connection to the field that don't involve a field fault.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Yeah I meant refs.

They said the DQ was for having two redcards. I guess I was wrong in that regard, my bad.

It isn't the team's fault if there was a technical error with the pole, they should acknowledge that since many people saw it happen.

And there was still the blue bot on the red pole that was ignored.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

This is a little off subject, but what ever happened to rule G61?

<G61> The actions of an ALLIANCE shall not cause an opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule and thus incur PENALTIES. Any rule violations committed by the affected ALLIANCE shall be excused, and no PENALTIES will be assigned.

At both the regionals my team went to, the refs always assigned penalties to teams that were pushed into an opposing alliance's zone, even though the robot left immediately after the opposing robot allowed them to.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I noticed that too.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

<G32> and <G33> both state that <G61> does not apply to them.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I don't know what was said by the losing alliance to the head ref and therefore cannot comment on if things were said that should not have been. Emotions had to be running high over the course of thirty minutes for all teams involved. The other point to make is that 1730 had no part in the discussion with the head ref to my knowledge. So, even if you know things were said that should not have been, please don't drag the entire alliance through the proverbial mud. Team 1730 made some statements on this thread. I thought they were reasonable, but you can judge for yourself. Better yet, talk to them and get to know them.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

You would be very hard pressed to prove there was a technical error with the pole. As the rules state in section 2.2.5 The Towers,
Depending on the design of the minibot, it's possible it didn't hit with 4 Newtons of force. If, for example, such a minibot hits with 3N, it would probably trigger most of the time, but not all. Throughout the entire elimination matches that afternoon, that tower worked every time it was used - as far as I could tell, there was no history that would make that tower suspect.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Their mini bot actually hit so hard that it broke.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Lol I know the very well. and I agree with you we shouldn't jump to conclusion to what was said to the refs.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

As far as I know, over the course of the entire competition, only one team had difficulty triggering the tower (until the last match) when they were reaching the top of the tower. However, they had a design flaw that caused it to hit the bolts holding the bottom plate on occasion.
I do not know what caused the tower not to trigger (maybe a video will see it, though I doubt the webstream video will see it with enough resolution, but maybe I will be surprised), but as per team update 18, the refs are not to overrule the results.
You can see the discussion on here regarding team update 18 to see there has been worry about something like this happening (particularly on Einstein).
*Edit: Let me just state that it absolutely sucks that this happened in the eliminations and particularly in the third match of the finals.

As to why it broke, there are lots of possibilities. It could have hit a bolt (with no give), fall damage, damage over time, etc.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

The refs said bolts too but they held the mini bot up and it was impossible.

I dont know what happened either, and it does really suck. It's just the fact that it was the deciding match that I feel there had to have been something that could have been done. Especially when refs were manually scoring minibus at other matches.

It's over now. I'm just trying to get a sense of what happened and what other people saw happen.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I didn't mean to target any one team (and I apologize, I wasn't referring to 1730, who I thought was professional given the circumstances), but when any team that is A.already a match ahead B.statistically more likely to win match 3 and C.Already qualifying for the championship, I feel arguing only appears unprofessional.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Can you explain? Are you meaning other regionals? If so, which regionals? This regional?

I was not aware of a single manual minibot scoring for North Star.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I believe the reference is to past regionals. As was stated in Team update 18:
Yes, weeks 1 and 2 the refs had the ability to manually score minibots if the tower didn't trigger. That simply isn't the case anymore.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Regarding the "mini bot" situation there was a rule added saying that if the tower fail to trigger it was because your mini bot hit a bolt keeping the plastic circle from raising And if this happens you do not qualify for the points gained.(i know this because we also failed to get points once and the judges explain the rule to us)

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Just noticed some video footage of the finals matches posted on youtube.

finals 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urBQdm3dS_o

finals 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUoPEWcCUeM

finals 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN9SLFY0tRU

PS. It looks like the minibot that didn't trigger had a deployment and climb of about 3.0 sec in match 1, and 4.2 seconds in match 3. I wonder if there was some wheel slipage that didn't allow enough force to be transfered to the sensing plate.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

I believe that you can see the first red card (G32) at around 3:59 in the second video, the red robot seems to push one blue robot into their zone and also runs into a second blue robot who is already in the zone. It is not good enough quality to see what is happening in the red alliance station towards the end of the match, though there is definitely a good deal of commotion (which says nothing to whether a penalty was committed or not, but it could have been a factor if the coach got caught up in the moment and made an err in constraint trying to help out).

Also, I agree that it was unfortunate that the score was displayed without/before any notification of the disqualification, the announcer might have in an ideal outcome, announced that there was a red card before the scores went up, but it was a fairly unique circumstance that the volunteers involved had probably never had to deal with in the past. Instinct might have been hoping that the scoring system would take care of the dirty work for them and show the red alliance as DQed and the blue alliance as having the win, it always sucks to have to deliver bad news.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Aaron,

Thanks for posting these links. While these videos don't give us the best perspective (from mid-field) there is one thing I noticed that has yet to really be brought up in this discussion regarding the Finals matches.

In Match 3 of the Finals, each team was called for 1 3-point penalty (unless I've totally lost my mind). Watching the video seems to indicate that the Red Alliance was called for a Feeder Lane violation at about 2:27 into the video by the official at the far end, right side of the screen (and the head ref).

However, at 3:53 of the video, it appears obvious that the Blue Alliance is called for a G23 by the midfield official on the left side of the screen. He waves his flag and points right at the robot in contact with the Red Alliance tower during the End Game. You really need to start watching the video earlier than the 3:30 mark to see that machine drive into the tower (during a time when it isn't illegal) but then, once the End Game begins, the G23 is called.

Here's the interesting thing...Refresh yourself with the G23 rule:

<G23> Contact (via ROBOT or GAME PIECE) with the opposing ALLIANCE‟S TOWERS is prohibited. Violation: PENALTY plus RED CARD

The above (pasted from the 2011 rule book) seems to indicate that a G23 should have resulted in a Red Card in addition to the Penalty. No Red Card was issued or we know what that would have meant in the Elimination Round.

Maybe having access to all this video isn't such a good thing after all...

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Unfortunately it is what I was worried about... not detailed enough. Looking at match three I cannot see the target move up for 2512, but I would not call that conclusive. The only thing for sure is that the tower was not disabled.

It was raised earlier that 1730 may have been hit when deploying. Again, it is hard to tell with the video. I will break this into three parts:
1) It looks like the blue team (2549) hit them before the end game.
2) Dropped their claw and went to pick up the tube (this is the questionable part: 1) Did they hit 1730? (in the video around 3:51 it is hard to tell) 2) Had 1730 deploying the minibot (namely, is the minibot within the cylinder and in contact with the hostbot?)
3) Then 1730 turned and hit the tube into 2549.
For 1) and 3) there are no issues.
During timeframe 2) here are the circumstances:
1) if 2549 did not hit 1730, no penalty.
2) if 2549 hit 1730 before or after deployment (recall: deployment is if the minibot in contact with robot and within tower cylinder) and deemed unintentional (I think this is reasonable as 2549 dropped their claw, and had the tube in possession at the end of the match) then it is a penalty (no card).
3) if 2549 hit 1730 while deploying, penalty + red card.

From the video, it is impossible to tell what the right call is... maybe it is possible to tell from other angles.

Taking close looks at match 2 (I had not looked for this in the match three video, but looking later revels it as well), the human player from 2512 (right side) could have had a lot of violations for where he was stepping (almost every throw). My guess is that the refs had other things to do and never looked back during teleop.
I agree with there is a likely red card for 2225 around 3:59 in the video. It is impossible to tell if there was a red card on a non-driver operating from the video.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Mike, my understanding is that what Kevin says is true. 3278 was close to the tower, but not touching. The left midfield ref is closest.

I would guess that the ref was pointing at the action on the right side of the field. It is hard to tell where the ref was looking though. I also see no movement from 3278, so you would think the ref would signal the penalty almost immediately at the start of the end game (notice 2512 is backing away when the flag is waved and one minibot is up while the second is really close).

An unintentional contact with 1730 while not in the process of deploying by 2549 would result in that three point penalty and no cards.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

In the video I see exactly what I saw at the match. From where I was I could clearly see the blue bot (truck) up against the left pole. It also looks like the head-ref pointed to it at one point. At the time I didn't even notice the other pole, but I was under the impression (I don't know 100%) that if the blue bot touches the red bot while touching the red pole, it would be a red card.

You can also see 2512's mini-bot climb and hit the top.

I know there are more videos out there from all different angles; we will have to see what surfaces.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

This is what I was talking about earlier. This is what I was upset about even before the minibot thing. And I saw this team do that in another match too, without being penalized.

To me it does look like he points down at the truck-bot, rather than across the field. I don't know for sure. And even if it is later than one would expect, he calls it later than the right-field action too. You can't see super clearly from this video, but that's my interpretation.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Lynsey93, please see Kevin's comment below:

This also agrees with what I know of the situation.

I would tend to think the middle ref on the left has the best view of this robot. In addition, if you pay attention to the team (3278, black shirts), it seems to be the center individual who is the driver. I see nothing that indicates driving from 3:30ish in the video to the end. Notice, all three of the refs on the left side walk by without a closer inspection. So, the two real options are 1) it was obvious from field level they were not touching or 2) it was touching and the refs ignored it or they miscalled the penalty. I would think someone would have asked about it if it was touching, so I would tend to think that the refs saw daylight as it were between the tower and the robot. Again this agrees with people who were on the field.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

The video showed me all I needed to see to believe that the refs made the correct calls in Match 3.

At ~3:31 in the video you can see the 3278 (the truck) drive into the tower and the rebound slightly. They then do not move for the rest of the match. You can also see the midfield ref looking at them multiple times from when they hit until the end of the match. The head ref does point at them, but he doesn't have a good angle to see if they are actually touching or not.

At ~3:48 you can see 2549 push a tube roughly into 1730. This occurs before the END GAME as the towers are still flashing. 2549 then drops their claw and attempts to pick up this tube, it appears to slightly touch 1730 in the process. As 1730's robot does not move at all, and the tube remains at bumper level, below any deployment mechanism this action can not be construed as interfering with minibot deployment in my opinion. I believe the correct call is an incidental <G25> which is what the called and is the penalty signaled by the left midfield ref (not a penalty on 3278) who had a good angle to see the tube.

Regarding the 2512 tower issue, there are two possibilities:
1) The tower is broken, this is a field fault and the match should be replayed.
2) The tower is not broken. The refs are forced to do nothing.

While the circumstances were certainly not ideal (2512 losing comms and then the tower not being triggered) I believe the refs made the correct calls here (with the possible exception of the 2512 coach controls red card which is not visible from the video so I can't comment on and doesn't particularly matter).

I would have loved to see 1730, 2512 and 2225 win because if you have to lose it's always nice to have lost to the winners. Having said that, I am very happy to see the Robettes finally earn a blue banner. They have built great robots year in and year out and it was just a matter of time before they found themselves on the right side of the final match.

*Note: I am not a ref and have not gone through ref training. I have read the rules many times this season however, and referenced them while watching the videos and creating this post.*

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Aside from viewing it from a range of just a few degrees of the plane of potential contact, it would be impossible to tell 100% if there is contact or not unless the robot is in motion and decelerates faster than normally possible without hitting a sufficiently large object.

Vikesrock, I think you are right that the head ref could not have had the right angle and that the ref opposite him would have had a much better view. Had the head ref had the right angle and known that there had been contact he would have signaled the penalty himself. He was likely making sure that the ref opposite him knew about the potential infraction and was implicitly asking the other ref to inspect the situation to get the correct assessment.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

The ref clearly waved the flag on the near side, then you can see the head
ref come over and look at what was happening. He can over rule the other ref if he does not agree. The head ref and the end ref discuss what should be called. I trust the refs and would take what ever the ruling would of been.

Looking at match 3 on the youtube from 1730, you can see 3278 come in and hit the tower early. It had enough force to make it jump back. It never moved after that. The ref in the center nearest the camera had a good look at what was going on, and if there was a penalty he would of called it. The other side you can see 2549 moving over to pick up the tube. They push the tubes into 1730 prior to the endgame and then 2549 backs up. While 2549 was backing up, 1730 moves forward to get their minibot attached. 2549 then picks up the tube and tries to move into position. So if 1730 moves the tube into 2549, no penalty is enforced; G61.

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Here is match video of the final match. Sorry the quality is low.

Finals match 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dO_v-SN3Pk

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Here are some new videos I just found:

Match 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb68SmOkpOc

Match 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEWNZwbEdRk
(obvious red card at ~55 seconds)

Match 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dO_v-SN3Pk
(Hit and bounce back at ~1:58 on near right tower)

Re: 2011 Minnesota North Star Regional
 

Much better angle, thanks for posting those! The bounce back in the third match is much more clear here... but the angle still isn't enough to conclusively prove one way or another if the robot was touching the tower during the end game. With that, we have to continue to give the refs the benefit of the doubt.