[MrJohnston]

Such an uproar... Yes, it was a huge call at a large event. Yes, referee calls had a huge influence on the outcome. However, there are some things to consider....

The bigger picture:
* FIRST is not all about the robot or all about winning championships. It is about Gracious Professionalism and Inspiration. A part of Gracious Professionalism to me is not jumping to conclusions and making accusations without having all the information.
* Referees are volunteers who spend countless hours helping FIRST to become a fantastic competition. I am certain that none of them are doing so simply for the opportunity to undermine a bunch of kids' robots.
* We do have rules to follow for these games. If one team wins a championship by being permitted to skirt a handful of rules, does that not cheapen the event for the teams they beat?
* At this point we have heard from one person who was directly involved in the incident. Almost every time there is an incident of any sort, all witnesses to an event only have "part" of a story. It is very likely that the poster from 987 does not have the entire story - and may not even realize it. Also, the mere fact that the poster is from 987 means that the poster has a natural bias. His/her reporting and understanding of the events could very well be skewed unintentionally. Before jumping to conclusions, therefore, should we not at least hear from a referee who was a part of this call?

This particular scenario:
Folks have found plenty of reasons to "blame the ref" so far. Here are some possible situations that may have been at play that would justify the referee's call. Was I there? No. I have no idea if these were a part of the decision or not - neither does nearly everybody else on this thread.
* There had been repeated warnings in the event about delaying the start of the match. 987 had already been disabled in the semis for this. It could have been that the time (however short) to fix the height issue as "yet another delay" and they were not being given any more room to adjust.
* It could be that 987 had been playing too tall all competition and that the referees never noticed it. However, somebody on the opposing alliance did and brought it to the ref's attention in the finals.
* It was reported that "pushing a button on the solenoid" would have remedied the problem. I am reading this as "pressing a button to release air pressure in a pneumatic system." This certainly would have been quick and legal. However, if I am not interpreting this correctly, could "pressing the button" be something that required the robot to be enabled? This would have been illegal.
* For all we know, 987 had already taken too long to set up for that match and "one more delay" was just too much.

Again, we overall really don't know all the details and never will.