[gblake]

Ryan - Whether or not they are creating the right mental model(s), here is why I think most folks bring the big sports comparisons into the discussion.

They are following a thought process that takes them down this path:

1. Some people want to be able to answer questions about match events after-the-fact
2. The types of questions they want answered are similar to the questions big sports leagues try to answer (contact between players/objects, player/object location, when an event occurred, etc)
3. The player/object speeds, traffic jams, and chances for obstructed views are similar to big sports league scenarios
4. The action is less "interruptable" than most big league sports (this places burdens on the playback system's ease-of-use).
5. Because of the similarities between FRC and big league sports, getting the answers people want (see item #1) will probably require using a recording and playback set-up similar (in some respects) to the ones big league sports use.
   • Without an explanation of why they should think otherwise, I think that for most readers, a "drastically simplified" replay system sounds like something that would answer a drastically small subset of the questions people/teams want answered.

To get them thinking differently you need to interrupt that 5 step process, and insert something different that puts trains of thought onto a different set of tracks. You might insert statements like these:

• The system won't answer all questions. It will answer ___, ___, and ___.
• The system will have blind spots (X% of the total field, Y% of the high traffic areas of the field). Teams will know those spots in advance, and teams will know mistakes occurring in those spots can't be corrected using video replays.
• Depending on line-of-sight angles and distances, the system will determine locations with accuracies between +/-X and +/-Y. Teams will know this in advance and may plan gameplay and review-requests accordingly.
• A time-and-motion style analysis of the activities that will be involved in processing a review request predicts that processing each will add N seconds to the time between matches, so ...

Bottom line: In the absence of specific descriptions of why/how FRC questions are different from big sports questions, or need to be answered using different methods than the big sports methods, or are going to be limited to a subset of all the possible FRC questions, or are going to be answered well-enough (give metrics) using low-fidelity (give numbers) systems, or ... I think the "big sports" yardstick is going to be the one most people instinctively choose to use.

Blake