[Kevin Kolodziej]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I think this is the perfect example of how silly FIRST's philosophy of "if you break or tip an opponent, it's a penalty. If you don't, it's fine". The play in eliminations was some of the most intense I've seen (robots driving onto other robots, robots using arms to get under other robots and then lifting arms in what appeared to be an attempt to tip them) and this foul would not have made the top 20 in most egregious robot to robot interactions. But since the red alliance hit a blue alliance robot (which lost communication three other times in eliminations including 35 seconds earlier that match) and that blue alliance robot lost communication, red gets a match deciding penalty. It has gotten to the point where many teams would be better off building extremely tippable, breakable robots than trying to tackle the game's challenge.

After watching the archived webcast again, 1306's intake is above 537 during the pushing match, but 537 is definitely still moving at 20 seconds, which should be an automatic scale awarded to 1306. If somehow 1306's intake did reach down into 537 when the camera cuts away and rip their radio out, then so be it, but where is the automatic scale? Red ended with 25 challange/scale points: 5 for 2826 on the batter, 5 for 1306 on the batter, and 15 for 2194's scale (and if 2194 wasn't high enough and 1306 WAS awarded the scale points, my point still stands and 2194 should be awarded a scale since they were also interfered with at 20 seconds).

I know it's a tough game to ref but I question some of the calls, or non calls, that were made this weekend. I watched a robot enter and exit the opponent's secret passage from the neutral zone several times in one match near the end of quals, and they were flagged each time as they should have been, but the results screen gave 0 foul points to the opponents. We were impaled and entangled by another robot in our QF tiebreaker match for about 15 seconds but no call was made (contact was made with our intake in the up position while it was within the frame perimeter) and we were told "that's the nature of the game". We were also given a warning for hitting the portcullis too hard (we have a pair of arms that flip down and wedge under it so we can just drive under, not lift it) yet I saw no such warning for the team that broke the portcullis polycarbonate.

On the positive side, the teams were great this year. It's always great to see lots of friends at this event. Thanks to 2530 for picking us and to 2574 for being great partners. I had several teams attend the team social I worked hard to put together and it appeared that everyone had a great time there! I am thrilled that one of my students was named a Dean's List finalist and have to send a huge congrats to Arrow for his Woodie Flowers finalist award as well!

I also have to send a huge congratulations to 2202 for getting their bugs worked out and cruising through the elims. I expect great things from them at Championships this year.

While our WI regional went about as well as it usually does, I am pleased that we are hitting our stride as we head for Champs as well. In our 13 matches, we weakended the tower in 10 of them, but only managed 4 captures due to some unfortunate circumstances with our partners