[Natchez]

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

While a few people are clearly very worked up over this loading zone rules, I think they will be pleasantly surprised that it does not become the big train wreck/debate they fear.

As the proud introducer of "train wreck" to this discussion, I now believe that you are 100% right, this will not be a big issue this year; not because the refs will get the calls right more than 80% of the time, but because the flags will be staying in their pockets on 95% of the violations.

NOTE: I have been very impressed with the above-the-belt discussion that this thread has maintained. Likewise, please do not misconstrue my passion on this subject as a personal attack on Jason. I have a HUGE amount of respect for Jason and he has given so much to FIRST that I would never dismiss his comments ... just respectfully disagree. Since I feel that FIRST is philosophically going in the wrong direction concerning rules, I present the following in an effort to encourage change.

The reason that I believe that we will be pleasantly surprised in '05 is that the refs will introduce an "in the neighborhood" policy for being in the loading zones similar to how we train our FLL refs, "Enforce the rules but give the teams the benefit of the doubt." Furthermore, I predict that only the blatant offenders will ever be called for loading zone violations. This will make the offending teams happy because they did not get a flag; and the opposing alliance will never know the difference because they will not have been paying attention to the other alliance and even if they did see a violation, they would be chastised for not being gracious professionals if they appealed the no-call.

Concerning being "worked up", I'm not "worked up" about this rule nor about us losing a few matches if my prediction becomes reality nor about the disadvantage that we are now at because we chopped off our arms then wire ties were allowed; I'M WORKED UP BECAUSE WE ARE SENDING THE WRONG MESSAGE TO A FUTURE GENERATION. If my prediction becomes reality, we are sending a message to our youth that, "you don't have to follow the rules, just adjust to what is being enforced." If you are looking to refute my prediction, you don't have to look too far back when the Championship came along with, "Mom, I know that I chewed up and buckled the carpet ... you didn't punish me 6 weeks ago when I did it so why are you going to punish me now?"

Concerning the future that has little to do with this year's game, I am striving (begging if I thought it would change the world) to get back to a society where rules are not to be broken irregardless of who is watching. Please remember, that all of the FIRST high school participants have grown up in a heavily lawyerized world where justifying rules violations is the norm instead of the exception. It will literally take generations to turn this ship around but I've always thought that there are a few organizations (Scouting, Religions, FIRST, Ultimate Players Association, etc.) that are making significant strides in the right direction. Trust me, the stones that I cast are VERY small ones (pea gravel at best) because, Lord knows, I stay in the "gray" zone far too often.

Concerning "you don't have to follow the rules, just adjust to the enforcement", I contend that when people are on the losing end of this philosophy which results in the loss of food and shelter for their family, they really get why this is wrong. It happens thousands of times each day in America, the "shrewd" businessman finds the loophole that steals work from the honest guy ... even to the point of putting him out of business.

Example #1
You told me that the sand was $3 per yard ... your bill says it is $10.50 per yard. Yes m'am, the sand is only $3 per yard but you never asked about the delivery charge which was $7.50 per yard. I could have bought it from Billy for $6.00 per yard!

Example #2
I'm glad to hear that we won the contract to build the next Mississippi River Bridge for $2 billion dollars. By the way, would the government like to upgrade to standard sized lanes or go with the 6 foot lanes in our bid? It will only cost another billion dollars. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, UPGRADE? Oh, did you not know that you only requested 4 lanes in your Request for Bid and not 4 DOT Standard Lanes. In 1924, it was specified in an official Mississippi government document that automobile lanes shall be 6 feet wide so our bid included 6 foot wide lanes. YOU *@#&&@#^&%^$(@. Sir, again, we'd like to thank you for the $2 billion dollar ... hmmmmm ... $3 billion dollar contract.

Granted, as a society, we have to meet in the middle on this. The rules makers (congressmen, homeowner associations, school boards, etc.) must get better about writing reasonable rules while we must get better about following rules.

Enough of my "I'd like to save the world" & "I'd like to teach the world to sing" talk ... a few quick thoughts about Jason's response.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

Be TOUCHING (not new, this has been the case for 46 days now and before anyone started building a robot) the loading zone triangle

If you leave the word "triangle" out then you are exactly correct that this rule has been around for 46 days but "TOUCHING the loading zone" is different than "TOUCHING the loading zone triangle"

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

The robot needs to "touch" the zone.

See, it is very easy to leave off the word "triangle". Don't forget that traditionally in sports, "zone" refers to a surface that is projected across a distance. For example, the end zone in football is a 10x55 yd rectangle projected to infinity or the strike zone in baseball is the plate projected from the knees to the letters.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

Take the baseball analogy - if a runner going from second to home only had to pass OVER third base and not touch it, both coaches would be sprinting out of the dugout on almost every play to argue with the umpire that the player was or wasn't over the corner tip of the base. However, in baseball it is the player’s responsibility to clearly touch the base to be safe. They can touch the center of the base, the side of the base, or just the little bity tip of the base - but they do have to touch it. ... It’s that simple and leads to very few arguments.

EXACTLY!!! But what about the unwritten rule that the short-stop or second-baseman only needs to be "in the neighborhood" of second base when turning a double play? Even though there are many violations, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "coaches would be sprinting out of the dugout on almost every play to argue with the umpire." The rule says that the short-stop/second-baseman must tag the base while having control of the ball for the runner from first to be out. Rarely is this violation "called" unless it is blatant. This scenario of being "in the neighborhood" is exactly what I think will happen this year ... lots of violations with very few of them called.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

For those who feel teams are going to argue with refs that part of their robot is actually touching the triangle after the ref says it isn't.

They will not be arguing because, in general, only the unarguable violations will be called. Likewise, the teams that would like to argue the no-calls on the other side of the field know better because their alliance got a couple "breaks" and it would not be in the Spirit of FIRST to argue. BUT, if this was going to take food and shelter from their family, you bet there would be a lot of arguing ... it's not the case so this point is moot.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

What I do disagree with is the thought that this is a train wreck about to happen, that the sky is falling, and so on. I think back to the ball corral and goaltending rules last year.

I think back to sticks protruding outside of the arena going 15 feet per second, which violated the safety rules in my opinion, and FIRST making "back room" agreements (outside of the Q&A system) that made it legal. We ended up ditching all of our autonomy work because there was no way we could get to the middle of the field before "sticky" got there and resulted in us implementing a not-too-sophisticated "meet our sticky neighbor" algorithm.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

I think some underestimate our teams, students, and mentors.

NOT ME! I just underestimated FIRST this year ... Put down your tools; No software development; .......

Rules are NOT to be broken ... not the letter nor spirit,
Lucien

I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony