[Matt Adams]

I'm really glad that Travis took the time to make this post. He made a call for fairness in refereeing. I think that this is something worthy of discussing after some rulings at the Midwest Regional.

What's been said many times is that penalties need to be spelled out more exactly to teams and the audience, especially in the finals. At the Chicago regional, the 10 point penalty, which I assume was a rule G25 violation, was repeatedly called "over-aggressiveness" to the crowd. This is (unintentionally) deceiving.

Let's read rule G25:

Originally Posted by Rule G25 after Team Update 15, with emphasis by Matt Adams

Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not in the spirit of FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. However, Triple Play is a highly interactive contact game. Some tipping, entanglement, and damage may occur as a part of normal game play. If the tipping, entanglement, or damage occurs where it is not a part of normal game play, at the referee’s discretion, a 10-point penalty will be assessed, and the offending team/ROBOT may be disqualified from that match.

For discretionary penalties, I think that it is fair to require referees (not announcer) to discuss the rule and action that team(s) specifically performed in violation. Especially in the finals, when tensions are high, and especially when it changes the outcome of a match.

In the case of G25, this would mean naming the team that tipped, entangled or damaged their specific opponent.

The announcement would go something along the lines of,

"It was deemed, after discussion by the referees, that there was a rule violation in this match. Team A, was in violation of Rule G25, by performing a strategy aimed solely at tipping over team B. It's alliance is hence penalized 10 points."

The announcement at the Midwest regional was similar to,

"The references have assessed a ten point penalty to the blue alliance for over-aggressiveness."

Given this, I think it's fair to expect some to be hurt, confused, and upset. Hence, in the finals, and in the case of match-altering penalties, I think requiring a bit more specifics from referees to the entire crowd will go a long way by making "discretionary" penalties seem much less so.

Matt