[Gordon Bell]

OK, after following up further with FIRST, and after reading a few valid and respectfully worded opinions, I can further clarify the issues for everyone. (to be clear, this reply is for those on this thread who have practiced "gracious professionalism" and expressed their views with clarity and maturity. Under no circumstances would I take the time to reply to the original poster of this thread, as his 3rd reply showed that all is views are jaded and colored by a clear resentment, jealousy, and pettiness toward another fellow FIRST team - the values and lessons of FIRST are truly noble, but he proves that they may not reach everyone).

All may not agree, but I think I can put an end to any debate after hearing what various concerns are:

1 - One of my referees did throw a flag for the situation that has been discussed. Let me one thing clear, the human player of the dead robot was in the process of putting the Tetra in/on his robot at the VERY MOMENT that his robot was hit by the Blue robot being pushed by the Red Robot.

2 - There were two issues discussed. One is that of is there a 30 point penalty, and second that there was a safety penalty. Which team, if any, to assess a 30 point penalty was the part we couldn't find the most recent ruling for. Unfortunately the set of rules we as refs were told were the most current were the Revised Rules (which you can find on the FIRST web site). After some detective work today, we have found that a mistake was made by FIRST: The revised rules, which we were told now included any clarifications or changes from updates, had the changes for G14, G16 and others - but somehow the update and examples for G 15 were not in the rules we were given. The rules at the SVR said that the offending robot was to be assessed a 30 pt penalty, which is what we did. If we had seen the example which clarified the exact situation which happened, neither alliance (Red or Blue) would have been assessed a 30 pt penalty.

3 - HOWEVER, and this is important, NONE OF NUMBER 2 changes the fact that the primary reason the flag was thrown was because the situation was a clear safety hazard, as the human player was interacting with the robot when it was hit by the other robots (Amy, you didn't think I referenced Safety in my original post, but I did - it was our main concern and I did state that it was "a very dangerous situation"). S01 and S05 are very clear, and while we did not feel the operation of the second robot was intentionally unsafe, there was NO DOUBT that what happened was a violation of S05, since the Human Player was handing off a Tetra to a robot at the exact (yes, exact) moment the second red robot pushed the blue robot into the dead red partner bot.

4 - What does this all mean? We had three choices - here is what we DID decide and what we SHOULD have decided.

We were not 100% sure of the G15 interpretation, went with the wording of the rule in the updated revision we had, and felt it was a 30 pt penalty. We knew it was a violation of S05, which is very clear. While extreme, the wording is very clear, our only choice was to DQ the alliance.

We did not feel the need to assess two penalties, the 30 pt penalty was extreme enough and DQing the alliance on top of that would have seemed like pouring salt in the wound. So once we had found wording that we felt supported giving a 30pt penalty, we went with the less extreme of the two and stopped there. With hindsight, it would have been easier and less painful to just turn in the DQ right off the bat and not spend the time trying to verify the wording for G15. But give the FIRST staff at the event credit, even though they didn't have the rules revised 100%, they did "know" that something was not right about the wording we went off of and spent a lot of time trying to track down the correct interpretation.

In the end, there is NO dispute about the outcome of the finals of this event. Whether we had the correct version of the updates or not doesn't really matter, we did incorrectly use our logic pattern as someone said and assessed a 30pt penalty that we shouldn't have. But the alliance should have been DQ'd anyway per rule S05. We didn't write the rule, and whether people want to argue if that is too extreme or not is another issue. But the rules were and are clear. Regardless of our mistaken interpretation of G15, the situation that was brought up to start this thread has a CLEAR result under the rules - the Blue Alliance would have won the match if the rules as written were applied correctly. Luckily I think all present at the event would agree that the Blue Alliance was the clear and decisive winner of the second final match (with no penalties if my memory serves...if not, I have no doubt someone will correct me in seconds).

I feel bad that we misinterpreted one rule while we were right about the safety violation. I will admit that I feel much better knowing that under the rules we did not award a "win" to the wrong alliance. That is something which would bother me, as I know and admire how much time and effort everyone puts into their teams. Regardless, I apologize for any commotion our enforcing one incorrect interpretation instead of the one correct violation may have caused. We deliberated the situation thoroughly and did the best we could. I apologize even more for the length of my posts, those who know me know I am rarely long winded and avoid going on at all costs. Since some very false and incorrect claims were made in this thread, and since I was involved and know the true details, this seems like a situation where many want and deserve a full understanding of the facts.

The silver lining is that while the correct alliance still won, and this has helped us and FIRST to see a mistake in the wording of the rules revision. As I am the Head Ref at one more competition this upcoming weekend, I am glad we have found that the revised rules were missing the examples for G15 and we'll do our best once again to enforce all the rules consistently and fairly at the events this week.

I hope in some way this lets those on the red alliance at least put to rest any anger or fears that they were "robbed" of a win in the first match. I hope even more that those on both alliances know that they did an incredible job, know that every team played great and put on a great show in the playoffs, and that everyone on all the teams can look back on what they've accomplished this year with pride and not get caught up in some of the things that ruin other sports in this country.

Again, congratulations to every team that competed at the Silicon Valley Regional, you all have a lot to be proud of.

Gordon Bell