[team1102a]

First of all I want to thank all the teams for making my job as announcer so easy. When there are good robots being supported by gracious teams, it is easy to be able to say something good about everybody. Combine the awesome play and competitive action, and it adds up to the best regional anyplace.

There were some remarks earlier on the forum by people viewing the webcast about the refs blowing calls or changing scores. That is not true. I was present at the scoring table at the end of every match when Terrell checked in and the scores were tallied. There were a few cases where the scores were posted and announced before the distant refs came to the table with penalties. Also, most of Friday, the computer was not displaying the correct numbers at the bottom. When the announced scores were not the final scores, a second announcement was made; not a “changed” score, but the “correct” score.

One that was changed involved an arm from a robot on a ramp that was sticking over the front side of the field rail at the end of the game. The ref at that corner did not recognize it as “out of the endzone” when the score was posted. The Tyrell recognized the error and the score was adjusted downward.

Another score change resulted from a tube being thrown on the field during a field malfunction between autonomous and teleoperated mode. We had a 3 minute delay, all teams agreed to proceed rather than reset the field, and the refs ruled that the penalty would not be assessed due to the confusion.

The yellow card for Team 900 was not retracted. I announced that there was no penalty (meaning point deduction) for a yellow card, thus the score would not be changed. The warning stayed with them until all the qualifying matches were over.

There were 2 other matches in which team captains graciously and rightfully questioned a call and the call was reversed, and in at least one case, the opposing alliance agreed and supported the change.

And ask Flash (1319) about what constitutes “robot is supported” and interpretation of the rules. In an early elimination match, they preliminarily were not awarded 60 points because their arm (as the ramp robot) was touching the wall, but neither robot on top was touching. The refs went back and forth and read the rules and could only find a mention of loss of points if the “scoring” robots were “supported” by the playing field. The points were awarded because the elevated robots met the conditions of G56. There was nothing said about the ramp robot and contact with the field.

But then just 2 matches later, 1319’s ramp came down on a tube, compressing it about 2 inches. Chimera was on the ramp that was compressing the game piece and the points were not awarded because there was obviously a load (indicating support) on the compressed tube.

This ruling was consistent with all the other regionals.

<G56> ROBOTS in HOME ZONE - ROBOTS score bonus points at the end of the match if they are entirely in their HOME ZONE, not in contact with any element of the field (carpet, alliance station, goal, etc.), not supported by a GAME PIECE, and the lowest point of the ROBOT is higher than 4 inches and/or 12 inches above the carpeted field surface.