Posted by Ben Chui, Other on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School (CAL Berkeley) and Xerox PARC / NASA AMES.
Posted on 2/28/99 1:13 AM MST
In Reply to: Disqualifications posted by Dan on 2/27/99 4:22 PM MST:
I was pretty disappointed to see 192's robot DQ'd in the semifinal round. Here is my viewpoint of what happened: 192 (Gunn High "G-Force"
was trapped behind the puck on the wrong side of the playing field. They were attempting to get on the puck f
or the triple points (being the only direction that they could go, anyways). One of the opponent robots was trying to get on the puck as well, apparently. G-Force was the only robot at the West Regional that used a lever arm... and thus they used it to
block above the puck. The other robot had the _entire_ playing field behind them to back up as they attempted to elevate to 8ft in the last seconds. G-force was waving its arm over the puck with _zero_ ground velocity (it was cornered!). The opponent r
an into the waving arm toppled over. Hmmm... very interesting call after that one. We (I am a T192 vet) came to the conclusion that a) the judges want to strictly regulate at the regionals, and/or b) the judges misunderstand the design of our robot (bei
ng the only robot with a robust arm amongst a crowd of elevators, we have a distinct advantage).
I started FIRST in '97 with Toroid Terror, and I have seen many instances of seemingly "arbitrary" judging:
in 97 our robot was _forklifted_ 2+ ft into a
tangled mess in the tree (no judgement)
in 98: NASA Team 122 vs PCHS Delphi... nothing if not beligerent behavior (no DQ) (can't say I wasn't pleased though... sorry)
and now this. There were 2 DQ's in the semifinal rounds. G-Force's DQ contribut
ed to their eventual loss. I'm wondering if the other one did as well. Sounds kinda lame to me if both finals competitors' came from beating DQ'd opponents
Interesting to note: the west coast finalist alliances both sported identical robots... som
e robotic darwinism at work?
I'd like to hear some opinions! especially from eyewitnesses...
I am a Gunn Robotics Team veteran... now going to Berkeley and studying Mechanical Engineering. I am nothing if not a product of FIRST's objective... after t
he '97 competition I was sure. Never looked back! (except in longing to be back in high school... building awesome robots... yeah... Nothing comes close in college so far... whine whine... I still go back and cheer my team!!!)
Thanks for reading my th
oughts.
: 2 separate disqualifications just happened at the CA regional. Both were in the elimination matches. One was an "unsportsmanlike conduct" call for intentional tipping (Gunn Robotics Team and Napa Crusher alliance I think) and the other w
as because a human player grabbed a floppy from their robot which in turn pulled the robot towards him - thus disqualifying the alliance. DQs are pretty stupid (but necessary), BOTH teams got no points but the disqualified team lost 0-0.
: Would thi
s same situation occur in the qualifying matches? That would mean if my opponent was disqualified, I would get a score of zero with the mere incentive of a win (with no qualifying points). I'm pretty sure I'm wrong . .maybe they don't count that match f
or or against the team whose opponent was disqualified. :-Dan