[Jeremytice]

Originally Posted by AndrewMorrison

This year was a big turn around for team 229.

Now this thread is full of congratulations and thank you's, so I feel bad having to lodge the first complaint, but I feel it is necessary.
This entire weekend it seemed like the only thing that mattered to the referees, FTA, and scoring table was staying on time.
They refused (until the very end) to believe that there could be anything wrong with the field. They refused to let 1241 link with the field in one match, and in the same match when the field stopped working with 2-3 seconds left they still almost said that the scores would stand(even though human players kept going because the buzzer never went off). We actually took the rule book to them, and showed them the rule about replaying the match whenever there was a field error. It still took them a 10 minute conference and the stands to start chanting "re-do, re-do" before they finally agreed.
We all know what happened in week one, and all the field errors that went on then, but they completely disregarded that this could even be a possibility. Now I can understand that some problems were because of a jostled wire or some code issue, but they blamed absolutely everything on the teams. It wasn't until the finals when they started to truly acknowledge field problems. After quite a bit of complaints.

Now this is all after the competition has ended, but who knows how many problems actually happened during qualifications? the rankings could have changed, and the outcome could have been completely different. (absolutely no disrespect to the winning alliance, you had a phenomenal alliance).
Speaking for my team, we were all very disappointed in how the field was ran.

Hey guys! Thanks again for all teams for coming to FLR and congrats to all the teams. You all did a fantastic job. I would also like to comment on some of the issues that were mentioned.

Whenever there was a problem with the robot jumping in and out we would always go back to the FTAA computer and scoring table and check it out. With the FMS software that we are using we are always able to monitor the status of a robot. We are able to determine if it is a robot issue or a field issue. The software is very helpful and we had 2 certified FTA there as well as others that were trained on how the system ran. Second of all you should always go to the FTA if you have a question. Whenever you talk to someone on the field that is not an FTA or Head Ref...usually you get unreliable information that is incorrect which leads to more problems. Whenever there was an issue FTA checked it out and told the teams the issue. FTA is not just a random person...they are trained by FIRST on how to take care of the field and how to run the event. We never assumed it was a robot issue right away. We would always check it out first and communicated over the radios what was wrong and then would communicate with the teams.

Some things that I saw throughout the week was bad ports in the Driver Stations, bad wireless gaming adapters (light turned to orange meaning you can try resetting it to factory default settings and go through all the settings and set them again, and if that doesn't work it means it is a bad wireless gaming adapter), power issues (Robot not turning on or power issue of getting power to the wireless gaming adapter), and low batteries. Also please please plug in your wireless gaming adapters back into your CRio and make sure it's in the correct port. I can't tell you how many times this happened and once the field closes in qualification matches you are not allowed back out to fix that problem (You will see this change throughout the regionals depending on how the Ref calls that).

Alright now the issue about rushing teams. I do agree with you Andrew that we may have been rushing teams a little bit too fast. I will definitely bring that up in a follow up call this Monday and take care of that for you man and make sure that it's addressed. On Friday tho, regardless I really think the event ran very smoothly and we didn't have any field problems at all. Thank you teams for listening when to plug in and when to turn your robots on. This made it much easier to get the matches started.

Alright the issue with 1241. They had a issue with getting power to their wireless gaming adapter for one of the matches I believe. During that match was when the audience screen stayed at 1 sec. After that happened, FTA got together with the scoring table and we talked it over. We first talked about what could have happened to have that image freeze on the screen. Then FTA took it into their hands and talked to the refs to see if they had looked at the official clocks on the field to see if those had gone to 0. I remember that team 229 was told we might not replay that match but it was not told by FTA (as I remember). We then got the two alliance captains together to explain the problem. After talking to them we all agreed on replaying the match. Now what took so long after that was we had to determine what happened to the system and make sure that it would not happen again. We called FIRST and they told us to back up the system and restart the FMS software. After that we had to go through all our checks and make sure that they all worked. After making sure it was all up and running we got all the teams ready to go. ( I am sorry that it took so long but we wanted to make sure that we were taking the right steps to ensure this would not happen again). At that time we allowed teams to put new batteries in their robots.

Alright last issue that happened on the field. On the Red alliances side station #2 we did have a bad e-stop switch. Any matches before that were not effected by that though. In matches before that robots were working fine and any issues were to do with robots having power issues or code problems. We determined it was a bad e-stop switch since the robot was in autonomous mode but showed being disabled. After confirming this we changed it out and tested the field to make sure this was working correctly. After that we had no more problems and the event ran smoothly till the end!

I would like to thank all the teams for being patient throughout all of this. I just wanted to clear up some of the stuff as some people got relayed the wrong information. I also want to thank Ellery and Andrew for bringing this stuff up. When you guys give us feedback on the event and any issues you had, we like to make sure that other regional's are told about this so that their events run smoother.

I would like to thank both of our FTA's (Pete and Liz), and especially Liz Smith as this was her first year being FTA. I think she did a fantastic job at running the event regardless of some issues. I would also like to thank all the volunteers that were helping out. They make it possible for the FLR to run! Also I would like to thank John Darr and Karthik for doing an amazing job! We want you guys back for next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again thank you teams and congrats on all the award winners and regional winners and finalists. Thanks team 340 for all your support and Great job winning the Chairman's regional award. You guys deserve it!

Good Luck to all teams for the rest of season!