|
Let me say this about that...
To everyone concerned about how timeout's were handled at the CDI:
We strive to make the competition as fair as possible. I know that many folks, including myself, were concerned about the way timeouts were handled in the elimination tournament.
This was a very tough call. It was a judgement call that the people on the field had to make.
On one hand, black is black; white is white; a rule is a rule; and that is that. On the other hand, the real spirit of the rule is to prevent the tournament from being delayed indefinitely by a very complicated repair that was most likely not going to work etc… The spirit of the rule is not to try to disqualify robots that are seconds from being repaired. Believe me, we WANT teams to compete. That is the reason for entire event.
In the case at hand, the referees made the call that the robot was within seconds of actually being fixed and that the best interests of the tournament would be served if they suspended the rigid requirements of the rules in favor of allowing the robots to compete.
Again, it was a tough call. In fact, had I been in the striped shirts, I think I would have been likely to make a different call. But, in the end, the Official Rules say that the rulings of the referees are final and not necessarily consistent. (really, look it up ;-)
By the way, this is not the only tough call that was made during the day, and not just by referees. The inspectors had similar difficulties balancing similar issues when inspecting the robots. I suppose that if you or I reviewed every decision they made we would have found many cases where robots passed inspection that we would have forced back to the drawing board. Similarly, I am sure that some robots were sent away be re-designed that you or I would have passed.
Here is the bottom line: the CDI is a big undertaking. It cannot be pulled off without delegation of authority. The good thing is that the competition gets to be hosted at all. The bad thing is that total consistency becomes impossible.
We worked hard to try to host the best event possible. Clearly, we have room to improve in areas. We will try to do better in the future. I hope that you will understand.
Finally, even in light of the issue you bring up, I hope you will agree that, taken in total, the 2001 Chief Delphi Invitational was a great success. I hope to see you there in the thick of things at CDI 2002. Feel free to call me if you would like to discuss this further (248.655.8423)
Regards,
Joe J.
|