Ball deflectors.....don't

[Gary Dillard]

Head ref announced new rule today: teams are allowed to have a fifth team member on the side of the field giving hand signals so they can tell if there is a ball there, or anything else they want to signal apparently. Interesting.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

Head ref announced new rule today: teams are allowed to have a fifth team member on the side of the field giving hand signals so they can tell if there is a ball there, or anything else they want to signal apparently. Interesting.

Well, that's a new development... (Okay, so there were two coaches in 2001...but it's practically new.)

Can any of the other Week 1 events confirm this change?

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Well, that's a new development... (Okay, so there were two coaches in 2001...but it's practically new.)

Can any of the other Week 1 events confirm this change?

Watching the streams of the Hatboro-Horsham MAR District and Smoky Mountain Regional, this doesn't seem to be the case (of course the camera angle at HH doesn't show the middle, but Smoky Mountain shows the whole field). Though that would be an interesting change...

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Well, that's a new development... (Okay, so there were two coaches in 2001...but it's practically new.)

Can any of the other Week 1 events confirm this change?

Alamo did not have this change as far as I am aware and I was an inspector on the field for a lot of the competition.

[johnmaguire2013]

We were not allowed a fifth member at Kettering. Instead we tried to use crowd members to tilt a sign we had (we have four signs - 3, 3, 2, 2.) if a ball was stuck under a bridge (which confused our driver the very first match.)

However when we moved on the second day, even us in the crowd couldn't see the bridge from the other side.

[Andy A.]

Whether it's part of the design challenge or not, it's frustrating.

It's possible for the balls to get pinched between the polycarb 'deflector', and the field boarder on the alliance color bridge. Even with our ball pickup device, designed to lift the bridge and suck balls out, we couldn't clear them when they got like that. It's rare, but they're just plain stuck, and in a manner I don't think anyone expected.

Balls trapped under the bridge decided many matches. It's a bummer, and short of a change to the deflector that FIRST is likely unwilling to make, it's going to be a common one.

[wolfeman]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

Whether it's part of the design challenge or not, it's frustrating...

Balls trapped under the bridge decided many matches. It's a bummer, and short of a change to the deflector that FIRST is likely unwilling to make, it's going to be a common one.

It's water under the bridge at this point [pun intended] but having
just losing in the semis in Hatboro-Horsham due to this issue,
I have to agree. If you look at the original bride video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AMaq...eature=related

the big difference between the video and the actual field was the polycarb sheet sagged badly. It not even close to a flat sheet as shown in the
video and was ineffective in having balls roll back out.

It would be an egregious violation of the rules and gracious professionalism,
but an effective strategy would be for inbounders to 'accidentally'
send balls under an opponents bridge...

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

Head ref announced new rule today: teams are allowed to have a fifth team member on the side of the field giving hand signals so they can tell if there is a ball there, or anything else they want to signal apparently. Interesting.

How did you find this out? Was there any particular regional that this was announced at?

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by slijin

How did you find this out? Was there any particular regional that this was announced at?

The head referee at Smoky Mountains came to our team and the team next to us in the pits first thing Friday morning and asked to speak with the drive teams; he specifically told us we were allowed to have a fifth person that did not count toward our 4 on the drive team that could stand on the side of the court and give hand signals. I assume he did the same to all the teams there.

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

The head referee at Smoky Mountains came to our team and the team next to us in the pits first thing Friday morning and asked to speak with the drive teams; he specifically told us we were allowed to have a fifth person that did not count toward our 4 on the drive team that could stand on the side of the court and give hand signals. I assume he did the same to all the teams there.

Interesting. Thanks for the info; I wonder if refs at later regionals will also allow it, considering forum consensus seems to be that this wasn't allowed at Kettering or Alamo.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by slijin

Interesting. Thanks for the info; I wonder if refs at later regionals will also allow it, considering forum consensus seems to be that this wasn't allowed at Kettering or Alamo.

Nor at Gull Lake.

[Grim Tuesday]

That's frankly quite bizarre. It would seem that the head ref overstepped his boundaries, and changed the rules quite dramatically. I hope that they had a chat with FIRST before this rule change.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

That's frankly quite bizarre. It would seem that the head ref overstepped his boundaries, and changed the rules quite dramatically. I hope that they had a chat with FIRST before this rule change.

Since it happened first thing Friday, naturally I assumed there was some kind of telecon after first practice day of first regionals and this was the result; sounds like it wasn't the case. I will mention that Dr. Aidan Browne, the "head head referee", was one of the judges at this regional and maybe there was a consult.

[45Auto]

I was personally planning to have a kid in the stands with a big sign they waved if there was a ball under the bridge. That was a pretty common practice in Breakaway (2010) to let the drive teams know that there were balls available up against the driver station wall right in front of them that they were unable to see.

If they formalize it, fine, if not, there'll be lots of teams with someone on the sideline or in the stands giving hand signals.

[kjohnson]

Teams,

Make sure to ask the question about having an extra team member beside the field for the purpose of signaling in your driver's meeting. Until an official Team Update is released, no one knows whether this will be allowed or not. Better to be safe than sorry.

Please do NOT utilize your Safety Captain or Media Pass team member to signal from the side of the field unless explicitly told you can do so. I have seen teams receive a yellow card for gaining an unfair advantage by doing that. Signaling from the stands is fine because everyone has the same opportunity.