FIRST's statement on Einstein

[Justin Montois]

I think FIRST will give an auto qualification to all teams that were on Einstein for next year's championship.

[Nick Lawrence]

I'd like to see FIRST launch a legitimate investigation into the communications issues this year, on both sides. Robot and field.

Make a case study out of it, and put it to rest, then fix the issue, wherever it lies. Then we can all collectively learn.

-Nick

[JTN]

All I am going to say is that people need to be quiet about our so called "tainted win" and look at IRI and the 2013 season.

-JTN

[EricH]

I wouldn't call it a "tainted" win. Everyone on that field had the same issue to one degree or another.

I look at it as, "Who has the best alliance", with an unannounced--and unplanned-for--factor contributing to that called, "Who maintains connection the best".

I also see it as, thanks to all the Einstein teams for finally calling FIRST's full, undivided attention to an issue that has been plaguing them for a while.

And I think the SPAM Raider Squad is one of the best sets of teams to come together and play the game. Comm issues or no comm issues.

[remulasce]

Originally Posted by EricH

I wouldn't call it a "tainted" win. Everyone on that field had the same issue to one degree or another.

I look at it as, "Who has the best alliance", with an unannounced--and unplanned-for--factor contributing to that called, "Who maintains connection the best".

This is a competition. The winner is supposed to be the best at building and driving robots. Maintaining a connection is not the thing that's being tested, it's the prerequisite. Further, can you point to a thing that a team can do to maintain connection better? Because if you can, you should have spoken up to all the teams on Einstein, who were being randomly dropped with no discernable solution. This was not a competition, this was a lottery. I put no faith in the results of the event to speak to who built the best robot.

Every alliance on Einstein made it there because they deserved to be there, and they each had a shot at winning. They were never given that shot. The results to me are as though Einstein never happened- all four alliances are the best alliances in FRC 2012.

[Anupam Goli]

With the way things are going, I have a bad feeling about any potential Einstein replay matches on IRI. There is definitely going to be a bad vibe going about if 180, 16, and 25 don't win that time, and it would just be awkward. I feel like FIRST is handling it correct for now, and needs to investigate this deeply, and as for the champions, I like the idea of keeping the current Champions, but having all other Einstein teams be given a bid to the 2013 Championship.

[AmoryG]

I know it's impossible to predict who will be going championships next season, but if giving teams an auto bid next season is meant to compensate, I honestly don't believe that is enough, especially for teams such as 118, 548, 16, 25, 180, 1114, 2056, 233, 987, who either already qualify or have about as much chance of missing championship as 217 did this year.

[Eugene Fang]

Originally Posted by Wing

With the way things are going, I have a bad feeling about any potential Einstein replay matches on IRI. There is definitely going to be a bad vibe going about if 180, 16, and 25 don't win that time, and it would just be awkward. I feel like FIRST is handling it correct for now, and needs to investigate this deeply, and as for the champions, I like the idea of keeping the current Champions, but having all other Einstein teams be given a bid to the 2013 Championship.

I agree. If I were the IRI committee, I wouldn't want to put the 2012 World Championships in an awkward position. All four alliances had the potential to win, and even with no field issues, some luck going one way or another would have produced a different world champion.

[Hawiian Cadder]

There were several team throughout the season with comm issues. I really hope FIRST finds a more robust com system. This should not have happened, especially on Einstein.

-Shout out to team 1619 who built and insane robot this year, and it connected in only 3 matches.

Originally Posted by JTN

All I am going to say is that people need to be quiet about our so called "tainted win" and look at IRI and the 2013 season.

-JTN

I don't think your win was tainted at all, though other alliances had possibly better single robots, you guys were the most extraordinary alliance with the best strategy and match play. The defensive play and ball starvation allowing great tele-op scores as well as the insane speed and reliability of your auton and balancing earned you the win.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by JTN

All I am going to say is that people need to be quiet about our so called "tainted win" and look at IRI and the 2013 season.

-JTN

I haven't heard a single person call it a tainted win. Granted, everyone would have rather had all robots working in all matchups, but they weren't. We'll see later at IRI, but I bet this alliance would win no matter what.

[jsasaki]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I haven't heard a single person call it a tainted win. Granted, everyone would have rather had all robots working in all matchups, but they weren't. We'll see later at IRI, but I bet this alliance would win no matter what.

sadly heres one

I know others will disagree with me (and this is no way how the team that I am affiliated with feels, this is a purely personal opinion), but I do believe it was a tainted win. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the winning alliance; they were a fantastic set of robots. However, looking at the definition of tainted: Affect with a bad or undesirable quality. The matches were quite obviously affected with an undesirable quality, comm issues.

Again, I mean no disrespect and this is only a personal opinion, not that of the team number next to my name.

[Chexposito]

My disappointment in the situation is that the alliances were not able to perform to their full potential. Curie had a really intense finals, great teams on both sides, and I didn't notice connection problems. From what I heard coming from the crowd at Archimedes, that division's eliminations were also very intense.

[StAxis]

I think the thing that people need to remember is that the winning alliance had comm problems as well, they affected everyone. As someone who was really pulling for 180, I freaked out when they dropped comms in the last game till just the last couple seconds.

While I wish that the matches would have been played out with all robots moving, I still think that the way 180, 25, and 16 played together was brilliant and they deserved the win. Now as for IRI, I think that replaying would be a bad idea, there is always luck involved wether or not comms are dropped and now with time to improve the robot I think that by then it wouldn't even be the same. I think that we should just learn that this is something we need to make sure doesn't happen in the future. What's done is done, every team played their heart out and while it is terrible that some people will never know if comm issues got them out, at the end of the day circumstances still provided for the winner. They made it to the finals and they won, a rematch would just be like trying to strip them of the crown that they fought hard for and I don't think that is right. I like the idea of inviting all of those teams back to worlds next year, but the results should be left as they are regardless of the other factors that poured into it.

All that being said I hope FIRST is going to look into finding a better comm system for 2013 and onward so that disconnects are less likely to happen anywhere from einstien to practice matches.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I haven't heard a single person call it a tainted win. Granted, everyone would have rather had all robots working in all matchups, but they weren't. We'll see later at IRI, but I bet this alliance would win no matter what.

I mean... let's be honest here. Several robots did not move for part or all of their matches due to, as far as we can tell, factors entirely out of their control and/or knowledge. I certainly have no ill will towards 180, 16, and 25, and understand that they're probably feeling just as bad as everyone else right now, but it wasn't a fair fight.