FIRST does have other options re Enistein.

[de_]

I am a seasoned FIRST electrical/computer engineering mentor. I had the luxury of attending the championship strictly as an observer. Unfortunately my observations are that in all certainty the wrong outcome was realized. Just review the Archimedes finals and pay attention to the scores and the fact that triple balances were the norm and compare that to Einstein results. As an engineer I am truly sorry for an incorrect result based on technology failure. That alliance could not have paid a higher price as there is no material chance they will all be at the championship and in the same division at once ever again.
FIRST does have options. Do nothing with a promise to do better next year is not the only one. I feel strongly that the FIRST board should step up and should review the videos and if their conclusion is the same as mine, issue a one time special recognition championship flag and trophy to that alliance both to recognizes the alliance but also to remind us that technology can and regularly does let us down and never become complacent in our blind faith trust in it.

Science is based on facts. The facts in the Archimedes finals videos are undeniable.

After two full days of thinking about this non-trival issue, as a mentor I find if I didn't post this I would be disrespecting the alliance and the FIRST philosophy.

UPDATE: Okay I realized this would controversial. If there were alliances in other divisions that could regularly score say 60-70 ball points and triple balance every time against high end teams AND lost out in their division due to unexplained dead robots, then this changes everything. If you know of an example, could you please post the field and a team # from the alliance so I can take a look and possibly retract my post.

[pathew100]

What about the other alliances on Einstein?

[EricH]

Pat is right. There were 4 alliances on Einstein, all of which had some form of communication issue. To say that one alliance should get a "recognition flag" over all the others is absurd. Reviewing videos won't help--in that case, Newton and Curie need to be reviewed too, along with Archimedes and Galileo. But it still won't help, because you play differently against different opponents.

The better way to handle this, IMO, would be for FIRST to reserve slots at the Championship for all 12 Einstein teams for next year (though 1114 won't need to use theirs due to joining the HoF). That, at least, is not without an applicable precedent. Twice in the past, a finalist alliance at a regional has been given slots at the Championship because *something* got messed up pretty badly in the regional finals.

[Astrokid248]

Yeah, not to be biased, but Pat is right. What about Newton? We triple-balanced just as fast as Archimedes did, and put up just as many balls. You can't say Archimedes would've beaten us, and you can't say that Archimedes could defeat the crazy defense that 16 played. I can't say we'd actually beat Galileo if given the chance. Don't make wild statements like that. While yeah, most people think it should've been Archimedes versus Newton and yeah, because of the strong northern bias of FRC they would pick the Eh Team when betting, the fact of the matter is that neither alliance could connect to the field. The best robots for this year's game (and all its unforseen field failures) were 25's, 16's and 180's. Saying otherwise is disrespecting the entire FIRST community and the FIRST philosophy (which we should be protecting in light of what the organization did to itself).

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by EricH

.

The better way to handle this, IMO, would be for FIRST to reserve slots at the Championship for all 12 Einstein teams for next year (though 1114 won't need to use theirs due to joining the HoF). That, at least, is not without an applicable precedent. Twice in the past, a finalist alliance at a regional has been given slots at the Championship because *something* got messed up pretty badly in the regional finals.

I think this would be the best way to approach this matter.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by EricH

The better way to handle this, IMO, would be for FIRST to reserve slots at the Championship for all 12 Einstein teams for next year (though 1114 won't need to use theirs due to joining the HoF). That, at least, is not without an applicable precedent. Twice in the past, a finalist alliance at a regional has been given slots at the Championship because *something* got messed up pretty badly in the regional finals.

Eric, I agree - with one minor change. I believe that FIRST should invite all 12 Division winners to the Championship free of charge.

Let those teams use the $5k they save on registration to help them prepare for a potential return to Einstein.

[Gary Dillard]

Dave, I can't even believe you posted that, and I'm not sure it even warrants me wasting my time responding. " in all certainty the wrong outcome was realized". Really? REALLY???? I'm glad you're so certain. I guess you didn't notice that the Galileo alliance could triple balance as well but rarely needed to because they were so far ahead in their matches due to Bomb Squad starving the competition of balls to score.
I've been pleasantly surprised that there haven't been more posts like yours; I think everyone understands that there were 4 good alliances and we would all have liked to had a competitive final 4 take place. Your post is nothing short of ignorant.

[Jon Stratis]

All the analysis in the world won't give you a guarantee of who would have won. Let me give you a real-world FIRST example from Logomotion.

Last year at North Star, things did not go as people expected. We were the 7th seeded alliance, but we've been there before, and through good team work made it to the finals against the "super alliance". If you looked at all the video footage leading up to that, there would be no doubt in your mind who would win that match, and by a large margin. The first one went as expected, and we lost. The second one we did even worse, and they did just as well... but the super alliance made a mistake and got a red card (two red cards for two different mistakes, actually). That was something no one could have predicted, and was something that alliance hadn't done leading up to that point. So we go into the third match with lifted spirits and an air of determination... only to see our elevator break during autonomous. Our drive team didn't give up, and went on the defensive instead - the first time they played defense across 2 regionals. We ended up winning that match by only a couple of points, and the regional. Who would have predicted it?

So, since those regional finals went against what all prediction and analysis of prior matches would have expected, should we recognize those teams like you want to recognize those from Einstein this year? If you doubt my analysis, Just look up videos from North Star in 2011 and do your own.

FIRST matches are not deterministic. Robot performance is (sadly) not a constant, and neither is drive team or human player performance. Take a look at the NCAA Basketball tournament for a good analogy. Millions of people every year make their picks and enter them into pools... and millions of people every year are wrong. Even the experts on TV are wrong every year. Not necessarily about everything, but wrong about a significant number of outcomes of games.

[BigJ]

I am also for giving the Einstein bids to CMP but then that also begs the question "What about teams with comms problems in the divisional rounds?" etc.

Also can we stop making a new topic every 3 hours about Einstein? There are literally 5 or more Einstein threads on the front page (at least in my portal config) and this easily could have fit into 3 of them

[Marc S.]

I think it's also important to recognize the alliances that did not make it to Einstein very possibly because of comm issues.

Like 341, 254, and 78 who put up the all time high score of 128 points in the curie semis, but were eliminated in the finals because of communication issues. (*edit, as stated below, this however was not the fields fault.)

Or what about 1717, 469, and 2471. They had (very arguably) the 2 best scorers from 2012 on their alliance but were eliminated in the semis of Newton after 1717 died in almost every match. (*edit, turns out this was caused by a bad cable that linked the crio to the radio of their robot, so not the fault of the field)

It's impossible to know if they would have won their division but because of communication issues we will never know.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BigJ

I am also for giving the Einstein bids to CMP but then that also begs the question "What about teams with comms problems in the divisional rounds?" etc.

Or regionals?

My thought would be that the Einstein teams get CMP slots (whether they get any sort of discount, including a 100% discount, is up in the air but would probably be a good idea). These are the teams with the most exposure of the issue, and the ones possibly hardest hit.

Again my thoughts: Divisional elimination issues (at least down to semis) get either a discounted registration or a guaranteed slot at a regional of their choice other than their home regional (and announced soon enough that they can raise the funds). These teams could have made Einstein if their comms were operational.

Anything below the divisional elims is going to get far too complicated to find and award.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Eric, I agree - with one minor change. I believe that FIRST should invite all 12 Division winners to the Championship free of charge.

Let those teams use the $5k they save on registration to help them prepare for a potential return to Einstein.

Not to mention that it's very likely that almost all of the teams have earned/will earn that slot anyway and feels like an empty gesture.

2056 is more likely to miss the Championship Event than the world to implode tomorrow, but that's about it.

[Sean Raia]

Do you SERIOUSLY think that the outcome of Einstein was "wrong"?
How can it even be wrong? Its the outcome of luck, talent, and well built machines.

This thread is very offensive. The fact that you stated you were a seasoned FIRST mentor just makes it worse. I hope you can realize exactly what was wrong about your statements and appologize to the Galileo alliance.

*editted to be less harsh

[Bryscus]

Team 180 had comm problems and we worked through them. We lost communications in the last match as well. However, we were ready at a moment's notice to reboot the robot to get as much play time as we possibly could. We foresaw this potential problem and changed our strategy on the fly. Also, I showed some of the 118 kids how to reboot and what to look for in the event of a problem. I'm not sure if they tried it or not, but I wanted them to move almost as much as they did.

The reason our alliance played so well was that 16 could retrieve balls from our opponents and pass them to us. I didn't see any other team play such incredible defense the entire competition. One could perhaps even go so far as to say that that Bomb Squad could have been paired with any two good key shooters and come out extremely competitive. I'm sure there were a couple good robots that were individually better than any robot on our alliance, but the alliance teamwork is what made the difference.

We could also triple balance very quickly. I think the fact that we never had to shows more than actually triple balancing. I hope that hateful comments such as these aren't shared with the kids. This certainly doesn't help spread the message of FIRST.

- Bryce

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Marc S.

Like 341, 254, and 78 who put up the all time high score of 128 points in the curie semis, but were eliminated in the finals because of communication issues.

As much as I'd like to place blame, The Daisy Poof Strike Alliance was not eliminated due to the Same Comms issues that plagued many others. Look at Jared's posts in the other threads.

Basically, 78's radio came unplugged (Yes, a comms issue, but one that could've been prevented) and 341 had shooter issues and lost their backup coupon.