Some thoughts on rules, refs, and ranking

[jblay]

Originally Posted by fsracer

Ouch 694:

"Moreover, individual performance isn't exactly something you can judge quantitatively - e.g. how do you compare offense with defense? 3137 played fantastic defense throughout eliminations and were critical to our wins, but they didn't earn our alliance any actual points."

As the coach of 3171, I saw a consistent 30+ points each match by us. 18 auton, 10 hang and a few during tele when we were not defending. Should we deduct the 30 we did not score from the match totals??

Not sure exactly what you mean here with the ouch 694? Hope no one was offended by any of the posts by members of our team. I think the meaning here was that you can't rank a team purely on their scoring, because great defense and other factors are very difficult to quantify. 3137 gave us consistent 28 points in auto + climb, but they also robbed our opponents of a lot of points with their stingy defense.

With regards to penalties, learn the rules and have your scouts figure out how they are being called, you can argue till you are blue in the face. If you want your partners not to commit penalties, take the initiative to have them understand the rules and don't rely on them to have great knowledge going in. We have a list of rules and common penalties that we go over with all our partners before every single match no matter the partner, we even went over them with 375 who I believe has won NYC more times than any other team.

With regards to the semifinals, not pictured is 1635 hitting us in the protected zone almost every other time we went to the feeder station, these weren't all called but I'm pretty sure the fouls you are referring to in the disputed match were mostly that and 375 contacting our pyramid and our alliance. Just, because the call was not in your favor or in the stream does not mean it did should not have been called.

With blockading I interpreted the rules and I think the refs did as well, the way that blockading has been called in the past specifically in 2011. Two robots teaming up on one robot to stop them from crossing the field. In my mind this refers to only one lane or in front of the pyramid. 1 robot cannot stop a gap from existing in either of these 3 zones, 2 robots can, that is why the rule exists. 2 robots on opposite ends of the field cannot be evaluated as a blockade especially because that would mean that if one robot is on one side playing defense that means there is no way for their partner to enter the other side of the field because there is now no area they can cross without creating this interpretation of a blockade. Also the idea that if the robot can go under the pyramid or not has an effect on the call is pretty crazy. What if I have a robot that can go under but the bot breaks and is stuck in the above position? This is not only unfair because you have made a design choice around not being able to use this part of the field but is also up to the referee to evaluate if you can under the pyramid or not to see if you are being blockaded. To me the rule is pretty black and white. Two robots sitting in front of their opponent trying to stop them from getting somewhere is a blockade, everything else is just defense.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by jblay

With blockading I interpreted the rules and I think the refs did as well, the way that blockading has been called in the past specifically in 2011. Two robots teaming up on one robot to stop them from crossing the field. In my mind this refers to only one lane or in front of the pyramid. 1 robot cannot stop a gap from existing in either of these 3 zones, 2 robots can, that is why the rule exists. 2 robots on opposite ends of the field cannot be evaluated as a blockade especially because that would mean that if one robot is on one side playing defense that means there is no way for their partner to enter the other side of the field because there is now no area they can cross without creating this interpretation of a blockade. Also the idea that if the robot can go under the pyramid or not has an effect on the call is pretty crazy. What if I have a robot that can go under but the bot breaks and is stuck in the above position? This is not only unfair because you have made a design choice around not being able to use this part of the field but is also up to the referee to evaluate if you can under the pyramid or not to see if you are being blockaded. To me the rule is pretty black and white. Two robots sitting in front of their opponent trying to stop them from getting somewhere is a blockade, everything else is just defense.

I'm sorry, I think it's a pretty ridiculous stretch for you, a ref, or anyone else to say that essentially any 2v1 defense on a robot constitutes blockad[ing] the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. You can't just pull the word "blockading" out of that and treat that as the rule, and "stop[ping] one robot from crossing the field" does not, in my opinion, come close to meeting the actual definition of the rule, nor does anything that happened in that match. Would you honestly look at the rule the same way if it hadn't been your team that had benefited from that call?

[alex334]

Alright, I feel that this discussion is drawing towards it's natural conclusion.
I just wanted to summarize some of the things that I've seen repeated and that we can all agree on.

• Refs work hard and their job is very difficult. Yes, they are just volunteers. We greatly appreciate their work even though it often goes unthanked. However, this does not mean that they are always right. We would like to see more accountability in terms of decision making. Perhaps in the form of explanations of large penalties after every match and a more refined system for appeals.
• The GDC should work towards removing ambiguity in the rules. We understand that this is a difficult task, but a few more examples of blockades, etc. would have greatly benefited the competition. Try to explain rules, especially if they can be left open to interpretation.
• Field communications seem to be getting really wonky. Please look into better solutions than having every team disable their cameras.
• FIRST needs more volunteers. So go help out! I know I will be from now on.

Thank you everyone for your responses. A lot was clarified and many topics were illuminated. It was a great season for 334 and I am tremendously proud of all the students on the team. I hope that the season improves for later competitions in terms of uncontrollable issues and wish you all good luck. I know that I will be sticking around for a long time to come, likely as a volunteer as some of you suggested. 334 will definitely be back with a vengeance as the work for next year has already begun.

Once again. Thank you.

[FrankJ]

Maybe add pay attention at the driver's meeting. This is the place to find out the event ref's interpretation of the rules. Ask well thought out questions there. Listen to the answers.

[kamehameHA]

First, I'd like to thank all the judges, referees, and volunteers that I met and interacted with at the NYC regional. Second, I'd like to voice my concern over the communication errors that occurred during the elimination matches. I understand that having 65 teams continually shuffle through the field is difficult, but forcing teams to turn off their cameras in the finals wouldn't fly at most other regional competitions and definitely not at championships. Losing our Kinect feed completely crippled our ability to shoot.
More frustratingly, our robot lost communication during the teleop periods of our only elimination matches. Although the first couple of elimination matches were replayed, ours was not. Despite talking to some of the field management people, the ruling was never made and we were considered out without taking a single shot.