2014 Arkansas Regional

[Jefferson]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

For match 3 the inadvertant hitting of the red ball of 4522 while being pushed by the bomb squad and trying to pick up the blue ball they missed at about 1:27 minutes was penalized as herding.

I am unsure of all the match 2 penalties. One was the legitimate G40 penalty of the human player trying to catch the blue ball at 0:41 and leaning too far in. The other 3 penalties I was never told to my satisfaction what they might have been.

Congratulations to the regional winners 16, 3937, and 4500. Those last 3 games were emotional, hard fought good games and I am only sorry that this year's game has too many subjective penalties to try and referee. When everyone is asking what the penalties were a day later you know the game rules could use an update. You guys are awesome and good luck to the winners at Worlds.

The penalty in match 3 was on 4090 for pushing the red ball into the blue low goal with ~5 sec left. Watch the red alliance driver station flip out when it happens.
Yes. Those were some awesome/stressful matches. Y'all played a very good game. Everybody I spoke with on your alliance was very proffesional after a tough loss. Good luck at Bayou. I hope we get to see you again at worlds.

[sircedric4]

Originally Posted by Jefferson

The penalty in match 3 was on 4090 for pushing the red ball into the blue low goal with ~5 sec left. Watch the red alliance driver station flip out when it happens.
Yes. Those were some awesome/stressful matches. Y'all played a very good game. Everybody I spoke with on your alliance was very proffesional after a tough loss. Good luck at Bayou. I hope we get to see you again at worlds.

I see what you are talking about. I can only relate what the referees told us when our team asked a ref what the penalty was for. I relayed what we were told in my previous post. Once again I feel the game is just too subjective if the referees dont even know what they are penalizing for. I have taken my feeling on technical fouls swinging games to the different appropriate posts on Chief Delphi to keep this thread in a celebratory mood about a fun regional and to celebrate your success.

We hope to win Bayou and see you at World's at well but with this game who knows? We tried to remain gracious and represent the Gracious Professional award as best we could after the final scores were announced. If anyone overheard any questionable comments it was not directed at any teams and was simply venting of high intensity emotions.

Great job 16, 3937, and 4500 again. 3937 we look forward to seeing you on our home court at the Bayou and hope you have a good time when you come visit.

[geomapguy]

Wow! This event was run so well.

Couple of things:

Thanks to Alan Anderson who was a great CSA! He helped our team and many other teams get their control systems working

Thanks to 1706 and 1939 for being great alliance members! We were so close to beating the #2 seed. You guys were great partners and we were honored to work with you guys!

Congrats to 16, 3937, and 4500 for winning. You guys played really well.

It was a really good experience and maybe the rest of our season will go good also!

[JTN]

To clarify and see the penalties myself, I watched the final match 2 video over again to find them. Apparently team 4522's catapult that sticks out of the back of their robot was protruding the plane of the red one point goal every time they backed into it, which was the reason for the 3 smaller fouls (I can provide the video if needed). Those fouls along with the 50 point technical added to the massive 110 points on the final score. After some discussion with the referees afterwards, the penalties could not all be assessed during the matches throughout the tournament because of the inconvenient layout of the touch screen GUI (to call a foul the ref had to leave the scoring screen and open a new window, thereby preventing them from keeping score). The touch screen GUI in particular needs to be improved to prevent any further match outcomes from varying with the score shown at the end of the match. That is a completely different thread, however.

On another note: Congratulations to 1939 on the Chairman's Award!

-John Taylor Novak

[sircedric4]

Originally Posted by JTN

To clarify and see the penalties myself, I watched the final match 2 video over again to find them. Apparently team 4522's catapult that sticks out of the back of their robot was protruding the plane of the red one point goal every time they backed into it, which was the reason for the 3 smaller fouls (I can provide the video if needed). Those fouls along with the 50 point technical added to the massive 110 points on the final score. After some discussion with the referees afterwards, the penalties could not all be assessed during the matches throughout the tournament because of the inconvenient layout of the touch screen GUI (to call a foul the ref had to leave the scoring screen and open a new window, thereby preventing them from keeping score). The touch screen GUI in particular needs to be improved to prevent any further match outcomes from varying with the score shown at the end of the match. That is a completely different thread, however.

On another note: Congratulations to 1939 on the Chairman's Award!

-John Taylor Novak

Thanks! We were wondering what those other penalties were. I have had several discussions with other referees in PM and they also explained the GUI system to me. Hopefully FIRST will fix that so the real time score will be more accurate. We learned a lot about the game this regional and know where we are going to focus our efforts in human player training and in robot improvements for our next Regional.

We really had a lovely time and hopefully we won't have to deal with snow at our next Regional. :-) Good night all, we had a long car drive back today.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by JTN

To clarify and see the penalties myself, I watched the final match 2 video over again to find them. Apparently team 4522's catapult that sticks out of the back of their robot was protruding the plane of the red one point goal every time they backed into it, which was the reason for the 3 smaller fouls (I can provide the video if needed).

I didn't get to watch as much of Arkansas as I should. Do you know if these fouls were called much in quals? I've been watching a lot of streams the last two weeks and I've seen many teams violate said rule and not get penalized for it...

Congratulations on the win. It's a beautiful machine with a great driver.

[robotlover77]

Sircedric4 your team is to be commended for the example of gracious professionalism you exhibited. As an impartial observer of the entire regional I am absolutely sickened by what transpired. There was a collective rumble that went through the crowd of non Arkansas spectators as the ultimate result was revealed. There is a large faction that saw this for what it was. The fact that the regional winner was determined after the match, based on foul point assessments, after a good deal of elapsed time, with the outcome ultimately favoring not one, but two home teams is suspect in and of itself. The fact that the driver of the team that won, 16, shares the same last name as both the Regional Director (Novak) and another member of the Arkansas Regional Planning Committee seems to me in and of itself a huge conflict of interest. Additionally, a judge was a senior engineer from Baxter, sponsor of the winning team. Considering the outcome I think it is highly suspect and at the very least deserves investigation by FIRST. Had it been a clear victory this would not be a consideration. Anyone that thinks this was a clear victory is either delusional or dishonest. I didn't have a dog in the race and came into this completely impartial. I am just a fan of FIRST and a believer in fair competition. This was a sad, sad day for FIRST.....

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by robotlover77

...as an impartial observer of the entire regional i am absolutely sickened by what transpired. there was a collective rumble that went through the crowd of non arkansas spectators as the ultimate result was revealed.

Quite the impartial observer...several anonymous accounts popping up.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by robotlover77

Sircedric4 your team is to be commended for the example of gracious professionalism you exhibited. As an impartial observer of the entire regional I am absolutely sickened by what transpired. There was a collective rumble that went through the crowd of non Arkansas spectators as the ultimate result was revealed. There is a large faction that saw this for what it was. The fact that the regional winner was determined after the match, based on foul point assessments, after a good deal of elapsed time, with the outcome ultimately favoring not one, but two home teams is suspect in and of itself. The fact that the driver of the team that won, 16, shares the same last name as both the Regional Director (Novak) and another member of the Arkansas Regional Planning Committee seems to me in and of itself a huge conflict of interest. Additionally, a judge was a senior engineer from Baxter, sponsor of the winning team. Considering the outcome I think it is highly suspect and at the very least deserves investigation by FIRST. Had it been a clear victory this would not be a consideration. Anyone that thinks this was a clear victory is either delusional or dishonest. I didn't have a dog in the race and came into this completely impartial. I am just a fan of FIRST and a believer in fair competition. This was a sad, sad day for FIRST.....

I HAVE a dog in this race. Meredith (the RD) and her entire family are very good friends of mine. If that call was even remotely questionable you would see them arguing against it being made. They are some of the most honest and kind hearted folks I've ever met.

Did you know that Meredith ALSO was involved in 2 of the teams on the other alliance? And when it looked like the other alliance won the folks you are accusing of cheating were congratulating the other alliance?

I'm not going to discuss the validity of the calls. Everything I've heard from folks outside of 16 was that it was a blatant foul that decided the match. I'm just letting you know that the folks you are attacking aren't the type to cheat under any circumstances.

[robotlover77]

I am not attacking anyone. I simply provided information that I did not know beforehand. I notice you did not dispute that indeed it is all factual. People can take from it what they want and draw their own conclusions. I think transparency is of utmost importance in any kind of competition especially when the outcome is determined by the referees decision, not by game play.

I was there as a potential team sponsor. I am not relying on biased hearsay. There was not simply one foul that decided one match. The blue alliance won the first match and appeared to have one the second and third, but because of fouls called in the last two after the match had concluded it was determined that they lost. I heard many in the stands voicing their displeasure. One person even predicted the exact outcome after the second match. I was shocked and asked where to voice my concerns. They directed me to this site and told me to send a letter to FIRST.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by robotlover77

I am not attacking anyone. I simply provided information that I did not know beforehand. I notice you did not dispute that indeed it is all factual. People can take from it what they want and draw their own conclusions. I think transparency is of utmost importance in any kind of competition especially when the outcome is determined by the referees decision, not by game play.

I was there as a potential team sponsor. I am not relying on biased hearsay. There was not simply one foul that decided one match. The blue alliance won the first match and appeared to have one the second and third, but because of fouls called in the last two after the match had concluded it was determined that they lost. I heard many in the stands voicing their displeasure. One person even predicted the exact outcome after the second match. I was shocked and asked where to voice my concerns. They directed me to this site and told me to send a letter to FIRST.

"As an impartial observer of the entire regional I am absolutely sickened by what transpired."

"seems to me in and of itself a huge conflict of interest."

" Anyone that thinks this was a clear victory is either delusional or dishonest"

"This was a sad, sad day for FIRST....."


These are ALL attacks.

Sorry for not disputing your tenuous grasping at straws slandering a family that has driven FIRST in the Midwest for as long as I can remember one of whom is a WFA winner and a team that doesn't NEED to win to go to Championship due to the fact that they are a Hall of Fame team.

The fact that several people have come out telling you outright that the Novak family are pillars of the FIRST community as well as genuinely upstanding individuals may tell you something.

If you don't believe me, fine, contact FIRST.

FIRST
200 Bedford St.
Manchester, NH 03101


Contact Don Bossi. That's about as far up as you can go.

But stop dragging a well respected member of our community through the mud publicly.

[robotlover77]

My intent is not to drag anyone through the mud. I simply posted what I witnessed and facts that I read from an official program. If I were a team contemplating entering a regional next year I would appreciate all the information I could gather to make an educated decision regarding where I spent my time and dollars.

In comparison to other competitive events if Mother Theresa had a team competing in the Super Bowl and was put in charge of hiring the officiating crew and her team won on a controversial call I believe there would be cause to question the outcome. That would not be saying that Mother Theresa or her family were bad people just that there was potential for bias which could have determined the outcome.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by robotlover77

My intent is not to drag anyone through the mud. I simply posted what I witnessed and facts that I read from an official program. If I were a team contemplating entering a regional next year I would appreciate all the information I could gather to make an educated decision regarding where I spent my time and dollars.

In comparison to other competitive events if Mother Theresa had a team competing in the Super Bowl and was put in charge of hiring the officiating crew and her team won on a controversial call I believe there would be cause to question the outcome. That would not be saying that Mother Theresa or her family were bad people just that there was potential for bias which could have determined the outcome.

Well, here then, I posted the mailing address of FIRST and gave you the name of someone who can actually look into it. CD is unofficial in all capacities. Take it up with folks who can look into things.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by robotlover77

My intent is not to drag anyone through the mud. I simply posted what I witnessed and facts that I read from an official program. If I were a team contemplating entering a regional next year I would appreciate all the information I could gather to make an educated decision regarding where I spent my time and dollars.

In comparison to other competitive events if Mother Theresa had a team competing in the Super Bowl and was put in charge of hiring the officiating crew and her team won on a controversial call I believe there would be cause to question the outcome. That would not be saying that Mother Theresa or her family were bad people just that there was potential for bias which could have determined the outcome.

Huh, didn't realize your thought process could get more outlandish, but I guess I was wrong.

Based on your logic, almost every single event in FIRST is rigged. BMR is managed by Purdue FIRST alumni, and there are Purdue teams that compete. MSC is managed by more than a few elite team mentors and their teams compete there. At the event that I was at this weekend, the Rookie All Star team also was on the winning alliance and was top seeded rookie and their sponsor university was the host.

What you are describing, elite teams who manage events, is not corruption but teams being role models for other teams. See, managing an event is difficult. Managing a team is difficult. Combine those two things together and you have one heck of a stressful weekend.

I suggest you volunteer for an event, so you learn how exhausting it is, and how amazing event and volunteer coordinators are.

The facts are this:
There is a proper protocol to go through if a team questions the outcome of a match, that protocol does NOT include slander on CD.
Refs huddle up after matches, especially during the finals, to make sure they get the calls correct.
The Novak's are one of the absolute nicest families in FIRST.
You are wrong.

[robotlover77]

Admittedly I am new to FIRST. I was asked to watch a regional competition as a potential sponsor. It just so happened that this is the match that worked out logistically. I have however witnessed countless other competitive events in a host of fields on all levels. There is potential for bias in all competitive events and FIRST in no exception; to think otherwise is extremely naive.

The level of support you have for certain teams is impressive, however, nobody should be above review. Mistakes can be made regardless.

Remember, that 2 years ago, 16 experienced first hand what somebody actually fixing an event feels like, and I guarantee that they would NEVER allow anything like that to happen, because they have seen how it affects everybody involved.

So are you saying that past FIRST events have been "fixed" ? Was it called into question and rectified? I would appreciate any honest feedback as I am trying to make a decision regarding team sponsorship and I in no way want to be affiliated with an organization that condones such behavior and dishonesty. The team appealing for my sponsorship painted a much different picture of FIRST.