Week 2 Analysis

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

I was referring to the last second out of bounds tech foul call on our partner.

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Thank you for the compliment - we've got lots to improve upon in the offensive execution area, responding to self-generated issues, as well as insulating ourselves from externally-generated blar. Our drivetrain is quite the equalizer, however. It tends to get us further in the elims that we realistically should get.

I definitely spent some time watching this. Something was rather soothing or elegant about the rhythm. If you can put this kind of practice to work and get a routine going on the field, I'm confident you'll perform well.

[ToddF]

You mean 4306? They were clearly already outside the boundary before the end of the match. The buzzer sounds simultaneously with the BASE of the arm contacting the field boundary.

The thing that really caught my eye was all the G28 fouls committed by the blue alliance yellow bot in Q24. I see G28 fouls at 1:32, 1:35, 1:46 and, most flagrantly, 2:30.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

I definitely spent some time watching this. Something was rather soothing or elegant about the rhythm. If you can put this kind of practice to work and get a routine going on the field, I'm confident you'll perform well.

Actually we're looking to add more staccato and random variation to that particular rhythm, which can sometimes be interrupted by the opposition. We tend to play at events where free-flowing offense is kindasorta a rarity.

[ToddF]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

Also, here's video that clearly shows a pedestal lighting delay near the end of Q24, a five point loss that a truss would have erased, had we been given the time we deserved to execute it.

Sorry, I don't see any delay. Note that the red pedestal isn't actually visible in the video.

For red:
- HP has red ball at :16
- Low goal :39
- HP has ball :45
- High goal 1:22
- HP has ball 1:27
- Low goal 2:17
- HP has ball 2:25

For blue:
- Low goal :58
- Pedestal lit 1:00
- Low goal 2:01
- Pedestal lit 2:05

[FIRST_Parent]

48 looked awesome in the elimination rounds....consistent refereeing was indeed a concern. Good luck to 48 Elite in the rest of the season... you owe me and Nick a dinner at the Keg LOL...just kidding. Come up in the summer for a back-yard steak Travis. Just bring the Boston Lager.
FIRST_Parent.

[Ian Curtis]

Specifically, how did FIRST improve on the things they set out to? I wasn't at an event, so curious to hear from those that lived it.

• Upper Goal Bounce-Outs
  
• Fouls
  
• Refs
  
• System Issues
  
• Balls Being Returned to Field

Link to Bill's Blog Week 1

[MrBasse]

Originally Posted by ToddF

The thing that really caught my eye was all the G28 fouls committed by the blue alliance yellow bot in Q24. I see G28 fouls at 1:32, 1:35, 1:46 and, most flagrantly, 2:30.

At 2:30 they hit their own alliance partner...

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Specifically, how did FIRST improve on the things they set out to? I wasn't at an event, so curious to hear from those that lived it.

• Upper Goal Bounce-Outs
  
• Fouls
  
• Refs
  
• System Issues
  
• Balls Being Returned to Field

Link to Bill's Blog Week 1

Upper goal bounce outs- no longer an issue. That sheet of lexan did wonders.
Fouls- as far as I saw (no stats to back this up) the number of fouls seemed to decrease (especially G40) but the timing of big fouls was prevalent. Lots of finals matches were marred by tech fouls.
Refs-at least at UNH, they seemed more alert and aware of the rules than week 1, but I can't speak for other events. How assists are being called still seems to be different from event to event.
System issues- if you're talking about pedestals, there were still some issues at multiple events.
Balls being returned to the field- I haven't seen as many issues this week regarding this. Events I observed had volunteers who knew what to do.
Keep in mind these are just observations from the event I competed in and the 3 events I watched (UNH, GTRW, Groton, and San Diego).

[ToddF]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

At 2:30 they hit their own alliance partner...

You are right. I was so indignant at the hit I didn't notice the bumper colors were the same...

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by ToddF

Sorry, I don't see any delay. Note that the red pedestal isn't actually visible in the video.

For red:
- HP has red ball at :16
- Low goal :39
- HP has ball :45
- High goal 1:22
- HP has ball 1:27
- Low goal 2:17
- HP has ball 2:25

For blue:
- Low goal :58
- Pedestal lit 1:00
- Low goal 2:01
- Pedestal lit 2:05

So blue's pedestal lit far more quickly on average? Interesting....

I consider 8 seconds to be a ridiculously excessive amount of delay waiting for all human and computerized decision makers to verify that yes, indeed, the big colored ball went into one of the big colored goals. Many people are reporting 10 seconds or more of delay? Is ball scored? Yes? It takes 1 second or so to make this realization? Then turn the $@#$@#$@#$@# pedestal on. Whether ref or FMS caused, FIX THE PROBLEM.

The fun part is red's pedestal lit three seconds after the already 8 second delay had occurred just prior to the last red hp pickup, so the total delay was 11 seconds. The coach of the hp just said screw it and told him to pick it up. ZOMG SHOULD HAVE BEEN TECH FOULED FOR THEIR EGREGIOUS IGNORING OF THE BROKEN SYSTEM THAT TAKES 20,000 YEARS TO REGISTER A SCORE.

FIX. THE. PROBLEM.

Here's a thought - the pedestal light be damned. Station a single volunteer at each pedestal whose sole responsibility is to watch for alliance scores and yell GO when it's ok to pick up the ball. Does that cost too much in free t-shirts and meals to employ?

[Ultimatum]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Specifically, how did FIRST improve on the things they set out to? I wasn't at an event, so curious to hear from those that lived it.

• Upper Goal Bounce-Outs
  
• Fouls
  
• Refs
  
• System Issues
  
• Balls Being Returned to Field

Link to Bill's Blog Week 1

As someone that watched almost every week 1 and was at Central Valley week 2, I'll give my 2 cents.

Bounce outs: I saw no ball that passed completely through the goal opening and came back out.

Fouls: the G40 change did almost nothing. One of our scouts was watching only penalties, and every G40 or G35 he saw was due to a field fault or a minor incursion that didn't compromise safety in any way. Most matches, qualifications and eliminations, were determined by what penalties the refs called and what they didn't, rather than the actual gameplay, which was incredibly dissapointing.

Refs: are still being asked to do too much. So much wasn't called (including a frame perimeter incursion in our first elimination match that crippled us for the rest of the tournament) and matches were being decided by what the refs were willing to call. I don't think the refs can physically call everything without 8-10 refs (one for every robot and ball in play). Incidental contact with an opponent's ball was called as herding waaaaay too often, and frame perimeter violations were hardly called on robots that were designed without this in mind.

I have to respect the head ref and FTA at Central Valley, though, as they must've had at least 2 people in the question boxes after every single match played, and they always kept their cool and were respectful and helpful to the best of their extent.

System Issues: the pedestals weren't working more often than they were. Delays of 10 secs were common throughout, and the general response was to deal with it. The worst issue our scouts noticed were pedestals lighting up and then turning off, which gave that alliance a G35 almost every time it happened, and they had no means of arguing otherwise. If improvements happened this week, I shudder at thinking of what week 1 teams had to suffer through.

Balls being returned to the field: seemed to improve quite a bit. There's obviously a delay, but most of the volunteers were ready for whenever the ball came at them and knew how important it was to get the ball to the human player as fast as possible.

In general, slight improvements, but there's still a long way to go before we see Aeriel Ascent not decided by technical fouls, pedestal issues, and inconsistent refereeing.

[MrForbes]

Watching the pedestal lighting thing at Hub City, it appears there are a few different causes for the delay. A few times, one of the autonomous balls left the field and was not returned as it should have been. Other times it looked like the referee didn't score the ball as scored.

When the pedestal doesn't light, and the ball is entered into play, usually under direction of a referee, it appears the FMS still isn't aware that the ball should be in play (doh, the pedestal didn't light!) and the ball then gets no assists recorded, as the alliance cycles it.

This appears to be a situation that coaches are going to have to pay lots of attention to during matches.

[ToddF]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Specifically, how did FIRST improve on the things they set out to? I wasn't at an event, so curious to hear from those that lived it.

• Upper Goal Bounce-Outs
  
• Fouls
  
• Refs
  
• System Issues
  
• Balls Being Returned to Field

I watched a ton of streaming matches. On Friday night I switched between four streams so there was always a match playing from about 5pm until the last west coast matches were over.

- Bounce outs: The goal redesign completely fixed the bounce out problem from the rear bar. I saw maybe two bounce outs the entire weekend, and those were pure flukes.
- Fouls: The insane number of G40 penalties was cut way, way down. It was like they went from making that penalty the highest focus of ref attention to making it the lowest focus. In my opinion, it dramatically improved the match results.
- Refs: I don't know that they got any better at refereeing robot-robot interactions. One of my personal pet peeves is uncalled G28 fouls. I didn't see any improvement here. On the other hand, scoring seemed to be smoother. I guess if I had to prioritize the referees attention, I would prefer them to focus on scoring goals and assists first, and catching illegal gameplay second, but it still rankles me to watch match video and see teams getting away with illegally aggressive defensive play. As long as the neglect is applied equally to all, it's probably a wash.
- System issues: Couldn't say. I only watched matches in play, skipping delays.
- Balls being returned to Field: From the matches I saw, this was almost instant. In fact, robots throwing over the truss to the sidelines didn't really need to make the throws catchable by the HP. Even if the HP missed, the ball was promptly delivered by field staff. Big cudos here for much improvement.

In short, after working through the normal week 1 bugs, the game is now being played like we expected it would be.

[ToddF]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

So blue's pedestal lit far more quickly on average? Interesting....

Nope. The red pedestal is not visible in the video, so it is not possible to tell if either pedestal lit more slowly than the other.

[juchong]

Everyone is aware that the pedestal only lights once a referee "completes" a cycle manually, right? To do this they have to select who made what assists, whether there was a truss shot, and where the ball was scored. Once they submit that information to the system, then the pedestal lights up. If they are busy with a penalty, counting down an instance of pinning, etc. then they won't be able to "complete the cycle" as quickly as if they were just keeping track of scores.

At Hub City, we had the guys at the scoring table keeping track of matches to compare against what was entered in the system. Whenever there was an issue with a ball being introduced into the field incorrectly, a tablet froze, or there was a field fault, we replayed a match.

I know that people are unhappy about how quickly the pedestal is lighting up, but you also have to understand that it's a completely manual process!