Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

There is a reason airplane manufacturers don't put this switch on board to be accidentally toggled.

I understand FIRST is in between a bit of a rock and a hard place (do they use this option to schedule practice matches?), but it seems ridiculous that the default would be to change it instead of leave it in place. As Eric said, why isn't more of this validated beforehand? Since the burden is really on Districts now, can we run more official week Zero events to shake this all out earlier?

Perhaps this discussion is a more interesting note on what CD finds important. A thread of whether you can use tape to make your bumpers look nice blows up right away, but a thread about something that actually impacts teams in a meaningful way just simmers in the background.

I think something that would greatly benefit FRC would be to reevaluate how current Week Zero scrimmages are being run.

Our team is very lucky to have the opportunity to attend the Week Zero event with an official field & FMS hosted at Merrimack HS and formerly Nashua HS. This event seems much like a one day off season we have grown familiar with. Practice matches in the morning, three regular matches, alliance selection, and then a quick elimination bracket of four alliances and done. Teams get the time on the field and FIRST gets to see how the game is played but there is still a lot missing from it compared to a regular event. Penalties were "called" in that the refs were scoring them but never telling teams what fouls occurred and there wasn't even the guarantee that refs were looking for fouls each match. Pedestals were an issue then as well and quite possibly the hot goal problem seen by 254. Since many teams didn't have a working auto mode it didn't matter and we weren't looking for it.

A lot of the issues we have seen this year could have been "fixed" or at least recognized sooner if the scrimmages were run more like an official event. Some sort of feedback form would also benefit FIRST as teams can notify FIRST of what isn't working and what is so if one group noticed something that another didn't at least FIRST was notified.

Some issues just won't be fixed by Week Zero scrimmages being monitored more. Didn't seem like we lost 20 seconds of match time.

Lastly, FIRST needs to start taking this stuff more seriously and maybe they are just we haven't heard anything. I think its the latter part that bothers me the most because teams who attended Mt. Olive haven't heard a word from HQ and what happened there was worse than tech fouls being worth too much as they lost a lot of match play time. Frank came on board and really started to better the communication to teams but since we've seen these issues this year we haven't even heard, "We see there is a problem and we are working on it".

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Lastly, FIRST needs to start taking this stuff more seriously and maybe they are just we haven't heard anything. I think its the latter part that bothers me the most because teams who attended Mt. Olive haven't heard a word from HQ ...

This is what I don't understand.

FIRST is collectively an organization of tens of thousands of the smartest people in the world.

Where is the logic in hiding the problems, sweeping them under the rug, in an effort to keep up appearances? If HQ were more transparent about problems as they happen, more eyes attached to brilliant minds get on the problem, and an optimal solution can be found much more quickly.

When problems are kept from view, they fester, until someone notices (again, because we're all smart people), and says something. When that happens, we end up with threads like this one.

I realize that in this case, there is little to be done that isn't already being done, but in many cases, there are things that can still be done, and I believe a culture of admitting problems where they exist would lead to a better program as a whole.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Racer26

<snip>

again, full disclosure, the unmentioned Ref who was asked match time by the FTA and the one who Ryan initially told about the match time issue was me.

Mt. Olive had controversial events beyond this as is. Aside from the typical week 1 replays, there were other non-match related controversies that needn't be discussed here. It was stressful for all involved. The "I survived Mt. Olive 2014" joke was started before this issue was noticed.

When Ryan first told me about this around midnight last Sunday, I was flabbergasted with no idea of what to even say beyond a single expletive. I made the decision that it should, for the time, stay between as few people as possible until FIRST addressed it in some way or someone else noticed it and posted about it. The only person I told initially were the FTA, and a few days later, a fellow ref.

Simply put, I decided that it'd be best to wait until all of the other week 1 dust settled because to me, that was a more important thing to be discussed/settled than what occurred due to a minor oversight. It could have been avoided not just by FIRST.

I have no problem with FIRST's lack of immediately addressing this situation, which I'm sure is something many disagree with. I'm sure they're up to their necks in all the other issues (which, in the sense of the progression of the season are much more important). I'd rather the hot goal, pedestal, and overall FMS issued be fixed first.

I'm sure there are many who disagree with me, but I truly don't think this needs to be no.1 on FIRST's priority list until they determine what course of action to take on this.

[Hoover]

Nobody's talking about the elephant in the room. This went on for a good part of Saturday and all of Sunday and yet not one person in, what, a few thousand, ever noticed it? It never rose to the level of attention for any of us? Did anyone see when the gorilla walked across the playing field? I think I'm going to go watch a few episodes of the TV series 'Brain Games'.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Hoover

Nobody's talking about the elephant in the room. This went on for a good part of Saturday and all of Sunday and yet not one person in, what, a few thousand, ever noticed it? It never rose to the level of attention for any of us? Did anyone see when the gorilla walked across the playing field? I think I'm going to go watch a few episodes of the TV series 'Mind Games'.

Well, why didn't you see it?

That's the same reason why everyone else didn't.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

I have no problem with FIRST's lack of immediately addressing this situation, which I'm sure is something many disagree with. I'm sure they're up to their necks in all the other issues (which, in the sense of the progression of the season are much more important). I'd rather the hot goal, pedestal, and overall FMS issued be fixed first.

As others have said and should be echoed.
There would be less to fix if more testing was done already by that time.

This isn't a dig just a question of accumulating risk.

I wonder if it's possible for MAR to get a field and spare parts a little earlier so there's more time to test ourselves so we can report obvious issues instead of falling over them.