FRC Blog - It Wasn’t Against the Rules

[BrendanB]

I think one of the problem that Travis is getting at is that we are going into Week 4 and FIRST has yet to come out and address the pedestal problems or come up with a fix that works. Even from the start of scrimmages there was a known problem so its not like these issues have just come out of the blue they have always been an issue. There has been a mixture of reasons to why pedestals aren't lighting up of referees not seeing because too much is happening on the field, touch screen delays/bugs, entering in penalties during a score which again detracts from watching the field, and reported software bugs that it was input correctly but the pedestal just didn't light up.

The worst part is that while penalties are one problem of the game that FIRST has slowly been addressing this area has not and it is critical to a game. FIRST made a game where one ball can be used by three robots at a time and that's great. The fundamentals of the game have been setup to deliver a different but good game. However the process of scoring and getting a new ball started is just flat out unacceptable with teams being delayed by 10+ seconds. Then there are teams who are given replays for these issues and others who are not.

If volunteers are doing the best they can to try to deliver this game to teams but its not working then this needs to be put back on FIRST in a serious manner. If Week 4 goes by and the pedestals still are an issue there needs to be an alternative system put in place using humans to override a system that does not work. This is similar to the manual counting of frisbees after each match because the automatic system did not work and was later replaced by a few volunteers behind each alliance wall with a computer to enter in scores. This year we have gone through 4 weeks of competitions with a faulty system which is completely unacceptable (by FIRST not the volunteer who is just doing the job they were told to do).

The system was already going to have slight delays as a referee has to see that a ball is scored and then enter in the data on screen taking a few seconds here and there. The best method is there should be a referee next to each pedestal that tells human players when they can grab a ball (allowed once the ball is scored in a goal).

This is not unrealistic. Yes life is not fair however in life if you can't deliver on your promise to someone you do whatever is in your power to make it right. I would hope FIRST would do the same for teams.