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#16
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
As the head coach of 1339, I'd like to clarify my take on the damage. I posted on one of the Utah threads what I will essentially repeat here: the damage happened not as a deliberate effort by any team or driver, and that it is questionable to ME that it was due to perimeter incursion. Rather, the rough nature of the game with the open field, combined with overwhelmed refs who either call too many or too few fouls (depending on who is asked), and a weak spot in our frame design, all led to the end of our run in eliminations. I think that a careful look at the photos of the damage should satisfy people (including my students) that something like this might have occurred at some point in the season anyway. No matter. We'll rebuild the frame stronger before the colorado regional and be a better team for it.
Aside from this issue, I am in complete agreement with the OP. The replay match should never have happened, and a series of errors and poor decisions led to this unfortunate breakdown. It can't be undone, but I hope this thread opens up the possibility that nothing like it will happen again. For my part, I would argue for there being THREE more refs on the field to prevent more unseen fouls and faults, as well as intensive training for all refs on the rules and field protocol. The thing I am most astonished at remains the fact that at no point was I or any of the other mentors told that we should never have been able to intervene as we did. I joined in late and was flummoxed to see mentors talking to the head ref at all. I have the utmost respect for the drive teams of 399 and 1619. The battle between the drive bases of 1339, 399 and 1619 was amazing to watch, and I know you played your hearts out. My team drivers know how deeply I respect them too. But we have been reached out to by the fine students of our on-field opponents and they have been really kind and supportive. That makes this, in my mind, an event that forged fine young men and women of character, and not just a comedy of errors. |
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#17
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
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Sorry to say this but refs are people who get to decide the outcome of matches. They have a VERY high stakes job to do and failure is simply unacceptable. The job of a head ref is to clarify rules and issue replays if mistakes are made or a field bug occurs. |
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#18
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
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If you read the rest of my post, I went into what detail I know about the testing/training requirements, not only for the head ref, but also for the non-hear refs. This is stuff that your average person at an event, team member or not, probably is not aware of, and may easily assume does not exist. *FIRST generation: the 4 years it takes for a complete team turnover in most cases. |
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#19
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
First things first - Hats off to the officials that regulate the matches. You do a thankless job. So thank you.
I have been a coach for many sports for quite a few years. I have also worn the zebra-stripes. I will state this - officiating/reffing is much more involved than is the role of the coach or the players. There are always calls that I disagree with during a 80 minute soccer match. Always. But I always remind myself, and my players that the officials are part of the game, like it or not. We have won many games, and we have lost many games. What I tell my players is 'if you feel that the official decided the game, then we weren't playing the game to our strengths'. A much better example is when I coach wrestling - each match is 6 minutes, and there are 14 matches in a dual (Much more like at a FRC regional). Each match has a bearing on how the dual ends. In a 6 minute match, the official has much more influence on how the match is decided. However, I still put out the same mantra - 'do not allow the officials to be in a position to decide the outcome. Wrestle your match whistle to whistle - no matter the outcome'. Now, I am not discounting what has occurred during the course of 3 weeks of FRC 2014 - but instead I want to outline that even though we see things through the eyes of our own teams' result - the officials are trying to determine the best call - each match. I am relatively new to FRC, but what I have seen is that these officials are much better than what you may find at a local HS basketball game, wrestling match, football game, baseball game, etc. FRC does a great job of creating and designing these games. And they have to reinvent the game year after year. This year seems to be a little more trying for the officials - that is understood. What I do not want to see is an exodus of officials (like I have see in the ranks of wrestling, baseball, soccer, football, etc) in recent years because of an overabundance of complaining. My whole point in this is just this: I have been an athlete, a coach, and a referee. The stress and strain on a person follows this in the same order - it is hard to be an athlete, much more difficult to be a coach, and extremely stressful to be the judging eyes and ears as an official. Your points are valid - everyone's points are valid. However, an official can call what they see - and cannot call what they don't see. When there is a question, the officials must regroup and make the best call that they can at that time in a small amount of time. Good Luck all! Last edited by Chief Hedgehog : 18-03-2014 at 00:20. |
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#20
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
I am the team captain of 2594 and I was also the drive coach. All of these views are completely my teams and don't necessarily reflect the views of our alliance partners.
I first want to say that I understand how frustrating this all is for everyone involved. But I don't feel like I have the right to discuss the replay because I was not there when the decision was made, I was in the pit doing an emergency repair on our robot. Everything that I heard is second hand, and as a result has some sort of bias. I don't want to spread any information I personally didn't hear, so I won't respond to any of those points. Quote:
Yes we did disable our shooter. We removed our surgical tubing and zip-tied it down because it wasn't working reliably and it was making our life a bit of a pain. However, our intake was still working perfectly fine at the beginning of eliminations and could pick up the ball and knock it back out. That was why most of the matches we inbounded then spit the ball back out. Sometime in the beginning of the match however, our arm motor burned up. If you remember the horrible smell that was our intake motor. We had no way of controlling our arm, so we had to play defense. Normally if a ball ever got stuck in our robot all we had to do was spin our intake arm to kick it out, but because it wasn't working we had to jerk the drive to knock it back out. Once the ball was stuck in our bot we had no room to do so for almost 30 seconds, but once we were free we were able to knock it out. Now I'm not saying that it is your alliances fault that we weren't able to get it out quickly enough, that was still completely on us. There was no way for you to know that we needed room to get it out. I hope that your team has no hard feelings against me or my team. We were out there just trying to play our best. If you have any more concerns feel free to PM me and we can discuss it in more detail. I respect your team and I wish you guys the best of luck at your next regional. I will definitely be rooting for you guys. ![]() |
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#21
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
Well, that explains quite a bit. I was watching the stream and became quite confused over this situation. For the record, I think that you are correct: There were some gaffes on the part of the refs, and time constraints pushed the decisions toward the quickest form of resolution, rather than the best one, at the end of this series of unfortunate events. Of course I am a biased and relatively uninformed observer, so my opinion in this matter should be taken with a grain of salt.
![]() In terms of robot ruggedness, I really feel for those who have received the short end of the stick and experienced damage on the field. Our 2013 Bot was forced to drop out of the national competition last year due to such circumstances. I can't wait to meet up with 1410 and all the northern CO teams again in Denver. Hang tight and stay focused, there are some great bots this year that have a real shot at nationals! |
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#22
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
It's nice to hear a firsthand account of what happened - we were in the queuing lines when most of this was happening and so I had only heard snippets of what was going on. I know this was a tough situation for both teams, so kudos on handling it graciously.
This is perhaps the most extreme example of inconsistent refereeing that plagued Utah throughout the weekend. Refs have a lot to keep track of in this game, and it's hard to get the rulings consistent every time. Nonetheless, this was a situation where foul mix-ups had a huge affect on the course of eliminations, and we should work to reduce that as much as possible. We look forward to competing with you, Angelbotics, and many more great teams again at the Colorado regional, and sincerely hope Angelbotics will be up and running at 100% after taking some seriously massive damage. |
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#23
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
Everyone seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room by being polite, so I'll point to it. There might be something I'm missing, but based on what I have read here so far... it seems pretty disturbing.
Can anyone from the Red Alliance not own up to their action of saying they can complete a 60 point cycle in 8 seconds?? I'm sure everyone who has watched the game so far is aware that is not a possible feat, let alone with defense being played on you... I don't know, but in my opinion even saying that is just ungracious at accepting the fact that you were beat by a better alliance. What I find strange, is that the OP (I think) says the opposite alliance was very gracious and helped out with the fixes. So mabye this is more of a mentor issue (since the OP says THEY were the ones in the conversation)? I don't know ... something smells bad to me. Perhaps I'm being overly pessemistic, and perhaps I'm only hearing one side of the story, but from the way it looks... well. I know if I were the Blue Alliance I would be just as frustrated to go out on a claim like that, regardless of the ref's decisions. EDIT: Of course, and just to be clear, I'm waiting on a reply from the Red Alliance before I, personally, make up my mind. Last edited by shhrz : 18-03-2014 at 05:53. |
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#24
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
One very big reason why you haven't seen the interested parties (me being one of them) say accusatory things about the Red Alliance teams is that we know and value the people who run those teams, as well as the students on them. It was a very difficult situation that occurred at a rapid pace under very extraordinary circumstances. Notice that when I pointed out how bizarre it was to have mentors talking to the head ref, I didn't indignantly refuse to join them; I was right there with them! And the only request we ever got to do anything different was from the head safety advisor, who set up cones for us to stand behind just to keep us out of traffic. I cannot get inside the heads of our opponents but I do know that on the field we played just as hard as they did, and off the field they have been compassionate and helpful. The ones among the mentors I have gotten to know over the years are my friends and I value that enough that I won't throw this in their faces. And I'm not small enough to be bitter about this anyway; what would that accomplish, other than ulcers for me, broken relationships, and students who learn to hold grudges? I see this as a problem in the game logistics, and I want everyone to know about it so that we can fix the problem in the future, for other teams. That's all.
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#25
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
Thanks for writing a very thorough post that (seems) to do a good job of trying to relate the whole debacle from a neutral standpoint. Issues like this have turned into flame-fests before... so far this thread has done well to remain a tempered discussion, focused more on "wow, that situation is overwhelmingly unfortunate - no one involved had an easy time!"
It seems like while the refing at Utah wasn't perfect (just as it never is), the only really big blunder was the decision to replay match 2 over 8 seconds lost at the pedestal. The not-calling-a-dead-ball-when-a-blue-ball-fell-into-a-red-robot? Well, if they had called it after 2-5 seconds, and the ball had immediately freed, the blue alliance could fairly feel frustrated that they now had to remove that dead ball and regain their assists on the new ball. Dead ball's aren't actually "Get out of Jail Free" cards... they come at a cost. The decision to re-play QF1-2 immediately rather than waiting for the originally intended QF1-3 slot? An unfortunate decision, but one that if you're simply following the letter of the rules sounds like the right decision. I believe every replay I've seen has been played in a subsequent slot. The timeout shouldn't have been allowed (but they should've given you the timeout coupon back) because it needs to be called within 2 minutes of when the green lights go up on the goals after the prior match. It sounds like this discussion carried on for 5-20 minutes, not 2. The decision to call no tech foul for inside-the-perimter-zone damage? Very reasonable, given that a ref didn't see a case where the red alliance instigated the damaging contact. Perhaps the refs should've watched more closely, but it sounds like the damage may not have been red-alliance-initiated. Really though, that a match was replayed over 8 seconds lost at the pedestal is a very significant thing. We can all agree here that 8 seconds are often lost at the pedestal... it could happen for a host of reasons and I'm guessing most matches unfortunately have at least one instance of an 8-second pedestal-delay. Even more baffling is the concept that a 60-point cycle was missed in those 8 seconds. There's a thread on CD about the perfect cycle. If one had been accomplished by any alliance in only 8 seconds (including inbound time), then we'd all be sitting here congratulating the successful alliance. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a 60-point cycle in 8 seconds is impossible... I'm sure if you got the right three robots together and they practiced it a dozen times, you could get a couple times from pedestal-to-goal of 8 seconds. This would probably involve an inbounding bot that could truss from where they inbound, a catcher that could spit the ball out towards the goals, and a scorer that needed only to suck the ball in and shoot (no adjusting involved). Thanks for "keeping it GP" - I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming events! Glad to see you all get another shot! |
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#26
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
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They may be great people (in fact, I beleive that they are), and great friends. Just saying that they should own up to, at least in my opinion, their mistake - which hurt (at the end of the day) your students. The fact that you should teach your students all you said (and I agree), does not take anything away from what I wrote above (again, in my opinon). Last edited by shhrz : 18-03-2014 at 13:26. Reason: Adding the quote, so it's clear who I'm speaking to |
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#27
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
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If an ALLIANCE’S BALL becomes stuck in an opposing ALLIANCE’S ROBOT, the Head Referee will signal an extended infraction of G12 (the assumption is that the ALLIANCE has already been penalized for the initial G12 infraction). At this point, the Head Referee will suspend the current CYCLE and re-illuminate the PEDESTAL, beginning another CYCLE for that ALLIANCE. If the stuck BALL is freed, that ball will be considered FIELD debris. [emphasis mine] Quote:
*EDIT: Sorry, this sounds harsher than I intended. Last edited by Siri : 18-03-2014 at 07:17. |
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#28
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
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#29
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
I'm glad to see so many people stepping up to help pay these volunteer refs for the month off from work they'll be taking to attend training, and ensuring that we have a mimimum of 9 refs at each and every event. It's great to see a community put their money where their mouth is this way!
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#30
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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
Just to recap what I said earlier - that the Red Alliance should own up to their claim that they could achieve a 60-point cycle in 8 seconds, since that is, to me - un-GP, in the sense that it is unrealistic and eventually led to the Blue Alliance losing instead of winning.
I also said I was waiting to hear from someone on the Red Alliance to make up my mind. Thankfully, a member of one of the Red Alliance teams (who chooses to remain annonymous at this time) did PM me with their view/explanation of the situation. To quote the OP: Quote:
It is further explained to me that the Red Alliance believed they could score 60 points in that time frame (full cycle/catchless cycle and additional truss shot/ ect.) of 25-30 seconds, which is actually something that makes much more sense to me. It is ALSO said, and again - this is from this team member - that the ref's initally were AGAINST a rematch, based on the 8 second delay. Once the Red Alliance claimed that they have video evidence of the delay being 25-30 seconds, the ref's decided to involve FIRST HQ (DISCLAIMER: The video exists, it seems - they were not just claiming for fun. Also, it is also claimed that the video was never shown, only stated to exist). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I now have both POVs, and honestly ... it's REALLY confusing. What is obvious - is that this game continues to be a big problem rules-wise, which is a true shame, since at the high levels of the game - it has a lot of potential, as we have seen in various regionals/districts. Lastly, if indeed the above is how things transpired: It's not like I accused them outright (I was waiting for a reply from them), but just to clear the air, I'd like to apologize to the students and mentors of the Red Alliance. |
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