2014 Waterloo Regional

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by PriyankP

"unless the actions of the damaged ROBOT are the catalyst for the damage"

The refs may have deemed that 1114's action of playing defence while 1241 was picking up was a catalyst to the damage caused.

Hard to tell with the way the video cuts right when it happens.

It looks like 1114 was trying to bump the ball away. I'd have a hard time making the call of whether or not their action was the catalyst for the damage, or simply that 1241 was racing to pick up the ball and happened to run into 1114 doing it.

[George Nishimura]

What rule was cited for the 20pt foul? I think I've confused myself.

It's hard to tell because the antenna is out of shot when that contact happens. You can only see it a second later in the reflection of the alliance station.

[Ty Tremblay]

Originally Posted by ErvinI

The antenna was broken beforehand. You can see for a split second that when 1241 is trying to pick up their ball a couple of seconds before, 1114's antenna is falling.

What is the use of those antennae, anyway? They light up once in a while.

The left one lights up when their shooter wheel is at speed. The right one doesn't light up. They're used for catching.

[PriyankP]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Hard to tell with the way the video cuts right when it happens.

It looks like 1114 was trying to bump the ball away. I'd have a hard time making the call of whether or not their action was the catalyst for the damage, or simply that 1241 was racing to pick up the ball and happened to run into 1114 doing it.

1241 was trying to truss the blue ball.
1114 was playing defence.
1114 blocked the shot.
1241 tries to pick up the blocked blue ball.
1114 also heads towards the blue ball to play defence on 1241.
Both teams interact resulting in a broken antennae.


I'm sure there are many ways people will analyze this but I feel that both robots were part of the damage and that's why the refs did not call the technical foul on 1241.

[pfreivald]

Does anyone know the purpose of the antennae?

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by PriyankP

1241 was trying to truss the blue ball.
1114 was playing defence.
1114 blocked the shot.
1241 tries to pick up the blocked blue ball.
1114 also heads towards the blue ball to play defence on 1241.
Both teams interact resulting in a broken antennae.


I'm sure there are many ways people will analyze this but I feel that both robots were part of the damage and that's why the refs did not call the technical foul on 1241.

I'm gonna guess that's how the refs have called it. If that's what they're calling it, the call is correct. Still seems kind of broken that I can cause my opponent to take a 50 pt penalty while only getting a 20 pt one myself, even if only by accident.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I'm gonna guess that's how the refs have called it. If that's what they're calling it, the call is correct. Still seems kind of broken that I can cause my opponent to take a 50 pt penalty while only getting a 20 pt one myself, even if only by accident.

Paul said it best, while we were waiting for the result: hate the rules, not the refs. The refs called this one correctly by the rules.

Adam is right (see the previous page) -- common sense should come into this at some point.

------

Back to the event, still in progress.

Congratulations to the winners, 254/2056/865. Very well played! It is fun to watch this game being played with speed and skill.

[Duncan Macdonald]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I'm gonna guess that's how the refs have called it. If that's what they're calling it, the call is correct. Still seems kind of broken that I can cause my opponent to take a 50 pt penalty while only getting a 20 pt one myself, even if only by accident.

The way the refs ruled they didn't feel 1241 "caused" the collision. A collision "happened", thus the G27 for a result of gameplay.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

Paul said it best, while we were waiting for the result: hate the rules, not the refs. The refs called this one correctly by the rules.

Adam is right (see the previous page) -- common sense should come into this at some point.

Yeah, its situations like this that the G24-analog in various years has been among my least favourite rules. For years, I've thought its wording should be changed to have some wiggle room such as "intentional or consequential..." to allow refs to simply ignore minor damaged robot bits dragging on the floor without requiring them to call it. To me, the intent of the rule is to control robot design, not penalize broken bits.

Alternatively, design the game so that doing so can't be strategically advantageous.

[Caleb Sykes]

I will just leave one question for discussion. If 1114's antennae had fallen completely off of their robot instead of bending down, how many penalty points would they have received? Why is this value different from the one which was assessed against them?

EDIT: Two questions.

[George Nishimura]

Originally Posted by inkling16

I will just leave one question for discussion. If 1114's antennae had fallen completely off of their robot instead of bending down, how many penalty points would they have received? Why is this value different from the one which was assessed against them?

EDIT: Two questions.

This is why the rule needs to be amended. G19 (leaving parts on the field) is a TF only if intentional.

The inconsistency was a major oversight that was unfortunately brought to the spotlight.

EDIT: On a positive note, congratulations to 254/2056/865 for their victory!

Waterloo is consistently the best regional to watch, and that's a culmination of the collaboration of the quality of the teams, the great production (MC, GA, DJ, team behind the stream) and especially all the event organizers and volunteers who make it happen.

[nuclearnerd]

That was a tough loss, but in my opinion, team DAVE's alliance earned the close score. They played some pretty sweet defense, and were able to make all three assists each cycle. It would have been nice to cap off our performance yesterday with a wildcard to the worlds, but I'm really proud of 4039 for getting so far in their third year. Congrats to 254, 2056 and 865 for their ridiculously awesome point totals. Good luck in St Louis.

[Bongle]

Those eliminations were crazy fun to watch, and this was probably the hardest regional I've ever been at. Our robot was temperamental, the qualifying pace was _insane_ (about 30 minutes between matches. Thanks to a replay, we had 11 matches in a single day, and I think one of our alliance partners in our replay had 12 matches in a day), and the field was super-deep. With an average of 5 matches between each robot going up, it meant that most matches contained a veritable powerhouse (254/1114/2056), and due to the crazy depth at Waterloo, the rest of the matches contained a robot that'd be a thread to win any other regional on the planet. 3683, 4678, 781 pre-damage, 1241, 1285, 4917, and probably others I'm forgetting would all be big threats anywhere.

Outsider review: I had a friend come who had never heard of the game (or FIRST), and she thought the game was quite followable and was cheering at all the right spots. Granted these eliminations were among the best I've seen after 11 years going to competitions, so that may have played into it too. The (what felt like) 40-50-minute ref delay after the 4039/3683 semifinal was reviewed as pretty annoying, but overall she thought the game and event was pretty good. Looking at the match results it looks like it was only a 18-minute delay, but it felt _much_ longer.

[Bongle]

Also, a took a video of a particularly problematic sensor on the robot: we had a two 3d-printed gears that communicated position from our shooter frame to a potentiometer. The circular gear that was on the pot input kept shifting (when it was on setscrews) and breaking (when we fixed it very firmly) on Friday, which is why our shooter was out of commission all day.

After we were out, I had the drive team do a dry fire and taped it with my sony action cam's 120fps mode to see if we could find evidence for why that gear seemed to be taking so much abuse. The video is inconclusive, but still neat to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEogRuD8lqU

[Tungrus]

@ 1:17 in video 1114 was driving to stop blue robot from picking the ball. Though blue robot was moving with extended appendage, it was 1114 who drove into them. From my couch it looks like refs made correct call.