Silicon Valley Regional 2014

[joelg236]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

What?

Yes, this seems absurd. How could they possibly even imply that?

[Boe]

Originally Posted by AlecS

The red alliance (971,254,1662) along with the 2nd seed alliance (1678,368,4171) attempted to protest this decision, and were told any attempt to protest the decision would result in their removal from the FIRST Championship.

This is absolutely absurd, and I truly hope that someone misheard something somewhere. Also 254 going down to the field with 1323's students and trying to take their banner reaffirms that 254 is the classiest team in first.

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by joelg236

Did this match get replayed? That's not something you can't notice...

It wasn't as obvious as you might think. It happened to us twice -- once during qualifications (Match 92), and once during eliminations (SF 1-1).

In Match 92, the autonomous appeared to progress normally, except that our second shot went wild (over the top of the goal, as if the shooter hood were in the wrong position) and the third ball failed to shoot before teleop started. 192 also failed to shoot their second ball, so my immediate thought from the stands was that autonomous was 1-2 seconds short for everyone.

Our code logs a bunch of stuff on the robot's file system every match, including teleop vs. auton and enabled vs. disabled states, so upon examination of the log file after the match we were surprised to find that the robot was in autonomous enabled mode for the first 1.5 seconds, then teleop disabled for 0.5, then autonomous enabled again for 8. We brought it to the attention of the FTA, and the match was replayed (it could be that they were able to correlate this with the FMS logs, but I don't know for sure).

Has anyone seen this at previous events? If not, seems like it's yet another new and exciting failure mode for FMS.

First off I would like to congratulate 1323 on an amazing performance this weekend and for reacting to this terrible call in a most mature and professional manner that I'm sure very little of us would have been able to do. You are an inspiration to all of us.

I don't know all of the protocols for such an event, but why would they contact Frank, the FRC Director, instead of Aidan, the Chief Referee at FIRST HQ? In all respect to Frank, I don't see how he is the person to contact in this situation above a referee.

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by AlecS

The red alliance (971,254,1662) along with the 2nd seed alliance (1678,368,4171) attempted to protest this decision, and were told any attempt to protest the decision would result in their removal from the FIRST Championship.

This is unbelievable... props to all teams involved for not exploding at the scoring table.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

Has anyone seen this at previous events? If not, seems like it's yet another new and exciting failure mode for FMS.

This actually sounds like something similar that I was told about by my HS team (223)...from what it sounded like, they weren't being enabled until 1.5 seconds into auto...not sure if it was their own issue in code or the field itself. Will find out more info.

[cadandcookies]

Sounds like there's some 'splainin' to do from HQ.

Hindsight is 20/20. I hope HQ can recognize that a mistake was made and needs to be at the least apologized for.

I'll be interested to hear that side of the story.

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by AlecS

The red alliance (971,254,1662) along with the 2nd seed alliance (1678,368,4171) attempted to protest this decision, and were told any attempt to protest the decision would result in their removal from the FIRST Championship.

This is absolutely appalling that anybody would say that. I am speechless about what to say. One of the most outrageous things I have heard in my time in FIRST.

[AlecMataloni]

Wow, this season is just a colossal joke, isn't it? My condolences to RC, who's been a huge resource and good friend to me, as well as everyone from 1323, 846, and 2135.

HQ might as well refund these teams their registration costs, because they just wasted their weekend. Better yet, they should extend a free invitation to St. Louis to them as well. At bare minimum, I'd expect some sort of acknowledgment from HQ that they intentionally screwed three teams out of a positive FRC experience.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by dcarr

IMO this is the only acceptable outcome that would feel sincere

Since they didnt offer 624, 233, or 1902, I doubt they offer them.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

It wasn't as obvious as you might think. It happened to us twice -- once during qualifications (Match 92), and once during eliminations (SF 1-1).

In Match 92, the autonomous appeared to progress normally, except that our second shot went wild (over the top of the goal, as if the shooter hood were in the wrong position) and the third ball failed to shoot before teleop started. 192 also failed to shoot their second ball, so my immediate thought from the stands was that autonomous was 1-2 seconds short for everyone.

Our code logs a bunch of stuff on the robot's file system every match, including teleop vs. auton and enabled vs. disabled states, so upon examination of the log file after the match we were surprised to find that the robot was in autonomous enabled mode for the first 1.5 seconds, then teleop disabled for 0.5, then autonomous enabled again for 8. We brought it to the attention of the FTA, and the match was replayed (it could be that they were able to correlate this with the FMS logs, but I don't know for sure).

Has anyone seen this at previous events? If not, seems like it's yet another new and exciting failure mode for FMS.

Not to derail the thread, but yes, we've seen something like it, where the driver station log showed about .5 seconds of teleop enabled in the middle of auto mode. When teleop starts, the robot automatically creates a file on the cRIO. After the match, when I went to check the file to see why the robot stopped driving forward too quickly and our 2 ball timing was off, I noticed there were two of these files, meaning we went into teleop twice in the match.

EDIT- The field also seemed to have a few other issues too, where people would have to constantly unplug then reconnect the timers/team displays/ethernet cables from the driver station control case at the blue side.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by dodar

Since they didnt offer 624, 233, or 1902, I doubt they offer them.

Unfortunately, I think you are right. Thankfully both 624 and 1902 ended up becoming eligible for champs, but 233 got shafted :/
That robot and team deserve to make the trip.

It's really weird to think of a Championship without without PINK...

They haven't missed a Championship since their beginning in '99.

[Akash Rastogi]

Been friends with RC and 1323 for a number of years now. A lot of this just sounds disrespectful to a Chairman's and WFFA winning team.

Even more absurd if the rumors of threatening protesting teams is true. What a disappointing story to hear.

I want to hear the other side of all this, but the fact that these rumors exist is just disheartening. Such a simple call could have avoided so much unnecessary drama.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

What?

Quoted for truth. I cant believe they threatened to not let a HALL OF FAME TEAM go to the championship event for doing the exact action you would expect from a HoF team. And kudos to the other teams involved as well for their displays of gracious professionalism.

Although I dont personally know anyone from 1323, I'm sorry that this could happen to anyone.

Edit: Although the threatening is based on hearsay, the point remains. This whole situation was a mess, but the GP shown by all teams involved (at least according to most people in this thread) is the silver lining, so to speak.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by P.J.

Quoted for truth. I cant believe they threatened to not let a HALL OF FAME TEAM go to the championship event for doing the exact action you would expect from a HoF team. And kudos to the other teams involved as well for their displays of gracious professionalism.

Although I dont personally know anyone from 1323, I'm sorry that this could happen to anyone.

This. Gracious Professionalism is a core value in FIRST and rarely do I see a team refuse to practice it. If this is what was really said, then FIRST (or at least somebody at FIRST) is most certainly not practicing gracious professionalism, in fact, they would be discouraging it in this case which is absolutely appalling.