The Fraud of FTC Worlds - How FTC & FIRST have failed me forever.

[gblake]

I have often ref'ed VRC matches.

Asking the refs to review video is a very bad idea.

The worst situation would be attempting to review random footage on random playback devices offered at random times by random people. Great Ceasar's ghost! What a nightmare that would be.

A bad situation would be having to instrument the fields with video equipment, keeping that equipment's lines of sight unobstructed, then retrieving the footage, isolating the incident(s), wishing that the point of view was better, spending time staring at the footage, running it back and forth, and discussing it, and then maybe (or not) having a clear ability to revise the outcome of a match.

As a ref, I would instead recommend revising the rules to include a quick double-check with the teams of all scores/penalties before they become set in stone. During that check, any protests (by the students at the field can be heard by the refs. Head refs decisions are final.

Then we/you move on...

When I wrote my earlier post here, I was unaware that the FTC rules forbid replays to correct anything (including scoring/penalty mistakes (if one actually does occur)) other than the three circumstances listed in the rules. So... Dear OP - There was no "Fraud of FTC Worlds" because of the event staff deciding not to replay that match. The four teams involved in that match asked the FTC event staff to violate FTC rules, and they got the exact answer that they should have expected.

Blake