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

[MattRain]

Originally Posted by T^2

Of course the unequivocally wrong decision was made. An injustice was committed against these teams. The people in charge made a decision that may have been in line with the letter of the rules, but was immoral. If the written laws are immoral, then it is one's duty to ignore them. Blind obedience to the law is the very hallmark of fascism.

2 Thumbs up. FIRST is to inspire students.... its just wrong about how this was called. Ok, so its not a written rule of FTC this year. But everyone fighting that it wasn't wrong, put yourself in this situation, without Frank's help... you would be mad at the outcome too!

[Kpchem]

Originally Posted by T^2

Of course the unequivocally wrong decision was made. An injustice was committed against these teams. The people in charge made a decision that may have been in line with the letter of the rules, but was immoral. If the written laws are immoral, then it is one's duty to ignore them. Blind obedience to the law is the very hallmark of fascism.

Originally Posted by MattRain

2 Thumbs up. FIRST is to inspire students.... its just wrong about how this was called. Ok, so its not a written rule of FTC this year. But everyone fighting that it wasn't wrong, put yourself in this situation, without Frank's help... you would be mad at the outcome too!

So now it's the head referee's responsibility to both enforce the rules as well as decide when the existing rules are wrong, and then just not follow the ones which they think are wrong? And if they don't, and instead decide to follow the rules that they have been using all year, they're being fascist? Really?

To address your point Matt: Put in the situation of the OP here, I can understand being frustrated and angry. But I would never ask a referee or other FIRST volunteer to go directly against the manual that they have been asked to follow, even if I was unhappy with the results of that.

My original quote is that having watched the videos several times I'm not 100% sure that the penalty should have been on Blue, which is what a lot of people here are arguing. If the referees at the event believe that Red's actions caused Blue to tip over the ball tube, then the penalty was applied correctly. If that's not the case and it was a mis-marked score sheet, then it was a mistake and the referees can correct that after the fact. However, what they cannot do is simply replay a match because that is what the teams in the match want.

I agree with the other posters in this thread that having the teams sign off on the scoresheets would have helped in this situation to make sure this wasn't an error, and this is why I always talk with teams after a match and explain any penalties that are called, so they understand what is being called before it is announced.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by T^2

Of course the unequivocally wrong decision was made. An injustice was committed against these teams. The people in charge made a decision that may have been in line with the letter of the rules, but was immoral. If the written laws are immoral, then it is one's duty to ignore them. Blind obedience to the law is the very hallmark of fascism.

Wow. Just wow. Wow.

But first:

I'm with Blake. The rules are pretty clear on what/when a match is replayed. And I've refereed about as many matches as Blake. While the first call may have been bad, there wasn't / isn't an option to replay the match based on four teams requesting it. As we say "two wrongs don't make a right". And the referees rule is final.

Now to "immoral" and "hall mark of fascism".

You need to get a grip and dial this back. It's just robots. ROBOTS. Stuff like this happens in the real world on a semi-regular basis. This is a game, lives are not at stake. People make bad calls and things don't go your way, this may be the first time, isn't going to be the last. Top teams will take this and shake it off and come back next season. You've been here since 2011, so you are either a roboteer with lots of experience or a mentor. In either case set a positive example.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by Foster

You need to get a grip and dial this back. It's just robots. ROBOTS. Stuff like this happens in the real world on a semi-regular basis. This is a game, lives are not at stake.

We differ. So be it.

[MattRain]

Originally Posted by Kpchem

My original quote is that having watched the videos several times I'm not 100% sure that the penalty should have been on Blue, which is what a lot of people here are arguing. If the referees at the event believe that Red's actions caused Blue to tip over the ball tube, then the penalty was applied correctly. If that's not the case and it was a mis-marked score sheet, then it was a mistake and the referees can correct that after the fact. However, what they cannot do is simply replay a match because that is what the teams in the match want.

I agree with the other posters in this thread that having the teams sign off on the scoresheets would have helped in this situation to make sure this wasn't an error, and this is why I always talk with teams after a match and explain any penalties that are called, so they understand what is being called before it is announced.

OP:
Did the red alliance drop the goal? No. It's obvious in the footage. Here's where I add the fact that YES, I'm fully aware that video footage and replay is not allowed to be shown to referees to contest a call.

We were aware of this, and despite telling them a wrong call was made, we knew we wouldn't get much out of this.

We appealed to the gracious professionalism in the students from Tesla and Masquerade. We showed all of them the video. They all agreed - the call was wrong. We didn't tip over their goal. They did.

OP:
The answer? No. Why? My understanding was that it was to save time. They couldn't spare 5 minutes to correct an enormous injustice. They were saving face and saving the tournament five minutes by completely shafting our alliance. We spent 7 months developing this robot and getting to this stage to be shut out for the purpose of saving five minutes.

The Black Bolded: The fact of the matter is it was scored wrong and nothing was still done about it. Just to save time. This has happened multiple times.

Part of my problem here is that the more FRC based posters here are posting, not being a 100% sure on the way a match is scored and its penalties.

If a BLUE goal is knocked over by a BLUE robot, the BLUE alliance is given a 50 Point Penalty, and no score for that goal.

<GS14>: Robots may not tip over ANY Rolling Goal (deliberately or accidentally). If this occurs, the offending Alliance will incur a Major Penalty.

If a BLUE goal is knocked over by a RED robot, the RED Alliance is given a 50 point Penalty, and the BLUE goal is scored as completely full, or 261 points for that goal.

<GS5>: Robots may not de-Score Balls from any of the opponent Alliance’s Goals. If Balls are de-Scored, the offending Alliance will incur a Major Penalty per incident plus a Penalty equal to the maximum Ball Tube points for that Goal. Please note that <GS14> may also apply.

It is clear in that video that 5026, a BLUE alliance robot, tipped over the BLUE rolling goal while the RED robot was not touching 5026. BLUE should have been penalized for it and not RED.

If you were to read the rules, you may agree with us that the wrong call was made and nothing was done about it. That's part of the reason the OP is angry.

It's Elimination rounds, not qualifiers. If it was a qualification match it may not matter as much, but the fact that it was a deciding elimination match just makes this worse. Not to mention it could have meant that my team wouldn't have come out as the FTC World Champs. I understand its a gray area with the Head Ref, but I would rather inspire the kids than shove them away and told to forget about it. It just not right.

[Abhishek R]

I've been on the receiving end of multiple "unfair" elimination bracket ending calls, and it really does hurt. I can't believe some people are saying "it's just robots," but it's really not fun or inspiring to lose matches when you really did win, especially when it means the end of the regional, or in some cases, end of the season. The students breathe and live FIRST, and this means the world to us, to put in all this work and effort into a machine. I just don't understand why, if everyone agreed an incorrect call was made, they didn't replay the match? Surely a single FTC match can't take that much time?

[Kpchem]

The teams all agreed that it was the wrong call, but I did not see any statement from the OP that the referees said that they made the wrong call. If the referees had agreed they made the wrong call, the call could have been reversed.

I know that my profile says FRC, but I am saying all of this as someone who has been the head referee for FTC in Colorado for the last three years. I have read the rules a few different times.

My uncertainty stems from the interaction that the RED robot has a few seconds before the BLUE robot tips the goal. I'm not trying to argue that red was touching blue, but they may have contributed to it tipping. As I stated earlier, I don't know what call I would have made at the time if I had been in the referee's shoes.

I know the stakes, I know that it was an important match. But it's not a grey area for the referee. The instances where a field replay can occur are clearly laid out in G14, and the referees being unclear on a cal or making the wrong call is not one of them.

I agree this is all for the kids, but I disagree with saying that we can arbitrarily change the rules just because a controversial call is made.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by dodar

Im sorry, but even as a volunteer, when you sign up to be a referee you know the position you are getting into will have huge consequences and responsibilities. Everyone always says we shouldnt criticize them because they are a volunteer, but they chose to be in that position.

/rant
When you sign up to be a ref yes I am sure people are aware they are signing up for a task with massive amounts of influence. However just because someone volunteer to help with an event doesn't mean they sign up to be a punching bag when something goes wrong. Yes they have huge responsibilities, but you should not criticize someone for a mistake that was made due to a faulty system. If you can conclusively go and say "this ref is biased against us" then yes that is a fault with the ref and that should be dealt with separately then making a mistake.
I refuse to call someone bad or evil because they make a mistake because Lorde* knows I make them all the time
It is when you have a consistent choose to make those same mistakes when I question your intent.

/rant

*No not lord, Lorde like "and we will never be royal"

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by dodar

Im sorry, but even as a volunteer, when you sign up to be a referee you know the position you are getting into will have huge consequences and responsibilities. Everyone always says we shouldnt criticize them because they are a volunteer, but they chose to be in that position.

I've been a FRC referee for 9 years now and head ref for 7 years. FLL ref and head ref for about 11 years, and I reffed FRC one year. I take my responsibilities seriously. So much so that when I couldn't keep the rule sets separate while doing all 3 programs, I decided to forgo FTC. All the refs I've worked with have the same attitude. Sure, some learn the the rules better than others, some recognize fouls on the field better than others, but all get the basics and never stop trying to improve.

I have no problem being fairly criticized when I make a mistake. And believe me I've made my share - especially when they give us an impossible game like Aerial Assist last year, for one example.

As I said, I only did FTC one year, and I don't know anything about this game. I don't know if the OP's complaints are fair or not, but I have no reason to not believe him. (Although I have been misquoted on Chief Delphi after answering a question at an event, and have had circumstances described incorrectly.) It does seem strange to me that a replay would not be considered when teams from both sides request it, but I don't know the extenuating circumstances.

I've looked at video after an event where there was a controversial call, and once in a while I couldn't believe what I saw. Other times I was pleased to see that our call was correct. I recall one incident at IRI during Overdrive - both I and the ref across the field from me flagged the infraction immediately, we were both absolutely sure. When I later saw the match as filmed from above the driver station, it looked totally different. That's one reason we don't use video replay - it depends too much on the camera angles.

And of course, referees will not discuss calls on an open forum like CD. So we won't ever know the ref's side of the story, which is unfortunate because he can't defend himself.

I hope the OP will think again and not let one bad event drive him away from the program. It's a great disappointment I'm sure. But is it worth throwing in the towel? Did the kids on the team have any positive experiences this year, and did they develop and grow?

[smart1]

If a rule is wrong it should be examined by First and should be changed in the future. But I do agree that refs shouldn't have to pick and choose which rules are fair.

[ksafin]

OP here. I want to share some of my thoughts regarding what has been said, and share what I intended the focus of this thread to be.

Firstly,
For those of you who have been discussing the rules - saying that the refs followed the rules correctly, that a rematch shouldn't have been given due to the rules, etc.
I am in no way advocating for rule violation by either the referees, volunteers, or any teams. In our moment of disbelief and desperation, we all asked for a rematch (I of course don't know the requirements for a rematch, I've never needed to know). Frankly, as someone mentioned, this didn't require a rematch. It should have been noted as a mistake, revised, and that's it. A request for a rematch was a last-minute plea to correct a grave injustice.

Citing these rules as reason that this injustice was committed and not corrected is not enough for me. For those of you doing this, are you really trying to tell me that I should accept the situation, which was clearly wrong, because a rule said I should? If there's rules that allow this kind of behavior, and these kinds of things to happen, they should be changed.

What am I upset about?
A lot. I'd like to thank whoever clarified that I am not trying to be a broken record in terms of the "refs are humans" discussion. I totally understand that. My problem stems from an indifference to the injustice and a lack of interest in correcting it for the purpose of saving time and saving face.

I've read all of your posts. I agree with some and disagree with others. I know that, deep down in my heart, I cannot accept it when anyone says "That's the nature of sports, people mess up, you have to deal with it."

Really? This is FIRST Robotics. Are you telling me we need to settle for failures, injustices, and problems? We should be eagerly trying to solve them, enhancing the experiences of teams, and doing everything possible to ensure a fair, efficient, and proper tournament.

Students spend thousands of man-hours developing these robots, and I would not tolerate, whether it was my team or any other, them being shut down improperly because a wrong call was made and thousands of people in the FIRST community said they should "deal with it" and that that's "how it is".


Will this be a big deal a few years down the road for me? Probably not. But that isn't the point. There's been too many problems for me to ignore them. We have an opportunity to influence positive change, and we should take it.

Video Replays
They aren't allowed. Both in FRC and FTC. Why? I want to hear a good argument for this. I've heard people say stuff about GP and how FIRST doesn't need video replays. At the same time, I've met tens if not hundreds of people who have considered "GP" to be a weapon used by referees and others to silence students. That is, if you don't accept their call, you aren't being GP. That saddens me.

It's been said before, countless times, and I'm going to say it again. Almost every major sport accepts video replays. Even Major League Baseball is instituting it for next year.

Why doesn't FIRST? Is it because FIRST is more "just", more "GP", more "high and mighty" that it isn't prone to human error and neglect? No. I can't accept that.

We should constantly be moving to, within means, make FIRST a better experience for teams. I can understand the difficulty of video replays for qualification matches - there's over 100 of those. That's fine. In general, a bad match in quals doesn't take you out of the game - it averages out and you end up being OK.

For Finals, where the stakes are so high, and the matches so few, this should be important and easy to institute. We spent considerably more time stalling, bickering with refs, and trying to force a rematch than a review of video would have taken.

What does this mean going forward?
I'm a FIRST alumni. I left FIRST with every ounce of love and appreciation for the program and everything it's done for me. I'm taking this as an opportunity to do something to help it.

I spoke to an FTC team, who, due to both the scandal I've outlined with my team, and other issues, is absolving their FTC team. They're upset with the way that FTC has been deteriorating, the problems that have arisen, the injustices, and the faults. This isn't an isolated case. I know of at least four FTC teams that are quitting FTC simply because of this story.

This is a big deal. I'm going to work with them to try to bring more of this story to light. We're going to be developing a petition of grievances and ideas. We hope FIRST takes them seriously. More and more people are growing discontent every year within FTC. We want to see change. We want to see it taken seriously.

[75vs1885]

Stuff like that happens in FIRST you just have to deal with it. There are plenty of worse situations where corrections could've been made, but didn't. Rather than venting on chiefDelphi where other students can see this, you should write or somehow contact FIRST regarding the concern. A reason they might have not replayed the match is because it could have caused a lot of anger from other teams where they could argue for the same thing or similar things. I understand your frustration, probably hundreds of hours of work ended by a mistake which was avoidable isn't fair, but it's life. The students can learn so much from this incident.

[AndrewPospeshil]

Originally Posted by T^2

Of course the unequivocally wrong decision was made. An injustice was committed against these teams. The people in charge made a decision that may have been in line with the letter of the rules, but was immoral. If the written laws are immoral, then it is one's duty to ignore them. Blind obedience to the law is the very hallmark of fascism.

I don't think a bad FTC referee call has much to do with facism, but that's just me.

As far as I can tell, there's really no question about what should've been done. Correct me if I'm wrong, but matches are not to be replayed unless they fall under the circumstances of G14, which they didn't. I'm not 100% well-versed in FTC referee rules and guidelines off the top of my head, but I'm pretty positive video evidence is not allowed to be used. I know that I've volunteered at plenty of competitions where a team brought video evidence to the refs and they wouldn't even view it, so I assume the same would apply here. The way I see it, the refs were just following the rules. Should the rules be rewritten? Maybe. But that's not up to the refs to decide on the competition floor. Imagine how chaotic FTC (and FRC, FLL) would be if refs could cherry-pick which rules they want to abide by (in the name of facism or otherwise). Not to mention that although one 5-minute delay might not affect competition that much, inviting other teams to have their matches replayed could cause significant delays.

Tough calls like this happen. I am legitimately sorry for what happened to your team, and the fact that it may have prevented you from going further at the world championship. That's a bummer. More than that it's almost heartbreaking. But I think that this is your job as a mentor to make the best of a negative experience and turn it into a positive, learning one. Instead of teaching your kids that "the refs or evil," or on the flipside that you should "live with it," teach your kids something constructive about the experience. Whether it's through organizing a petition to FIRST about your displeasure with the FTC rules, advocating for a way to fix them, or by developing a robot that is less prone to penalties next year, use this as a life lesson. I think you're presented with a unique and special opportunity right now and I would hate to see it go to waste. It's not my place as a high schooler to tell an adult what to do, but I strongly encourage you to make what you want of this situation. You can either take it as a negative and allow it to destroy your FTC/FIRST career, or you can have your kids grow and improve as individuals and a team thanks to this experience.

[David Lame]

I can't help thinking of this incident:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlDTBDJbNE4

Armando Gallaraga pitched a perfect game, but it isn't in the record books. The 27th batter that Gallaraga faced hit a ground ball. The first baseman got it and tagged the base, clearly ahead of the batter, and the umpire called "SAFE".

Everyone agrees that the batter was clearly out, but baseball didn't allow instant replay calls.

Gallaraga was interviewed afterwards, and he was one class act, saying how great he felt about the game.

Of course, Gallaraga undoubtedly has millions in the bank to console himself, so the situations are not quite the same, but it seems a little bit similar. A bad call. An important situation. The rulebook doesn't allow anyone to do what everyone seems to think is right.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by ksafin

I've met tens if not hundreds of people who have considered "GP" to be a weapon used by referees and others to silence students. That is, if you don't accept their call, you aren't being GP. That saddens me.

I've been in FIRST and interacting with refs for a decade, both as a student member of a drive team and volunteering as a ref myself. I have never seen a ref use "GP" as a weapon. I know that doesn't mean it has never happened, but there are two sides to every story.