Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[It'sAScoot]

Say what you have to say and please turn down the passive aggressiveness. We all get that you disagree with video review but there is no reason to be snarky.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

So, your solution to the time delay is to add additional volunteers? With a potentially different interpretation of the rules, and who quite possibly did not see the event first-hand given that they were reviewing another match?

You're essentially adding another "key volunteer" position. Something that many events already struggle to fill.




So, the district system is over then? Because you're not going to find many high school gyms with the scaffolding/catwalk to support an overhead camera like that. Heck, I'd bet more than 50% of regionals would have to find new venues as well, as plenty of college gyms and convention centers wouldn't be able to support that.


I've watched plenty of videos. Mistakes will always be made, but mistakes are part of any sport. Not just FRC. Video replay is not a panacea to fix those officiating errors, which is my point. It's a lot of added cost and complexity, for minimal return. There's still plenty of opportunity for blown calls. Anyone who has followed the NHL this season, and its roll out of expanded video review, will attest to that. More people are complaining about the additional video review than any other officiating issue this season.


That "simple solution" isn't viable in the majority of FRC venues. That simple solution doesn't solve anything regarding interactions underneath bumpers. Specifically, that system cannot answer close calls in terms of CROSSINGS this year, because it cannot see underneath the frame/bumpers of a robot to know if its wheels fully cleared the defense.

Im sorry, but this should be re-worded. Teams that lose good chunks of points and/or get eliminated through sometimes blatant missed calls is not "minimal return".

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

So, the district system is over then? Because you're not going to find many high school gyms with the scaffolding/catwalk to support an overhead camera like that. Heck, I'd bet more than 50% of regionals would have to find new venues as well, as plenty of college gyms and convention centers wouldn't be able to support that.

Ryan had a good way of combating this about 4 posts before yours:

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

I don't know that I 100% agree with video replay, but people are blowing the level of difficulty WAY out of proportion here. It's 2016, there are some very affordable & simple A/V setups that are possible now.

Here's what it would take to implement a basic level of high quality video review -

- 1 volunteer to man the webcast PC. I get that volunteers are scarce but that's a bad excuse to not do something that will improve events big time.
- 1 GoPro on a tall pole. The one we used at St. Louis this past weekend used a $20 speaker stand, a 7-8 ft. tall PVC pipe, a GoPro and a cell phone charger with a USB cable to give the GoPro power all weekend.
- An HDMI input recorder like the Elegato to allow for recording of the GoPro's view.
- Software to record the stream locally on the PC. We use XSplit because it's so easy to use, but there are other options too. Match files are saved automatically to the PC's hard drive and can be opened immediately after the match ends.

Here's what I envision the process looking like -

1. Each alliance gets one challenge flag during the elimination tournament. The challenge must be issued within 2 minutes of the match ending. Once the match has been challenged, the head referee must watch the match / incident in question.

2. Head referee coordinates with the webcast PC volunteer and pulls up the locally recorded file of the last match. This would literally take a minute to do.

3. Head referee watches the video and based on the evidence shown makes a call to replay the match or let the match stand. Similar to the NFL, the video would need to show overwhelming evidence that the match should be replayed i.e. no close calls.

My opinion - if we want FRC to be represented as a truly competitive sport then we need to present it as most sports are presented. One great example of this is how E-sports have exploded over the past few years. The coverage of online gaming tournaments is incredible and is a model FRC should look to follow. For roughly $1000 in equipment, every event could implement a basic level of coverage that would up the home viewing experience ten fold. There's no reason this same setup couldn't be used for a basic level of video replay. Will it be like the NFL? Of course not. But it has to be better than what we have today - which is nothing. FIRST could easily include the kit I described to travel with the fields from event to event and include a tip sheet on how to set it up. Anyone that can hook up their Xbox to their TV could handle setting it up.

Saying we can't do this because 'it's hard' and 'would take too much effort' is a total cop out. This is FIRST, we're supposed to be doing incredible stuff right? What happened to trying to make it loud - or is that not a thing anymore?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by dodar

Im sorry, but this should be re-worded. Teams that lose good chunks of points and/or get eliminated through sometimes blatant missed calls is not "minimal return".

I don't think video review would fix nearly as many of those cases as some people think they would.

And even if they did, it's minimal return. What happens on the field is such a small part of FIRST's mission. Don't take me wrong, I'm a huge fan of watching and participating in FRC events. But the outcome is not what matters. It really isn't.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Ryan had a good way of combating this about 4 posts before yours:

The post I was responding to specifically said a solution like Ryan's was not what he was talking about. I brought up the Fisheye GoPro in my previous response. He had a specific request for an overhead camera like Orlando's.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

So, your solution to the time delay is to add additional volunteers? With a potentially different interpretation of the rules, and who quite possibly did not see the event first-hand given that they were reviewing another match?

You're essentially adding another "key volunteer" position. Something that many events already struggle to fill.




So, the district system is over then? Because you're not going to find many high school gyms with the scaffolding/catwalk to support an overhead camera like that. Heck, I'd bet more than 50% of regionals would have to find new venues as well, as plenty of college gyms and convention centers wouldn't be able to support that.


I've watched plenty of videos. Mistakes will always be made, but mistakes are part of any sport. Not just FRC. Video replay is not a panacea to fix those officiating errors, which is my point. It's a lot of added cost and complexity, for minimal return. There's still plenty of opportunity for blown calls. Anyone who has followed the NHL this season, and its roll out of expanded video review, will attest to that. More people are complaining about the additional video review than any other officiating issue this season.


That "simple solution" isn't viable in the majority of FRC venues. That simple solution doesn't solve anything regarding interactions underneath bumpers. Specifically, that system cannot answer close calls in terms of CROSSINGS this year, because it cannot see underneath the frame/bumpers of a robot to know if its wheels fully cleared the defense.

I believe Ryan Dognaux explained a pretty low cost solution to this problem.

And all you seem to be doing right now is attempting to refute someone's position using examples of challenges to the idea. Challenges that can be worked through instead of pretending they're insurmountable. What's your alternative?

If your alternative is to pretend the problem doesn't exist, I have to disagree. Students getting turned off to a career in science and technology due to a referee's call isn't something we like to see in FIRST.

Personally, I would implement a hardware solution like the one described by Ryan and only allow for official challenges and video review in eliminations to start, with each alliance getting a "challenge" coupon of some sort.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by dodar

Taking 2-3 minutes of a ref's time during 7 minute field reset wont add any time.

EricH beat me to exactly why this isn't as simple as you want to make it sound.

Refs don't just idly stand by while field reset is going on, much of the time they're running around like crazy doing 100 different things, or (heaven's forbid!) taking a half a moment to run to the bathroom so they don't delay matches

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I don't think video review would fix nearly as many of those cases as some people think they would.

And even if they did, it's minimal return. What happens on the field is such a small part of FIRST's mission. Don't take me wrong, I'm a huge fan of watching and participating in FRC events. But the outcome is not what matters. It really isn't.

Any return is more than minimal. The students on these teams deserve the best experience possible and to take that away because we think it would be too hard is just plain ludicrous. There have been ways shown and logical ideas put forth to do this at minimal costs to regionals/districts. Even if this fixes only 1 event a year, that is more than enough to add this to events.

And this is an old argument on CD but the field results is a main part of FIRST's mission, thus why it is call FIRST Robotics Competition not FIRST Robotics Event.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by alicen

EricH beat me to exactly why this isn't as simple as you want to make it sound.

Refs don't just idly stand by while field reset is going on, much of the time they're running around like crazy doing 100 different things, or (heaven's forbid!) taking a half a moment to run to the bathroom so they don't delay matches

The Head Ref is standing by for questions, arent they? How would this change that?

[Sperkowsky]

EDIT: OP was talking about our alliance did not even know


People who are insulting this guy need to stop.

We had a similar thing happen to us today.

We were 1st pick of Alliance 8 and extremely happy to get into the playoffs.

We went into our first match ready to go the alliance looked really good. We then won our first match Alliance 1 vs 8. We had some issues. To start we as an alliance crossing the ramparts 5 times before they finally got all of the lights off. Apparently there was a short with one of the leds. But, Match 2 is where stuff got bad. We had a decent match except for 2 big things. To start the refs missed a cheval de frise crossing which we verified happened by video causing a net loss of 25pts. They also did not foul an alliance after multiple extended pins and them trying to flip our alliance partner. After the match we went up to the question box to talk to the refs. They ackowleged they should have put heavier fouls on them and talked to the Field Supervisor I believe (Not certain on who exactly). His reply to the situation was "Cool, nothing I am going to do about it"......

We were outraged.

Third match we came out of the gates strong until defense hit. I forget the team # but essentially they tried to tip us twice along with our alliance partner twice. They had both of our robots at 45 degree angles 4 times throughout a match. They then hit our alliance partner while they were attempting to scale on the batter during the last 20 seconds causing their scaling mechanism to be misaligned and cost us the match. We lost our third QF match by 4 pts. One foul and we would have won along with the 10pts for the scale which we should have had.

Overall these "Misses" seem too obvious. We need Better Ref Training along with more refs.

Before anyone signs me up on vims know that I already inspect for FTC and plan on inspecting for FRC. I just became a Deans List finalist and I am going to volunteer at worlds. This is not a matter of me complaining just simply supporting the fact that stuff needs to change.

[patar8746]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

So, the district system is over then? Because you're not going to find many high school gyms with the scaffolding/catwalk to support an overhead camera like that. Heck, I'd bet more than 50% of regionals would have to find new venues as well, as plenty of college gyms and convention centers wouldn't be able to support that.

Even if we can't get the ideal view of the field, it doesn't mean there's no sense in trying to get as good a view as possible. Some things can be imperfect but still very much worth implementing due to great improvements (ie having refs that occasionally make mistakes as opposed to not having refs at all)

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I've watched plenty of videos. Mistakes will always be made, but mistakes are part of any sport. Not just FRC. Video replay is not a panacea to fix those officiating errors, which is my point. It's a lot of added cost and complexity, for minimal return. There's still plenty of opportunity for blown calls. Anyone who has followed the NHL this season, and its roll out of expanded video review, will attest to that. More people are complaining about the additional video review than any other officiating issue this season.

I'd argue that we aren't adding much complexity with cameras already set up for streaming, and I wouldn't call overturning matches minimal return. While the NHL has had problems, when the MLB introduced video review it undoubtedly improved the fairness of the game in a huge way despite not being called up nearly as much as other video review systems.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

That "simple solution" isn't viable in the majority of FRC venues. That simple solution doesn't solve anything regarding interactions underneath bumpers. Specifically, that system cannot answer close calls in terms of CROSSINGS this year, because it cannot see underneath the frame/bumpers of a robot to know if its wheels fully cleared the defense.

Some things are easier to call than others, and with a game like this no matter how many cameras you have there is bound to be a little ambiguity. However as I've said before, video evidence should only overturn calls if it indisputably proves the call incorrect as judged by referees reviewing the video. This may lead to a lot of improvements, and it may not, but I can definitely say that it can only help to give it a shot.

[Lil' Lavery]

I'm going to leave it at this. Find me one example of a student who changed career paths because of a blown call in a FIRST match.

I'm willing to wager they don't exist. Because the real value of FIRST isn't what happens on the field. It's what happens in your shop, in your pits, at your outreach events, and at your meetings. The real value of FIRST is the time spent working with mentors and teammates. It's not a 135 second period of shooting a foam ball into a fake castle.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dodar

And this is an old argument on CD but the field results is a main part of FIRST's mission, thus why it is call FIRST Robotics Competition not FIRST Robotics Event.

You forgot about FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge. Neither of those mentions competition... or robotics...

FIRST is not just FRC. FIRST's mission is, in paraphrase, to inspire young people to pursue STEM careers through exciting mentor-based programs. (I'm too lazy to go look up the exact mission statement right now.)

Now the question becomes: Where does that inspiration come from? And what can deny it? I would argue that that comes from building a robot to compete. I won't deny that winning is fun, and losing is not, and more particularly losing because a ref misses a call isn't fun at all, but does that totally negate the inspiration of build season? (I can't answer that one. I'd even go so far as to say that it depends on the individual student(s) involved.)

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Overall these "Misses" seem too obvious. We need Better Ref Training along with more refs.

Originally Posted by EricH

In 2015, and 2014 Week 1, there were 5 refs on the field. One extra was on staff, for a full crew of 6 refs, and during playoffs there could be 6 on the field depending on the head ref. (2014 kept ramping up the ref count, though--went to 6 on-field later in the season, I was on a crew with 8 on-field at one point; CMP had 10 or so I hear.)

This needs to be brought up also. More refs are going to be needed, no matter how this goes.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by dodar

The Head Ref is standing by for questions, arent they? How would this change that?

Head refs also need to take bathroom breaks, stay hydrated, sit down every once in a while. Sometimes the head refs have to review difficult calls with the other refs, discuss how something needs to be called, talk to various other volunteers (LRI, Scorekeeper, FTA) about field related issues, the list goes on.

I'm not trying to say that the refs are perfect, I'm just trying to say that the job is hard and instead of telling these volunteers that they have to be better, work with this amazing community to find a solution that can be implemented to make calls more consistent without adding unnecessary complexities