Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[dodar]

Originally Posted by EricH

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.)

Sorry if I come off as blunt but we are talking about FRC, not FLL or FTC. FIRST had the opportunity to call it FIRST Robotics Challenge back when they named it but they actively decided to call it a Competition. FIRST wanted to emphasize it as a main goal for the high school level. We may not think it inspires the current students, but I can for sure tell you that the regionals/districts/championship matches all inspire middle schoolers, elementary schoolers, college students, and parents. And if it affects them then the inspiration is diminished.

[Lil' Lavery]

The competition is a vehicle to serve the ultimate goal. The competition itself is not the ultimate goal.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by alicen

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

But its not adding anything, those students would come up just the same as they do now; the only difference is instead of just telling the student "sorry it is what it is" they can go over to a computer/tv screen and actually take 30 seconds to see if their claim is valid or can be definitively shown the call was made correctly. I would wager a great sum of money every head ref would have no problem doing this.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

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.

The OP was literally talking about your alliance.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

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.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The competition is a vehicle to serve the ultimate goal. The competition itself is not the ultimate goal.

Never said it was; but you are talking as if it means near nothing. Without the competition, FRC wouldnt be nearly as inspirational as it is. It isnt the ultimate goal, but it is a major part to the ultimate goal.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by dodar

But its not adding anything, those students would come up just the same as they do now; the only difference is instead of just telling the student "sorry it is what it is" they can go over to a computer/tv screen and actually take 30 seconds to see if their claim is valid or can be definitively shown the call was made correctly. I would wager a great sum of money every head ref would have no problem doing this.

I would honestly wager the opposite. And the only reason I say this is because it is known that refs are not supposed to look at video evidence. If suddenly any student/team can come up and say "you called this wrong! Look!" then it will be happening after almost every match. Sometimes the students will be right, a call was missed, other times they'll be wrong because they didn't see it from a good angle, or they were mistaken about the rules.

I do like the solution that I saw somewhere in this thread stating that video evidence could be used on difficult calls in elims, but not in quals. That could be the first step forward to figuring out a system that can work, but it would still need unbiased video controlled by the field in some way.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by alicen

I would honestly wager the opposite. And the only reason I say this is because it is known that refs are not supposed to look at video evidence. If suddenly any student/team can come up and say "you called this wrong! Look!" then it will be happening after almost every match. Sometimes the students will be right, a call was missed, other times they'll be wrong because they didn't see it from a good angle, or they were mistaken about the rules.

I do like the solution that I saw somewhere in this thread stating that video evidence could be used on difficult calls in elims, but not in quals. That could be the first step forward to figuring out a system that can work, but it would still need unbiased video controlled by the field in some way.

This is literally what this thread has been talking about since the beginning; we think it should be changed. And the student coming up after every match happens even now anyways.

[JohnFogarty]

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?

I like what you are proposing a lot and I know exactly what you are referencing when it comes to e-sports as well.

I hope what everyone understands from what I was posting earlier in response to LL was just an idea. I do think that a key volunteer for this position should be created. I'm very adamant about that much.

As dodar has mentioned. I'm looking out for the kids, and not just mine.

Without the competition, FRC wouldnt be nearly as inspirational as it is. It isnt the ultimate goal, but it is a major part to the ultimate goal.

This^

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

The OP was literally talking about your alliance.

HAHA done....

I skimmed through a bit and saw he was from a different state. Thanks for telling me.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by dodar

This is literally what this thread has been talking about since the beginning; we think it should be changed. And the student coming up after every match happens even now anyways.

In my experience students coming up after every single match does not "happen even now anyway". At least not until elims.

I'd be curious to see how many people who have volunteered as refs AND also previously been on a drive team would choose to solve this problem that everyone has. I say that because they have the perspective of having calls missed, and being in the position of seeing how it's possible that they can miss a call.

[DonRotolo]

tl;dr.

No. This is a bad idea. Ignoring the cost and logistical challenges (which are not trivial), the time consumed is far too high.

It is a game folks. Not everything is rainbows and unicorns, same as real life. It can as easily go against you as in your favor, so just let it be.

Side note: If you have never volunteered as a referee, you got nothing to say.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by dodar

Never said it was; but you are talking as if it means near nothing. Without the competition, FRC wouldnt be nearly as inspirational as it is. It isnt the ultimate goal, but it is a major part to the ultimate goal.

It isn't ANY part of the ultimate goal (culture change). It's a method to achieve that culture change. But the change in culture is not to increase emphasis on robotics competitions. The very first thing you see when you land on FIRST's homepage is "More Than Robots." The change in culture is aimed at "creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders." Nowhere in that vision statement does it mention a competition.

The competition is important, and getting calls right is important. However, I simply do not think video review really improves anything. It only helps correct a relatively small subset of calls, at the cost of additional equipment, additional volunteers, and/or additional event length. For every hypothetical about teams left uninspired at the hands of blown calls, I can point out actual teams that left before an award ceremony because the event was running longer than they had planned to stay. And even after video review, there will still be plenty of calls that cannot be corrected (think of how many "unreviewable plays" you see during a football game), or that evidence is not there to support a change in the call. In the end, I think you'll have just as many people left unsatisfied with officiating after video review as before, and you have to look no further than professional sports as evidence of that.

The competition itself is always going to drive competitors to be upset about officiating. Emotions run high, and people will naturally take the viewpoint that favors their interests. I have calls I still remember from my participation in FRC. Even with video review, that's not going to change. However, video review is certain to open all sort of new fiascos that aren't available now. Suddenly, there's incentive for teams to have their own video review staff in the stands (just like in pro sports), which creates another source of inequity between teams. The procedures for video review cannot simply be spending 30 seconds watching video, in particular if the basis of the review centers around scoring errors. By definition, for scoring errors, you almost always have to watch the duration of the match to ensure the error wasn't corrected later (anyone who's ever watched the "real time scoring" knows what I'm talking about there). Further still, does the ref simply have to review the single portion of the scoring being challenged, or rescore the ENTIRE match? What level of detail does the team have to provide in order to focus the ref's efforts?

There's a huge slate of issues here, and people are whitewashing them away. I'm quite confident that video review would introduce more inequity and issues than it would correct.

[It'sAScoot]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Side note: If you have never volunteered as a referee, you got nothing to say.

That's not true. Anyone can provide input. A similar thing can be said that the referees and GDC are not taking our input because they have never lost 2 matches in a row with a game changing alliance including 2 below 40 teams against first seed. They don't know how huge of a hit that was on all of our alliance members.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by It'sAScoot

That's not true. Anyone can provide input. A similar thing can be said that the referees and GDC are not taking our input because they have never lost 2 matches in a row with a game changing alliance including 2 below 40 teams against first seed. They don't know how huge of a hit that was on all of our alliance members.

You realize that a growing number of volunteers used to be on FIRST teams when they were in high school?

I was on a team before, now I volunteer. I argue many of my points because I've been on both sides of the driver station wall.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Side note: If you have never volunteered as a referee, you got nothing to say.

And why not? Are students and other mentors/volunteers opinions worthless to you? Are they below a "Refs" saying?

Im not saying that they will be correct, but that doesnt mean that they should be ignored. Explain, and help them understand.