Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[rzoeller]

Originally Posted by caume

What's the problem?

My issue with it is that the post comes across as accusatory unnecessarily, and makes assumptions about another team's robot and team as a whole without any sort of validation or proof.

[Jessica Boucher]

Ok guys. We're taking a breather for now.

2:25pm EDT: Reopened. Please take extra care with your posts.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

Ok guys. We're taking a breather for now.

2:25pm EDT: Reopened. Please take extra care with your posts.

I've been waiting for this.

So instead of jumping to video review I think the FIRST needs to make the fields smarter overall. If they moved the burden of decisions away from Ref's I would think most people would be happy. Adding moar sensors to the field and having the field keep track and the refs verify would make for a more accurate game overall, however this is a slow, expensive process. For a video system IMO the most perfect awesome amazing thingy would be SOLOSHOT. Its a camera, a smart tripod, and a tracking device which has the tripod constantly aim the camera at the tracking device. The issue is one of these setups could cost over $500 and you would need one per robot MINIMUM. This is $3,000 dollars added onto pricing which is a lot for a system that might not even be necessary.
FIRST should always be moving to improve games and how they are run, but the last thing I want to see them do is implement an expensive solution to a problem only for it to not work or even generate more problems. Instead of jumping to the biggest change maybe we should implement more little changes to quality of life.

Big thanks for crowd control though!

[Lil' Lavery]

With regards to field automation, I would like it... provided it works. FRC games don't exactly have the greatest track record when it comes to scoring automation. The 2006 goal sensors had a slew of issues, and many (all?) events verified scores with a human scorekeeper (delays were introduced after autonomous to ensure autonomous scores were correct). The 2010 goal sensors experienced much lower volume, and were thus better performing in general, but there were still cases of sensors not working and humans being used to confirm scores. In 2011, there were quite a few threads covering the issues regarding the sensors on the poles registering minibots. As far as I remember, 2012's automated scoring has been easily the most accurate (ironically, so much so that thereal time scoring was removed from the screens of elimination matches to heighten excitement). 2013's weight sensors once again had issues resulting in human confirmation of scores and untrustworthy Real Time Scoring.

A lot of that is game design, but as was pointed out earlier in the thread, making a game that is easy to score/referee often results in a game that people don't view as exciting. Excitement comes from constant action across the field, and that same constant action is what makes games more difficult to officiate. Often, this can hold true even for automated scoring (see the issues with ball jams in 2006, DOGMA penalties in 2010, and minibot sensor viability in 2011).

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Not much has changed in 11 years. People are still basically arguing that because it is impractical to have a perfect replay system, every replay system is detrimental or infeasible. But the point isn't to be perfect; the point is to be better.

I'm contesting that the numerous cans of worms opened by video review aren't going to make things better. I can all but guarantee that the first case of a blind spot in video is going to result in a thread like this one, where a party objects to not being allowed to use their teams' video evidence to support overturning the call. Even worse is when two camera angles show contradictory views. Further still, instant replay does nothing to fix judgement calls, and quite frequently exacerbates the situation. I've seen plenty of open hostility towards replay officials this season in the NHL, along the lines of "if they're not going to get the call right, why bother having instant replay?" (Only less polite).

I find the dystopian vision of large teams will full video replay crews in the stands attempting to find ways to reverse the outcome of a match to influence the standings in their favor rather unsettling. And given the lengths team already go through to find an advantage, including both video scouting systems and attempting to shift the meta strategy of tournaments to influence rankings, I don't find this vision particularly far fetched.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

This is clearly an unreasonable way of looking at the problem. What if the effect was subtle or not yet realized (e.g. the student doesn't rejoin the team the next year, and instead joins the chemistry club, which might, in a couple years, lead them to get a degree in science not engineering)? How would you propose to find such a student, given that this probably isn't a metric that anyone tracks?

If it's so clearly unreasonable, than perhaps people should stop using this example as to why FIRST needs to improve [aspect X] of the competition experience. This hypothetical has already been brought up in this thread, and many similar threads regarding perceived shortfalls of the competition aspects of FRC. So long as people cite students becoming so discouraged by a bad call that they chose not to go into a STEM field, I will continue challenging them to find me an example.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I'm contesting that the numerous cans of worms opened by video review aren't going to make things better.

Scenario A: The head referee makes what they thought was the correct call based on the evidence at the time, but later finds out the call was actually wrong. The call was match deciding and one alliance goes home denied of an event win.

Scenario B: The head referee makes what they think is the correct call. One alliance uses their once per elimination tournament challenge card requiring the head referee to look at the match with the captains from the alliance to explain his reason for the call. This also gives ample opportunity for the challenging alliance to provide specific rules or Q&A's to support their challenge. A match replay is issued if the head ref confirms & agree with the challenge's claims or the results stand as called if the head referee doesn't seem evidence to overturn the call.

There are definitely times where something like this could have came in handy. Look back to San Diego last year where the incorrect call was made and was admitted to be wrong once the Q&A was produced. Maybe having that challenge would have given them a moment to find the Q&A and take another look at the situation?

My point is it's worth taking a look at and talking about. This could give referees another tool to help them out when making very tough calls. Why wouldn't we want to help our referees out?

[gblake]

Folks,

FRC/VRC/FTC/VIQ matches don't proceed in little increments the way many big league sports do (USA football downs, baseball batters & pitches, Cricket ___s, Tennis volleys) .

And, they don't have long stretches of continuous action like many other big league sports (Nascar, Soccer, Basketball or Hockey).

Because of the implications of those differences, I believe that as a practical matter, untangling the spaghetti of knock-on effects that many (most?) overturned calls would create, would be a nightmare of ambiguity.

Except for the last N seconds of a match (where N is very small), everything that affects the score has an effect on how teams and alliances play the games. Neither alliance could argue that an overturned call from early in a match doesn't effect both alliances. In those many cases, I think there would be little a ref could do other than throw their hands up and initiate a replay.

I believe that Video replay successes in big-league sports are unlikely to translate into FRC successes. I predict that if video replay in FRC is successful, it will be because an FRC method is created, not because a big-league method is copied. I also believe that a successful FRC method will be a purple squirrel for most, and the great white whale of some.

I'll look forward to hearing from folks who attempt to use video replays during the upcoming off-season, to see what effect these differences create between what folks are imagining, and what is actually going to occur. I'll bet a beverage that the gulf between ambition and accomplishment is pretty wide.

Unless/until we have some experimental results to digest, I think our current posts are only making 11-12 years of "rubble" bounce.

I'm willing to stop bouncing the rubble, and wait for the results.

Blake

[JeremyLansing]

Originally Posted by gblake

Unless/until we have some experimental results to digest, I think our current posts are only making 11-12 years of "rubble" bounce.

I'm willing to stop bouncing the rubble, and wait for the results.
Blake

This about sums up where I'm at. I cannot wait to see the results of some offseason events that choose to implement this. Until we have some actual data, most of these arguments are speculative. Let's see how replay would work.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Scenario A: The head referee makes what they thought was the correct call based on the evidence at the time, but later finds out the call was actually wrong. The call was match deciding and one alliance goes home denied of an event win.

Scenario B: The head referee makes what they think is the correct call. One alliance uses their once per elimination tournament challenge card requiring the head referee to look at the match with the captains from the alliance to explain his reason for the call. This also gives ample opportunity for the challenging alliance to provide specific rules or Q&A's to support their challenge. A match replay is issued if the head ref confirms & agree with the challenge's claims or the results stand as called if the head referee doesn't seem evidence to overturn the call.

There are definitely times where something like this could have came in handy. Look back to San Diego last year where the incorrect call was made and was admitted to be wrong once the Q&A was produced. Maybe having that challenge would have given them a moment to find the Q&A and take another look at the situation?

My point is it's worth taking a look at and talking about. This could give referees another tool to help them out when making very tough calls. Why wouldn't we want to help our referees out?

What about scenario C: red alliance successfully challenges to get extra points to wint the match. Then blue alliance challenges a different call to get extra points to re-win the match.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by rich2202

What about scenario C: red alliance successfully challenges to get extra points to wint the match. Then blue alliance challenges a different call to get extra points to re-win the match.

If both are valid, and both alliances have challenges to use, then that is perfectly fine.

[Wayne Doenges]

The game is pretty intense for the number of refs they use.
Would it be possible to have separate refs AND scorers?
Just my $.05

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Wayne Doenges

Just my $.05

Inflation?

[Sperkowsky]

Hi all!

So, I wanted to wait to post these videos and I think its calm enough to do so at this point.

Sorry for the poor video quality. I had these videos recorded so, I could go back and watch did not know they would be involved in this sort of thing.

QF-1 Was pretty clean

But QF-2 was bad. To start the big 2 things are the fact that our alliance very clearly crossed the cvr twice directly in front of 2 refs and that the red robot hit one of our blue robots during the last 20 second of the match.
If those point values were recorded correctly there would have been 35 points added to the score allowing us to win.
Here is the video for those who would like to see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnJ...ature=youtu.be

QF-3 Had less clear cut issues but, you can see those aforementioned intent to tip fouls. Those pins at those angles deserve more penalty IMO. Even if there was just one more 5pt foul we would have won the match going into semis.
Here is the video for QF-3.
https://youtu.be/m2MWxJEBwpk

Some of the fouls we originally thought happened were not present but, you can clearly see enough in both matches to warrant us a win. 395 has not made CMP since 2011, we have never made it, and team 1546 has not made it since their rookie year in 2006. 395 is the only team that is even competing in a second regional. These are not elite teams who consistently make champs we are talking about here these are small teams who fight hard year after year in hopes of winning and its a shame to see all of that hard work destroyed by some bad calls. We are on the CMP waitlist and if I am not mistaken its possible to still get invited through that but regardless I am going to champs personally so see everyone there just wish my team could be there with me.

[EricH]

I'd like to make a quick commentary here. Just to pick on the linked videos, this is why audience videos probably shouldn't be allowed to be used for review. Zoom took time to adjust, people were in the way (down in front!), and the camera tended to follow only one robot (and, BTW, that last is fully understandable, you want to record your team's performance and I can't say I blame you there!). That being said, if the part that was needed did happen to be clear and unobstructed, it could be worth it to use that.


As far as rules go... Just remember that pins are legal up until 5 seconds (and 6' separation or chasing by the pinned robot), and tipping a robot unintentionally isn't illegal per se but a strategy to tip a robot is. Just something to think about.