Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by gblake

For all the reasons other people I agree with have already explained accurately.

From what I've read the main arguments against in-house video replay (no external video, that opens a can of worms) are cost, time and "this is the way it's always been done."

I look forward to proving all of these wrong when we run a pilot of this at the Gateway Robotics Challenge in October. Expect a whitepaper that addresses all of the previously mentioned concerns.

Remember everyone - tons of people said the district system would never work in FIRST. Did Michigan take no for an answer? Now districts are the main path forward for FRC. There are a million reasons to say no, I'm proposing a solution that makes it easy to say yes, let's try this.

[caume]

I have had experience with refs making the wrong call, effecting the winner of the match in 2014. I was driving for 3324, the Metrobots, in the semi-finals against 16. In the first match, 16 won, but we put up a good fight. In the second match, I actually managed to defend enough against them to win that match, however, they went to the judge's table afterward, and somehow convinced them that we cheated/broke a rule, so they redid the match entirely, when video evidence would have proven we did nothing wrong. The third (second official) match, 16 won, and our season was over. I am still extremely proud of beating mentor built, swerve drive with pneumatic shooter, with a student built mecanum drive with a sketchy kicker, and it's really unfortunate to not even acknowledge officially that we won that match.

That being said, I still think video evidence should not be shown to refs. If a video proves a ref wrong, people begin to trust the ref less and less, just ensuring more drama and chaos. I know the feeling of refs making mistakes, and it is extremely frustrating and makes you hate the system at the time, but it's really the most logical thing to do. Videos don't always show what happens, such as a drawbridge blocking a view, so it can and will just bring up more controversy.

[Sam_Mills]

Originally Posted by caume

I am still extremely proud of beating mentor built, swerve drive with pneumatic shooter, with a student built mecanum drive with a sketchy kicker, and it's really unfortunate to not even acknowledge officially that we won that match.

Oh boy...

[caume]

Originally Posted by Sam_Mills

Oh boy...

What's the problem?

[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!

[Lij2015]

Originally Posted by caume

What's the problem?

You absolutely DO NOT want to re-open this can of worms, I''ll leave it at that.

[Jessi Kaestle]

Lots of people are comparing FRC to the NFL/NHL/MLB/Nascar and saying that we should have video replay like they do. Please remember that This is a game for High School Students. As far as I am aware, High School sports do not have video replays for if/when the officials make a bad call, and if what I have heard from the stands at a high school sporting event from the parents is any indication, all the officials do is make mistakes*.

Yes I understand that bad calls can make or break a season, and it sucks. However, instead of trying to spend a lot of money and time to make this whole big procedure to make sure it doesn't happen lets instead, as mentors, use this opportunity to teach our students about making the most out of a bad situation and treating people with dignity and respect.

*I do not think that officials at high school games get everything wrong, just pointing out that that is what the parents would like you to think when a call is/isn't called for/against their child.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by Donut

Only match scoring errors (and penalties that lead to an automatic score) can be reviewed. ... Fouls are not reviewable as it is not easy to determine what fouls were assessed from a video and many involve a judgement call by a referee who has a better view than a camera or driver in their station will.

Fouls add 5 points to the other Alliance's score. Thus all fouls would need to be reviewable. Both called and uncalled fouls.

> Fouls are not reviewable as it is not easy to determine
> what fouls were assessed from a video

May not be as difficult as you think. When a Foul (or any other violation) is called, the Ref points at the offense, and waives the flag indicating the color of the Alliance causing the foul. If the flag is waived, a foul is called. If a flag is not waived (and you don't see the Ref doing anything at the panel), the no foul has been called. The tricky part is if multiple fouls were called at the same time (robot, with a boulder, crossing from the NZ to the Opponent's SP). Then you have to watch the score to see how many fouls were called. The score portion of the score board is on each video, isn't it? Time stamping is important, and that is one way to get the time stamp.

Very few things are "judgement call". It either happened, or it didn't. Either the robot broke contact with the Sally Port, or it didn't. The video may not provide convincing evidence to overturn the call.

Non-reviewable judgement call would be: Robot is likely to damage the field, so the Head Ref disabled it, if something is Strategic, or if it rises to the level of "repeated". Those are forward looking/intent judgement calls that are made real-time, so should not be reviewable.

So, what do you do if a Robot, upon review, is determined to have contacted something outside of the Field (G3), and it was not originally called by the Ref? That violation results in a Disabled. It is not a judgement call. Do you then review the rest of the match to back out all points scored by that robot?

[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.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by Jessi Kaestle

Please remember that This is a game for High School Students. As far as I am aware, High School sports do not have video replays for if/when the officials make a bad call, and if what I have heard from the stands at a high school sporting event from the parents is any indication, all the officials do is make mistakes*.

*I do not think that officials at high school games get everything wrong, just pointing out that that is what the parents would like you to think when a call is/isn't called for/against their child.

Worth noting is that you don't spend thousands and thousands of dollars for a few matches in any other high school sport.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Worth noting is that you don't spend thousands and thousands of dollars for a few matches in any other high school sport.

Yes, you do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/yo...orts.html?_r=0

[dradel]

On the note of field automation, from what I have read here on cd the flags above the towers aren't even working at most events !

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Yes, you do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/yo...orts.html?_r=0

However any other sport has matches longer than 2:15, or their season is more than what? 25 matches? Being generous here. Sooo 56 minutes of play time. Or like. One match of any other sport.