Ruling Consistancy in Houston

[Karthik]

When I watched the Curie QF involving the team 121 tipping incident I initially thought the referees made a bad call. I was probably clouded with emotion, but the actions 121 took seemed no worse than anything I had seen all season long. Granted I was watching the match on the web, so I may not have gotten the full effect.

Upon watching the match again (thank you SOAP 108) it did appear that team 121 used their pneumatic wall to flip team 126. It doesn't matter that the pneumatic device can't lift a bin. To someone who doesn't know the specs of 121s robot the wall seems rather powerful.

This being said, I still think their were more obvious incidents of tipping that went by as "non-calls". The job of a FIRST referee is very difficult. I propose, in an effort to make things easier on the referees and clearer to teams, that next year FIRST attempts to clearly define the rules on tipping and tipping device. If teams bring their ideas on these definitions and rules to the team forums, hopefully we won't have to have any of these tipping debates next season.

[Andy Grady]

I think Joe was right on the money when he said that Refs should go on inspection. Or they should at least walk around together and ask questions of a robot that has any questionable features whatsoever. There is no doubt that wedges are gonna come under alot of scrutiny after this season.
Our reasoning for going for a wedge was after hearing and thinking about "wall bots" we felt we needed to make a wall remover. Of course naturally it became a great defensive asset as it made robots think twice about going straight at us due to the fact that they could ride up on us easily. However, we always stressed to our drivers to not lift the wedge if a robot was riding up on us in fear of exactly what happened to 121. Perception is everything to refs, and what they saw was movement of the hood of the 121 robot, and that is what they called the tipping for, eventhough 121 did not lift the hood with the intention to tip us.
When looking at all the evidence, and seeing the matches, there is no doubt that there needs to be some sort of clarification on this for next year....kinda funny when you think about it too...last time there was a tipping debate in FIRST, it revolved around the famous tipping mechanism of team 121 in 1997! Maybe you guys should just like drop an anchor on other robots or something so you can avoid all this tipping controversy!!! Thank you for being good sports guys, I look forward to working in the future with ya.

Congrats!
Andy Grady

[Steve W]

Have the refs go to all inspections? I visited every team in Curie Division and spent 6 hours doing so. While I was doing this the refs were busy in meetings going over all of the rules. It is almost imposible to ask this of the refs. Watch the video as if it were a first time and see what you think. I watched 2 or 3 times before I could come to a conclussion. I still say the Refs did a great job!!!

[Greg Needel]

ok....I have an interesting take on this situation because I was standing less then 3 feet from the action

at first sight it did look like you guys were trying to flip the robot but up close you could see that the other robots caster was stuck through the top of your robot, (through your light hole?) and from what I saw it looked as though you were trying to get free from them and lifting your ramp was the only way that was going to be possible.... I think that it was a tough call to make and I can definitely see how it could have been seen as intentional flipping.....I also think it didn't help your situation when your whole team cheered when they flipped

the picture is where I was standing

[J Flex 188]

hmm.. that is maybe one of the main drawbacks of FIRST's rules.. although everyone knows that flipping a robot is pretty underhanded and illegal, and i personally believe that all teams seek never to build a flipping mechanism specifically for robots, we cannot help but cheer or gasp or at least go wow.. if you notice.. steve even exclaimed oh theyre they go.. or something along that line. Obviously flipping over another robot draws attention


but i stand by my and first's belief that intentionally flipping other robots is not condusive the idea of the game and cooperation. sure its cool and fun to watch, but nevertheless its not particularly right in most situations. my two cents, it doesnt look like 121 was intentionally trying to flip 126, and that their wall was being pushed down by 126. However, i cannot say for sure, and in these kinds of cases, the refeerees always have the final call. (good job)

i certainly agree wtih clarity for the rules..hopefully we can get some for next year's game.

thanks to 121 and 308 for a great (if short lived ) alliance

[jonathan lall]

Before I start a long post, let me say that I'm going to try to just state what I saw, and remain as objective as possible. Regarding inconsistency, I did see some: as an example, in our very first Curie Qualifying match, we were disabled by the Referees for losing about 15cm of tread in a pushing match, which caused the screws that fastened the treads to our wheels to be exposed. This happened to us a number of times before, and after as well, but in lesser amounts. On the grounds that we were touching metal to the carpet, we were disabled that game, but in other regionals, this happened a number of times, and there was no problem. After that match, it happened again under the same conditions, but since it was a lesser amount, the Ref must have let it go. This is clearly quantifying an offence to make a call against it, and that, coupled with the fact that it wasn't a problem elsewhere, is inconsistency on the officials' part IMO. I was only mildly perturbed by this when it happened, but when it happened again and there was no call, I got a little angrier. I did see similar calls of note, but I won't bore you with them. That being said, I understand how difficult the Refs' job is, and would like to say that, given the circumstances in that Curie QF match, it came down to the Head Ref's judgement. He told us that the two Refs that saw the flip said it looked intentional, so I think it's important to note that we shouldn't hold any one person (or group of people) responsible for what was ultimately (IMO) a bad call. I think what Steve, Andy Grady, Karthik, and Chris have said all have a lot of merit toward this.

As a member of the field crew, and the one making the scoring decisions for our alliance that game, I have a very good frame of reference. Especially since it's burnt into my memory. I understand the referee's ruling, but of course don't agree with it, because of what happened in my experience.

Here was the thinking for that match and the events from my point of view:
- We were quite far behind after a failure in our alliance's first match
- It was decided we had to stack six and hope it stayed, while bulldozing bins over
- We needed Auto mode from both teams to work
- In Human Player Mode, I ran two bins over and stacked them atop 121's two, which were in turn stacked upon again to create six
- The other two were placed in front of the lexan to impede robots, but I glanced at the time, and realized we needed autonomous, so I sort of dropped the last bin and bolted (Which BTW, ended my flawless record, as I took a meaningless penalty)
- Both robots started and knocked down a ton of bins
- The opposing alliance, much to our good fortune, and going with plan, didn't start
- We quickly decided to box them in
- Blizzard 4 took Kincardine, and mashed them against the Bar, making sure to back off after three pinning counts (referees in the past haven't given the full ten count as is stated in the rules so we didn't take any chances)
- As we did that, I asked 121's mentor to keep boxing in 126, but they said 126 was pretty stuck, and we all knew they would probably tip if 121 kept going
- Eventually, they tipped, and 121 gathered more bins
- Of course we cheered when 126 flipped; wouldn't you?
- 188, running out of battery power (six-motor drive does that), lets Kincardine go, and they make a run for the stack (At this point, I'm thinking there is absolutely no way the stack will stay, and vocalize it too)
- Somehow, they don't make it all the way, and from my perspective, it was really confusing how the stack didn't fall
- The match ends, and I (and others) become euphoric after having come from behind
- I look at some people on the sidelines: Steve's eyebrows are up, Harrison's hand is on his mouth in disbelief, and our alliance is jumping
- After we go in to pick up Blizzard, the Head Ref comes over to out alliance and gives us the bad news that we were disqualified for intentionally flipping another robot with a mechanism.

At this point I realized that this was not something that could be negotiated about. Steve had already announced the DQ, and the Ref had already made his decision, despite the fact that what he described was quite impossible. 121 tried to explain it, but did not even recieve the Ref's ear. I understand that the Ref's decision is final, but it's possible that he could have taken other measures to prevent havng to make a judgement. Note his position and where he's looking on the video. Again, I understand his decision, and the circumstances, and that there was a schedule, but this could have been prevented.

[JVN]

Guys-
The refs made the call.
Many claim this call was bad.
This may be the case...

Nothing will change now. No improvements to the FIRST system can be made. FIRST tries its hardest to provide a positive experience for all those involved. They have recently expanded their pool of head-refs and will continue to do so (as they get more and more regionals).

Take comfort from the fact that FIRST is doing everything it can to eliminate any such "bad calls". They have, and will occur, but they will be minimized.

Everyone can form their own opinion on whether this call was good or bad, but the only opinion that matters has already been stated. The ref decided it was intentional. The ref's judgement is FINAL.

This has been discussed quite thoroughly, and politely. I'm not sure if anything else can be added.

Lets recap:
-Call Made
-Call is FINAL
-Possibly Bad
-FIRST doing everything it can to keep it from happening again.

I hope this thread is closed, before this mostly polite discussion turns into something possibly worse.

Congrats to 121 on one hell of a robot.
You'll make it up in the off-season, and again next year!

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by JVN
I hope this thread is closed, before this mostly polite discussion turns into something possibly worse.

Sounds good.