Unofficial Chaos

[Matt Goulart]

As a member of team 121 I would like to try to convey as best I can what happened yesterday, and why my team was so worked up afterwards. Before I do that I would first like to say as this being my first time at battlecry I was very happy with the better part of the day and while I cannot speak for my team I would like to attend again next year. For the most part the staff at battlecry was excellent, especially the judges who I thought made the best attempt possible to make things right. I would also like to point out that I am not out to bash the refs. I think for the most part they where very professional and were not bias against any team.

Our largest beef is not on the dq itself, but that we felt like a target from right off the bat. Almost as soon as we came in the door the head ref approached our team and told us that he would be watching us, and if a robot on the field was flipped and we where involved at all he would dq us. I do realize that this is the rule but I do not feel it was necessary to single us out like that. Now as far as I know we were the only team to get this warning.

Now during our match against rage we accidentally flipped them in autonomous mode. We where not gunning for them we used the same autonomous program we always have. The head ref came up to us and gave us a warning and said if it happened again we would be dq. I was manipulating the mach and I felt that it was just an unfortunate clash of two robots on top of the ramp and one got flipped. There was nothing either team could do to stop it, it just happened, so to warn us I felt was unnecessary.

Now during the last match I can say for certain that we were not trying to flip 190 we where just trying to get on the ramp. Nor do I think that if it had been another team on the ramp it would have been any different. I think it was a tough call but when it comes down to it we DID flip them and whether we intended to or not the rules say if you flip a robot you get dq.

So as I have tried to point out I do not believe it was that one match with 190 that has left distaste at least in my mouth but rather the treatment we received from the head ref. I would like to point out again that the rest of the staff was great and other than that I had a great time and would like to attend again next year.