The finals in Philly: A 293 team member's perspective

[Mike Schroeder]

a) yes the refs rule is final
b) when a ref says Intetional that is at his descrestion, the ref has no idea what the "agressive team" was thinking, but can only make calls, based on what he/she sees
c) my team has won, EI awards, and Sportsmanship awards, its funny cause alot of people would say we are rather agressive, but defense is one of those tricky things. and besides things like EI and chairmens reflect on your team off of the feild, and a team can still be agressive and win a Sporsmanship award, i just want to see that team be the first in the pit of the teams robot that was damaged by their defense.

d) see a


congrats to 293 you had a great robot as usual

[deathbycornchip]

i would have to say that statement sums up all my feeling too. the prospect of going to the nationals in my freshmen year was so exciting. I tryed not to bulled up to much hope because i knew 56 might crush us. but after the first match(before the scores were posted) i couldn't help it. it looked like a victory for us. then came the the voice. "it looks like there have been some penalties that effect the outcome of the match" i know these words all to well form the Trenton regionals.

maybe... maybe next, year we will make it to nationals.
and mabey next year we will have pro refs.


PS. watch the post length or ull be called for "excessive post length" sw.

[Mike Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Revolverx7

The only thing that can be changed now is to make sure that next year the refs can finaly understand to be fair and impartial.

before you go judging the refs partiality i think you should take a second and rethink it, that is not a very gracious thing to accuse people of, who give their time to help YOU be able to participate in a Robotics Compeititon

[Kevin Sevcik]

Being a volunteer does not make someone sacrosanct. I've seen the phrase "they're just volunteers" bandied about as reasons to let problems with reffing and other things slide, and it's annoying me. It's completely possible for someone to volunteer at something and utterly bollix it. I don't beleive there's any great contradiction in being appreciative of someone's efforts while still noting that they didn't do a good job at it. It's entirely possible, also, that they're not doing a good job because they're being poorly instructed in how to do their job. I think what we need to do is figure out the root cause of all the heartache and consternation this year and make a concerted effort to fix it. Simply ignoring the problem, shrugging it off, or making excuses isn't going to help anything.

[Jonathan]

Dear Team 293,

As a third year member of team 316 I can understand your frustration at the calls that were made yesterday in the elimination rounds. The one thing you have to remember is that each week is a new week. My team just last week was in your shoes. We had seed 3rd at Annapolis and were paired up with team 1507, and 836. During the semifinals team 007 ripped a wired loose from 1507's bot and disabled their arm. 007 did this in both matches and cripled our alliance. I went to the head ref and he told me that it was accidental. This week at Philly we seeded 23rd, i believe, and we were selected by MOE and went on to win. You win some and you lose some. Either way you guys have nothing to be sorry about. You competed well and had one of the best bots out there

[sw293]

Originally Posted by Big Mike

b) when a ref says Intetional that is at his descrestion, the ref has no idea what the "agressive team" was thinking, but can only make calls, based on what he/she sees

Intentional means done by intent or design. Your intent is that which you are trying to do. When the ref says 358 was intentionally tipping 56, he means that they were trying to tip 56 over. Were 358's drivers trying to push 56 over without thinking about it? I'd like to see you make that argument. The ref, by making this call, is saying that 358 tried to push over 56. He is making a judgment about what they were thinking.

If he had no idea what they were thinking, he should not have assumed the violation was intentional.

[sw293]

I appreciate all your condolences but I have filled up on them for now. I would rather this thread focus on how to ameliorate the situation for teams 293 and 834 and how to prevent stories like mine at Philly from becoming normal in FIRST.

[DarkJedi613]

Well to prevent it I think a rule change is in order (not necessarily for this season). The rules need to be absolute, like the loading zone one - you hit someone in a loading zone its a 30 point penalty no matter what, whether you meant it or not. There should not be "the intention of the driver" involved.