2005 Midwest Regional

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by macurtis

Technically there should have been a penalty against the red alliance because one of their tetra's was busted.

Can you explain? I don't understand why you expect a penalty to be levied for a tetra breaking.

[AmyPrib]

I thought the event site was good. The staff was a little bit nazi about the staircases, but honestly that's fine.. frustrating but fine. It is a safety issue, and to keep the aisles clear. One of my pet peeves is when people stand around on the staircases for no reason, so that people can't get through or can't see around them. It was pretty crowded during awards and final rounds, but there were seats around - maybe not with your team, but there were seats. The food was expensive, but not as outrageous as they could have been. There are options around that. I think most of the volunteers (that I interacted with) were friendly, so that's a plus. There were a few field problems that really delayed things, but we can blame that all on the cowboy

As far as the game itself:
Seems there were many inconsistent calls on penalties, i.e. one match a robot blatantly dangled high over the wall and did not get disabled, but later on, "pure breaking the plane" was a disablement. Did I miss the update, or rule stating that? The aggressive play penalties seemed to get out of hand nearing the end. Some were called for running into a robot from 2ft away or less - I hardly consider that ramming at high speed. The only defense that appeared legal was pure blocking - forget about trying to bump a robot out of position. One robot was penalized for it during elim rounds, and I couldn't believe it.. I watched them the entire match, and couldn't figure out where the overly aggressive play happened.
There were some disables for accidental tipping, even though the rules clearly state that that could be part of normal game play, but yet other was tipped with clear intentional interaction, and nothing was called. (not saying the tipping was intentional, but the robot interaction was intentional, whereas it really wasn't in the following case). One robot simply turned around with their arm out to go to their auto loadzone, while another robot was sitting behind them and fell over when the other arm whacked into them. The first guy was disabled....
I feel like the "over the wall" should have been forseen with such a knowingly vertical game. But I guess, just be careful near the wall and don't let anyone push you over the wall.

[macurtis]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

Can you explain? I don't understand why you expect a penalty to be levied for a tetra breaking.

My understanding was that an alliance could get penalized for broken tetras. That's what everyone on the team was saying.

[Justin]

Hi All,

Can someone who saw the finals of the Mid-West regional let me know what happened in the quarter finals. There was a match where the 45 alliance, they were red, had all 3 robots disabled. Why?? Also does anyone have the scores from the finals at mid-west?

Thanks!!

Justin

[Kevin Kolodziej]

***I want to preface this by saying that I am not complaining, whining, or angry about this. What's done is done and I am not asking for any mistakes to be corrected. I am merely pointing this out as an example of how what I consider to be an obvious error had a significant impact on the event. I just want to see things like this be prevented as much as possible in the remaining events this year.***

Match 53 turned out to be a terrific battle with 269, 525, and 1675 vs 71, 92, and 970. At that time, 71 was ranked 2nd and 269 was ranked 3rd. During the course of the match, tetras were being stacked in rapid succession and everyone was doing very well (except for us - our tetras fell on our hook and prevented us from scoring ). The final score ended up being 34-37 in favor of blue, pushing 71 into the #1 seed.

Towards the end of the match, 269 and 71 got in a bit of a pushing war and 71 ended up on their back (no call was made, and from the video on Soap, based on my ref experience last week, I would not have called a high hit or intentional tip either). While this was happening, the far (from the audience) middle goal had a red-blue-red stack on it. One of the blue teams went up to cap a blue tetra on top of the red, but couldn't quite get it and descored the red tetra in the process (it was still hanging but was off to the side...unseated). At the end of the match, I noticed the red tetra hanging and realized that we should have gone over there and pushed it up to cap that goal and take away the middle row from blue to get the win. I asked my fellow coaches for that match if they knew how long that tetra was hanging there and the consensus was for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately, none of us saw the descore, which actually happened with about 10 seconds remaining. Apparently, NONE of the refs (despite two standing next to the goal) saw it either. With this descore, the final score SHOULD have been 37-27 in favor of red.

I recalculated the final average points for each team involved in that match and redid the rankings based on the results of that match and assumed that EVERYTHING else that happened before and after that match stayed the same. Here are the top 16 (with actual ranking in parenthesis):

1. 269 (3)
2. 111
3. 71 (1)
4. 383
5. 648
6. 45
7. 9
8. 970 (13)
9. 1646 (8)
10. 79 (9)
11. 903 (10)
12. 74 (11)
13. 525 (17)
14. 108 (12)
15. 81 (14)
16. 1675 (24)
(unfortunately 92 would have actually fallen from 29 to 33)

The only reason I point this particular instance out is because it wasn't a judgment call that some people may or may not disagree with - it was an obvious rule infraction that was missed. The video on SOAP doesn't show the actual descore because, like I said, it occured during 71's fall...but if you watch before that, you'll see the far middle goal have red-blue-red and blue trying to cap, then the fall, then you can see that same goal having red-blue-unseated red. I have video from another viewpoint that shows the actual descore.

Again, the fact that this occured doesn't matter - nothing can be done about it and that is fine with me. The referee's decision IS final. Having been a referee, I know that when something big happens, you want to watch it. But if you are a referee, you must resist that urge to watch if it is not in your designated area to watch, unless there is nothing going on in your area. I don't know if the refs at Midwest had assigned areas, but that is how we did it at Boilermaker. It seemed to work fairly well.

Its constructive criticism...do with it what you want.

Kevin

[Ricky Q.]

The alliance of 269, 45, and 706 were all disabled in our 2nd quarterfinal match. We were disabled for safety reasons dealing with the tetras/arms and the player station walls.

We still won the match and advanced.

[JonA]

Originally Posted by robo hottie71

The video on SOAP doesn't show the actual descore because, like I said, it occured during 71's fall...but if you watch before that, you'll see the far middle goal have red-blue-red and blue trying to cap, then the fall, then you can see that same goal having red-blue-unseated red.

The SOAP video from match 53 can be found at
http://soap.circuitrunners.com/2005/.../il/il_053.wmv

The top red tetra on the far center goal can be seen being scored at 1:40. It can be seen properly seated around 1:45. At 2:03 team 92 can be seen trying to score a tetra. At 2:16 the previously scored red tetra can be seen precariously hanging from the goal.

I have a somewhat bias opinion on this topic but I am sorry, but this kind of omission is simply unacceptable. I know that all of the refs take their jobs seriously and they get a lot of complaints and hassle from teams, but it comes with the job. I just hope that this type of thing will be watched more closely in the future.

Team 1675 did end up being picked in the first round to for the elimination rounds making it the team I have worked with in the last 3 years that played after lunch. Then we proceeded to demonstrate that we were in fact a rookie team by putting the wrong battery in the robot...sorry Alliance 8, it'll never happen again.

But our FIRST spirit lead us to win the Rookie All-Star award which, in taking us to nationals, extends our season beyond just one regional and it gives the students, mentors, school and parents something to be very proud of.

-JonA

[Jaime65]

This was my first time attending the Midwest regional. I agree with Michael Hill from team 45. The staff wasn’t as enjoyable as I expected. In my opinion think the UIC Pavilion wasn’t a good choice as a new venue. There wasn’t much room to dance. The only place to dance was the stairs. But the UIC Pavilion staff didn’t want anyone on the stairs. I agree about the safety issue. We don’t want anyone to get injured. But what are we suppose to do when they play dance music? For example the Cha-Cha slide and the electric slide. But on a good note I enjoyed my self, I made the best of what I had. Congats to everyone that attended. Thanks to teams 383 and 903 for picking us team 65. We had a last minute redesign of our arm it wasn’t cooperating correctly. We was ranked 31 out of 35 teams. Mr. Ken Patton, thanks for giving us a chance to redesign of our arm. Thanks for listen to what the team had to say in the letter that you received. Our goal was to stack/cap tetrahedrons so you can spike your hair and 7 for you to spike you hair with color. We achieved that goal. We stacked/caped 9. One more we would have seen Val in a dress. Also to teams 111, 71 and 573 for giving us a great final round, Congrats. Although I don’t understand why we had to replay the last match, I really enjoyed myself.

[AmyPrib]

Originally Posted by Jaime65

This was my first time attending the Midwest regional. I agree with Michael Hill from team 45. The staff wasn’t as enjoyable as I expected. In my opinion think the UIC Pavilion wasn’t a good choice as a new venue. There wasn’t much room to dance. The only place to dance was the stairs. But the UIC Pavilion staff didn’t want anyone on the stairs. I agree about the safety issue. We don’t want anyone to get injured. But what are we suppose to do when they play dance music? For example the Cha-Cha slide and the electric slide.

Dancing is illegal according to FIRST rules. Although I have seen invited dancing, such as in Pittsburgh, and music played that invites dancing during the event, dancing is still supposed to be prohibited according to their rules. I like the music - it's fun and gets people going, especially when the field breaks down for a longggg time.. But technically prohibited. Hopefully that is not the only reason you thought it wasn't a good venue.
I thought it was good... enough seats, good view from just about anywhere, good size, good access to/from the pits, and personally I like the arena-type setup where the field is down below the seating in it's own little space. I wonder where it'll be held next year......

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

I had a great time at the Midwest Regional. I thought the venue was pretty nice and I met some cool people (Al and Courtney from 111, Andy and his drive team from 45, and DJ and his drive team from 1646 are just a few that come to mind right now).

However, as a couple people have stated the reffing was very inconsistent especially when it came to aggressive driving and high tipping. In match 47 we were backing out of our loading zone when team 970 ran into us and got caught in our cage, so our base driver Jimmy tried to drive forward to get loose but could not. So he pulled a turn and because 970 has a high center of gravity they tipped over. The head ref had us disabled because he said my arm swung around and hit them, which is impossible. We even showed him our robot showing that my arm is not on a turret and is incapable of moving around like that. Now in match 53 team 269 clearly has their arm raised up pushing against team 71 and caused them to tip over and they were not disabled. I don't know how they cant call that high-tipping.

There were also several instances of refs not paying attention as several times we saw robot getting hit in the loading zone and no penalty was called. Also in our second quarter finals round there was close to 10 seconds were we had to sit there because no tetra was loaded on to the loading zone.

The one call that had me going up the wall was in match 13 when our alliance partner was called for aggressive driving and received 20 penalty points. However when we asked for an explanation of the call the ref said "We called it against team 167 because they continually pushed against team 269 after the scored a tetra and they're is no longer a reason to play defense against them" I'm sorry but maybe they wanted to stop them from getting another tetra so they cant score. Also when we asked where this was in the rule book they had to call FIRST because they didn't know. It turns out that in update 15 and rule G25 which no where does team 167 violate that rule, and it also states that it is a 10 point penalty and the second offense is disablement. So them how is it possible to get 20 penalty points from that. The refs were severally mistaken in calling several aggressive penalties that effected the outcome of the whole regional.

However what in the past is done and I want to say congratulations to 71, 111, and 537 for winning the regional, 111 for winning Chairmans you guys defiantly deserve that one, Al for winning the Woodie Flowers Award, 79 for proving that us Floridians know how to play with the big boys of the Midwest and finally to team 1646 for picking us (After a 4 year drought of not making the eliminations).

Hope to see many of these teams down in Atlanta.

[Kevin Kolodziej]

In the crazyness that has been the last two days for me (catching up on homework, trying to register our team for the Championship, and the resulting chaos from my post above), I have forgotten to post my thoughts on the actual event as a whole.

I really enjoyed the venue much more than the venue at Northwestern. I felt it was much roomier. Perhaps that was becuase there were far fewer teams, but the whole arena style venue appeals to me more anyway. All the volunteers (refs included!) did a wonderful job. Cheers! You can't beat the price of parking for downtown Chicago (free is of course preferred, but they did what they could to accomodate us!).

I do have one complaint though - I never heard Cotton Eyed Joe (I was in the pits most of the time though...).

Kev

[The Cyborg]

I think the venue was acceptable, there was plenty of moving space around the stands for someone to dance a little. We had to make a voyage to our buses in order to get lunch, but the crossing guards were doing a great job to make sure nobody gets hurt.

QUOTE AmyPrib/ Dancing is illegal according to FIRST rules. /QUOTE

When did this happen? How come I never see this rule enforced?

Thank you soo much to teams 383 and 903 for forming a great alliance with us! Congratulations to team 111 for winning the Chairman's award! I hope to see you all at Nationals!

Originally Posted by The Cyborg

When did this happen? How come I never see this rule enforced?

I believe the rule was put in place after FIRST the year after a student at a team social was seriously injured while crowd surfing when he was dropped on his head...ever since then for safety reasons they have had a no dancing rule and the whole tunnel during the award ceremony is banned.

It's all for safety