This year we need instant replay

[petek]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

FIRST does have instant replay. Its called the off season.

We all come out to play again and have fun. The stiff regulations of the official season are relaxed.

Ramp Riot did it perfectly this past weekend- like Outback- "No Rules- Just Right"

WC

Speaking as a RR ref, thank you Wayne! I think you may have pointed out one area which FIRST can address: too many rules. At RR, the focus was on throwing penalties only where people's and robots' safety was at stake. If this was FIRST's prime directive to the refs, I think most of the calls for instant replay would go away.

Refereeing Triple Play was hard work. So much happens so fast all over the field, it is easy for the refs to miss things. I know there were a couple of times that tetras broke or were descored in front of me that I didn't see until it was too late to know for sure how it happened, because I was watching to see if the human players were touching the robots, or there was heavy robot contact distracting me. My hat's off to everyone who volunteered to ref this year!

Slightly off-topic, but as an off-season ref (PARC and RR), I have a couple of peeves with FIRST's rule-making:
- There are a number of penalty rules for Triple Play which could be relaxed or eliminated without much effect on the game (does it really matter if the human player is touching their tetras during autonomous play?).
- Releasing the rules as a "work in progress", with many interpretations and revisions throughout the season seems to create a lot of confusion.
- Leaving obviously contentious issues poorly-defined, such as for robot tipping. These should be clearly defined so that the refs are clear as to what is acceptable and what is not.