Curie Semifinal 1 - 3, what happened?

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by CJV648

People who have talked about the reffing have missed a subtle point about the use of red/yellow cards. IMHO the problem was not so much that 48 did not receive a red card in SF1-3, but that it and a couple of other teams had not received yellows for rough play earlier in qualifying that would have toned down the rough play the way good refs do in soccer. 48's qualifying rounds were rough enough that when I saw 48 get picked I was pretty sure robots would be broken in eliminations, though I didn't expect anything as dramatic as what happened. If the red/yellow card system is used again next year FIRST should encourage refs to use the yellow card a lot more often and prepare them to listen to the ensuing whining from coaches/players.

Anyone who has watched basketball games where the referees "let the players play" by not blowing the whistle on minor contact will attest that the level of aggressiveness will increase dramatically. In some cases, the games will get out of control as players retaliate for the previous "non-foul" contact. For the referees, once a potential foul is ignored, the next one is harder to call.

This sort of behavior isn't restricted to sports: the space shuttle disasters (Challenger and Columbia) had early warning signs (blow-by of solid booster o-rings and debris falling from the external tank). These anomalies were noted in the program, but were considered not quite bad enough to stop the launches. This effect wasn't fully appreciated until the disasters occurred. It's human nature to build tolerance to risky behavior until something catastrophic occurs. Only then do people see the trend and wonder why it wasn't caught earlier...

We build robots, but we control them with humans. Mistakes will happen.