NJ Elim Yellow Card Oddity

[dez250]

While i'm not going to comment on the yellow card issue, I find the timeout call interesting during that match. After the teams controls fell to the ground and the match was called to an early end, a team called for their timeout for robot repairs. While reading <T19> it would seem that you wouldn't be able to call a timeout here because in logic it is still the same match.

Originally Posted by T19, Section 9.6.5 of The Tournament

<T19> In the elimination matches, each ALLIANCE will be allotted one TIME-OUT of up to 6 minutes. If an ALLIANCE wishes to call for a TIME OUT, they must submit their TIME OUT coupon to the Head Referee within two minutes of the Head Referee issuing the field reset signal preceding their match. When this occurs, the Time-out Clock will count down the six minutes starting with the expiration of the arena-reset period. Both ALLIANCES will enjoy the complete 6-minute window. In the interest of tournament schedule, if an ALLIANCE completes their repairs before the Time-out Clock expires, the ALLIANCE CAPTAIN is encouraged to inform the Head Referee that they are ready to play and remit any time remaining in the TIME-OUT. If ALLIANCES are ready before the 6-minute window, the next match will start. There are no cascading time-outs. An opposing ALLIANCE may not offer their unused TIME-OUT to their opponent.

[usbcd36]

I agree that the entire alliance shouldn't have been penalized. Maybe there was a mix-up with <G24>.

<G24> ALLIANCE PENALTIES - Unless otherwise noted, all PENALTIES assigned by REFEREES
are applied to the entire ALLIANCE.

[Spikey]

This has been around for awhile. During 2005 at the Philadelphia Regional our alliance partner received a red card during the finals. As a result our entire alliance was DQed and our alliance was given a loss instead of penalty points. The rules for the Playoffs have always applied alliance wide vs. Team wide. I must I saw shocked when it happened to us 3 years ago, and I was pretty pissed.

Sadly I don't have sympathy when the entire alliance got carded, at least they got to keep playing. I think its a silly rule, but its been around for awhile..

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Spikey

This has been around for awhile. During 2005 at the Philadelphia Regional our alliance partner received a red card during the finals. As a result our entire alliance was DQed and our alliance was given a loss instead of penalty points. The rules for the Playoffs have always applied alliance wide vs. Team wide. I must I saw shocked when it happened to us 3 years ago, and I was pretty pissed.

Sadly I don't have sympathy when the entire alliance got carded, at least they got to keep playing. I think its a silly rule, but its been around for awhile..

The entire Elim Alliance being DQ'd for a red card is very clearly spelled out in T11. Similarly in reply to Dan, T11 doesn't mention a thing about yellow cards or any cards applying to an entire alliance. Just that a red card DQ's the whole alliance, because just DQing one team wouldn't make sense. I agree that this rule is from whence the confusion sprang, but I don't think there's any reasonable way of reading it like this.

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by dez250

While i'm not going to comment on the yellow card issue, I find the timeout call interesting during that match. After the teams controls fell to the ground and the match was called to an early end, a team called for their timeout for robot repairs. While reading <T19> it would seem that you wouldn't be able to call a timeout here because in logic it is still the same match.

They called for the timeout not for robot repairs but for control system repairs. I feel that one bad apple spoils the bunch once again yea it's the teams responsibilty to secure their property properly but it's also the teams responsibility to test their robot 100% in the alotted time they have with the robot between build, practicing on chocks and tether in the pits, or on the practice field or even on practice day... theres more then enough time to sit and analyze the code and have it removed completely to have it corrected. I share no sympathy for a team that chooses not to utilize that time properly and agree w/ whatever the punishment is handed down. You have an opportunity and given a fair chance by some of the fairest people around to correct any mistakes... Theres used to be and still is a time where robots are not allowed on the field if the officials feel that the robot can endanger the equipment and or other property and more importantly the safety of all those who need to be within close quarters of the field.

It hurts to see a team to see a team penalized but its their fault and must accept the punishment even if it was just an accident. On thursday the head ref and or others probably took notes of all the possible threats and I'm sure he and others took such action b/c the threats still exsisted on game day. Teams were warned in 2 - 3 different drivers meetings and were warned leaving the field on practice day about all this. And if they weren't then she should've asked the questions at the meetings. There's no excuse whats so ever except laziness.

[Danny McC]

Yeah. It was our fault and we know that. We changed our autonomous and we didnt know it was going to do that.

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by TdorTheBnator

Yeah. It was our fault and we know that. We changed our autonomous and we didnt know it was going to do that.

Yea but see thats why we have a practice field and if you can't get on it then you can just chock it and count the sec's that go by and adjust from there. Ok it's an honest mistake but it was correctable before this should've even happened. Thankfully enough the teams that play in FIRST are cool headed people and just get upset at the mis-fortune and don't try and retalliate back.

[thefro526]

Lol we did that and it was a mistake from our programmer/possible IR interference. We personally as the alliance did not get bothered by the yellow card.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Lol we did that and it was a mistake from our programmer/possible IR interference. We personally as the alliance did not get bothered by the yellow card.

Not to be harsh to you, but it doesn't really matter if you weren't bothered by the bad call, or penalty assignment given to you.
I know exactly where you're coming from with that statement though, and felt the same way when some calls were missed or made against us and didn't affect the match.
When it does affect you that's really when you start to care though.

It was wrong, and I am glad Kevin caught this.

When things are caught in week one then that leads to updates changing the game from week to week... This is (kind of) inevitable, but also a gray area as well due to an unfair advantage/disadvantage seen by some earlier competing teams when rules change/get more clear.

Bottom line, a bad call that doesn't effect you per-say is still a bad call, and the teams watching the competitions with a fine tooth comb on the rules, and trying to get a feel of how the game will be played (especially in a week one regional setting) are confused when they are made no matter how it affects the outcome of the game, or even just your one match it just happens to take place in.

[dpc131]

Just some additional clarification on the situation. There was some comment on test prior to loading new code. If we can remember 2006 was infamous for changing code on the fly to block good shooters. This was extremely effective a lot of the time. There is some risk with using this approach and this is what can happen. 816 added in some last minute changes so we didn't collide in autonomous and some unexpected results happened.

What frustrated me most was the FIRST's IR receiver implementation and the unexpected results when using in a match. I think alot of the hard crashes were robocoach's signals not being received due to range/interference. Like anything, this is an engineering issue to be looked at during design of the robot, but this is a topic for another time. But again I see FIRST has sent something to the teams to implement that has not been proven (IR receivers in 2005, Camera in 2006, etc.)

[pakratt1991]

I saw this same thing at the Oregon regional. A teams hybrid mode hit the other wall at high speeds and it tossed a teams controller to the ground. There were no yellow cards given and the refs just said that teams needed to secure their controllers. We used 3 long strips of Velcro and that worked fine.

[chaoticprout]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

Yea but see thats why we have a practice field and if you can't get on it then you can just chock it and count the sec's that go by and adjust from there. Ok it's an honest mistake but it was correctable before this should've even happened. Thankfully enough the teams that play in FIRST are cool headed people and just get upset at the mis-fortune and don't try and retalliate back.

Firstly, I wasn't there so this may be off. However, I respectfully think this statement is insulting to the teams. When in competition with people screaming at you telling you the robot needs to get to competition, and not having the ability to go to the practice field, how does counting the seconds let them know if they have gone too far. If they were at home testing code I would agree, but this is during the stress of competition, and it's bound to happen. It's a part of FIRST , not something that should never happen. Not all mechanical elements of robots work, why should all the software? Don't blame the programmers. =(

[Matt H.]

I personally believe that with the amount of potential interference etc such a call should not have been made. As noted in earlier matches the lap counters are IR emitters and it often becomes uncontrollable. With the number of variables involved in coding it is unreasonable to expect a program to work perfectly after having been warned once.

On a side note why not have lips on the player stations. This would stop OIs from falling far more effectively than velcro and would enforce the size limits as prescribed in the rules.

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by Matt H.

On a side note why not have lips on the player stations. This would stop OIs from falling far more effectively than velcro and would enforce the size limits as prescribed in the rules.

I thought about that yesterday exactly. Don't be surprised if a control deck specification comes out in the '09 game. Right now the specs say it must fit the current level deck. I think it's time that deck had like a 1/2" lip on it and lock down bars to keep the controls from jumping up. Velcro will wear out too easily if every team used it.

[thefro526]

Also on of the things we thought was that you had one warning before a yellow card. Our programmer made a small adjustment to give the robobees time to clear and we had no idea that the entire system of timers messed up so thats what put us into the wall. It was strange because our auto had worked flawlessly throughout the competion