Silicon Valley Regional 2008

[tyron256]

well, it was an unusual ending to this regional, unfortunately it was at blue's expense. good show and congrats to the winners

[Danny McC]

Blue got cheated. That's all.

[thefro526]

After seeing this final match, I am rather upset. I understand the refs are human and make mistakes but, In my opinion blue was just conned out of a regional win. The red alliance was good but blue deserved to win after the third match. The inconsistency of refs from regional to regional needs to stop. Any other regional would have called it as blue winning.

Btw, this is not a post trying to bash the refs, I am just fed up with inconsistency's from event to event. And this misunderstanding of the rules has just cost 3 teams a regional win.

[David Brinza]

Not a good day for FIRST at SVR.

I'm afraid the finals controversy will overshadow what this event is supposed to be - a celebration of accomplishment for all of the teams at the event.

Field-side decisions are taking away from the purity of competition. FIRST should be able to rationally resolve the outcome of the match based on what occurs on the field. If an end-game rule is misinterpreted i.e. <G14>, the error should be corrected and the final score should reflect the correct application of the rule.

Unless further explanation can be offered, I just don't see "do-over" as the proper resolution of this situation.

[Meredith Novak]

It's not just a Regional win, it's a ticket to Atlanta for some of these teams. Maybe they should give it to all 6 and call it done. No one is going to feel right about "winning" this, even if they did another do-over...

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Meredith Novak

It's not just a Regional win, it's a ticket to Atlanta for some of these teams. Maybe they should give it to all 6 and call it done. No one is going to feel right about "winning" this, even if they did another do-over...

I think that this may be the saddest part of this lose for blue.

[ARcanUSNUMquam]

I'm watching the webcast and I didn't see Woz in the colinear arrangement of judges. Anybody know where he went? Or are my eyes deceiving me?

[mark johnson]

DEFENSE IS A PART OF THIS GAME!!!!! Going into this match I didnt give you guys even a slight chance . But was I ever wrong,your team changed its game plan after the first match and shut down the POOFS, that won you that match.The plan worked again , but I didnt understand that final call on the bonus ball. Your alliance (2024 ,192,8) lost the in the finals but you still should feel like champions for your fine preformance!!!!!!! Congrats to (100,254 115)for winning the regional,you cant take it away from you because of a bad call so enjoy the victory!!Remember the refs are human just like the rest of us,hopefully we all will learn from this. On a previous post by XAULZAN11 said in the Currie finals that (1732.67,48) had beaten (330 910 1523) in the second match . It wasnt 1523 it was 1270 who in turn got DQed on Einstien for tipping Beatty 71 while battling for the same ring ,another bad call but we had to accept it and move on to next match. GOOD LUCK to all of you the rest of the year.

[pakratt1991]

well unfortunately I was working on my own projects and while I watched most of the matches yesterday I missed the finals today =[ From what I hear it was a GREAT SHOW! Having been screwed by the refs before in competition I know how it feels. While I have much respect for 254 and 100, from what I hear the large trophies should have gone the other way. but I CAN'T WAIT FOR THESE TO BE ON THE BLUE ALLIANCE! HURRY!!! !

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by mark johnson

DEFENSE IS A PART OF THIS GAME!!!!! Going into this match I didnt give you guys even a slight chance . But was I ever wrong,your team changed its game plan after the first match and shut down the POOFS, that won you that match.The plan worked again , but I didnt understand that final call on the bonus ball. Your alliance (2024 ,192,8) lost the in the finals but you still should feel like champions for your fine preformance!!!!!!! Congrats to (100,254 115)for winning the regional,you cant take it away from you because of a bad call so enjoy the victory!!Remember the refs are human just like the rest of us,hopefully we all will learn from this. On a previous post by XAULZAN11 said in the Currie finals that (1732.67,48) had beaten (330 910 1523) in the second match . It wasnt 1523 it was 1270 who in turn got DQed on Einstien for tipping Beatty 71 while battling for the same ring ,another bad call but we had to accept it and move on to next match. GOOD LUCK to all of you the rest of the year.

Indeed. 8's defense was brilliant, and nearly won them the fourth match. Of course, it helps that the refs were not calling impeding at all, but this is taking nothing away from 8-for one, that rule would not have affected them most of the time, and recognizing the conditions is always a key part of any sport. In match 4, both red balls were in the same place (one flat, which was not replaced for a rather long time), and 8 just waited behind them, which almost worked. Congrats, and congrats to everyone else as well! Even though my team didn't do so well, the matches made it fun for everyone.

[Daniel Bathgate]

Originally Posted by Woody1458

2144 pulled of the counterfacing omnis (looks like <> from underside) spectacularly

Why thank you! We're quite proud of our drivetrain this year. The biggest problem we've had was our AndyMark Coolie Dualie wheels bending when they hit the plates on the inside of the field. We're going to try out their plastic omni wheels at Davis to see if they'll work better for us. Now that some small but killer code related problems are worked out, things should be looking good. Note: Don't put your radio next to the drive motors! Horrible packet loss causes for problems to appear on the field and not in the pits, driving the programmer batty when trying to troubleshoot.

A big thanks to 190 for picking us for the finals! Those quarterfinals were a lot of fun, and together with 2141 we put on quite a good fight.

Lastly, I'm not sure what to think of the finals. We love you 100, 254, and 115, but in my opinion the regional should have gone to blue. I was one of the people who ran (erm, walked quickly) back to our pits to grab a copy of the rules and bring them up to the refs. (Yes, I know people not on the alliance shouldn't contest and are probably just getting in the way, but it was heat of the moment, and come on! That rule isn't even one of the debated ones!) Then with 254's ball and field damage... Anyways, those were two amazing alliances and it's a shame they can't both go to Atlanta. Or as Meredith suggested, could they? I would be in full support of advancing both alliances as a resolution!

SVR had a rough start and a rough ending. Our alliance had a score of 9 before penalties for our first qualification match (match number 3), initially losing 4 to 0. It was pretty easy to contest an odd score, but counting laps as 1 point each is a fairly huge mistake. I'm surprised the software even let that score be input. Scoring and penalty issues aside, which seem to be as much an issue with this game as with our regional in particular, SVR was a load of fun with great competition.

[JYang]

Congrats to team 2643, Gunderson High School, for reaching semifinals your rookie year! Awesome job! Team 604 is proud of you guys!

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Indeed. 8's defense was brilliant, and nearly won them the fourth match. Of course, it helps that the refs were not calling impeding at all, but this is taking nothing away from 8-for one, that rule would not have affected them most of the time, and recognizing the conditions is always a key part of any sport. In match 4, both red balls were in the same place (one flat, which was not replaced for a rather long time), and 8 just waited behind them, which almost worked. Congrats, and congrats to everyone else as well! Even though my team didn't do so well, the matches made it fun for everyone.

To be clear, impeding has a specific meaning and only refers to robot traffic around the track. If Team 8 denies the Red alliance access to their Trackball, they're not necessarily guilty of impeding per <G40>. The occasions where their robot maneuvered in front of an opposing robot is risky and creates judgment calls for the ref's (regarding passing lanes, etc.). Just note that the definition of IMPEDING makes no mention of Trackballs:

IMPEDING: Preventing or obstructing an opposing ROBOT’S ability to proceed around the TRACK in the direction of traffic.

No team should assume that they have the right of unabated access to their Trackballs during a match. Some teams exercise strategies and tactics that make it very difficult for their opponents to gain control of their own Trackballs. I thought Team 8 did that effectively in those matches. In my opinion, their play was legal defense - pure and simple.

[Andy L]

I was in our pits most of the time but I have a few things to say about everything.

Team 8: Wow, I never would've guessed a team could pull off defense like that amazing job. Keep pressuring FIRST on getting to ATL, I overheard you talking to Jim Beck and I hope that FIRST allows you in. Refer to one of the many threads like this and you may just get your ticket to ATL.

Entire #2 alliance: AMAZING right after alliances got picked we assumed a landslide victory for the #1 alliance, you proved us wrong and did great.

Refs: Kept up the consistency throughout all matches, and did a good job the whole time, I have heard people blaming the finals on the refs, all they were trying to do is hold up consistency

190: Good design, I have heard people talking about how it's unfair. Way to think outside the box.

254: Everyone was a little sketchy on if one of their leading competitors would be DQed or only at half functionality. Great work done in the pits.

2024: I loved your team spirit and everything about your team.

These are all my thoughts and things that jumped out at me.

If anyone has pictures of team 1458's robot could you please email them to me? Ramones.rock@gmail.com

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

To be clear, impeding has a specific meaning and only refers to robot traffic around the track. If Team 8 denies the Red alliance access to their Trackball, they're not necessarily guilty of impeding per <G40>. The occasions where their robot maneuvered in front of an opposing robot is risky and creates judgment calls for the ref's (regarding passing lanes, etc.). Just note that the definition of IMPEDING makes no mention of Trackballs:

IMPEDING: Preventing or obstructing an opposing ROBOT’S ability to proceed around the TRACK in the direction of traffic.

No team should assume that they have the right of unabated access to their Trackballs during a match. Some teams exercise strategies and tactics that make it very difficult for their opponents to gain control of their own Trackballs. I thought Team 8 did that effectively in those matches. In my opinion, their play was legal defense - pure and simple.

I don't disagree with you, but some of 8's other moves should have, in my opinion, at least warranted a count, but they were few and far between here. Again, the refs seemed to be going more for consistency than a literal interpretation of the rules.