Scoring error at Boston.

[sv2198]

During our Semi-final match, there was a scoring error that occured, were our alliance had 4 total point subtracted from the score. 1 in autonomous, and 3 during tele-operated. The point that was scored in autonomous was not counted, and the other three were subtracted when we scored one, the score went down two. I've viewed this match several times, just to make sure i'm not seeing things. We ended up winning the match anyways, but its a little concerning that there is some scoring issues. I was wondering if anyone else have ran into this problem.


O and you can view the match on the blue alliance right here. http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match/2010ma_sf1m1

[JamesBrown]

You are definitely right about the deductions from your score during tele-op. It looks like you should have score two in auto, but only one was counted.

I know that in boston, earlier in the day points were deducted from the score during a match, and the announcer said something about it. He suggested that there may have been DOGMA penalties. I am not sure if that was a wild guess, or if the scoring system automatically deducts dogma penalties but it is possible that this could have been the cause (I have no idea whether or not their should have been DOGMA penalties). This would atleast give some form of reason to what would allow the score system to deduct points.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

There were similar issues at SVR. The ball counters in the scoring chute seem to malfunction sometimes when multiple balls are scored. I'm not sure if they ever determined if it was a timing error (there are 2 beam breakers to help with sensing direction), or if the added momentum was causing the balls to bounce back inadvertently.

[Dkt01]

I noticed a similar issue at St. Louis. In one of the elimination matches, a robot scored 3/4 balls at once. The counter started at 2, I think. It went up to four, then started counting from zero again. The team wasn't awarded all the points it scored, but the alliance won, so no one cared. Maybe there is an error handler in the field that cancels points if the photo gate (whatever counts the balls) is triggered too frequently.

[thefro526]

During one of our Elimination Matches in Philly we decided it would be a good idea to push 4 balls in the goal at one time. It jammed the goal, and then for some reason our score counters did not work correctly. At the end of the match, We and 341 ended up discussing what the actual score was with the refs and they agreed with us.

[JamesBrown]

I have a feeling that we are going to need to see a simmilar solution to 2006, with volunteers counting balls as they go in at the Championships.

[GaryVoshol]

It has been reported that the sensors are very sensitive to balls going backward through the goal. It is not widely documented, but the score system is meant to work this way, based on rule <G16>:

<G16> BALL Return - HUMAN PLAYERS must place BALLS on the BALL RETURN using the TRIDENT. No other means are permitted for TEAMS to return BALLS to the FIELD. Violation: Two PENALTIES and YELLOW CARD.

If the ball goes backward through the sensor, even slightly, the score system automatically deducts two points as the penalty.

[MikeE]

This seems to have happened several times at Regionals, sometimes due to
human error but I didn't see any hands near the ball chutes in this particular match.
Some Regionals posted human scorers at each goal.

I haven't looked at the position of the ball detector beams, but if there is a situation where multiple balls only break the beam once, then there could be conditions that would cause a negative count.
I wonder what the FMS does when more balls are returned to play than it has counted as scored?

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

If the ball goes backward through the sensor, even slightly, the score system automatically deducts two points as the penalty.

So a ball scored with a hard kick hitting one already in the ball counting mechaism could result in a reduction in score, or at least the second goal not being scored.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

It has been reported that the sensors are very sensitive to balls going backward through the goal. It is not widely documented, but the score system is meant to work this way, based on rule <G16>:
If the ball goes backward through the sensor, even slightly, the score system automatically deducts two points as the penalty.

It looks like this is what is happening, however, I have seen it happen when it did not appear that a ball was feeding backwards. I am curious how relaible the system really is. It seems that it may be false triggering.

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

It looks like this is what is happening, however, I have seen it happen when it did not appear that a ball was feeding backwards. I am curious how relaible the system really is. It seems that it may be false triggering.

I really hope that this problem is rare enough that it hasn't affected any of the Elimination matches at Regionals.

[JamesBrown]

It seems like it realistically could be effecting Elimination matches. In the video of the match your teammate posted you guys won by 2 points. My team was on the other alliance and sat dead through the match. Had we not sat dead we could have put in a couple of balls and hung, then the points you guys lost would have been the difference in the match.

It seems like this problem is more likely to happen when good robots pair up. When you have a good bot in the middle zone balls tend to collect right infront of the goal, this makes it easy for the front zone robot to push them in. This also appears to be the direct cause of the problem.

[Radical Pi]

Originally Posted by MikeE

I haven't looked at the position of the ball detector beams, but if there is a situation where multiple balls only break the beam once, then there could be conditions that would cause a negative count.
I wonder what the FMS does when more balls are returned to play than it has counted as scored?

There are actually 2 beams for the counter. The FMS determines which way a ball is traveling based on which beam trips first. If the beam towards the field trips, and then the one to the DS does, it is a scored goal. The other way around, it is a double penalty. The situation you are thinking of, however, is most likely where a 2nd ball trips the first beam before the 1st ball clears the second beam. I'd imagine the system is programmed so that if the 1st beam is active when the 2nd beam clears, it detects it as a 2nd score. The only thing I can think of that would miss scoring a ball is an error in the software.

I'm also curious about how it handles a non-scored ball passing through the return

[AmoryG]

There seemed to be multiple scoring errors In Quarter 4 Match 2 at the Boston Regional:

http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match/2010ma_qf4m2

If you watch carefully, at 1:25 our alliance scores a goal, making it 4-3 blue alliance. Right after that if you look even closer, you can see that we score another point. Instead of adding another point to our score, 2 points were taken away making the score 3-2, red alliance. The score ended 3-2, but for some reason, the final score ended up 6-3, red alliance.

I can't know for sure, since half the time the camera was aimed at our end, but I don't remember seeing the red alliance score 3 uncounted points. The announcer said something about dogma penalties when 3 points were deducted from our score, but I don't know if that's what really cause it.

I can't say I'm not a bit disappointed by the results, since from my perspective, we might have actually won that match. If the end score was the result of a field error, then it might have actually prevented my alliance from winning our 2nd match in the quarterfinals, and going on to the semifinals.

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by sv2198

During our Semi-final match, there was a scoring error that occured, were our alliance had 4 total point subtracted from the score. 1 in autonomous, and 3 during tele-operated. The point that was scored in autonomous was not counted, and the other three were subtracted when we scored one, the score went down two. I've viewed this match several times, just to make sure i'm not seeing things. We ended up winning the match anyways, but its a little concerning that there is some scoring issues. I was wondering if anyone else have ran into this problem.


O and you can view the match on the blue alliance right here. http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match/2010ma_sf1m1

Reviewing the original video several more times, I'm not sure I agree that 2 balls were scored by blue in autonomous.

During the autonomous period, red clears one ball, blue kicks 2 balls from midfield, scoring with one of them. There is also a shot from the blue offensive robot which looks like it is being scored since the ball disappears from shot very close to the goal mouth, but as the cameral zooms back there is a ball rolling along the alliance wall.
At the end of autonomous, 1 ball was cleared from defense by red, 2 were moved forward from midfield by blue, and there are 4 balls left in the zone, therefore only 1 was scored by blue.

That still leaves the reduction in points during the match. This could be a field fault as discussed above but can we completely rule out a DOGMA penalty?