AZ Regionals: Incorrect Scoring?

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

...but the bottom line is we are customers of FIRST The first rule of business is that the customer is always right. You can say FIRST is not a business but in the end we pay them money and they provide us product and/or service so it can be thought of as a business. We pay $6000 to attend one of these fine events and we expect better. ....

YIKES!!! do a little checking before you explode. 35 teams at a regional paying $6k each come out to $210,000.

I think you would be shocked how much more than that it costs to put on a regional, and thats not counting the kit of parts, the year round work that has to be done

and the fact that almost every person working for FIRST at a regional is an UNPAID volunteer.

You are not even coming close to paying for what you get at a regional.

FIRST is a program designed to show students what a career in engineering and science is like. The robotics competition is only the platform, the bridge we cross, the project we take on in order to go through a quick engineering design/build/test cycle.

the competition is the 'test' phase - the chance to see how well your team did against the specifications of this years project.

What do you win if you win a regional? a trophy that is about 98¢ worth the plastic! If you goto the nationals and win, what do you win? 10 million dollars? full scholarships for all?

When you start thinking of FIRST as a robot building contest you have left the pavement and you are in deep weeds. That sort of thinking throws your whole perspective out of wack, and you end up in serious trouble.

Thats not what its all about.

That is not why thousands of people volunteer their time and their own money to be a part of FIRST.

That is not why sponsors give millions of dollars each year to host regionals, and to fund the nationals.

[ArmoredFairy698]

Whoa whoa whoa. Ok, please don't blow this up. I only posted this as a way of informing teams that yes, there has evidently been some software issues, but please don't make this out to be what it's not. FIRST is NOT just about the robots, it's about getting the opportunity to make your future better and to enjoy the chance that we all have to be engineers.

Please please please don't think that I'm dissing or complaining about FIRST. Think of this as an informant that teams should just keep an eye out and inform FIRST of software issues. I've learned that the program they are using is relatively new, so they've got bugs to work out. In other words, give FIRST a hand and use your GP to help them make the program better for future regionals, nationals, and years to come. FIRST is my hero, without them we have none of this, and I would never want to bite the hand that feeds me. I owe everything to FIRST Robotics. This is just a heads-ups to everyone to use your GP and give FIRST a hand in working out the bugs.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by ArmoredFairy698

FIRST is NOT just about the robots

But it is. Do you think a bunch of nerds and geeks would travel to the middle of the Arizona Desert just to have a good time being together? Absolutely not. And to quote myself from a post a few months ago

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Would we all really be here on these boards and filled in arenas to build our people skills or become gracious professionallists? No. Can you honestly say you would have joined FIRST for the sole purpose of becoming a more productive citizen? Most likely not. The robots are the attracting force, the common interest that brings us all together.

Without them, none of us would be here. It IS about the robots.

[russell]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

But it is. Do you think a bunch of nerds and geeks would travel to the middle of the Arizona Desert just to have a good time being together? Absolutely not. And to quote myself from a post a few months ago

Without them, none of us would be here. It IS about the robots.

YES!! YES!! YES!! I love this post. I would give you a few rep points except it seems to indicate I already did..

[DukesAZ]

After reading this thread, I am a little disturbed by the fact that the scoring problems were not just confined to Phoenix. I just hope that the issues are resolved by the next batch of regionals.

[gobeavs]

Howdy folks.
I'm the student coach of Team 1425 that Jeffrafa mentioned and I thought I would put in my $.02.

Regarding the scoring change hours after the match: Its not so much they changed the score, its that they didn't tell us (or anyone for that matter). We just found out the score was changed, and we had to go contact the proper authority to find out what was going on. The official response was that the the communication between the judges and announcer/scoring man was the problem, as the score was not properly conveyed. Not that I think they are lying, but I find it suspicious that when they saw the score on the screen, no one brought anything up.

I do commend FIRST though, as Paul Shay came and personally apologized to us and the other team involved in the seeding and alliance selection fiasco.

Not that the mistakes should be excused, but its not like we didn't have the opportunity to show our stuff and win.

[sanddrag]

Before we go any further I just wanted to clarify that there are two types of people in the FIRST events.

Judges: Blue shirts, determine which teams to give awards to.
Referrees: Black and white striped shirts, give match scores and penalties.

Okay, carry on.

[jpsaul7usa]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Before we go any further I just wanted to clarify that there are two types of people in the FIRST events.

Judges: Blue shirts, determine which teams to give awards to.
Referrees: Black and white striped shirts, give match scores and penalties.

Okay, carry on.

Don't forget about the white shirts: the volunteers who setup, reset, and take down the field before, during, and after the competition. There's also that long line of people sitting down the back side of the field who are trying their best to run things smoothly and get information out to everyone. I think everyone at the regionals are doing their best, and they are not the source of these problems.

I think the problem lies with the people who work on the software and the logistics of the competitions before the regionals start. I believe they need to find a system that works and stick with it. Have you ever helped setup and take apart an official FIRST field? I had the opportunity after the AZ regional to get close and see how the fields were built. I was amazed at how efficiently the field was constructed and able to be assembled/disassembled easily. There were many small touches you could tell were added because of lessons learned from previous years. If the computers and the software were as good as the field, then none of the problems mentioned would be happening. To me this suggests that the people working on the software aren't as experienced with it as the people who design and build the fields year after year. I predict that if the software doesn't change radically that in a few years they'll learn just like I'm sure the field designers have, but only time will amend the current software instability situation.

However, even if the rankings and scoring records were perfectly accurate, I believe that they are still inadequate. This year especially with penalties, I don't believe that the information provided in the rankings is valuable. They don't include penalties, they don't say which team was penalized (or what for), and they aren't accessible anywhere but at one end of the pit (at least at AZ anyway). Teams with limited numbers don't have the ability to scout the majority of the matches and can't choose good alliances based on the limited data provided. I wish FIRST would record more of this information and find more places to display it to make life easier on teams during the regionals. If not more screens on the field side of the curtain, I would love to see FIRST ensure a wireless internet connection at every regional and post information rapidly on the web.

I hope that FIRST listens to the feedback from teams this year like they have done in the past, because this year I think most teams will be expressing their concerns about the topics brought up in this post more than others. Maybe the reason for this is because FIRST has improved a great deal many other things so well in recent years.

[Wetzel]

I'd like to start off with saying that I was a scorekeeper this year at VCU. I was also a scorekeeper with Ken Leung at SVR in 2003. That is what qualifies me to talk about the scoring system.

I had a long rant with the details of most of the issues we had at VCU. I decided that the details are not really necessary to bring out the point that there are major issues with the scoring system, and the scorekeepers often are to busy to check the scores and rankings. If you have a problem, have two clear headed individuals talk to the field manager. Write down the pertinent information and have that with you. When you have 10 team members crowding around the head ref asking why a score is such, you will have a hard time getting a good answer (if you get one).

I would request that the conversation not related to the scoring issues, including the importance thereof, be moved elsewhere. It is much easier to find the root of a problem without a lot of distractions.

I would also like to personally apologize to anyone who was slighted at VCU. We tried our best to deal with the issues that arose, but I know for a fact that we were not fully successful. I will be sure to talk to the scorekeepers at Annapolis this Thursday to attempt to prevent such problems there.



Wetzel

[Btower]

I was Field Manager at GLR.

First of all I would like to apologize for the problem we had with the sound controls. The problem seemed to be introduced when we downloaded an update to the scoring system during the lunch break on Friday which corrected the team ranking and alliance selection process. Paul Copoli did an amazing job of immediately telling teams to ignore the extraneous sounds. We found a reboot would correct the issue for what appeared to be about 15 matches before it would reoccur.

Due to the problems at Regionals in week one we were constantly reviewing the W-L-T records. I don't believe we had any discrepancies, however if anyone knows of a problem please let me know.

Mark Terelli from FIRST did a excellent job of staying ahead of the bugs found.

I fully agree with the post above, if you believe there has been a problem have a team member calmly contact the FIELD MANAGER and if possible bring evidence. The Judges (Blue Shirts) have nothing to do with the game. The Refs (Zebras), give the match score to the scorer, who inputs it into the machine. The FIELD MANAGER can sort out the issues, the scoring team is working hard enough to stay on top of each match.

Again I apologize for the issues at GLR, and I want to thank all the teams for their patience and for giving us some awesome competitions.

Also, huge thanks to the teams that helped us with teardown and all the other volunteers.

Ben Tower
GLR 05 - Field Manager

[Daniel Brim]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

But it is. Do you think a bunch of nerds and geeks would travel to the middle of the Arizona Desert just to have a good time being together? Absolutely not. And to quote myself from a post a few months ago
etc...
Without them, none of us would be here. It IS about the robots.

I don't agree.

FIRST is not just about robots. In order to see what FIRST is about, just look at the name (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). There is no mention of a robot in there.

What FIRST truly is about (in my opinion at least) is spreading the inspiration of the technology field to other people (kids, females, minorities, etc) than what is considered "normal" for the technological field. FIRST helps people succeed. In some areas, FIRST keeps people off of the street and changes their life. FIRST is just another one of Dean Kamen's methods to change the world; we are merely his pawns. FIRST teams make a huge difference in their communities (just look at all of the chairman's award winners. So far, I have not even mentioned anything about a robot. The robot is just merely a side effect, an instrument if you will, of the goals of FIRST. Heck, in FIRST there are PR people, Animation people, Inventor people, and only about 1/2 (my rough estimate) actually work on the robot.

I guarantee you if you walked up to Dean Kamen and asked him, "Is FIRST about robots?", he would immediately say no.

Ok, time to get off of my soapbox

-Daniel

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by DanielBCR

I don't agree.

FIRST is not just about robots. In order to see what FIRST is about, just look at the name (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). There is no mention of a robot in there.

What FIRST truly is about (in my opinion at least) is spreading the inspiration of the technology field to other people (kids, females, minorities, etc) than what is considered "normal" for the technological field. FIRST helps people succeed. In some areas, FIRST keeps people off of the street and changes their life. FIRST is just another one of Dean Kamen's methods to change the world; we are merely his pawns. FIRST teams make a huge difference in their communities (just look at all of the chairman's award winners. So far, I have not even mentioned anything about a robot. The robot is just merely a side effect, an instrument if you will, of the goals of FIRST. Heck, in FIRST there are PR people, Animation people, Inventor people, and only about 1/2 (my rough estimate) actually work on the robot.

I guarantee you if you walked up to Dean Kamen and asked him, "Is FIRST about robots?", he would immediately say no.

Ok, time to get off of my soapbox

-Daniel

Most all of the other aspects of FIRST center around the robot. The animation team does and animation of the robot. The inventor team draws the robot. The chairman's team uses the robot to show off some times and talks about the robot building as a way to get people interested in engineering. The robot could actually be anything however. It's just an interesting technical challenge. But you need that challenge there for the other teams to play off of. It's the hook that gets people in and it's the vehicle of transferring engineering knowledge from mentors to students. It's the only way Dean will be able to get students to look at engineers as heros. How many teams have you seen with a chairman's award and absolutely no robot? Now how many teams have you seen with a robot and no chairman's award?

EDIT: BTower, great job with GLR. Despite the weirdness it was a well run field and I never noticed any scoring oddities there.

[Joe Matt]

Now, first, remember guys, FIRST people. LOTS, read these boards. I know that the scoring system is not perfect, but when these things come up, we don't help them. They know there are problems, they know there are flaws, issues, and bugs. Remember, constructive criticism.

Also, I remember last year the software was downloaded onto antique hardware at the VCU regional, it took all day long to do it! I remember the manual ball drop, and no ranking information AT ALL. While it would be nice to have a good software program, and only one, over the years, I think that's what this Hatch program is for; an open, expandable program that allows for as many teams as is needed on the field at one time. I have a feeling that not only Hatch will control the FIRST fields, but the VEX field at Atlanta.

[Uki]

Posted By Kevin Sevcik

"First off, this year's scoring system isn't more solid than past years'. I was scorekeeper at Lone Star and the only problem I had was a delicate computer system that had been shaken up rather badly on the back of a semi. It frankly astounds me that we're having scoring problems this year when things were working perfectly well last year."

I'm struggle to see where you came up with that idea, as many of you probably are unaware of, there were serious problems first week of regionals last year. I was up until 3am both wednesday and thursday night making the field and scoring system functional enough to run practice rounds. There have been less updates this year then last year as you might not be aware. This years software is leaps and bounds ahead of last years. Don't get me wrong, TacOps was a great idea and worked well in the end.

I have been scoring regionals for the past 6 years, this year in no way is near as bad as past years. Yes there has been some issues with rankings which is a top priority right now. I'm not sure how many of you know really what it takes to develop a piece of software like this or the time constraints that were in this particular situation.

I know its very easy to get upset at mix ups and such with the scoring, but i'm not sure how many of you have had to be in that seat and be responsible for the scoring at an event. It is a stressful thing and takes alot of patients to deal with team members upset with something.

Posted By JonBell

"At the UTC semifinals, we lost our first match, but then in our second match, we won by two points. However, the judges didn't count one of the tetras, and even though we had the entire field on video, they didn't want to watch the video - we ended up losing by one point and falling out of the finals. We told them right after they put the score up! I guess that I can see where the judges are coming from in that they don't want to waste time reviewing every single play, but perhaps there should be some contingency for ties or 1 point differences in scores?"

I'm not sure who you talked to, I was the score keeper for UTC. I remember two teams approaching me talking about how a tetra was there and the ref's missed it. You must realize any video tape or pictures when brought to the attention of the ref's, really is a moot poin as they will not review it as stated in the rules.

I think people need to realize really what it takes to put this competition on. FIRST is very aware of the issues at hand and are working at them in a timely manner. I think people need to step back, take a deep breath, and calm down about this whole situation. When issues come up, they get resolved, simple as that.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Uki

I'm struggle to see where you came up with that idea, as many of you probably are unaware of, there were serious problems first week of regionals last year. I was up until 3am both wednesday and thursday night making the field and scoring system functional enough to run practice rounds. There have been less updates this year then last year as you might not be aware. This years software is leaps and bounds ahead of last years. Don't get me wrong, TacOps was a great idea and worked well in the end.

I have been scoring regionals for the past 6 years, this year in no way is near as bad as past years. Yes there has been some issues with rankings which is a top priority right now. I'm not sure how many of you know really what it takes to develop a piece of software like this or the time constraints that were in this particular situation.

We may very well be leaps and bounds ahead of where we were at the same time last year. The question is whether we're leaps and bounds ahead of where we were at the END of last year. It's somewhat silly to ignore all the patches and fixes that were made and the fact that at the end of champs last year, TacOPS was working much better than this Hatch system was working at the beginning of this year. To munge some old adages, if it ain't broke, don't reinvent the wheel.

If the time frame was so very very compressed and forced FIRST to go with buggy software.... Well why not spend a transitional year patching last year's TacOPS to work with 6 robots and concurrently develop and debug the Hatch system so that it can be released in full working order? There would be atleast 200 teams available for testing in off-season competitions. All FIRST would have to do is provide a field. There would be more time and less expectation of perfection. Instead, the system is being tested and debugged while it's being used. 1000+ FIRST teams have become beta testers.