Pedestal Delays

[DjScribbles]

At the Southfield District Event (MI) there were a few cases where the delay between an alliance clearing the field of balls and the pedestal being lit to allow the inbounder to grab the next ball.

I'm wondering if this was observed at other events, and how it was handled.

In one of our matches we had a 40 sec delay, and, because the delay wasn't explicitly observed during the match, it took a number of visits with the referees before we were granted a replay of the match.

Here is the video of the match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-QUKZLWUQ

At 1:00 (video time) you see the last red auto-ball cleared from the field. At 1:45, you see the human player return with our first cycle ball. For about 40 seconds, the pedestal was not lit. You cannot see the pedestal in the video, however the problem is quite obvious.

While I'm generally against 'video reviews' of penalties and such during a match, I'm wondering if an exception should be allowed for cases such as this; where clear video evidence of a field/match fault exists that can be correlated with events observed on the field (supposedly, the ref marked the field as cleared shortly after the last ball was scored, but some delay caused the pedestal to not light).

I saw that in some cases even small delays often had a big impact on match flow, (where a robot sits and waits for a new ball as the old ball is cleared, but gives up after some delay to go defend, then ends up being late for the inbounder). I would expect these smaller delays will diminish over time as the refs get more experienced with the game; but there are some interesting situations introduced by the 'human' factor in the game.

[kwotremb]

Since this was experienced so much for all teams, the refs should have given a verbal go ahead to teams to take the ball. Rather than have to replay the matches. Would have helped the event stay on time. I hope they have this fixed for the next week of events.

[Hoover]

Hopefully an operator can describe how this works. It has to be manually turned on, I don't see how it can be automated.

We had an incident at MAR Mount Olive. Another team human player already had a ball ready to load a robot. When I turned around our human player had taken a ball off the pedestal. As coach I chased after him before he threw it onto the field and returned it to the pedestal. Here is where it becomes a blur. When I returned it to the pedestal the light was on.

At the end of the game the head ref approached me and I described the above. We were accessed a 50 point penalty but we had lost and didn't change the outcome of the match. Without proof I couldn't contest it.

Our human player is special education, so I started to doubt having him as the human player. I felt bad about this because in a later match, I watched him, he would NOT touch the ball until the pedestal lit. He is a great human player.

In a later match (not us) there was a field fault because that same pedestal light did not turn off. My theory is that in our match, once the first ball was taken, another ball was placed on it while it was still lit, but I can not prove it.

[EricWilliams]

Originally Posted by DjScribbles

At the Southfield District Event (MI) there were a few cases where the delay between an alliance clearing the field of balls and the pedestal being lit to allow the inbounder to grab the next ball.

I'm wondering if this was observed at other events, and how it was handled.

This issue did pop up now and again at the Central Illinois Regional.

Originally Posted by Hoover

Hopefully an operator can describe how this works. It has to be manually turned on, I don't see how it can be automated...

This is, in fact, automated within the FMS (to an extent). The referee panels have a button which says end cycle. This is pressed when a ball is scored, and triggers the FMS to calculate score based on possessions and assists, and light up the pedestal among other things. There is something, somewhere in systems which is causing delays. I ref week 3, but I am told that there is a noticeable delay between the ref panels being touched and them accepting the input.

So basically, this appears to be a software issue, and hopefully will be fixed in time for week 2.

[AlexD744]

Is it my imagination, or is the audience actually yelling "NEW BALL" for those 40 seconds?

[kwotremb]

Originally Posted by Hoover

Hopefully an operator can describe how this works. It has to be manually turned on, I don't see how it can be automated.

We had an incident at MAR Mount Olive. Another team human player already had a ball ready to load a robot. When I turned around our human player had taken a ball off the pedestal. As coach I chased after him before he threw it onto the field and returned it to the pedestal. Here is where it becomes a blur. When I returned it to the pedestal the light was on.

At the end of the game the head ref approached me and I described the above. We were accessed a 50 point penalty but we had lost and didn't change the outcome of the match. Without proof I couldn't contest it.

Our human player is special education, so I started to doubt having him as the human player. I felt bad about this because in a later match, I watched him, he would NOT touch the ball until the pedestal lit. He is a great human player.

In a later match (not us) there was a field fault because that same pedestal light did not turn off. My theory is that in our match, once the first ball was taken, another ball was placed on it while it was still lit, but I can not prove it.

That happened to us in a match as well. Luckily we where not penalized for it. It was near the end of one of our early matches noticed that suddenly we had two balls on the field. After the match talked with the drive team and the human player said that a ball was on the pedestal and it was lit so he put it onto the field. Noticed later in the event that the volunteers would not put the ball onto the pedestal until after the light went out. I think there was a little talk about it after that match.

[DjScribbles]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

Is it my imagination, or is the audience actually yelling "NEW BALL" for those 40 seconds?

Yes. I know our team was all standing and shouting it by the 20 or 30 second mark, but I don't think we were the only ones (we were on the other side of the arena, blue shirts).

I also noticed there were some cases where the pedestal was lit (with no ball on it) when it shouldn't have been. I assumed I just forgot the conditions for it being lit.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by kwotremb

That happened to us in a match as well. Luckily we where not penalized for it. It was near the end of one of our early matches noticed that suddenly we had two balls on the field. After the match talked with the drive team and the human player said that a ball was on the pedestal and it was lit so he put it onto the field. Noticed later in the event that the volunteers would not put the ball onto the pedestal until after the light went out. I think there was a little talk about it after that match.

I'm not sure if it's the same match, but I saw this at Southfield when the bars rejected a goal. The ball bounced behind the goal for what seemed like a long time, and then the ball bounced back on the field. By that point, the refs had already awarded the goal and the pedestal lit up so a new ball was entered on the field. It was strange seeing two balls on the field.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by tanmaker

This is, in fact, automated within the FMS (to an extent). The referee panels have a button which says end cycle. This is pressed when a ball is scored, and triggers the FMS to calculate score based on possessions and assists, and light up the pedestal among other things. There is something, somewhere in systems which is causing delays. I ref week 3, but I am told that there is a noticeable delay between the ref panels being touched and them accepting the input.

Yup, and then the pedestal remains lit until the referees record "something" happening with the ball (assist, truss, catch, goal ... SOMETHING). The field staff MAY inadvertently place the new ball on the pedestal while it's still lit, and if a team grabs that ball and enters it into the field that's a Field Fault. The field staff and referees were warned of this (since there's no way to detect the ball being removed from the pedestal) and now you are too.

-Danny

[KCmoon]

One of our matches the pedestal did not light up after autonomous so our coach was waving and shouting that it was not being lit. It was great that he made a commotion to get attention to it and the match was stopped and we restarted. But I agree, there is a delay with the pedestals and it has to be fixed. Albeit, it is a Week 1 so there are bound to be problems and FIRST will probably work out more of the kinks for Week 2.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DjScribbles

I also noticed there were some cases where the pedestal was lit (with no ball on it) when it shouldn't have been. I assumed I just forgot the conditions for it being lit.

You might be correct in the latter. It doesn't go out until somebody possesses the ball--and a smart head ref/FTA combination has probably instructed Field Reset in the strongest of terms that a ball is never to be placed onto a lit pedestal.

If the pedestal doesn't light up after autonomous, double-check that all your auto balls are off of the field. If they are, then the ref may have been asleep (or hit the wrong button and had to undo it, which kind of stinks).

I agree with tanmaker--the ref panels are slow, their connections are slow... (The head ref I worked with this weekend had a number of complaints about the head ref panel, including delays and lack of ability to see what everybody else was putting in.) When I would put in starting balls, it could take several seconds to register after a touch, and sometimes it would unregister randomly.

[Cam877]

Originally Posted by Hoover

Hopefully an operator can describe how this works. It has to be manually turned on, I don't see how it can be automated.

We had an incident at MAR Mount Olive. Another team human player already had a ball ready to load a robot. When I turned around our human player had taken a ball off the pedestal. As coach I chased after him before he threw it onto the field and returned it to the pedestal. Here is where it becomes a blur. When I returned it to the pedestal the light was on.

At the end of the game the head ref approached me and I described the above. We were accessed a 50 point penalty but we had lost and didn't change the outcome of the match. Without proof I couldn't contest it.

Our human player is special education, so I started to doubt having him as the human player. I felt bad about this because in a later match, I watched him, he would NOT touch the ball until the pedestal lit. He is a great human player.

In a later match (not us) there was a field fault because that same pedestal light did not turn off. My theory is that in our match, once the first ball was taken, another ball was placed on it while it was still lit, but I can not prove it.

Yes, and this was not the only problem we had at mount olive. Many replays had to be done because of pedestal delays, including a quarterfinal match that ended up overturning the result of the series. This really needs to be amended. Great job at the competition this weekend by the way 4381!

[Siri]

Originally Posted by DjScribbles

At the Southfield District Event (MI) there were a few cases where the delay between an alliance clearing the field of balls and the pedestal being lit to allow the inbounder to grab the next ball.

I'm wondering if this was observed at other events, and how it was handled.

In one of our matches we had a 40 sec delay, and, because the delay wasn't explicitly observed during the match, it took a number of visits with the referees before we were granted a replay of the match.

We had a similarly long delay and, though fault was acknowledged, we were flatly denied a replay in a match with a four point losing margin--despite citing rules and not a little pleading from students. A similar long field crew delay happened in a match we lost by 1 point, where again the fault was acknowledged without a replay. The head ref, thankfully, began pausing matches to sort out the light, but even then some pauses came at least 10 seconds after the ball scored. (Time was paused, not backed up--we restarted another match with 2 seconds left on the clock.)

We were far from an edge case. There were a lot of very frayed nerves across many teams, and I'm frankly proud of everyone for their handling of it. Still, I hope FIRST understand objectively how big an affect this has. It literally changed alliance selection (the matches involved captains and those who would have been in a captain seed), and directly affects MAR rankings, at first glance by ~10% for some teams. Refs shouldn't be burdened with these kinds of calls.

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by Siri

We were far from an edge case. There were a lot of very frayed nerves across many teams, and I'm frankly proud of everyone for their handling of it. Still, I hope FIRST understand objectively how big an affect this has. It literally changed alliance selection (the matches involved captains and those who would have been in a captain seed), and directly affects MAR rankings, at first glance by ~10% for some teams. Refs shouldn't be burdened with these kinds of calls.

At our regional, it became rather ugly at times with the crowd shouting at the ref about the pedastal to the point of obscenities. Luckily the student (a spectator) cursing at the ref was asked to leave by adults on his own team. Several of our mentors volunteered to ref at the regional and in our discussions last night, a couple of them are having second thoughts about reffing at the next regional, they were just so frustrated and really didn't like everyone yelling at them about the pedestal which they couldn't fix/control.