The Fraud of FTC Worlds - How FTC & FIRST have failed me forever.

[Fusion_Clint]

I agree that the ref's have a difficult task to do and mostly do a great job. Instead of becoming disillusioned with FIRST, take this opportunity to make it better.

I have been at more than one FTC event where it was stated up front that there will not be any replays no matter what, which is the wrong message to send. If it is important enough for the students to bust their hump on, it is important enough for the correct decision to be made.

At State and higher level matches in FTC there is FIRST video that can be reviewed. I think a challenge system should be implemented to help the Referee's get the call right. No one wants a full season of blood, sweat, and tears to go down because of a mistaken call.

[Lil' Lavery]

Are there any sports that have a challenge system that allows you to challenge penalties? The NFL allows challenges regarding events that happen on the field (was a ball caught, did a player go out of bounds, etc), but not penalties. MLB allows challenges to calls at the plate (safe/out), and there isn't really a direct parallel to penalties in baseball. The NHL and NBA have no challenge system.

Challenges to scoring errors may be valid, but referee penalties opens a nasty can of worms.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Would you prefer that even fewer people accept that responsibility because of wanton criticism of their decisions?

I'd rather not have people in power positions be above scrutiny.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by dodar

I'd rather not have people in power positions be above scrutiny.

Nobody is above scrutiny. There's a difference between scrutiny and public shaming, however.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Nobody is above scrutiny. There's a difference between scrutiny and public shaming, however.

And in which of my post was I publicly shaming any ref or volunteer?

[DavidGitz]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Nobody is above scrutiny. There's a difference between scrutiny and public shaming, however.

I believe this is what they were referring to.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

This story reminds me of what happened to us and our alliance for the Newton division 2011. Us, bomb squad and rush had our first quarterfinal won thanks to the minibot race when we noticed our tower was disabled. The refs had been saying in qualifications that we were deploying very close to the line so we lowered the deployment by an inch or two to ensure we weren't above the line. As it turns out, CNN was doing a story on us and the camera man comes over with video showing we weren't above the line. However, we were aware no video was allowed so we ended up taking the loss and didn't deploy our minibot the next match for fear of getting the penalty again and ultimately had Rush race who unfortunately wasn't fast enough to win the race. That year stings a bit since it was arguably our team's best robot but we've moved past it long ago. Later the ref who disabled the tower approached us and apologized if in case he made the wrong call. Sometimes calls are good and some are bad. It does happen and I hope you guys are able to move on from it.

[JohnFogarty]

First off as a former competitor at the World Championship level of FTC I'd like to say sorry about what happened to you. Secondly you've got to take some of the advice of the others above. Realize this, FIRST and FTC are not professional events and that the refs are not paid and extensively trained like other sports events. Things like this can happen with volunteer staff. You've really got to take a step back and think about that. I know that's not the first thing on your mind when stuff like this happens, BUT I really do see some things that could be good come from this. I think first implementing their own video replay system might need to become more of an idea as it would greatly assist in ensuring errors like this don't occur in the future.

[EmileH]

Although I firmly believe that most (if not all) head referees are reasonable people and would replay a match if they saw that the call was incorrect, the FRC game manual states that Referees cannot receive any input from video, images, media, etc.

5.5.3. REFEREE Interaction
The Head REFEREE has the ultimate authority in the ARENA during the event, but may receive input from additional sources, e.g. Game Designers, FIRST personnel, FTA, and technical staff. The Head REFEREE rulings are final. No event personnel, including the Head REFEREE, will review video, photos, artistic renderings, etc. of any MATCH, from any source, under any circumstances. T14 If a DRIVE TEAM needs clarification on a ruling or score, one (1) pre-college student from that DRIVE TEAM should address the Head REFEREE after the FIELD Reset signal (e.g. PLAYER STATION LED strings turn green). A DRIVE TEAM member signals their desire to speak with the Head REFEREE by standing in the corresponding Red or Blue Question Box, which are located on the floor near each end of the scoring table. Depending on timing, the Head REFEREE may postpone any requested discussion until the end of the subsequent MATCH.

[nrgy_blast]

Originally Posted by emileh3467

Although I firmly believe that most (if not all) head referees are reasonable people and would replay a match if they saw that the call was incorrect, the FRC game manual states that Referees cannot receive any input from video, images, media, etc.

This is where this discussion has headed for me: change the manual! This has gotten ridiculous enough, and FIRST can do better in the future than they have in the past.

[75vs1885]

Stuff like that happens in FIRST you just have to deal with it. There are plenty of worse situations where corrections could've been made, but didn't. Rather than venting on chiefDelphi where other students can see this, you should write or somehow contact FIRST regarding the concern. A reason they might have not replayed the match is because it could have caused a lot of anger from other teams where they could argue for the same thing or similar things. I understand your frustration, probably hundreds of hours of work ended by a mistake which was avoidable isn't fair, but it's life. The students can learn so much from this incident.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by dodar

Im sorry, but even as a volunteer, when you sign up to be a referee you know the position you are getting into will have huge consequences and responsibilities. Everyone always says we shouldnt criticize them because they are a volunteer, but they chose to be in that position.

/rant
When you sign up to be a ref yes I am sure people are aware they are signing up for a task with massive amounts of influence. However just because someone volunteer to help with an event doesn't mean they sign up to be a punching bag when something goes wrong. Yes they have huge responsibilities, but you should not criticize someone for a mistake that was made due to a faulty system. If you can conclusively go and say "this ref is biased against us" then yes that is a fault with the ref and that should be dealt with separately then making a mistake.
I refuse to call someone bad or evil because they make a mistake because Lorde* knows I make them all the time
It is when you have a consistent choose to make those same mistakes when I question your intent.

/rant

*No not lord, Lorde like "and we will never be royal"

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by dodar

Im sorry, but even as a volunteer, when you sign up to be a referee you know the position you are getting into will have huge consequences and responsibilities. Everyone always says we shouldnt criticize them because they are a volunteer, but they chose to be in that position.

I've been a FRC referee for 9 years now and head ref for 7 years. FLL ref and head ref for about 11 years, and I reffed FRC one year. I take my responsibilities seriously. So much so that when I couldn't keep the rule sets separate while doing all 3 programs, I decided to forgo FTC. All the refs I've worked with have the same attitude. Sure, some learn the the rules better than others, some recognize fouls on the field better than others, but all get the basics and never stop trying to improve.

I have no problem being fairly criticized when I make a mistake. And believe me I've made my share - especially when they give us an impossible game like Aerial Assist last year, for one example.

As I said, I only did FTC one year, and I don't know anything about this game. I don't know if the OP's complaints are fair or not, but I have no reason to not believe him. (Although I have been misquoted on Chief Delphi after answering a question at an event, and have had circumstances described incorrectly.) It does seem strange to me that a replay would not be considered when teams from both sides request it, but I don't know the extenuating circumstances.

I've looked at video after an event where there was a controversial call, and once in a while I couldn't believe what I saw. Other times I was pleased to see that our call was correct. I recall one incident at IRI during Overdrive - both I and the ref across the field from me flagged the infraction immediately, we were both absolutely sure. When I later saw the match as filmed from above the driver station, it looked totally different. That's one reason we don't use video replay - it depends too much on the camera angles.

And of course, referees will not discuss calls on an open forum like CD. So we won't ever know the ref's side of the story, which is unfortunate because he can't defend himself.

I hope the OP will think again and not let one bad event drive him away from the program. It's a great disappointment I'm sure. But is it worth throwing in the towel? Did the kids on the team have any positive experiences this year, and did they develop and grow?

[smart1]

If a rule is wrong it should be examined by First and should be changed in the future. But I do agree that refs shouldn't have to pick and choose which rules are fair.

[ksafin]

OP here. I want to share some of my thoughts regarding what has been said, and share what I intended the focus of this thread to be.

Firstly,
For those of you who have been discussing the rules - saying that the refs followed the rules correctly, that a rematch shouldn't have been given due to the rules, etc.
I am in no way advocating for rule violation by either the referees, volunteers, or any teams. In our moment of disbelief and desperation, we all asked for a rematch (I of course don't know the requirements for a rematch, I've never needed to know). Frankly, as someone mentioned, this didn't require a rematch. It should have been noted as a mistake, revised, and that's it. A request for a rematch was a last-minute plea to correct a grave injustice.

Citing these rules as reason that this injustice was committed and not corrected is not enough for me. For those of you doing this, are you really trying to tell me that I should accept the situation, which was clearly wrong, because a rule said I should? If there's rules that allow this kind of behavior, and these kinds of things to happen, they should be changed.

What am I upset about?
A lot. I'd like to thank whoever clarified that I am not trying to be a broken record in terms of the "refs are humans" discussion. I totally understand that. My problem stems from an indifference to the injustice and a lack of interest in correcting it for the purpose of saving time and saving face.

I've read all of your posts. I agree with some and disagree with others. I know that, deep down in my heart, I cannot accept it when anyone says "That's the nature of sports, people mess up, you have to deal with it."

Really? This is FIRST Robotics. Are you telling me we need to settle for failures, injustices, and problems? We should be eagerly trying to solve them, enhancing the experiences of teams, and doing everything possible to ensure a fair, efficient, and proper tournament.

Students spend thousands of man-hours developing these robots, and I would not tolerate, whether it was my team or any other, them being shut down improperly because a wrong call was made and thousands of people in the FIRST community said they should "deal with it" and that that's "how it is".


Will this be a big deal a few years down the road for me? Probably not. But that isn't the point. There's been too many problems for me to ignore them. We have an opportunity to influence positive change, and we should take it.

Video Replays
They aren't allowed. Both in FRC and FTC. Why? I want to hear a good argument for this. I've heard people say stuff about GP and how FIRST doesn't need video replays. At the same time, I've met tens if not hundreds of people who have considered "GP" to be a weapon used by referees and others to silence students. That is, if you don't accept their call, you aren't being GP. That saddens me.

It's been said before, countless times, and I'm going to say it again. Almost every major sport accepts video replays. Even Major League Baseball is instituting it for next year.

Why doesn't FIRST? Is it because FIRST is more "just", more "GP", more "high and mighty" that it isn't prone to human error and neglect? No. I can't accept that.

We should constantly be moving to, within means, make FIRST a better experience for teams. I can understand the difficulty of video replays for qualification matches - there's over 100 of those. That's fine. In general, a bad match in quals doesn't take you out of the game - it averages out and you end up being OK.

For Finals, where the stakes are so high, and the matches so few, this should be important and easy to institute. We spent considerably more time stalling, bickering with refs, and trying to force a rematch than a review of video would have taken.

What does this mean going forward?
I'm a FIRST alumni. I left FIRST with every ounce of love and appreciation for the program and everything it's done for me. I'm taking this as an opportunity to do something to help it.

I spoke to an FTC team, who, due to both the scandal I've outlined with my team, and other issues, is absolving their FTC team. They're upset with the way that FTC has been deteriorating, the problems that have arisen, the injustices, and the faults. This isn't an isolated case. I know of at least four FTC teams that are quitting FTC simply because of this story.

This is a big deal. I'm going to work with them to try to bring more of this story to light. We're going to be developing a petition of grievances and ideas. We hope FIRST takes them seriously. More and more people are growing discontent every year within FTC. We want to see change. We want to see it taken seriously.