Silicon Valley Regional 2008

[Alex Golec]

So much for the certification test, huh?

What I'm wondering about and somewhat surprised at is why this mistake wasn't caught earlier in the regional and brought up to the referees - then the error could have been remedied (perhaps with some score changes to previous matches) and the game played as described in the rulebook. That responsibility would have had to lie with the teams.

[sarcasticmadnes]

As part of the drive crew (finally in time for senior year), I would like to thank the blue alliance for calling their timeout for us before the second match so that we could fix the spool for the elevator. As a team, we truly appreciate it. It was an act of true gracious professionalism that we all applaud to.

I believe that the blue alliance did a fabulous job in the finals. For our team, it was one of the toughest matches we had yet to face as all three teams had amazing bots. I can only wish that the blue alliance could also qualify for championships as well because they deserve it wholeheartedly. I spoke with a member from Gunn as I walked back into the Event Center for eliminations, and he said that our team was lucky to be picked into the first alliance. But I must say that we were lucky to face Gunn and their alliance partners in the finals because all three are wonderful teams.

As for getting picked into eliminations this year for our team, it was a total surprise. When it came down to the last pick, I was actually about to leave for lunch because I figured we weren't going to get picked, but then I heard the magic number "115". So I would like to take this time to likewise thank 100 and 254. You guys both have amazing bots, and I look forward to competing with your teams in the future.

Good Luck to everyone competing in another regional this month and at Championships (I'll see you there! )

[eugenebrooks]

With regard to item 1, it depends on how it was put there.
If it was put there after carrying it past the finish line, or
after scoring it past the finish line for 2 points, it would
not count as a hurdle. Some robots can put a ball on the
overpass reaching backwards without breaking the plane.

Eugene

Originally Posted by danshaffer

And for those of you with week 4 or 5 regionals, it is our interpretation of the rules that:
1. If a robot from Alliance B descores a ball belonging to Alliance A that was placed there by a robot from Alliance A and it ends up on the other side of the finish line (ie not in Alliance A's home stretch) it is an 8-point hurdle. Keep this in mind when attempting to remove bonus balls. This comes from the definition of hurdle.
2. Bonus balls must not be supported by a robot from the same alliance. Balls that are supported by only the overpass and robots from that alliance are scored as +12 in accordance with G14.

[Guy Davidson]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

With regard to item 1, it depends on how it was put there.
If it was put there after carrying it past the finish line, or
after scoring it past the finish line for 2 points, it would
not count as a hurdle. Some robots can put a ball on the
overpass reaching backwards without breaking the plane.

Eugene

That is true. However, the situation we discussed with the refs and clarified, was as follows: red ball starts on the red side over pass. It is knocked down, and is carried across the blue finish line. It is then shot from the red home stretch onto the overpass, where it stays until a blue robot knocks it in the counter-clockwise direction.

That was initially not scored as a hurdle, and after clarification, was called a hurdle.

[Andy L]

Originally Posted by eugenebrooks

Don't be too quick to blame this on the performance of
your own team. It could be that, in some cases, the teams
involved in picking partners could do better in their scouting
activities. I'll not mention any names here...

Eugene

Please more detail Eugene

[Doug G]

Picking alliances can be so essential, yet I struggle to my team to take it and scouting seriously enough. I'm not sure what the magic recipe is or if one even exists, I just know each year we try to improve on it.

One comment for the team(s) that don't understand why they didn't get selected is to say it is more about the seeded teams selecting than it is about "selling" yourself to another team.

We were in the fourth seed at San Diego and had to turn down an alliance selection from the #3 seed because they couldn't hurdle and we felt that we needed to be in an alliance with at least 2 hurdling bots. But low and behold in the 2nd round of selections, we missed a chance to get a third hurdling bot and the #3 seed team picked them. Hindsight is always 20/20 !

BTW: Here's a link to Finals Match 3 with both matches and commentary by refs as it was shown on the webcast...

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/joman...SVR2008FM3.wmv Thanks for the mirror Joman!!

[eugenebrooks]

Guy,

I was not reacting to anything that happened in SVR,
I was reacting to the statement requoted below, offered
as guidance for week 4 and 5 regionals. As noted,
whether or not the knockdown is a completion of a
hurdle depends on exactly how it got there, and also
which direction it was knocked down in.

I did note that Team 8 was pretty good at knocking
down a bonus ball in their prefered direction at SVR.
I thought that this was pretty good thinking on the part of
the driver team.

Eugene

Originally Posted by danshaffer
And for those of you with week 4 or 5 regionals, it is our interpretation of the rules that:
1. If a robot from Alliance B descores a ball belonging to Alliance A that was placed there by a robot from Alliance A and it ends up on the other side of the finish line (ie not in Alliance A's home stretch) it is an 8-point hurdle. Keep this in mind when attempting to remove bonus balls. This comes from the definition of hurdle.
2. Bonus balls must not be supported by a robot from the same alliance. Balls that are supported by only the overpass and robots from that alliance are scored as +12 in accordance with G14.

Originally Posted by sumadin

That is true. However, the situation we discussed with the refs and clarified, was as follows: red ball starts on the red side over pass. It is knocked down, and is carried across the blue finish line. It is then shot from the red home stretch onto the overpass, where it stays until a blue robot knocks it in the counter-clockwise direction.

That was initially not scored as a hurdle, and after clarification, was called a hurdle.

I was going to avoid jumping into this thread, but I really can't resist it.


Sure, the refs are only human. Sure, it's a hard game to call. Sure it's very complex. Sure the refs are only volunteers, but maybe it's time that changed. IF a team is paying around 6k to go to a competition, they don't expect to be sent home and finished for the season because some random guy who decided to be helpful doesn't know his job. Here's my suggestion, and my opinion:

1. Refereeing a competition as high profile as this should not be left to volunteers. Period. When teams pay that much, work that hard, it's not too much to suggest that they'll actually play the game that they built the robot for.

2. The Blue Alliance should be given an invite to Atlanta, and both them and the red alliance should be offered a discount on their playing fees. If a team comes out that strong, that ready to win, and is denied because of the mistake of the organization, then it should be the job of the organization (FIRST) to fix the problem by any means necessary. Blue wasn't the only one who got shafted, the whole regional had the worst reffing I've seen at ANY competition over the years.

People might disagree with me on this, but I honestly don't care. What happened at SVR was blatantly unfair, and should be corrected, any means necessary.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

I was going to avoid jumping into this thread, but I really can't resist it.


Sure, the refs are only human. Sure, it's a hard game to call. Sure it's very complex. Sure the refs are only volunteers, but maybe it's time that changed. IF a team is paying around 6k to go to a competition, they don't expect to be sent home and finished for the season because some random guy who decided to be helpful doesn't know his job. Here's my suggestion, and my opinion:

1. Refereeing a competition as high profile as this should not be left to volunteers. Period. When teams pay that much, work that hard, it's not too much to suggest that they'll actually play the game that they built the robot for.

2. The Blue Alliance should be given an invite to Atlanta, and both them and the red alliance should be offered a discount on their playing fees. If a team comes out that strong, that ready to win, and is denied because of the mistake of the organization, then it should be the job of the organization (FIRST) to fix the problem by any means necessary. Blue wasn't the only one who got shafted, the whole regional had the worst reffing I've seen at ANY competition over the years.

People might disagree with me on this, but I honestly don't care. What happened at SVR was blatantly unfair, and should be corrected, any means necessary.

Well said my friend, well said.

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Sure, the refs are only human. Sure, it's a hard game to call. Sure it's very complex. Sure the refs are only volunteers, but maybe it's time that changed. IF a team is paying around 6k to go to a competition, they don't expect to be sent home and finished for the season because some random guy who decided to be helpful doesn't know his job.

We pay $6k not so much for the competition, but for students to have the opportunity to do something really cool and important in their high school life. I hear from almost every single parent of students on my team about how they wish they had this opportunity when they went to high school. The $6k is for that opportunity. You want paid refs? Paid judges, too? Then you must be talking about wanting to pay $10k per competition also.

Now on the flip side - it seems that the games these past few years have been increasing the roles of referees in deciding matches. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't remember all this drama back in 01-04? It seems to have all started with that stupid 30 pt penalty triangle rule from '05. '06 had the offense/defense craziness (not too bad in retrospect), '07 with ramp nonsense (we were let down by non-calls refs didn't make at Bayou), and now in '08, you accidently back up over a line and -10 ?

[lemon1324]

A few people have been mentioning that no one caught the partially supported trackball earlier. I saw this twice, once in one of our qualification matches, and the infamous incident in the finals. Immediately after the our qualifying match, i asked a ref (admittedly not the Head Referee) and he said that the partially supported trackball would score. I didn't stay to verify as the field reset team was chivvying us off the field. Needless to say, i was very surprised at the call in the finals. Although the refs should know the rules better, bad calls are a part of every sport, and in the long run it's about half for and against your team. Some are just more high-profile than others.

[Racer26]

Wow, I can't believe I didn't get a single negative rep for my last post...

Maybe its that I came roaring out of the gate ranting, back in Week 1, and as more and more screwups are happening, more people are seeing it from a perspective that says its unacceptable.

Having been around since 03, I can't really vouch for older games, but I would tend to agree that since 05, we've been having much more penalty-centric games.

I dont even think there were penalties to be had in 03 or 04... none that I remember anyway... there was no bumper zone, so non-bumper contact was fine... I think the only things were like disqualificatons for overly aggressive (read: intent to destroy opponents bots) play.

In any case, I sure hope they can iron it out for our Wk 4 and 5 regionals

Originally Posted by Doug G

We pay $6k not so much for the competition, but for students to have the opportunity to do something really cool and important in their high school life. I hear from almost every single parent of students on my team about how they wish they had this opportunity when they went to high school. The $6k is for that opportunity. You want paid refs? Paid judges, too? Then you must be talking about wanting to pay $10k per competition also.

...I never said a thing about judges, so please don't make assumptions. If a team doesn't do a job to the best of their ability, do their mentors give them slack because they're not getting paid, and because what they do isn't required of them? No, their mentors call them on their failures. It's how people learn. If the refs were paid, or had more at stake in this competition, maybe we'd see better results out of them.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Refereeing a competition as high profile as this should not be left to volunteers. Period. When teams pay that much, work that hard, it's not too much to suggest that they'll actually play the game that they built the robot for.

How much are you going to pay? What would any amount of referee pay get for teams? I don't assume you're willing to pay enough to make this a full=time job. You can't just say, "We'll pay them to be good." Being paid doesn't create good refs. Even if you would offer $1000/ref/competition, that's not enough to get someone to devote their life to being an FRC ref. They would only be part-time employees, and could only devote part of their limited time to learning how to referee in FRC. Which is what the current dedicated volunteers do. Would you rather have a staff dedicated to doing their best for the teams, or a paid staff dedicated to making money?

The Blue Alliance should be given an invite to Atlanta,

I agree completely.

and both them and the red alliance should be offered a discount on their playing fees.

Why? Were the teams so scarred by this that they have to be compensated? The GDC should review this Monday morning. FIRST should be making phone calls to the teams Monday afternoon. There should only be funding involved if there are additional shipping costs (e.g. rerouting the crates).

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Doug G

Now on the flip side - it seems that the games these past few years have been increasing the roles of referees in deciding matches. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't remember all this drama back in 01-04? It seems to have all started with that stupid 30 pt penalty triangle rule from '05. '06 had the offense/defense craziness (not too bad in retrospect), '07 with ramp nonsense (we were let down by non-calls refs didn't make at Bayou), and now in '08, you accidently back up over a line and -10 ?

04 was the first year for 10+ point value penalties, before there were minor penalties (which could take points or disable/DQ), disables and DQs (which were more common). There were penalties for many different things, ball chute incursion seemed to be the most common, but I also saw goaltending & robot scoring a small ball (humans had to shoot the balls). The Battlebot-like games of 02 and 03 are probably a major reason for this.