We was robbed!!!

[Ed Sparks]

Originally Posted by Steve W

... FIRST is NOT perfect!!!! Refs are NOT perfect!!! Judges are NOT perfect!!!! Field controls are NOT perfect!!!! but most of all WE ARE NOT PERFECT!!!! ...

Amen brother .......

If anyone has a good idea for a "perfect control system" along with "flawless scoring", please submit it to FIRST ASAP. EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE on that field is trying to do the best they can and do the right thing. I suggest YOU volunteer next year as a Ref and get a little taste of what it takes to make the right call EVERY time. I've done this, it's tough!

To say we somehow "robbed" you is completely wrong. I'm sorry it happened, but I believe the right call was made and I think if it had happened to your allience, you would have pleaded the same case for a re-match.

It's over, done, let's move on and be positive. Next year maybe everything will be perfect.

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by Ed Sparks

Amen brother .......

If anyone has a good idea for a "perfect control system" along with "flawless scoring", please submit it to FIRST ASAP. EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE on that field is trying to do the best they can and do the right thing. I suggest YOU volunteer next year as a Ref and get a little taste of what it takes to make the right call EVERY time. I've done this, it's tough!

It's over, done, let's move on and be positive. Next year maybe everything will be perfect.

Hmmm... There seems to be a trend here ... Everywhere Ed goes there is a major field malfunction ... Hmmm...

(sorry Ed, couldn't resist .. <grin>)

[meaubry]

Well said by everyone that has pointed out that nothing is flawless -
but most importantly though -

I wish everyone would take a moment and remind themselves that the ONLY people really getting "robbed", are the students that are NOT even given the opportunity to experience FIRST.

Mike Aubry

[MoeMom]

Our students (all ya'll- not just the green ones) make me truly proud on a regular basis. But this thread reminds me of one particular time.

Last year at the Championship a MOE parent was volunteering to queue on the field where MOE competed. The head ref told him- not realizing he was a team parent- how impressed she was when she ruled against the MOE students who had asked her to review a call because they spoke well and respectfully to her and accepted her decision in a really tough break.

I figured that was another big win for FIRST.

It's easier for me to see this. I've got years of FIRST experience to balance on, but there's lots of kinds of winning because there are lots of goals to work for. The scoreboard is just one.

And off season events are fun just for this reason...friendly rematches!

[Ed Sparks]

Originally Posted by rfolea

Hmmm... There seems to be a trend here ... Everywhere Ed goes there is a major field malfunction ... Hmmm...

(sorry Ed, couldn't resist .. <grin>)

I've been banned from volunteering on any field at the championship .......
It's back to the pits as a lead inspector for me....

See y'all soon.

[DCA Fan]

One of my friends, who is a referee for AYSO soccer put it this way.

Ask a group of parents how many of their teams have lost because of a referee, and most of them will raise their hands. Ask the same group how many of their teams have WON because of a referee, and none of them will raise their hands.

As a referee, we really can't win hearts and minds. We just have to be fair and judge everyone as equally as possible. I'm sorry that the original poster felt "robbed," but in every attempt to make sure rules are followed according to what's written, sometimes you'll have to take a call against you. Sometimes a call will go in your favor. Just remember two things. One, it's not about the winning, it's about the learning. And two, statistically, if an error is made against you in some round, chances are, it has been made against your opponents in another, and it'll even out in the end.

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by Steve W

FIRST is NOT perfect!!!! Refs are NOT perfect!!! Judges are NOT perfect!!!! Field controls are NOT perfect!!!! but most of all WE ARE NOT PERFECT!!!!

Exactly, I happen to know a match where hybrid period was misscored. It ended up changing the winner of that match and ultimately the seeding of some the top teams at that regional. People were unsure about it, but it was not brought up until well after the fact. In fact, I was not able to confirm it until I got a chance to look at the video archives.
Having been a ref for one regional I can say that I was not perfect in calling penalties. I tried my best to be consistent and accurate and when in doubt to give a team the benefit of the doubt, but I am sure there are things I missed and things that might have actually been wrong. In addition from that regional and another I was at, I can say that occasionally things don't work. Sometimes it is actually your robot, sometimes it is field control.

[Chris Fultz]

Please try to avoide identifying specific teams and specific robots if you are going to talk negatively.

Regarding the match replay, and the statement that the autonomous points would not have made a difference, there is no way to know that. Had hybrid worked for the other alliance, there would have been 3 robots in different places on the field when the operator controlled period started. This would have changed robot to robot interaction, scoring, opportunities for penalties, and so on. There is no way to know all of those interactions and the effect on the match, so the only fair answer is a replay.

I am confident that every team that has been involved more than a few years could identify a particular match where they felt they were "robbed" - but they could probably also identify just as many where they received a "gift". Stuff happens, and it is dealt with as fairly as possible.

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by Mike Martus

The Game is complex..... The electronics are complex.......then add complex robots that often have a mind of their own and do strange things at strange times, and you have with 41 regionals many opportunities for stuff to go wrong.

It is very easy to blame this or blame that.. it is easy to pop up video to "Prove" you were right and "They were wrong........ it is even harder to accept that this is only a celebration of all the hard work a team puts in or shall we say all the GREAT learning the students will enjoy for ever.....

Point is step back.... enjoy the accomplishments... enjoy the moment that many, many others cannot...

I know easy to say..... hard to do, but guys, really, we MUST!

Very well put. Our competetive natures tend to get us caught up in the moment, but after all is said and done everyone needs to take a step back and enjoy their accomplishments. I think you'll find that if you look back on all you've done this past season, you'll be very proud of your accomplishments. Remember what FIRST is ultimately all about.

[Diriye]

Originally Posted by jackthepumking

WE WAS ROBBED

Being robbed is someone taking your entire toolbox overnight. Being robbed is someone taking away your crate without the robot inside on a Friday. The next time you post with "WE WAS ROBBED", er, "WE WERE ROBBED, please keep in mind of what you post. A disagreement or questionable call doesn't mean you were robbed.

[ADHDassassin]

Originally Posted by Ed Sparks

This match will haunt me forever ...........

The field ran so well all weekend. I was helping IFI out at the Bayou regional because with 11 events going on, there were not enough IFI employees to go around. I had been baptized by fire at the now famous Peachtree regional and was praying all weekend that I would not have to go through anything like that again.

Then it happened .........

The #3 alliance never left the gate. I knew all 3 robots had an effective hybrid mode and was surprised it wasn't used (so I thought). After the match was finished, I was immediately confronted by team members and field personnel as to why the hybrid mode didn't run right. The equipment I was monitoring does not log the history of the autonomous or disable flags but it does keep stats about packet loss and drops. The data scanner confirmed that the radio link was good at that time. I also reported that none of the robots on Red left the wall. At that point I backed out of the conversation because, unfortunately, my team was involved and I felt it would be improper to say anything else. The alliance captain appealed to the head ref and she decided to re-play the match.

Each side of the field is controlled independently so it is possible that something like this could happen on one side only. The "Red" controller and "Blue" controller are connected to the common "Field" controller via Ethernet. The "Field" controller at the scoring table sends out commands to the zone controllers on each end. They process these signals and pass them to the IFI Arena controllers (3 on each end) which sends these signals via wireless radio links to & from your 'bot. There's a lot of stuff in those zone controllers that can go wrong but I can't tell you exactly what happened. IFI is only responsible for the radio links. We'll never know.

A similar thing happened at Peachtree except the Field controller lost its connection to the "Red" zone controller and nothing on Red would work. We wound up running the whole elimination tournament with six dongles.

You probably noticed that I decided to monitor the OI's the rest of the tournament to be sure every match had a full 15 second hybrid mode (thanks to the volunteers that helped me). That's why you saw six of us jump out of the end zones at the end of hybrid mode. We never saw this happen again.

It was weird ...... and I truly wished it never happened.

I was at the Bayou Regional and I was wondering what was happening and I found this answer on the Bayou Regional thread.

This may be unrelated but I also know that right after the match the the red autonomous failed two of the students from my alliance made a suggestion to the head ref that they should be rotating the refs across the field because, to us at least, it appeared that the refs on the different home stretches were using very different benchmarks for what interfering with a hurdling robot was. The head ref said that they would keep the arrangement how it was but he would be watching to see if there really were inconsistencies in the calls. After the third match of the series was played the head ref had a talk with both of the field refs charged with the responsibility of calling interference, and then another meeting with all the people sitting at all the monitors on the side of the course. After about 5-10 minutes of deliberation it was determined that match two was to be replayed because of (this might not be the exact quote) "an error on the field." After that the match was played and both refs called the correct rulings for the rest of the tournament.

[LeelandS]

Hey, calm down. You guys did great just making it through the seeding and selection matches. I know this sounds cheesey, but FIRST isn't about winning or losing, but making friends, learning, and having fun. Big deal, you lost. You made it past the seeding matched, and that is good enough. I know it can be hard to accept defeat, but sometimes you just have to just swallow your pride and sit in a corner quietly and think about things.

[afi419]

Originally Posted by SparxProgrammer

Hey, calm down. You guys did great just making it through the seeding and selection matches. I know this sounds cheesey, but FIRST isn't about winning or losing, but making friends, learning, and having fun. Big deal, you lost. You made it past the seeding matched, and that is good enough. I know it can be hard to accept defeat, but sometimes you just have to just swallow your pride and sit in a corner quietly and think about things.

Easy to say when your team wins something pretty much every year.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

Originally Posted by jackthepumking

In New Orleans at the bayou regional during the third consecutive match in the quarterfinals between the two alliances chosen by team 499 and Team 34 there was an alleged autonomous Malfunction with the red alliance, causing the refs to order a Redo on match on Match 2, in which The Blue Alliance totally Creamed the Red alliance. We then replayed the match as Match 4 (even though we had already thought we were moving on to the semifinals) and lost... Now, Are we the only ones out there in this known universe who think that The whole replay situation was a load of bull?
If anything the Refs could have stopped Match 2 right there and then when the Malfunction occurred, why wait until the END of MATCH 3?!?
BESIDES, even IF the red alliance DID score those autonomous Points they STILL wouldn't have came anywhere near winning the match!!

WE WAS ROBBED

Atleast your game got to be replayed.
I just watched our QF Match 1 at GLR and there were 2 balls in a row that we scored that were not counted.
Its just something that happens when u got human scoring tallys.

[jackthepumking]

Originally Posted by jackthepumking

In New Orleans at the bayou regional during the third consecutive match in the quarterfinals between the two alliances chosen by team 499 and Team 34 there was an alleged autonomous Malfunction with the red alliance, causing the refs to order a Redo on match on Match 2, in which The Blue Alliance totally Creamed the Red alliance. We then replayed the match as Match 4 (even though we had already thought we were moving on to the semifinals) and lost... Now, Are we the only ones out there in this known universe who think that The whole replay situation was a load of bull?
If anything the Refs could have stopped Match 2 right there and then when the Malfunction occurred, why wait until the END of MATCH 3?!?
BESIDES, even IF the red alliance DID score those autonomous Points they STILL wouldn't have came anywhere near winning the match!!

WE WAS ROBBED

I just want to appoligize for what was written In the mist of the fustration I realized that I was not showing gracious professionalism. I understand that it is no ones fault for the mistake things just happen, and no one is perfect. And I am not going to lie these were really good matches. So once again I am very sorry and thank you for the responses!!!