Does anyone know what the arena fault was that caused them to replay round 4, match 11 on Daly?
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Time display stopped and red alliance didn’t know when to switch to cube scoring.
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From Tournaments 11.3
An ARENA FAULT is an error in ARENA operation that includes, but is not limited to:
B. power failure to a portion of the FIELD
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Regardless of your opinion on whether the Alliance #1 reason for the timer affecting them was accurate/affected the match, the field timer stopping/having an issue is 100% a field fault. Not the first time I’ve see it called this season either.
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THE VIDEO I LINKED IS NOT FROM WORLDS
Saw this exact same issue happening on FOPC Technology and it caused a handful of replays. I’ve personally never heard of this happening in other years, so no idea if it’s some weird FMS bug this year, but I’ll add it to this thread for posterity:
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I rewatched the video before the replay. It seems over a roughly 25second period (90 seconds remaining to 65 seconds remaining) the displays of the two of the blue alliance’s numbers and the time remaining (which would face the red alliance) was off. The arena timer continued to count as normal. It does appear that a member of the blue alliance noticed this quickly and tried to signal the ref/field staff.
This is a power failure under 11.3.b, which would cause an ARENA FAULT. The head referee believed that this affected the outcome of the match and the red alliance desired a replay.
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Yeah that was me, my b
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Does anyone have the video from this match?
I am not one to post on social media and haven’t even had a social media account of any kind since 2019, but I signed up for CD to defend one my students who made an emotional decision to post (we also have since had a long conversation about making emotional posts). I am the lead mentor for one of the teams on the number 7 alliance that participated in elims match 11 on Daly. As mentioned earlier in the thread rule 11.3 states:
An ARENA FAULT is an error in ARENA operation that includes, but is not limited to:
B. power failure to a portion of the FIELD
However, what hasn’t been included in the discussion is that the rule continues to say:
If, in the judgment of the Head REFEREE, an ARENA FAULT occurs that affects the outcome of the
MATCH and any team on the affected ALLIANCE desires a replay, the MATCH will be replayed. FIRST Headquarters reserves the right to, with consultation of the Head REFEREE and the FTA, replay a MATCH in which an ARENA FAULT impacts the outcome of an event.
I totally understand that what happened falls within the scope of the rule, but the most frustrating aspect of the determination of the field fault is that it was made by a person who did not even watch the match live. It was not until about 30 minutes after the match that replay was announced and we thought we had already advanced to the finals of our division a feat none of the robots in our alliance had ever accomplished. The head referee even admitted to our alliance that she didn’t agree with the call, but that her hands were tied.
The number 1 alliance trailed by 30-40 points for a majority of the match (and lost by 26 points and yes I do have match video on my phone). Maybe I have a jaded view, but I have been involved in FIRST since 2008 as a mentor and the only instances I have seen a match been reversed by HQ is when it involves a team that is recognized by the masses. Having been a drive coach in previous years, you best believe that if one timer would have gone out, I would have known exactly where to look if I needed to keep track of time and the head referee agreed that this fault did not impact the outcome of the match. With that being said, I couldn’t be more proud of all the kids and mentors on my team that worked so hard to make this our most successful season to date, but it’s difficult to find the words to explain to them why a person who didn’t watch the match live decided the biggest match we’ve ever played and won. Sorry to vent, again I want to reiterate that I understand that everything that happened falls within the scope of rule 11.3, but feel strongly that sometimes common sense has to prevail.
Sidenote to everyone who followed the division: I also 100% disagree with the replay that was ruled in our favor for match 13 when the lights went out in the arena. It had no impact on the outcome of the match and I want to congratulate teams 5460, 125, 870, and 2590 for their impressive run and representing Daly so well on Einstein
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I would be very concerned if any Head Referee said this, part of the Key Volunteer training is to not place blame on the Manual, other volunteers, FIRST, etc.
Well the match time is displayed in other places.
From Arena 5.7.1 DRIVER STATIONS
1 timer (in DRIVER STATION 2 only): displays the official time remaining in the MATCH. It is
marked with white tape along the bottom edge.
Only the timer in the driver station marked with white tape is the official MATCH time.
The lighting conditions changed dramatically in the middle of the match. In hindsight, we know it didn’t change the outcome of the match. But in the moment, there’s no way to know this is the case. The alliance in question made a case for a replay and the replay was granted.
Given that by this point we were one of the only fields still running, we had the benefit of lots of senior folks being within arms reach during the multiple replay discussions. I’m confident that the replays are in line with the spirit of the manual. Nobody likes replays (trust me, I ate lunch at 5pm on Saturday because of them), but everyone is entitled to plead their case within the guidance of the rules.
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As stated, I am the lead mentor for one of the teams in the alliance that was involved in both replays and was present for every single match in Daly. I can say without a doubt, and could also do that in the moment, that the lights going out had zero impact on match 13. We were down approximately 80 points at the time of the outage due to penalties and an intake being broken, which coincidentally was also a point of contention in match 11 that was argued first before the power outage on the driver station timer. It genuinely felt like a makeup call of sorts
I also have on video the exact moment the timer went out (90 seconds remaining in the match) and approximately the time it went back on. I don’t have the exact time because I was following our robot doing cycles, but the first time I see the timer lights go back on their is still 66 seconds remaining in the match. I know I am not going to win this argument (and don’t even really want to start it), but I also won’t be convinced that the ~23 seconds impacted the outcome of the match. I guess what I am saying is that in my opinion, and admittedly I have been wrong before, that to truly be in line with the spirit of the manual have to consider all factors of the match at the time of the field fault. Score of the matches, broken intakes etc. for both matches 11 and 13 seemed to me to make both calls a no-brainer (one ruling was against my alliance and one ruling was in favor of my alliance).
I promise I won’t drag this thread on any longer and thank you for letting this grumpy, old man rant. I will try to end my post on a positive note again, although I disagree with you Jared, I do want to thank all the volunteers who spend so much of their time to put on these wonderful events. You guys rock! Thanks again to everyone on teams 2659, 4206, 4795, and 230. It was a great run!!!
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Id like to provide a little context as to why the time going out was an arena fault for our team and though we can never know for sure, was match effecting. Some context to start, I’ve been a part of my team for many years and throughout those years have seen many field faults and errors. One of the teachings that I tell the students on the field is to look at the use the clock on the field and never trust the scoreboard, this is because it is not part of the field and any information you get from it cannot be trusted. This was the advice given to the students.
As for why it was match effecting, that part is simple when you take into account strategy. After our first playoff match our partners noticed that we did not complete our links until later in the match and they were worried they wouldn’t get done, but we replied stating that it helped make the opponent think they were winning and either ease off or get them to climb early. This style of scoring was then adopted for the match. The plan was to score cones until a specific time where we then would switch to cubes. If you watch the replay of the match you will see that we finished the game having most of our top/mid cubes missing. We did not see the time and therefore did not switch to filling in those slots until it was too late. If the final score was a difference of 26 points, then that’s as simple as 3 cubes because of the link bonus.
Now there’s many things that our team could have done to prevent this situation from happening like having our switch point be tied to the cone placements instead of the time or referencing the audience display as a backup and its also debatable the extent to the effect that this had but that is not the point. A verified arena fault happened that affected our ability to play the game with enough of an effect to have possibly changed the outcome of the match.
It’s unfortunate that this occurred as a clean match is always better for both teams. I’m not quite sure what your reference to recognized teams is about since myself on 4946 and a student from 5472 were the ones to argue for the replay.(Shoutout to this student for being such an awesome captain and not being afraid to advocate for the alliance) I’d also like to say that it’s important to look at things from the other teams’ perspectives as it was just a soul crushing to lose a match unjustly, and regardless of a team’s renown, every team should get a fair match. (You only know about the famous teams replays because there famous, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to other teams aswell)
Anyway, I hope that your team enjoyed the experience regardless and that this doesn’t hamper your willingness to support the students on their path through FIRST.
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Rationally, I agree with you: down by a lot of points, the thing that went wrong clearly wasn’t the reason why.
But the rules justify a team’s request in this case, imo.
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