Seed #2 (835 - 378 - 85) had won the first elimination match by a fairly large margin (~60 EP pts). In the second elimination round it was up to seed #6 (902 - 494 - 226) to make up the margin which is very hard to do this year because as stated elsewhere, if you are losing in the second round but won the first it should be your goal to stay off the ramp and eliminate any stacks that could be doubled for your opponents score.
What appears to have happened is that #85 didn’t want to have autonomous code run (most likely in an effort to stay on the opponents side of the field and take out any stacks), but one of the FIRST event staff either accidentally or purposely stepped on the pressure mat for that team and activated the #85 robot. The match continued the martians defended a stack and made it to the top of the ramp and seed 6 had won by enough of a margin to advance. At this point seed #2 went to the judges to inform them what had happened, as they should have. The score was posted showing seed #6 as the winner but then it was announced of a replay of just match #2. It was VERY clear that the staff was unsure of how to handle this and be fair to both alliances involved. Match 2 was replayed and this time seed #6 won but not by enough margin to advance due to some quick thinking by seed 2 to stay off the ramp at the last second.
My question is this, if something like this comes up again on the second of 2 matches, would it be better to play both matches again or similar to what FIRST did and play only the second. I would argue that both matches should have been replayed to be fair to all involved. It is over now, while I was somewhat upset when we left, I do understand that it wasn’t seed #2’s fault either. After seeing the state of confusion that the event staff was in I would like to see at least something on an update if it happens again.
(from Matt Reiland’s Post)
Was this the right call??? I think seed #2 should have got the refs attention right away (via the human player) by the ref doing this, it gave an unfair advantage to seed #2 because seed #2 would not have said anything if they advanced anyway.
I voted No. I also voted before I read through your post assuming I knew what happened.
I thought it was 85’s error to have stepped on the pad, not FIRST staff. If it was FIRST staff, then 85 should have grabbed the attention of the ref, and not waited to see results.
Because they let the match play out, lost, then talked to ref’s, I think they shouldn’t have replayed. Would they have asked for a replay if they won? I highly doubt it. Would their opponent ask for a replay if they lost? I highly doubt that too.
Through the string of circumstances, I don’t think it was all too bad that it was replayed, and would expect it to happen again (replay again), but I don’t think it was a fair decision. But hey, Life’s not fair.
I’m on 226, and our team is upset with the ref call, but once the match played out there’s nothing that could be done to be fair to both sides. I was thinking that one fair way to handle it would be to give both alliances qualifying points for nationals. Anyone else have thoughts on that.
[Edit] I talked with another student on my team who watched the video and he said it was the student that stepped on the mat. I’ll have to go find a video and watch it myself.
I commend the staff at the event for doing what I thought was thr right thing to do. I’m assuming that the string of events was correctly communicated and that the human player from the team DID NOT step on the mat. I think in all fairness - the match should have been stopped as soon as it was discovered that an error by a non-team member had occurred (preferrably before the end of the match and before an outcome was determined). This was a tough call either way - I would have expected the same courtesy if a team was clearly ON the mat, and their autonomuos program wasn’t turned on. I know that didn’t happen - but it just helps me clear up how I feel about what did happen. All in all, I would like to commend the teams that eventually lost for not making a bad situation even worse. And I hope evryone learned something about the game, and the importance of getting the referees attention RIGHT AWAY. Like I said, too bad it couldn’t have been stopped before the match was over.
Yes.
I must commend you guys at showing true gracious professonalism in light of a very unfortunate situation. You guys truly showed what FIRST is about.
If a team doesnt want to execute autonomous programing, they should have a switch to select an autonomous program that does nothing. This would eliminate any need for the human player to be on or off of the pressure mat. I dont trust that sensor anyway, cause I think it will malfunction at least once during competition. Day One I realized the need for multiple auto modes, for different routines, left and right and a do nothing routine. The selector switches for Geroni-MOE are on the Operator Interface and are stored into a variable each loop so when autonomous mode turns on, it reads the variable to choose the program. Plan ahead and a problem like this will not happen. The only reason not to step on the mat is if it is a last second decision based on human player box placement or something.
First I would like to bring up the rules. In section 9.2 General Match Rules GM3 starts “ABSOLUTELY NO REMATCHES WILL BE AWARDED. FIRST reserves the right to re-play a match due to obvious catastrophic failure of FIRST-provided field materials or human error.” The human error brings the point here. I don’t think that there is no human error if the FIRST personal trigger the mat, but was it a catastrophic failure? I don’t think so, it would be like a sports team asking for a rematch because they scored too many times. Definitely some thing was not right however the party that was negatively affected (in this case 902 - 494 - 226) should have the say as to a rematch. In football (one example ) if their is a pentaly on a play but the negatively affected team still gets a touchdown they have the option of taking the points or accepting the pentaly, it should be the same here. As for who step on the mat the way I saw it team 85’s human player step on the mat when the FIRST personal came to close the gate and activated their own auto mode.
It should also be noted that 378 did not engage their auto mode in the first match but did in the second. This being different should not have allowed to happen since 494 auto modes did not work correctly and they were not allowed to fix it. the replay of the auto mode should have been identicle except that 85 was not engaged.
The rematch had no way of being fair after the first score was annouced. There was no way for 494 and 902 to be excited and perform their best after earning their way into the finals and having it ripped away from them, but 378 and 85 were give a second chance and most certianly were “pumped up” for the match.
i have to say i think the judges did the right thing
the team did the right thing by playing out the match anyway and waiting until the end because there was always the chance that they would not be granted a rematch… they definitly deserved a rematch though… if thier autonomous mode was not meant to be activated and through the fault of FIRST it was and it affected the match then they deserved a rematch… it is true that quite often teams deserve rematches and they are not granted so they had no choice but to stay and play it out just in case
the way i see it, the first match was fair and square, so why replay that one? the second one obviously wasnt so they replaced it with a fair match… two fair matches, nobody should be complaining
i understand its dissapointing to the non advancing seed, but trust me it would have been much harder for the other team if they hadnt advanced due to something they knew was unfair… and its takes a lot of the sweetness out of winning if your opponent aquired a handicap in the match (unless you induced it)… i think anyone who has ever beat a team because they lost power or control or something along those lines will agree
*Originally posted by SharkBite * if thier autonomous mode was not meant to be activated and through the fault of FIRST it was and it affected the match then they deserved a rematch
There are two stories. One is the ref stepped on the pad and the other is the ref told the human player to and they did. Watch the video. I think the latter is true.
When their auton was activated they knocked nearly the entire pyramid onto their side, giving them the advantage. If they had won they would not have asked for a rematch.
I thought it was 85’s error to have stepped on the pad, not FIRST staff. If it was FIRST staff, then 85 should have grabbed the attention of the ref, and not waited to see results.
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If you go watch the tape it looks like it was 85’s error
of course they wouldnt have asked for a rematch if they had won… because the only reason they have to complain is that it affected a possible win and if it didnt theres no reason to complain
as for who was at fault, that is hard to decide from the perspective of a bystander… only that ref and that human player/drive team know what happened
even if it was the human player who stood on the mat, if they were told to do so by the ref and it is not in the rules that they must, then that still makes things unfair… the human player may have listened out of fear of disqualification when it was not something they wanted to do
At least at BAE, we were told to wait until the end of a match to bring up complaints with the refs. The refs are very busy during the matches, and can’t be constantly bombarded with complaints. The team did the correct thing by waiting until the match was over before lodging a complaint.
*Originally posted by eko7385 *
**If you go watch the tape it looks like it was 85’s error **
If you watch the webcast (just before 23 minutes), what it looks like is that the FIRST volunteer walks back to the scoring table after closing the gate, accidently stepping on the mat on his way. After the bell sounds, the 85 human player steps back on to his mat (although I don’t know why). Regardless of whether the human player meant to step on the mat or not, it looks like 85’s mat was activated by the volunteer, not their human player.
Hey guys no offense but back off on the refs. They are volunteering and trying to do the best that they can. It’s not like there out to screw your team or anything. Trust me I know what it is like. At IRI last year I was in the players station at the finals when we were on 111 and 71’s alliance when we got dq’d. Now that I look back on it, I realize that Sean and Baker were right in calling it, they did the best that they could. My point is that maybe you need to put yourselves in their shoes and relieze how hard it is to actualy referee, trust me it is not that simple as I ref soccer.
*Originally posted by Tyler Olds *
**Hey guys no offense but back off on the refs. They are volunteering and trying to do the best that they can. It’s not like there out to screw your team or anything. … **
Actually I have been watching these posts very closely and I don’t believe that anyone from any of our teams has complained about the refs. This poll was started by a third party who is interested in the opinion of the FIRST community. Many of us are.