In the last few years, if an Alliance has used up their time-out during the elimination but still needs more time to perform a fix, the opposing Alliance has usually given up their own time-out to give everyone a few more minutes. The announcers have always made a big deal out of this, and it was even mentioned during the Kick Off ceremony this year as a sign of Gracious Professionalism in action.
Well, apparently FIRST has had enough of that nonsense and instituted an addendum to the timeout rule;
<T20> In the elimination matches, each ALLIANCE will be allotted one TIME-OUT of up to 6
minutes. If an ALLIANCE wishes to call for a TIME OUT, they must submit their TIME
OUT coupon to the Head Referee within two minutes of the Head Referee issuing the
field reset signal preceding their match. When this occurs, the Time-out Clock will count
down the six minutes starting with the expiration of the arena-reset period. Both
ALLIANCES will enjoy the complete 6-minute window. In the interest of tournament
schedule, if an ALLIANCE completes their repairs before the Time-out Clock expires, the
ALLIANCE CAPTAIN is encouraged to inform the Head Referee that they are ready to
play and remit any time remaining in the TIME-OUT. If ALLIANCES are ready before the
6-minute window, the next match will start. There are no cascading time-outs. An
opposing ALLIANCE may not offer their unused TIME-OUT to their opponent.
This didn’t seem to greatly extend the length of the tournaments, did help out a couple of teams throughout the season, and wasn’t abused in any circumstances that I know of. I know I would rather lose a great match then beat an alliance because they were denied a few more minutes to fix a robot, so why would it seem that FIRST is putting gracious professionalism behind sticking to the schedule and getting done a relatively insignificant amount of time sooner?
There’s an easy way around the rule… just look over, if theyre still madly working after their timeout ends, tell the head ref you’d like to take your timeout to let your motors cool, upload some code and change autonomous mode, go get a snack, whatever. They can’t tell you you can’t take your timeout, unless you tell them you’re taking it for the other team.
In this case, yes it would be. In other cases, such as getting through pointless paperwork systems in the schools, no, not at all.
However, for this case, It’s entirely different. FIRST is saying “no, you can’t be nice and promote GP by having a good fair match, because we need those extra 6 minutes.”
In general, no. But absolutely nobody is hurt by doing so in this case. As a spectator or a competitor, I’d much rather see the competition run 10 minutes longer to see an exciting finals match, instead of one alliance getting creamed because their bot broke and then couldn’t finish repairing it, when the other alliance was perfectly willing to give up their timeout.
Saying that you need time to let your motors cool or whatnot to allow the other team to work is not wrong/lying/ or bad in any way. I approach it the same way I approach return policies. They have given you a timeout to use; it isn’t any of their business what you are using it for, it is yours to use. That’s my though on the matter.
The way I understand “cascading time-outs”, it’s that they can’t finish a time-out and then have us immediately call one of our own; a match would have to be played. Is this remotely correct?
That’s the way I read it. They don’t want 12 minutes down-time.
Now if you play a match and the part that your opponent desperately fixed in the previous 6 minutes still isn’t performing well, then you use your time out to “fix” something on your robot. Maybe you have to suddenly “discover” a problem that needs fixing.
Is it going around the letter of the rule? Yes. But what is more gracious?
Everyone should comment in the summer wrap-up meetings that we should be allowed to help out our opponents. They can keep the cascading ban, but why oh why would we want to see the last match on Einstein as a 2.5 vs 3?
this has been the rule for at least two years. FIRST just reworded the rule to try to make it more clear. I guess it worked. I was an announcer at many regionals the last few years and the rule was very specific to the refs: Only one timeout during any given use. If blue takes theirs, then red would have to wait until after the next match. This has been the rule … so you can’t get around it even if you lie and say you need it, too. Only one timeout at a time.
Then the refs were just lax the times I saw teams do this last year and the year before? Wow.
EDIT: As is not the case with many of my posts, this one is not intended to have any sarcasm at all. I am just astounded that a rule was so openly defied. I guess it’s probably because a lot of people myself included had no Idea that this rule existed with this intent. Thank you, Paul, for pointing out that it has existed for two years.
After the allotted 6 minutes expire, the alliance does have the opportunity to call on a substitute team, correct? So it should always be 3 on 3, not 3 on 2.5. If that alliance goes on to win, there would be 4 champs, the three originals and the sub, right?
Actually a team only has 4 minutes of their allotted timeout to determine if they need to call on their backup team, because they have to turn in their backup team coupon with at least two minutes remaining.
From what has been posted, it is my understanding that this has been the rule for at least two years now. I also know that their were cases last year where cascading time-outs were allowed. I find it interesting that refs would knowingly ignore a rule and that it would be mentioned during kickoff this year as a fine example of GP. I believe this rule goes against GP and the spirit of the games and I’d like to see it changed.
<T21> If during a TIME-OUT an ALLIANCE CAPTAIN determines that they need to call up a
BACKUP TEAM, they must submit their BACKUP TEAM coupon to the Head Referee
while there is still at least two minutes remaining on the Time-out Clock. After that point,
they will not be allowed to utilize the BACKUP TEAM. Alternatively, an ALLIANCE
CAPTAIN may choose to call up a BACKUP TEAM without using their TIME-OUT by
informing the Head Referee directly within two minutes of the Head Referee issuing the
Field Reset Signal preceding their match.
I find it interesting that refs would knowingly ignore a rule and that it would be mentioned during kickoff this year as a fine example of GP.
Since the allinace of 296, 217, and 522 were the recipients of the GP mentioned in the Kickoff, let me clear up some things immediately.
Only 1 time out was called during that time frame (legal then, legal now).
We called the time out, not them. They gave us the 25 chain 296 needed since 217 and 522 used #35 chain and had none to give.
If they called the timeout for us (because we did not have one), that was legal then and legal now. What is not legal is for them to call one after us to gain an additional 6 minutes. Thet was also not allowed last year. If some regionals allowed it, then your teams got lucky.
What they are clarifying this year are two things:
a. No cascading timeouts as it was clearly confusing last year.
b. SInce you now have coupons, it would have been perceived that a team that got knoked out before they used the coupon could give it to another team. The GDC cleared that up so that you only get one per alliance. A team can’t give their coupon to another team. An opposing alliance can call their timeout for the other team, but a team sitting on the sideline can’t give their coupon to an alliance competing on the field.
This clarification is to make sure only one timeout is alloted per alliance and to make sure only one timeout maximum is used per match.
No one gets hurt? My team was first back-up team in a regional when a bot broke… we were ready to compete and were a higher rank than some of the teams competing… the other Alliance calls a time out giving an additional six minutes. The bot was repaired and the match concluded. We were left out because the no cascade rule was not followed… but hey no one got hurt.[/quote]
I have to disagree here. The teams competing in the elimination matches have earned their right to be there either by being top teams and getting to pick their alliance or by displaying qualities that are advantageous to a choosing alliance.
Matches can be punishing on a robot and over time things break. FIRST allows for this by allowing time-outs in the first place. During qualifying matches, teams tend to have ample time to fix problems that occur and time-outs help to remedy this situation for elimination matches. Six minutes is not a lot of time, but it may be the difference between competing in a match or not competing because you have a functioning robot that needed a minute more to replace a sprocket that is back in the pits.
I am not saying that your team didn’t earn a chance to compete, we too have been passed over for teams that we didn’t feel warranted a selection over ourselves, I am just saying that if six minutes is enough time to fix a problem between a match, and an alliance is willing to give up their own time-out to allow this, then this the ideal of gracious professionalism at work and completely within the spirit of the competition. And if six minutes isn’t enough, the next backup team has now earned itself a second chance to compete for robotics glory.
I don’t like it when I see the phrase “gracious professionalism” flung around without first examining the situation very, very closely and objectively. I think we need to be a bit more careful in that regard with this discussion. What actions/rules do or do not constitute “gracious professionalism” is very subjective, making it poor fodder for an objective, non-emotionally driven argument.
One can look at this particular rule from many different angles with regards to “gracious professionalism”. One could say that this rule does embody GP because it allows all alliances to have the same amount of time to fix their robot in between matches. Yes, it may seem “GP” to the spectators when an alliance allows their opponents extra time by taking another time out, but how fair is that to the other alliances on the field? They might not be lucky enough to be given extra time by their opponents, and they would be put at a disadvantage. Did you ever consider that perspective before calling out the rule as “un-GP”?
I’m sorry if the above came off as sounding harsh, but please - next time you are discussing a rule, can you please leave the GP phrase out of it? Stick to the specific implications of the rule when supporting your argument. It is completely inappropriate to judge a rule as being “un-GP” when you haven’t yet considered every side to the story and all the facts surrounding the situation.
A recent example - the recent blizzard caused many teams to complain that FIRST should have extended the ship date. I felt that alot of people posted inappropriately, saying that “if FIRST had any GP, they would extend the deadline.” A better way to go about this (which many other people did properly), would be to discuss and present arguments using the particular facts of the situation in calm and reasonable manner. It was also important to consider FIRST’s perspective, reasoning, and response to the situation before labeling it’s actions as “un-GP”.
So, with regards to this rule, I think people need to step back and consider that perhaps this rule is (arguably, anyways) fair because it gives everyone the same amount of time to fix their robot. Just as FIRST gives everyone six weeks to build their robot - they also want to make sure that no alliance is given an unfair advantage over the other at the competition. It is not in fact “gracious” to try to circumvent this rule, because it’s not fair to the rest of the competitors.
You can’t make that assumption. There’s no guarantee you would have been called up even if the timeout hadn’t been available. The other robot may have competed with reduced functionality, or possibly just sat there and done nothing.
I can certainly see a situation where an alliance would choose to compete in a quarter or semifinal round with one robot broken in hopes that said robot will be repaired in time for the finals, rather than permanently replacing that robot with a backup which may not fit well into the alliance’s strategy.
Teams are on the standby list just in case an alliance chooses to make use of them. There is nothing saying that they automatically have a right to compete if someone else breaks.
Many of the Refs have been refs for years. Cascading timeouts have been common and indeed practically expected for years. I know that at least one instance occured in the dark ages before Alliances. It is not suprising that a field crew should over look this rule, because we are creatures of habit. Unless somebody specifically pointed it out, it would be easy to miss. The wording last year was also less than clear.
This year they decided to make real sure that EVERYBODY paid attention to a rule that all hoped would never be needed. That is why they brought it up at Kickoff, to make it unavoidable.
Speaking as a competitor, I am sad to see the opportunity for this gesture go away. My team has personally benefited from this behavior. When I thanked the other Alliance for it they replied “But you would have done the same for us” and they were probably right.
But now that I am more involved with organizing the event, I see more clearly how the extra time outs are drags on the audience’s patience. I don’t know about your teams but we have huge family support. Everybody comes, from 8-week old younger siblings to grandparents. It is hard for some of them to sit through 15 minutes with nothing happening.
Having awards in between matches helps a lot, but those have to be scheduled as well. You can’t just say “hey they just called another time-out, bring up the Animation awards early” That messes up the planned “fillers” for the later matches where they are more needed.
The competition is a show, it has to move to have legs. Dead time for any reason has to be avoided. That is why they put in the rule last year and why they made it more clear this year. While it is certainly Gracious to your opponent to allow them more time for repairs, is it Professional to do so? or Gracious to the audience? These things also need to be considered.