As many of you know there was a weird event that occurred at the Buckeye regional in the finals.
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.
FIRST RARELY grants rematches, this is the first I’ve seen in 4+ years. The staff will be reminded many times not to touch the mats. The problem won’t happen again and I doubt they’ll replay a match again. Either way just replay the match that was effected.
Rematches never happen. Replaying a match does. The difference? A replay is only due to failure of the field or arena controller system. I have never personally seen a replay, but I know my team received one in 2000 (the field structure was lifted and moved by another team) and was offered one (which we declined) in 2001 when the arena controller disabled our robot for no reason mid-match.
I was the human player/strategist at the buckeye regional and one of the refs would not let me behind the player station after i took the bins out, because he said i was not allowed?? After arguing for about 60 seconds he finally let me in to help the driver…we lost that match and there was no rematch…am i saying it would of been different if i was there to help the driver, maybe…but there still was not rematch even though one of the refs made a mistake.:ahh:
WATCH OUT FOR THE REFS!
*Originally posted by sevisehda *
** Either way just replay the match that was effected. **
The problem that I have with only replaying just the match affected is that a strategy has just been tested and it most likely won’t be used again successfully.
Key examples:
In the first elimination rounds, our excellent partner #902 went under the bar in Auto to disrupt the Chief’s Auto Spin mode and it worked perfectly. If it was replayed, I seriously doubt the Chief would have selected the same auto mode just to see it happen again.
In the match in question, seed #2 left the stack of 4 intact after no one was guarding it (Martians were on the opposite side of the field trying to get on the ramp with something like 30 seconds to go) and had a robot on the ramp, both key in allowing seed #6 to win. After noticing this major error, they corrected it (Left no stacks or robots on the ramp) in the replay and went on. I am not sure if everyone here is catching my drift, replaying only one match allows a team to retry a different strategy after seeing the shortfalls of the original.
As I said it’s over nothing we can do now.