The ref made the decision to take out the scoring platform by disabling the robot. Do you want to award him some fouls too?
And if the ref didn’t disable the robot and, as a result, there was damage to the field? If taking the scoring platform out for a single match is bad, imagine what would happen if the welds on the scale broke…
The code will be very specific to the application, but the principle is common practice in industry.
The code doesn’t have to be fancy… for instance, if I’m stalling this motor for more than 10 seconds, I need to cut the output. Or if I’m running my drivetrain in autonomous but my encoders aren’t counting, I need to stop. Or if my robot starts to tilt more than a few degrees, I need to cut my acceleration.
In industry it might look like, if I commanded this valve to open and I’m not seeing the valve closed feedback turn off, notify the operator. Or, if I told this AC motor to start and I’m not getting any speed feedback, don’t keep running the drive.
Testing can be as simple as unplugging the sensor or forcing a value in code.
I was specifically responding to Boltman’s assertion that the team took out the scoring platform, not commenting on the right call in that situation. I’m not a ref so I haven’t been trained on the right call in that situation, but I would think that a robot shoving on a field element (if they had lifted themselves up, that might be a different matter) isn’t reason for the ref to remove the Scale from play, and ensure that that team loses.
I think the biggest issue is about the “rules” here is that what happen probably isn’t in the spirit of the rules.
Penalties are meant to be deterrents. In major cases, red cards are assigned. This sure have definitely been a red card over a penalty. 785 points is more than double the average playoff match (324.59 according to the Blue alliance). A red card, though not fun, is actually less demoralizing than such a large penalty.
The rules even state very similar things, saying that extended periods should escalate to red cards, and in the blue box stating “The intent of G25 is to make it clear that PLATES are to move solely because of POWER CUBE weight and not because of a ROBOT deliberately trying to move PLATES”. Watching a robot be counted for penalties is demoralizing and angering when not under your control.
The ref definitely executed the rules as stated, but this should be something kept in mind from rules of future years.
The largest issue is that, as pointed about the offending team in their first post, there isn’t a standardized method of determining those calls. Last year, multiple times, springs were damaged by robots. Yet there were no disables due to this. Why? Because people wanted to let their robots play. What then, justifies a disable versus letting the robots play? Standardize that, and you start to fix an issue.
Our programmer and I watched in horror as it was obvious that 1747 was going to have a problem and get disabled. I say that because our team experienced this twice at St Joe. The first was a simple alignment issue that we realized as the count down started. The second was a gyro issue that put us in the wrong place at the second turn.
I couldn’t tell you at all how the crowd may have reacted, because the first thing we did in the match was go to an alliance partner and ask them to hit us real hard to see if it would dislodge us from the scale. this worked the first time, as we had a veteran alliance partner who realized how to dislodge us. It didn’t work the second time. The rest of the match we discussed option we could implement immediately and long term.
What we did:
First we talked to the FTA about why the disabled us (in each case it was in the last 2-3 seconds of AUTO) before teleop when we could have gotten out from under the scale. I don’t fault them for their choice, they made the best decision they could at the time.
Next we disabled the opposite side Scale Auto, that was the one we had a greater chance of failure.
Finally, we began looking for programming options to help us avoid the issue. Although more complicated then the following, this is what we decided to implement.
- Are we reading the gyro? if not stop
- Did we complete turn 1 to an acceptable reading? if not stop
- Do we stay on course through move 2? if not stop
- Did we complete turn 2 to an acceptable heading? if not stop
- Does our final calculated move distance make sense? if not stop
- Did we lift before final move? if not stop
So far these fail safes keep us out from under the scale in every test we have been able to run. Only time will tell if these work on the field and we will see this weekend.
There is a standard the 2018 game manual:
S01. Dangerous ROBOTS: not allowed. ROBOTS whose operation or design is dangerous or unsafe are not permitted. Violation: If before the MATCH, the offending ROBOT will not be allowed to participate in the MATCH. If during the MATCH, the offending ROBOT will be DISABLED
**
G19. Be careful about what you interact with. DRIVE TEAMS, ROBOTS, and OPERATOR CONSOLES are prohibited from the following actions with regards to interaction with ARCADE elements.
A. Grabbing B. Grasping C. Attaching to (including the use of hook-and-loop tape against the FIELD carpet) D. Hanging E. Deforming**** F. Becoming entangled G. Damaging **Head REFEREE determines that further damage is likely to occur, offending **ROBOT will be DISABLED.
**
You cannot standardize minds when its a human judgement call as each incident is different, each game will be different and we have no idea what happened prior or after that incident in OPs first post here. We do know it is only the Head Referee to do an e-stop for a rule violation. They are also the most trained in that position.
Springs versus Scale … One is the sole HG primary scoring method and the other had two nearby spares
Goes back to some elite teams can pull it off everytime withou a foul , others not so much.
I think this is mostly a game design error/oversight.
There are three nearly identical field elements in the game, but only one of them has robots commonly accidentally attaching to it. Since control of the field elements is essentially the whole game, the only recourse is to make whoever gets stuck lose the match in recompense.
If the SCALE had the same enclosing wall as the SWITCH (or if we had 3 SWITCHES) we probably wouldn’t see this problem, but the challenge would definitely be different.
I’ve participated at our team’s only event, and watched almost cover-to-cover 3 others, as well as replays of multitudes of matches from around the country this year.
Regardless of the rules, it’s this call (G19 disablement) and the “launching” definition that I consistently see applied inconsistently.
Some FTAs/HRs are not calling G19 during auto at all (in worse cases than this), and some seem like they’re practically hovering over the button, waiting for it to happen.*
It’s the same situation for “launching” - some HRs don’t consider a roller intake’s “eject” at a low speed to be launching, others are calling it anytime a cube leaves a bot unless gravity was the only force. (This was particularly bad week 1, better in 3, but still present in 4)
I’m virtually certain that HQ has “clarified” some/both of these to FTAs/HRs, but we’re left in the dark, now with a rule book being interpreted multiple ways, clarified in some unknown way, and we’re left to divine HQ’s intentions… And let’s not even mention Q&A…
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- I don’t mean to imply any HR/FTA wants to disable a bot, but the call to disable seems so quick in these borderline situations…
As a member of Team 135, (a member of the opposing alliance) I would like to first offer my condolences to Team 1747 on their unfortunate malfunction. In previous matches, I was extremely impressed by their awesome 2-cube over-the-back auto. I will admit to being a little excited at first when I saw the robot miss the scale with the cube, which it had done once previously, but when our alliance (135 and 1018 were sitting together) realized it had been disabled, we quieted down because we knew that it wouldn’t even be a match. Also, I know that at least a handful of people got excited when 4171 tried to dislodge the robot and were disappointed that it was so stuck. Yes, we all went nuts when the score broke 4 digits, but it was more because we just competed in what I believe the highest scoring match in FRC history, and less because we won. I personally don’t believe the disable was necessary, but I believe that the judge did what they thought was right.
Side note: I never heard any chanting of “kill” from 135 or 1018, only 135’s “you” chant, which is sort of a team inside joke, so if someone was screaming that, we do not support it and it did not come from us.
Who are you arguing with? 1747 is one of the teams that can “do the scale auto just fine”, until something unexpected happens and they don’t. I’d wager that the bulk of teams this side of 254 are similar in this regard. You’re proving my point here—teams can quite easily wreck the entire game by getting stuck on the field element, potentially in autonomous. When it happens so often that we all can tell our respective stories about when we saw it, that’s a major flaw in the game. (You might also note that I trod carefully around disagreeing with the referee or FTA’s decision. I merely said that they shouldn’t be put in the situation to make the disablement call without guidelines more specific than S01 which cover robots entangled with the scale in particular.)
You cannot possibly believe that POWER UP as designed is supposed to involve teams getting stuck. Of course we can nitpick and break down many instances and find some blame to put on the offending team through driver error, or mechanical failure, or a lack of software failsafes, but at what point does it become clear that the design of the challenge is not well suited to the program we’re trying to run?
I don’t understand what the point of this is. If you see me as merely whining, fine. But I’m bringing these things up for two reasons. First, I think there should be a team update or directive sent out to referees about how to handle these situations in a way that preserves the integrity of the match outcome but doesn’t embarrass anyone, and second, I think this should be POWER UP’s contribution to the list of lessons learned for the GDC.
Also, of course we don’t want our partners committing fouls. But that’s a far cry from saying 1747 shouldn’t play the scale because one fluke accident happened.
Are you suggesting I’m advocating anything that allows teams to hold the scale in their favor for the duration of the match and not be punished for it? I’d encourage you to be a little more fair in your reading. Remember that updates continue to come out throughout the competition season; there’s no reason something can’t be done to ensure a repeat scenario has a more reasonable outcome.
I wish we allowed teams to use an “E-stop” during autonomous mode. Not the current big red button that does not let you re-enable without a hard reset, but a “soft” E-stop akin to clicking “Disable” in the DS software when not under FMS control. You get re-enabled upon the transition to teleop.
I really hate it when teams are disincentivized from being ambitious because of fear of fouls or unmitigatable robot damage. Especially because most teams don’t have a way to develop and test auto modes at home (lack of a field/unbagging time/practice robot).
Wow. It was clearly a tough moment for the team. But to argue it was a bad decision or the rules are at fault?
I think the match was appropriately called, based on what we can see in the video. The ref and FTA have to make a choice whether to disable. While it’s easy to question it after watching the video, when you are there making the call you don’t have the benefit of the knowledge that nothing bad happened later. You have to make a call as it happened.
It is a risk that any team is taking in this game, to do a scale auto. The matches are not for software or hardware debugging - they are the time for the game to be played as per the rules that we all know. Sometimes things don’t work out as expected. Gracious Professionalism says we learn from that and move on.
I think this idea is amazing.
What doesn’t make sense to me is to e-stop a robot when you think its “damaging” a part of the field but to continue the match. If the force of the robot pushing down on the scale was in fact damaging the scale, letting that robot apply that force for the remainder of the match just subjects the field element to undue wear and tear. On top of that add the risk of that robot being interacted with by another robot and the interactions between the opposing alliance and the raised side and again it just doesn’t make sense to me. Where they really running behind on matches or something?
So I suppose I get the intent, but not the execution.
So where in the rules is it allowed to stop a match and rerun it for a robot software glitch?
By the rules, the HR and FTA made the correct call. That being said, I feel for the drive team. being in that position sucks.
We had the same idea in response to our issues. Under the current rules pressing a button to stop autonomous would violate A02 and result in both a yellow card and foul. One thing that is unclear in the current rules is the definition of an “E-Stop”, i’d argue that a button that stops the robot for the rest of auto is an E-Stop button. Regardless we will have a BIG RED BUTTON on our drive station. I think FIRST adding an autonomous mode E-Stop button to each drive station, possibly with an accompanying foul, would be a great move. Until then i’ll take my foul and a yellow card every time.
We will also be adding more software features to detect faulty sensors, replacing electronics panels with anti-static polycarb, and bringing lots of dryer sheets to our event this weekend.
That match is not a slow count. The head referee there decided to escalate to a yellow card and stop issuing tech fouls.
I think that is something being missed - after 31 tech fouls a yellow card wasn’t issued in this match. As out of whack as 1080 looks, 680 and a yellow card is worse.