Full disclosure: I am an alumnus and current mentor of team 3928. Obviously, I am very happy with the outcome of the 2022 Minnesota North Star regional, but would like to address an incident in the last qualification match.
In Qualification Match 89, we were hoping to score 4 ranking points and take the third seed position. Our team was ecstatic when it appeared that we had accomplished that in a close match.
However, after a several minute delay for scores to be released, we were shocked to see that we had only been awarded 3 ranking points and that we had only received 14 hangar points. On our alliance, 2654 had accomplished a traversal climb and 3928 had cinched the low climb. Unfortunately, 3610’s climb was not counted due to vertical overextension. Our student drive coach immediately went to the question box to inquire why we had only received 14 hangar points.
Our student drive coach, as well as five other students, including student representatives from all three members of that alliance, were all rebuffed by the head referee and were told there was no way to change the outcome of the match at that point. The head referee asserted that the referee closest to the blue alliance hangar “didn’t see” a traversal climb and that he could not overrule that. A consistent theme was that we had been too late to dispute the call despite having 2-3 volunteers ushering us and our robots away from the field following the conclusion of the match before the release of scores and our students immediately making their way from the pits to the question box following the delayed score release.
We were thankful that for the playoff matches, the head referee ensured that multiple referees checked each hangar and that all steps were taken to make sure that the correct scores were given before being released.
This had significant seeding implications and meant that 3928 seeded 4th instead of 3rd and ended up captain of the 3rd seed alliance instead of the 2nd seed alliance. While we ended up being able to select 2987 as we had wanted to, this still left a sour taste in our students and drive team’s mouth. Is there anything our team could have done differently to have resolved this call in a better way?
Match video is shown below: