Did anybody else just catch that yellow card issued in NJ QF2-1? 186 rammed the Blue Station Wall and disconnected a Blue Alliance Control Board. So the match was stopped and all. Then the refs issued yellow cards to the entire red alliance. I don’t see anything in at all in the Tournament Rules about carding an entire alliance. Carding a team for a robot or team member, yes. DQing an entire alliance for a red card or DQ on a single elim alliance team, yes. Carding an entire alliance for the actions of one robot on the alliance, completely unsupported. I have to think they confused the DQing an entire alliance and decided that meant they should card the whole alliance, but someone should really really call NJ and see if they can de-card the other two improperly carded alliance members.
I may be confusing rules between years here but what gives the refs the power to disqualify a team (303 earlier in the competitiin) or give a team a yellow card in the first place for ramming into a wall in teleoperated mode? Correct me if I Am wrong but if a robot bashes the wall and makes your control box fall I have no sympathy for your team for not strapping it in with the provided Velcro in the drivers station! It is a sucky situation for you if your control box drops but its your own fault IMHO.
They quoted “aggressive autonomous driving”. T05 says a team can be yellow carded for egregious robot or team member behavior. So I imagine it’s up to the refs whether that is or not, and I’m not arguing the call on a yellow card. I just don’t think they’re supposed to card an entire alliance for one team’s actions.
I’m with you on this one Elgin. I also saw that team 303 was DQ’d in an earlier qualifying match. It’s the first time I can ever remember seeing a team DQ’d for hitting into an alliance station wall in hybrid (autonomous) mode. Or for hitting into a wall in the first place.
Teams should have their control system secured in some form or another.
I think it is extremely unfortunate that the alliance was penalized for the ramming in hybrid mode.
I agree with earlier statements that no where in the rules does it say that an entire alliance (or even a single team) should be penalized for ramming against the wall.
I know that we have always secured our controls and I recommend that all teams do their best to keep their controls secure during competition!
Good Luck! 
While i’m not going to comment on the yellow card issue, I find the timeout call interesting during that match. After the teams controls fell to the ground and the match was called to an early end, a team called for their timeout for robot repairs. While reading <T19> it would seem that you wouldn’t be able to call a timeout here because in logic it is still the same match.
I agree that the entire alliance shouldn’t have been penalized. Maybe there was a mix-up with <G24>.
<G24> ALLIANCE PENALTIES - Unless otherwise noted, all PENALTIES assigned by REFEREES
are applied to the entire ALLIANCE.
This has been around for awhile. During 2005 at the Philadelphia Regional our alliance partner received a red card during the finals. As a result our entire alliance was DQed and our alliance was given a loss instead of penalty points. The rules for the Playoffs have always applied alliance wide vs. Team wide. I must I saw shocked when it happened to us 3 years ago, and I was pretty pissed.
Sadly I don’t have sympathy when the entire alliance got carded, at least they got to keep playing. I think its a silly rule, but its been around for awhile…
Their autonomous hit the players station after already being warned the first time their robot did it. They ignored the warning, so the second infraction was a yellow card.
Regarding giving the entire alliance a yellow, it seems to be an interpretation of Rule <T11>. This should be addressed next week.
As a member of 836, a member of the 816 Alliance, I understand why 816 got the yellow card, and I understand that if they had another infraction the entire alliance would have been DQ’d - but I think the call to give us (836) and 708 a yellow card was incorrect. My reading of the rules show this to be a misinterpretation of <T05> - <T11>. At no point does it say the yellow card goes to an alliance, only mentions a “Team.”
Best regards,
Steve
The entire Elim Alliance being DQ’d for a red card is very clearly spelled out in T11. Similarly in reply to Dan, T11 doesn’t mention a thing about yellow cards or any cards applying to an entire alliance. Just that a red card DQ’s the whole alliance, because just DQing one team wouldn’t make sense. I agree that this rule is from whence the confusion sprang, but I don’t think there’s any reasonable way of reading it like this.
They called for the timeout not for robot repairs but for control system repairs. I feel that one bad apple spoils the bunch once again yea it’s the teams responsibilty to secure their property properly but it’s also the teams responsibility to test their robot 100% in the alotted time they have with the robot between build, practicing on chocks and tether in the pits, or on the practice field or even on practice day… theres more then enough time to sit and analyze the code and have it removed completely to have it corrected. I share no sympathy for a team that chooses not to utilize that time properly and agree w/ whatever the punishment is handed down. You have an opportunity and given a fair chance by some of the fairest people around to correct any mistakes… Theres used to be and still is a time where robots are not allowed on the field if the officials feel that the robot can endanger the equipment and or other property and more importantly the safety of all those who need to be within close quarters of the field.
It hurts to see a team to see a team penalized but its their fault and must accept the punishment even if it was just an accident. On thursday the head ref and or others probably took notes of all the possible threats and I’m sure he and others took such action b/c the threats still exsisted on game day. Teams were warned in 2 - 3 different drivers meetings and were warned leaving the field on practice day about all this. And if they weren’t then she should’ve asked the questions at the meetings. There’s no excuse whats so ever except laziness.
Yeah. It was our fault and we know that. We changed our autonomous and we didnt know it was going to do that.
Yea but see thats why we have a practice field and if you can’t get on it then you can just chock it and count the sec’s that go by and adjust from there. Ok it’s an honest mistake but it was correctable before this should’ve even happened. Thankfully enough the teams that play in FIRST are cool headed people and just get upset at the mis-fortune and don’t try and retalliate back.
Lol we did that and it was a mistake from our programmer/possible IR interference. We personally as the alliance did not get bothered by the yellow card.
Firstly, I wasn’t there so this may be off. However, I respectfully think this statement is insulting to the teams. When in competition with people screaming at you telling you the robot needs to get to competition, and not having the ability to go to the practice field, how does counting the seconds let them know if they have gone too far. If they were at home testing code I would agree, but this is during the stress of competition, and it’s bound to happen. It’s a part of FIRST , not something that should never happen. Not all mechanical elements of robots work, why should all the software? Don’t blame the programmers. =(
I personally believe that with the amount of potential interference etc such a call should not have been made. As noted in earlier matches the lap counters are IR emitters and it often becomes uncontrollable. With the number of variables involved in coding it is unreasonable to expect a program to work perfectly after having been warned once.
On a side note why not have lips on the player stations. This would stop OIs from falling far more effectively than velcro and would enforce the size limits as prescribed in the rules.
If the robot is on chocks, you can watch the motions of the drive train and count down 15 secs. Mark a part of the actual tread / wheel and count the rpms and if it appears that the drive train is too fast and has gone no where but in that direction then adjust the program accordingly to try and slow down the robot OR put a turn command in that way it’ll at least nail the side barrier and not the player station b/c to be honest there’s not much holding that player station in place to start with but it’s little bit of weight, some support from around the field and velcro. Why do you think it moves so much when ever it gets hit? I personally think better re-inforcement of the player stations will solve some problems of the decks being flung to the floor after being nailed by a robot doing 30mph. Look at the team who lost their entire OI b/c the Comp Port ripped right out of the OI after the wall took a hard hit from one robot.
I forget which team and what local event I saw this at but it worked… The practice field was unavailable for w/e reason so they chocked it, had a person with a stopwatch, had another person watch the drive train movements and guess how fast it was moving and adjusted accordingly… In the end they managed to get the robot where they needed it program wise w/ using only wood, a basic watch and good eyes. I’m not trying to say that stuff won’t happen but if it does there are multiple ways to do correct it before you get to the Queuing box and even still you can try and tether before we get a hold of you to get on the field like some try and do. Sorry if I insulted the programmers out there :(. Just trying to say that there’s more then one way to fix something w/o having the right tool for the right job available for you to use.
I thought about that yesterday exactly. Don’t be surprised if a control deck specification comes out in the '09 game. Right now the specs say it must fit the current level deck. I think it’s time that deck had like a 1/2" lip on it and lock down bars to keep the controls from jumping up. Velcro will wear out too easily if every team used it.
Also on of the things we thought was that you had one warning before a yellow card. Our programmer made a small adjustment to give the robobees time to clear and we had no idea that the entire system of timers messed up so thats what put us into the wall. It was strange because our auto had worked flawlessly throughout the competion