Unfortunately, there’s been some not great circumstances this year with gates being closed etc.
I just want to call out the Crew at Central Mass for being a positive experience in some critical moments this weekend.
3467 severely broke our intake in Finals Match 1 under some amazing defense from 5112. We knew it would be a big repair and sent our timeout coupon to the box immediately. The repair was more in depth than we realized and as the timer hit zero we were still in the far queuing area not moving to the field as we were scrambling to make our final make or break fixes.
Lauren the head ref was walking towards us and I think all of were dreading what we were about to hear thinking we just got “gated”. However, she was very understanding seeing us with just a battery to replace and told us to get to the field ASAP and swap it there. Considering the fate of other alliances recently we were very, very lucky.
Between Finals 2 and the replay of that match the ref crew was very proactive asking if we needed to call a backup coupon. I remember them doing something similar in Quarters and Semis if they saw someone deep in their robot on our alliance asking if we needed to call a timeout during the window.
A+ team first attitude and I wanted to applaud them and encourage others to highlight those groups who are putting teams first.
I have attended 3 events this season FiT Dripping Springs, Channelview, and Pasadena #1. All three have had great volunteers that made sure the teams had a good experience.
I didn’t write down all the details about which alliances/teams were working on what but I know there were sizeable gaps between some playoff matches at each event while teams were able to get their robots ready to play in the finals.
Looking at the match time stamps.
Dripping Springs had about 18 minutes between the end of SFs and the beginning of Finals 1.
Channelview had ~50 mins between Finals 1 and 2.
Pasadena #1 had about 17 mins between Finals 1 and 2.
Walt (head ref at the Great Northern Regional) did an amazing job. Every team made it to the field for their playoff matches and no gates were closed! Every time our student captain went to the question box they got a thorough answer.
There were some calls that I questioned live, but going back and reviewing videos, they got a lot of calls correct! Reffing this game is difficult… there are tons of robot interactions, refs need to determine who “initiates” with each of these interactions, etc.
@Jon_Stratis and the inspection crew knocked it out of the park by all accounts.
At FiM Lansing, during Finals 3, 5114 had CAN issues which took a long time to debug. Agents of Change (The Feds) 201 (Alliance captain of the opposing alliance) told the Head Ref to let them take as long as they needed
There was about a half hour wait before they finally play without them.
Unfortunately they didn’t get it fixed, and I was told they figured it out as the match started, which sucks.
However, hats off to 201 for allowing them to take as much time as they wanted
I’ll echo @Ryan_Swanson here, as a soccer referee myself I know how thankless being a referee can be. When refs perform poorly, everyone notices; but when they do good, it’s as if they weren’t even there because the game was facilitated so smoothly.
With that said, our team came across some pretty niche situations that put us in the question box several times. Walt, at the Great Northern Regional, really took the time to make us feel heard and explained circumstances clearly. We couldn’t ask for more!
Is there some sort of nomination\prize given to these folks??? Somebody let me know who I can drop a note too!
I want to thank the FIN Refs/FTAs/field crew. Not once the past two weeks (or in the past 5 years I’ve been involved) have I felt that they put anything above safety and the team experience. The FTA and head refs were always focused on getting teams on and off the field safely and making sure teams were connected and ready to play fairly.
This^
it always feels like every volunteer in Indiana wants every team to be able to perform to the best of their ability. So many of my good memories as a student and mentor are owed to these volunteers working hard for us!
We are very blessed to have great volunteers many who are FISRT alumni.
Rachel, John, Logan and Andrew are the best head ref crew in the country (even when I disagree with them
At NE Western New England University district a ref was misinterpreting the extension rules during climbing and did not count some of the climbs for our alliance. This was brought up to the head ref @Luke_A_GPD and he personally watched and corrected the ruling next time it happened.
It was a great way for a head ref to show he trusted a team’s word and followed through when asked to pay special attention to a specific situation.
A quick follow-up on your comment about Luke. I was scorekeeping for the vast majority of the event (or was jumping in to help FTAA a few matches - nice to get out of the chair a little bit from time to time), and the FTA/FTAA/HR team of Chris, Sam, and Luke did a great job. Things weren’t always perfect (they never are) but I firmly believe everyone had the best intentions, and as you noted, corrected things when necessary.
I also want to toss a shout-out to the Tech Valley Crew. As the coach on the finalist alliance the last day is (still) a bit of a blur, but I want to shout-out @Mark_McLeod (FTA) @plnyyanks (FTA/FTAA/CSA/Anything else) Seth (HR), Kim (Field Sup), the RIs, our queueing volunteers, even our favorite Pit-pun Announcer and all the other Tech Valley volunteers. It’s a great team, and has been for many seasons now. I can confidently say the teams are always treated fairly and respectfully, and we’re grateful for their hard work and efforts - it makes it a great event we look forward to every year.
Seconded. Indiana is a great place to play robots in large part due to all the awesome volunteers we have. Feeling very fortunate to play here after reading through threads about events in other regions.
I’d like to second the praise for Walt, but for our interactions with him at Lake Superior. Our students interactions with him were nothing but professional and positive. A great experience for them to have at their first ever regional. He and the rest of the crew did a great job explaining some situations to us and actually listened to references to specific rules. He corrected improperly assessed penalty/climbing points. Overall fantastic experience.
I think Great Northern was the first time a head ref has checked in with our team at an event to introduce himself and see if we had any questions. Since we competed earlier, we didn’t really have any questions. The interaction with the team was great, however, and I hope that happens in future years. It provides a great opportunity to better understand the game and puts an approachable face to the position that makes calls on the field.
