Mod Note from @Tyler_Olds Per request of original OP we have removed the initial post. Both OP and mods felt it was important to keep the conversation otherwise so this has been split into a new thread. /note
Everything about the way timeouts work in this program needs a complete overhaul.
I am so sorry this happened to your team. We look forward to playing with you guys at CVR week 5!
While volunteers are human at the end of the day, reading through your post, the amount of inconsistencies and back and forth on decisions made regarding your play is concerning.
Like Kremer, I’m sorry this had to happen to your team but hopefully, the discussion created will generate positive change in how timeouts work. Hope you have a good time at CVR!
The details laid out in this post are so much worse than I could have possibly imagined from the other accounts and the stream video. This clearly shouldn’t be happening in our program and we need to find a way to prevent this from ever happening to a team again.
While I sympathize with your team and agree that we should be trying our best to get teams on the field, I disagree with you calling the refs unfair. I was told by a team in the alliance captain meeting that the head ref was explicitly asked whether “wheels on the ground” would be strictly enforced for timeouts. He said no, but he needed to see “movement towards the field.” This is bending the written rule, but the expectation was very clearly made known to all alliances. There was no ambiguity about how the rule was going to be enforced.
I agree that there is still a general problem, but I believe it’s inappropriate to call the refs unfair. Stop berating the refs, and start asking FIRST for better rules.
It was not communicated correctly to the team that their timeout was rejected, that is 100% on the event volunteers. They need to do better. We deserve better.
Isn’t the alliance captain the only team who can request a timeout? Refs shouldn’t be directly communicating with 3970 about timeouts to begin with. It’s the alliance’s responsibility as a whole to keep track of whether a timeout is accepted.
This is a weak argument. Referees need to act like humans and have some empathy for teams that are in the most stressful time of their season.
I’m really sorry this happened to your team @Raul_Armenta you should file a NMIR and let HQ know about your team’s experience - Online Non-Medical Incident Reporting | FIRST
If we’re in the business of inspiring students, the way these time out shenanigans play out sure ain’t it.
(I hope) no one wants to win or lose because of a meaningless rules technicality that has no bearing on the event timing or fairness. I am truly sorry for your experience here @Raul_Armenta .
The rules around time-outs and playoff match timing need an overhaul. They are punitive unnecessary. There needs to be more leniency written into the rules. Perhaps more practically there ought to be more time between playoff matches, like the time required to give out awards, as an example.
The timeout rules suck and need to change.
I hate that this happened. I hate that this will happen again.
From events I witnessed . I am pretty sure elimination timeouts were covered in the Captain driver meeting and that allowed for questions on the process, did that not happen with your alliance Captain ? @Raul_Armenta
Sorry you ran into that situation, no one wants teams to not play
As has been discussed in the other thread the rules, specifically H301, gives the Head Ref wide latitude in determining if a robot is disabled/bypassed for a match.
I fail to see how Team 3970 caused a significant delay to the start of match F1. Obviously that Head Ref thought they did, not sure how, but they did.
I’m not arguing about empathy. My point is that it’s not the head ref’s responsibility to track down every member of the alliance to tell them that a timeout was either rejected or accepted. It’s impractical at best and a logistical nightmare at worst to expect the refs to take on this responsibility.
Should what 3970 experienced ever be happening? Definitely not. But rules are rules, and the head ref already explicitly stated he would bend the rule and what the new expectation would be. It would have been entirely different if the bent rule wasn’t made abundantly clear, but the fact that it would should have been enough heads up for all alliances to be exceedingly vigilant about not violating it.
I think it’s the best use of everyone’s time to voice concerns to FIRST and get the rule to change, rather than single out individual volunteers and accuse them of lacking empathy.
This. While I detest volunteers that lack understanding and do nothing but ramp up tension and create anxiety where it is not needed… the problems FRC has are systemic and need to be addressed from the top down.
In general, I see your points which are well taken.
However, the issue here is, the timeout rules are not applied uniformly.
Before that timer runs out, at all events during Weeks 1-3, did every team that plays a playoff match make it in time to the field? I know we didn’t, but we really tried to.
There are many “logistical nightmare” reasons why teams don’t make it back in time. Hence, the call for an overhaul.
Yep, the program should rely on a robust, fair, and consistent set of rules designed to maximize the team experience. We also definitely can call out voulenteers in the program for lacking empathy. If you want to voulenteer, great, but if your number one priority isn’t making sure the students at the event are having a good experience then get out of FIRST imo.
3 teams is a logistical nightmare?
Ignoring that since it’s likely in finals that this is pertinent and that most of the time teams have moved field side. Ignoring that the HR can absolutely get an announcement made asking for a representative of those teams… it’s 3 teams. And it’s not like the HR has to go find them alone - the other refs can help out, or the field queuers…
Plus, didn’t we get a report from 111 that last week at CIR they had refs standing over them with stopwatches? That sounds like more of a nightmare than “let’s make sure the alliance knows their timeout wasn’t accepted”
I admit that “logistical nightmare” may have been a bit hyperbolic.
My problem with this discussion around the timeout not being accepted is how we’re putting the blame squarely on the refs. Is it unreasonable to believe that 3970 was told by a ref that the timeout wasn’t happening, but in all the commotion they either misheard or didn’t hear? Maybe the ref told someone on the team who didn’t have the experience to understand the implications of this (hypothetically, this could be someone like a freshman wearing a driver badge). We only have one side of the story, yet we’re all so eager believe that the refs didn’t communicate this at all.
In the end, it’s the alliance’s responsibility as a whole to ensure all their members are aware of what is happening. The refs and other volunteers can only do so much.
Likely because we’ve seen multiple instances of this.
Likely because we saw the way the head ref shooed them away.
Likely because it’s crap for functional human beings to hide behind “but the rules” when it is clear that allowing them on the field would not have caused harm, would have resulted in better experiences for the teams and spectators, and would generally be the right thing to do because these are high school kids.
I agree teams should be responsible for being on time. But I also know that there has been multiple instances of this type of incident and it never feels good.
I do wonder if some of this is caused by the fact that from the referees perspective, teams “just show up” to the field and they aren’t all fully aware of the frantic maddening pace for repairing and solving issues behind the scenes. It’s really easy to get into a groove with volunteering and just do a job over and over and forget the big picture and what this is all about.
EDIT: Credit to Mr Laverdure for planting this idea in my head. Yeah, that guy, right down there ↓
And here’s the extension to this thought: When a team does the extremely odd thing of not “just showing up,” well, that must mean they don’t want to play.