A tie-breaking finals match starts. Bluabot appears not to have power. The match goes on and red wins. After some inspecting it turns out that Bluabot did not have power, but its not due to the FIRST field’s fault. Bluabot didn’t plug in their batteries. What do you do?
First the team shoulda checked the battery status to make sure its A) charged B) plugged in and secured correctly and lastly c) make sure the breaker was turned on.
It was the teams fault that power was not on the robot, not FIRST’s. Therefore I would let the match play to its end from there I have one or two options a) have a match replay (least likely since it wasn’t FIRSTs fault the robot wasn’t on) or b) the match plays its round and the score will be the score
now since you said its the finals this changes things quite a bit
Since this is a tie breaker. No 1 Alliance should have the upper hand on another. Since #1 Blue robot was unable to compete b/c of an honest team members mistake I would replay the match so that its a fair tie breaker. And so that red doesn’t think they won b/c of an advantage. If this were to happen during the seeding rounds I would NOT replay the match but since its finals and a tie breaker I WILL replay this match. Out Gracious Professionalism and Fairness.
EDIT://
Rule T01 - Referees have ultimate authority during the competition. Their Rulings are final! The referees will not review any recorded replays!
I have just reviewd the rule book this was the closest rule I can find! Rule are rules and they are meant to not be broken. However I do not see any set rule requarding match replays.
I’m pretty sure the rules do not allow redos of matches for “certain circumstances” like battery plugging in. Why should it matter that its the finals? A rule is a rule. Unless somewhere it says that refs are allowed to make a decision that would override a rule.
Should refs be allowed to change the rules like that and allow do-overs?
I think that it depends on the circumstances.
For example, in the Arizona regional, one of the alliance partners was still in the pits when the time ran out for their timeout and so their robot was legally disqualified for the match (they came back right after time ran out), but the head ref went to the other alliance and talked with them about it and they agreed to let them stay; with gracious professionalism in mind. (This was the Finals) 
The team that was legally dq’d was the winner of the Arizona regional. :yikes:
That’s the part I don’t understand. How is it GP to bend the rules? Even if both parties agree?
It’s just common courtesy.
They came back within a matter of seconds after he said that the time was up. It would have been 2 robots to 1. :ahh:
GP has the power to bend the rules so that all teams are on equal playing ground. Almost like the light side of the force. 
Think of it this way. If there was no restriction on what kind of parts to build a robot think of what teams could roll in with. (Armored Tanks, and APCs overly exaggereated exaples). Now through the Graciousness of FIRST we have rules so that all teams are on level playing ground.:ahh:
If that team ran out at that very last second. Will you be able to live with the fact that you DQ’d a team just as they approached the field. I Know i couldn’t. In the pits weird and odd stuff happens. (e.g. The battery won’t sit in the robot properly umm doing last minute rundowns to make sure the robot can do its job) :]
I would let the match play in that scenario too. But if they had shown up after the match then I would have to say the score is score. You can show up before the match begins and play but after the match that would be unfair.
Hmmm. Im pretty sure the ref checks the lights on all the bots to make sure they are turned on - so if no battery was connected then you had two points of failure, the team and the ref
also you would get a ‘no data radio’ led on the OI - indicating something was wrong before the match started
so in this case, if the ref allowed the match to start with one bot OFF - and he did not come over and say “your bot is OFF do you really want to play that way” I would consider it a failure of the ref
same as if he said ThreeTwoOneGO! without first asking each team if they are ready.
In this case - redo the match - ref failed to ensure the starting contitions were met.
if the battery became unplugged 3 seconds into the match, thats a different story - in that case I would let the results stand.
I feel that, although it stinks for blue, it was their fault. It’s too bad that things like that happen sometimes. 
–EDIT–
Oh, yeah, Ken. At least at the Pittsburg regional, the ref didn’t make any obvious checks on the robots. Come to think of it, that is kind of weird.
Personally, I would have held a rematch. So much effort went into a robot and getting it to the finals. There is not as much of a time problem in the finals. Rematches are quite possible.
As a side note, in 2003, team 30 had a small checklist attached to the robot, which reminded people to do the critical tasks to get the robot ready for a match at the last second. I don’t know whether it was because of the list or the experience of the team members last year, but we never missed an item on the list.
Forgetting to plug in the battery is no different then forgetting to screw in the radio feed and there is no redo for that. It is just a tough break for that team and the final score is the final score with no redo. But hey that is one mistake you typically only make once so I would hope that team doen’t have to worry about it again
The field controllers (not the refs) check for signal and communications continuity before every match. They verify that every RC on the field is transmitting and has valid carrier. Matches do not start until they can get good signal (to avoid claims of “field problems” causing a team to lose). So if a battery were not connected, in theory the field controllers would not start the match because they would not get signal from the RC.
That said, it is ultimately the team’s responsibility to make sure that their robot is ready to play when it is put on the field. It is not the responsibility of the refs, judges or field controllers. So if the team forgets to connect the battery on the robot, and is somehow manages to slip through the field checks, the team is still responsible. This is exactly the same as if they had forgotten to close the dump valve on their pneumatics system, and could not use their pneumatics - it is the team’s fault. The only stated rationale for a re-match is a field fault. There is no problem with the field in this scenario, so there is no justification for a re-match. Red wins, and you move on.
-dave
Both things you mentioned happened to my team, two matches in a row (in quals, not elims, but it’s the same rules on this issue).
The refs and the IFI guy are supposed to check that each team is powered up AND has a radio connection, the IFI guy has a laptop with special software that can check for the radio connections, so he’ll check and make sure each team is working. This year they also setup the light to blink if there is a connection problem to the robot, but since this is new (or at least I don’t remember it from last year) most drivers haven’t gotten used to looking up to check for problems.
After the match where we didn’t turn on our robot, I went to talk to the head ref and the IFI guy, and they said it was entirely my team’s fault, that they had explained to us twice in driver meetings what to check for. But I saw them going over to other teams to alert them to problems, so I was kind of annoyed by this. Granted, we wound up being picked for an alliance anyways and becoming a regional finalist, but none of us saw that coming on Friday. Also, not to be harsh on either the head ref or the IFI guy at SBPLI, they both were very cool guys and answered many questions for me, the IFI guy even called up their software guy and let me speak to him to get some help on my dashboard program.
The match after that one we hit the diamond plate so hard in autonomous (I swear, I had it set to half power, and it still crossed the field in what seemed to be about 5 seconds) it knocked the battery out of the robot and disconnected it. However, since that was entirely my fault with setting the autonomous program’s speed too high (I hadn’t gotten a chance to test it, as I had written it Friday morning during the opening ceremony ;-)), I wasn’t mad that the refs didn’t call for a rematch.
If what I’ve read here about IFI’s arena controller is right (in that it won’t start a match unless all bots have a good signal–well, or an override for those three-bot practice matches), then we’ve got a malfunction of the arena (or the controller therein).
It’s kinda like the finals at Palmetto. The #8 seed didn’t have their teams straight for the match and nobody caught it until they started the intros. So technically the match had started, and they could’ve been DQed. But the other alliance let it go out of GP. Was it the legal thing to do? No. Was it the right thing to do? Absolutely.
Redo.
If anyone has ever been to a competition, using NASA’s feild, Mike Wades big thing to remind people is, FIRST does not require you to plug in your battery/power up your robot its just a darn good idea
with that being said, i think that if a team has made i to the finals, then they should know better than not pluging in their battery/powering up their robot, its always going to be the teams responsiblity.
I would rule that the match stands, the team forgot and looses out
Okay…if anyone forgets to plug their battery in, that’s their own fault. You should have looked to see if everything is working before you went back to the drivers station.
–This sounds so simular to my nightmares of setting our autonomus to run on the wrong side, then picking the robot up and throwing it onto the bar 