Championship Fields / Refs

[gillejr]

So who here actually thought the Refs were being professional at the Championships?

How many people were told every excuse in the book as to why their robot stopped working a minute into the match?

The refs refused to fix the problem with the Franklin Field, were many times during the two days, robots would just stop responding. Not only that they refused to admit there was a problem with the field, and blamed everything on the robots. I was listening to the ref in charge of the field telling my student that, the static electricty on their finger shorted out the memory, how the code wasnt the right version, how the charge on the battery might have been low, countless amounts of techno babble, and I am suprised they didn't tell him that the stars weren't alligned, but it wasn't a problem with the equipment on the field.

When arguing with the refs about the problem with the field, the same thing happened, in the exact place it had happened three times in the row. But they refused to admit there was a problem with the field, and they refused to give teams a rematch they so rightly deserved. I am sorry but lossing matches 2 on 1 because of a field problem just isn't right.

Also since the problem must have been with the robots, why did they feel the need to replace some of the equipment on the franklin field right before the finals?

I know I wasn't the only one who was arguing with the refs, and I am sure I am not the only one who was disappointed by how unprofessional the refs were at the championship.

[shsroboticsclub]

I cant say about Franklin but i felt that the edison fields were as fair as possible. Of course there were interference problems but thats what happens in ATLANTA, cant really expect to eliminate all the problems.

[fredliu168]

No major complaints here from the Edison side. Although I did notice several bots not moving during matches in Franklin.

[corpralchee]

Copy/Paste from what I said on CD:

I thought that the Refs were being very professional. They were having to make do with what they had. We've known from last year that crystal interference had been a problem. This year I don't believe there was one episodes of interference from another robot/crystal. Unfortunately I do not believe that the Refs knew what the problem was so there was no way to fix it. However they were doing everything in their power to make sure there were no problems by telling us what could be causing trouble.

For example in our first round on Friday our robot moved in autonomous, not what it was supposed to do but it moved, and then during teleop mode we had no control until the last 20sec of the match. We had the two field tech guys down on their hands and knees trying to see what the problem might be. Eventually they noticed that one end of our quad encoders was on a piece of metal, i should clarify this, the quad encoders have two wires coming out one was on the metal the other was plugged in. They figured that since the other end was plugged into the robot it must be shorting. After the match we talked to them and they said that since there was no concrete evidence that it was a field problem that the match could not be re-run. They let us come over to their frequency analyzer and check to make sure that the robot and transmitter both had strong signals without any interference. After that we went back to the pits and to take steps against this happening again we replaced one of the yellow blocks on the robot, reloaded both the master and user code, and we tapped up the spare wires running from the quad encoders. In the next match we had intermittent control on our drivetrain in the first 20 or so seconds and them everything worked fine. After that match they told us that while watching the signal strength on our frequencies they had noticed no interference. We replaced the other yellow brick and in our last match everything worked as it was supposed to.

So to sum up, the refs and officials were great. They were extremely helpful in working with us to get our problems solved.

[gillejr]

I am glad to hear you had almost no difficulties. I do believe the Edison fields ran smoothly. My complaints are about how the Franklin fields were run. I do believe I remember seeing a rematch happen on the Edison field as well.

When the same problem keeps occurring on the same field with different robots, different crystals, fresh batteries, the only common thing is the field equipment.

[overyourhead]

During our practice match (we were only allowed one because of time delays) All 4 teams had to tell the Refs how to score the rings and poles. They were not sure on how the rings had to be place on the floor goal, or how the goals had to be placed the get the 7 points.

In our third match 3 of the 4 robots on the field shut down about half way through the match. Only 1 robot was able to go around and do it's thing. The next day we came back and we were told that we would be able to replay that match, because crystal 76 was used in that match. Match #8, #16, and #26 would be able to be replayed.

On the second day my team got 4 new matches to play. We won 3 of them. Our robot shut down about 1 minute into the match and shut down again. After that we played our rematch because of crystal malfunctions the day before. Again our robot shut down half way through the match.

We were in 6th place, We had won all matches except the matches we were forced to lose, due to interference.

After losing those 2 matches my team dropped from 6th place to 12th place. Just enough to be the 8th seed alliance captain (which was an embarrassment in itself for other reasons) In the first match of the quarter finials My team in our first pick team went up again the field shut down the robot. In the second round we pulled our robot out and let the other two teams play because the field kept shutting down the robot. My alliance lost in the quarter finials.

Also, As I was talking to the refs about the problem 6 teams in a row all came up to the ref and complained about the same thing happening to each robot. The kept throwing crap at us about how the battery's were over charged, and the static from the rug was shorting out the electronics on the robot. As I was talking to him I noticed the Head Ref on Franklin replace all the tether cables. If they were saying t was not there fault why would they feel inclined to replace parts on the field.

Also while watching the finial matches I notices a couple of robots freeze up for 5 to 10 seconds at a time.

I hope FIRST looks at this and realizes how disorganized the event actually was. My team was very disappointed at the way the Refs treated the students that put in hundreds of hours on building a robot, dedicating time to the community, and thousands of dollars spent to enable just 1 robotics team.

FIRST is an amazing program for all kids to be involved in. It has changed my life, in many ways. I intend to stay with FIRST as long as I can, through college and into adulthood. It's unfortunate that something like this happened to my team and other teams in FTC!

Best of luck next year, may the the blue tooth remotes help fix it, they better with the hue price increase teams will have to take.

[Lucart]

Both of our drivers and one of our mentors must have spent at least twenty minutes arguing with the refs over the field situation. A robot on Franklin field 2 even stopped mid-argument, but the referees refused to admit there was a problem. I find it very hard to believe that three different robots, in a row, can fail halfway through a match at the exact same station, with the same tethers by chance alone.

I understand that they were running behind by that point, and that maybe a rematch wasn't feasible, but they wouldn't even grant us a courtesy check to show them that our robot was working properly. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, weren't the delays in the Franklin division due to technical difficulties?

At least they had the courtesy to replace the obviously malfunctioning equipment (though they wouldn't admit it) before the finals.

[kingswin82]

This thing happens every year.

[Abra Cadabra IV]

I, personally, thought the refs were doing their absolute best to be fair and do their job. However, they are only human and I noticed a LOT of things that could have been better. For instance:

-Every time a bot stopped working on the field, it was a battery problem. (At least, according to them). They didn't even offer to test the battery voltage to make sure that it wasn't the field, they just gave us that answer and refused to give us a replay. I know that plenty of robots stopped moving because of low batteries, but an equal number died due to something else.

-Refs and field reset didn't take off their shoes before walking on the field. I don't know if it's just an East Coast thing, but at all the regionals I went to the shoe thing was very heavily enforced because it got the field dirty. By the end of qualification rounds, some of the fields were dirty enough to start causing traction problems.

There were other things, but most actual rule enforcement and such was stellar. Hopefully now they know to watch out for these things next year.

[fredliu168]

Originally Posted by bellpride

We had a few field issues:

• Our robot frequently reset itself during driver-op, which the refs told us was due to a low battery issue. When we installed fresh batteries, the issue was still present, but not as frequent.
• More disturbingly, at random intervals our robot would start to raise its arm for about 20 seconds. This was not our autonomous program, and we ended up losing a match because of this, since our robot completely flipped over. Nobody has given us a reason for this, even now.
• Lastly, there were instances in every match where random motors would turn the wrong direction, such as our arm and intake. Many teams suffered from this issue, as the rings they had spent a minute picking up were dumped on the floor in a few seconds.

We had the exact same problem at Toronto and MA. It was caused by a faulty microcontroller. We believe that the static from our practice field shorted out the robot microcontroller, causing it to perform programs that are not supposed to run. Try replacing your microcontroller, that should fix the problem.