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Hello Teams,
Similar to the message from our Senior Judge Advisors, our Head Referees have a few insights they wanted to share now that we're half way through the season.
Review their message below to learn about the most common rules violations so far and the training FIRST Wisconsin's referees have access to.
Renee
It’s hard to believe, but we’re already halfway through our qualifier schedule for the INTO THE DEEP season!
With this, we wanted to share a few observations and tips for teams heading into the second half of the season!
(Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog post is official in any way and only represents the views of the authors and their best understanding of the Game Manual and Q&A at the time of writing. This blog post is not a substitute for a full reading of the Game Manual and the Q&A.)
Most Common Rules Violations so Far
So far this season, teams have taken to the game well, and we’ve had many clean matches. As a fun fact, at our first event in Sheboygan, we averaged only 0.38 minor fouls, and 0.095 major fouls per match.
There are two rules though that make up the majority of our violations, so we wanted to share them with you.
<G410> - Controlling too Many Game Pieces
This rule is simple, but still results in a majority of our minor fouls. With some exceptions, teams may not control multiple scoring objects (samples or specimens). Control could mean carrying them, but it could also mean pushing them in a strategic direction, such as toward your Observation Zone or Net Zone.
Most of the violations for this rule come from teams pushing multiple samples either toward their Observation Zone or their Net Zone. This means that teams must be careful, both in Teleop and in Autonomous, to only push one scoring element at a time.
The other thing we see with this rule is teams having a scoring element fall into their robot accidentally. Unfortunately, once this happens, teams must either free this scoring element, or they cannot acquire another element without penalty for the rest of the match. Savvy teams will find ways to design or modify their robots to make it impossible for scoring elements to get caught in this way.
<G405> - Autonomous to Teleop Transition
This rule is a big change from previous seasons, and has been our biggest source of major fouls so far. This rule is actually very simple: robots may not have any powered motion between the end of the autonomous period and the start of the teleoperated period. This includes an init routine opening a claw, small joystick movements, or anything else beyond gravity and momentum moving the robot after the autonomous period.
If teams have a teleop init routine that causes movement on their robot, they’re certainly allowed to run that init routine, but they would need to wait until the start of teleoperated, and not run the routine during the transition period.
Another Big Change - You Must Init, Whether or not You Have an Autonomous
Another important note is that per <G304>, teams must select a op mode and press Init before the match begins, whether or not they’re running an autonomous. Importantly, this means that teams must program an init routine that places them inside of the 18 inch sizing cube at the start of the match.
(Additional context from <G304>, "Teams without an AUTO OpMode should consider creating a default AUTO OpMode using the BasicOpMode sample and use the auto-loading feature to automatically queue up their TELEOP OpMode.")
End of Match Stop Conditions
Another big change from previous years is rule <G406>. This rule states that teams must stop actively controlling their robots at the end of the teleoperated period, which is defined by the start of the buzzer.
One clear implication of this is that teams may no longer continue to drive during the buzzer, as was common last year.
Another, less clear implication has to do with robots ascending the submersible. Let’s say we had a robot that drives up to the low rung, and puts its hooks onto the low rung. Before the buzzer starts, the driver presses a button that moves the hooks down, and will keep moving the hooks down until the robot is stopped. In this case, as clarified in <Q168>, the movement of the robot's hooks would be considered “Active Control” of the robot.
How can this team avoid a <G406> violation? That’s up to the team, but we’ll share a few ideas:
Have a separate button which stops the climber from moving, that the team presses at the start of the buzzer.
Ensure that they start their climb early enough so that by the end of the match, they’re climber has already moved all the way down, and is now just stationary and stalled out.
Press Stop on their driver station at the beginning of the buzzer, if their robot is still in motion at the end of the match.
Ensuring Transparency
A big push from FIRST is to ensure transparency wherever possible. For a while now, volunteer training material for most positions in FTC, including referees, has been available at https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/ftc/volunteer-resources. Teams are certainly welcome to check out those resources to learn more about the thought processes of certain FTC volunteers, and what opportunities are available to them after graduation!
In Wisconsin, our focus this season is on eliminating simple “we missed it” errors as referees. To do this, we’ve developed some Wisconsin specific training materials for our referees, as well as a field compliance checklist that we run through for every event.
These are available below:
We’ve loved watching teams compete in the first half of the season! Best of luck to teams and we can’t wait to see you at our remaining events!
Erik & Max
FIRST Wisconsin FTC Head Referee's
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