On a slightly more serious note, I wonder about going to the other extreme and doing away with referees entirely. Sort of like street-ball, where teams call their own fouls and peer pressure curbs abusive rule breakers and abusive rule complainers…
As an EP, I would say no. Not because video gear does not exist at my events, but the reality that the point of view is not the same as the referee (unless you are proposing body cam and head mounted gear…). Unlike soccer (oops football), VRC matches are 2 minutes play time and move on. I would NEVER, EVER accept spectator/team provided video, it would introduce a bias for teams who can afford to do video well vs though who can not - just not equitable, nor neutral.
Let’s focus on bang for the buck - is RECF best served by spending a $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to get all EPs with the same gear, checking, training, explaining … or would it be more wise to spend its limited resources on Referee training/certification? Given the RECFs recent investment in certification for referees, and in longer run other volunteer roles, I think RECF has spent its time, effort and money wisely…
To summarize - video replays “Just say NO!”, want better referees, get certified and volunteer. Until then, work hard designing, building, and programming better robots (do not forget to document at all times to share your wonderful journey!).
Might have worked in 60s/70s/80s/90s… then things get a little more complicated.
if matches just had a few more refs watching, you wouldn’t really need any replay systems. (not that you really do, but that they wouldn’t really provide any benefits.)if you have a large team, and not everyone needs to be on deck at a competition, why don’t you send one or two of your members to hq to ask if they could help ref? if just one or two teams did this at events, you could easily have 4 refs per field. that means you can have eyes watching every robot at all times. much simpler than a replay system if you ask me. you could have some sort of award as an incentive to volunteer reffing.
Good point - our events we run a primary and secondary head referee, both worked together at events and at Worlds. We also have two scoring referees. So I think we have ample and consistent experience. We have little push back from teams about calls, as teams feel they can approach the referees and question calls. Usually, the resolution is positive, either the team learns something new about the situation or the head referee hears the team’s point and sees their point about rule interpretation and corrects the call. I think this works in our region because teams have been informed it is ok to approach the head referees, the head referees are well trained, and one is a former competitor with Worlds experience.
I would amplify that I would favor solid referee training / certification over wasting time and resources over video replays which has too many variable and no one will leave happy with.
Unfortunately there is an age limit for judging and reffing at a comp but the best way to make sure the refs don’t make a bad call is to make the refs former competitors. IE former Mentors and current VEXU students. People who have had bad calls will want to make sure they don’t give bad calls
Do you know how hard it is to find reffing volunteers?
I was begging, and calling in favors and I still had to be the head reff. I hate reffing.
Most of the tough ref calls are because of teams pushing the limits on defensive play. The GDC could very easily design a game like Starstruck where there is a fence between the alliances. By removing the restrictions (size limits, defensive play, limiting areas of the field) it makes the game more interesting.
This program is volunteer run to give students an opportunity to learn. The focus is on education and the competition is what drives innovation. We don’t need to bring video replay to high school sports because we don’t need that level of scrutiny. I want teams to learn to perform well with their robot - not how close they can come to breaking a rule to win.
I’ve been told that there are no restrictions on events having video to rely on as they see fit (or don’t see fit due to cost/time/parents 
). So, I assume that if some events choose to use video, REC will likely come out with some best practices for it (who knows, maybe in a year or two). All good. Nothing is preventing an event (and refs) from choose this if they want. All that’s needed is some good/bad uses of this to gleen best practices from.
Not true, this is prohibited by <T1a>:
How about reading the Game Manual - no video replays.
What about G20 in the game manual, that states that replays are allowed but rare?
<T1>No video replays
'nuff said.
So for next season, GDC should reword - “No video REVIEWS”
Apparently, G20 match replays is being confused with T1 video reviews.
My two cents:
- If a team is really good, a couple of bad calls should not influence the eventual success of the team. I mean unless this team is extremely unlucky in that there are bad calls in every of their games.
- The issues teams have with bad calls is that teams do not have a way of reversing bad calls and bad calls seem to be frequent enough to be a topic of strong interest. I think the refs would get a whole lot more respect if bad calls can be reversed (with the help of video, game manual, or other refs’ consultation). If it is a mistake, why can’t we correct it? Is hosting fair games and giving out meaningful awards not critical parts of the robotic education initiative? If ref is caught making mistakes that they refused to correct in videos, those type of videos may not be friendly to refs for a long while.
I had one team that lost in the semifinals because the referee felt sorry for the other team when one robot wasn’t “ready” after three confirmations from all four bots were given. The auto was restarted and it cost them the game because their bot missed the auto points the second start. Since we can’t afford to go to multiple meets, it cost them their chance to advance to regional. replay wouldnt have made a difference, but there needs to be minimum qualifications for referees.
The major issue to this is that the idea of a bad call can be subjective. To a team parent the DQ may not seem warranted, or only warranted a warning. This is where arguments start.
Completely agree, and so does the RECF. They are currently implementing the referee training program to fix that issue.
At one of the events the ref explained that since one rule was interpreted wrongly, and that its been enforced throughout qualification, it will be enforced through our elims because he wants to be consistent to all teams and matches.
and for your first point, the discussion here is mainly about elims, which is now BO1. A bad call means that the team can not advance to SF/Finals
to your point number 1 I say this: in elimination rounds 1 bad call that changes the outcome of the game can keep a team from advancing. Teams that have funds to attend one meet should have the same opportunity to advance as those with endless funds. They work as hard and their bots are just as good. In our case, they have to rely on one meet. The referee was absolutely in the wrong restarting the match and it changed the outcome of the autonomous which made a difference in a close match. single elimination means no matter how good our team was they are out and without funding, their season is over. It makes a difference. They overcame two other bad calls in the round robin to still qualify for the finals. What more can a team do? If the referee doesn’t know the rules they shouldn’t be there. Event partners say they can’t find quality referees to volunteer then maybe something more concrete to back up the inexperienced is warranted.
I’m not sure if this was an original intention of the rule, but the prevention of video replay being viewed definently lowers the burden on a team to prevent bad calls. If video replays were allowed to be viewed, teams would be filming their robot in as favorable a perspective to their alliance. As an example off the top of my head, a team could (for this year) film a robot’s tray from a specific perspective that makes it seem as though the tray entered the 3d volume of an inner protected zone. (I have had issues with these calls in the past, and the physical perspective angle matters immensely.) The only way for a team to prevent this is to also film from a vantage that benefits yourself, meaning that every team should probably be filming to ensure the upholding of the rules, which is an annoyance every team would have to endure. This could be mitigated by providing a tournament camera, which might still have perspective issues but would likely avoid issues of bias. However, this additional infrastructure is difficult to require by ruling at every tournament, and technical issues (which from my experience with tournament cameras/Livestreams are plentiful) could bring huge problems at the liability of the tournament organizers. I still think there are rule calling problems, but the best resolutions come with more referee training.