FTC SoCal Championship: Semi Final RED CARD
Semi-Final Match 3 of the FTC SoCal Championship in which our alliance was red-carded
Because so many have asked what happened, we offer this video as well as a brief explanation on why we made the choice that we did.
This in no way is meant to suggest that we don’t accept the referee’s decision. Obviously, we made a bad choice, not realizing the consequences. Safety is paramount and our actions could have set a potentially dangerous precedent.
After the opposing alliance cone fell into our robot, we knew that removing it was unlikely (it was a known Achilles heel). Instead, we continued to attempt scoring with a slide that would not entirely descend.
When it appeared we were being penalized for scoring while possessing the blue cone, we decided to take a new tactic. We realize now that we should have been more confident in our understanding of the rules, kept scoring with the blue cone stuck in the robot, then challenged the penalties after the game. However, this would have certainly meant a loss. Without the slide being able to descend fully, we were limited to lifting stacked cones only, and many of these were knocked over.
Our only chance of winning seemed to be the radical step of removing the cone by hand, which our team justified as likely to incur a minor penalty for reaching into the substation while a robot is present, and another minor penalty for contact with a scoring element already in the substation. It was fast and desperate thinking.
It was a painful way to end our rookie season, but the lessons learned will make us a stronger team next year.
Again, we apologize to our alliance partners, who showed us nothing but grace after the match. We are so thankful to them and for the outpouring of support we received from many teams, which will go a long way to recovering from this.