IRI Rule Changes - 2012 [Archive]

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 04:33

Oh the long bots woe!

EXACTLY. Not a fan at all of #3. I cannot possibly fathom how a rule that so obviously favors one design over another and ties a team's fate even MORE into the "random" match schedule can be permitted to fly. It's not like we longbots can chop our frames down....

At least give teams who get hosed by incompatible alliance configurations another avenue of combating opponents who CAN more easily triple during qualifying. How about making balls scored in the last 30 seconds of a match worth 1-2 points more each? That would give teams an effective way of combating those who choose to triple. Can the scoring system be easily adjusted to accomodate such things?

Also, as a team who has never been "maliciously hosed" by the co-op bridge and has seen the game played as intended at every single event we've attended (3 regionals, Galileo, MARC), I fail to see how eliminating the co-op point concept to cater to the extremely relatively few who've been hosed by "alternate strategies" somehow enhances the game's quality.

I am EXTREMELY disappointed by the combination of these rulings. I do not pay $700 for a premier offseason event to be forced into playing a game that so obviously disadvantages and discriminates against a specific robot design and so radically diverges from the original game designers' intent. I recognize the right of the committee to make such changes, but they must also recognize the right of the paying customers (who had to pay prior to the changes' release) to voice their concerns/criticisms/disbelief that such changes were implemented.

Are the pansy hands-off triple defense rules of the Championship also going to be in effect, such that longbots have essentially zero recourse to directly combat triples if their alliance is incompatible with the maneuver?

Of course, this could also end up being a boon for the longbots, as those overly confident in thinking they can triple (outside of 3 wides) try it without any practice whatsoever, and end up failing epicly as the little old boring double (...or single...or even no balance) earns the victory.... Could be more bad comedy agony of defeat type moments than oh gee wow how epic moments during qualifying if people try to get too greedy. This rule change could also lead to more robot damage due to bridge tips and falls than many pit crews attending offseason events are prepared to deal with. Many teams travel very light.

Unless you are extremely careful in supervising it, you've also just turned your practice field into a train wreck and a likely safety hazard once the match schedules are released. Hope someone has plans to keep that area monitored and under control such that all teams have fair access to it and none dominate its usage. ORRRRR (my preference - the safe and easy and FAIR route) you flat out deny any triple practice on the practice field (before alliance selections) and require teams to have at it without any prior practice together save for any encounters at previous events.

This ruling is a double whammy against longbots - gives wides a decided advantage in scoring points and winning matches, and removes any co-op recourse needed for longs to still keep pace with them in the standings. I would have accepted #2 by itself, but #2 and #3 combined? I cannot view this as anything but a forced competitive disadvantage for my team and others like us before I even arrive at the venue, and that is a very unfortunate reality.

Gdeaver

25-06-2012, 07:57

This is a whole new game. Old strategies for elims are out. A triple balance is high risk and so is a triple defensive play. I agree that this will probably lead to more damaged bots. With the hours of run time our bots have seen, the pits will be a busy place. Oh, the carnage. Can't wait to watch how teams adapt to this play.

FrankJ

25-06-2012, 08:49

Seems to me that a triple balance would be relatively easy to defend. Just aggressively mess with the second & third bot before they get close to the bridge. Your driver would have to be disciplined enough not to be in contact with the robot when it gets to the bridge. You are really just trying to delay the balance. Mean time if you have a good scorer, it is shooting balls without opposition.

efoote868

25-06-2012, 09:16

To be honest, I like the changes. It'll mean elimination style play in every match, which will make IRI more competitive. It also means no one will be stranded at the co-op bridge, and everyone won't suffer if one driver makes a small mistake (like driving over the side of the bridge).

The long bot situation is unfortunate, but so is getting paired with two boxes on wheels. The luck of the draw is something we've lived with for about 10 years, at least now you're more in control of your ranking.

JohnSchneider

25-06-2012, 10:18

The luck of the draw is something we've lived with for about 10 years, at least now you're more in control of your ranking.

And the point of IRI is to eliminate that as best as possible.

And I fail to see how you are 'in control of your ranking'. when you arent even allowed to play the full game...

Jared Russell

25-06-2012, 11:15

With 5 extra pounds of weight, any robot can be made "triple balance compatible".

Stingers. Brakes. Apparatuses (apparati?) to grab onto/under an adjacent robot. Each of these can be made under 5 lbs as complete systems using pretty basic methods. Team 341's stinger weighs 0.8 lbs (granted it relies on a pre-existing pneumatic system, but a simple air tank and gauge assembly doesn't add that much).

Yes, three long robots is still a difficult task. But what if one of them uses the extra 5 lbs allowance to add deployable lateral skids (casters, omniwheels, or even just some slick plastic) to facilitate being pushed up the bridge sideways?

While these rules favor robots designed with triple balancing in mind, there is enough time and weight to allow anyone who wants to triple balance at IRI, to triple balance at IRI.

efoote868

25-06-2012, 11:26

And the point of IRI is to eliminate that as best as possible.

And I fail to see how you are 'in control of your ranking'. when you arent even allowed to play the full game...

During this years game, if I had a robot that consistently scored 180 points, I would win all my matches but there is no guarantee that I would be the #1 alliance captain.

At IRI, if I have a robot that consistently scores 180 points, I will (probably) win all my matches and I will (probably) be the #1 alliance captain. I don't have to rely on my opponents for my ranking.

Tetraman

25-06-2012, 11:38

Removing the Coopetition points is in direct contradiction to the statement on the website.

"We are considering some minor rules changes to the 2012 FRC game, Rebound Rumble. These changes will only be slight tweaks and will not be significant. Our intent is to make a slight change that may improve the game, but not make a change that will encourage teams to alter their robot."

Emphasis mine.

Completely removing the Co-Copertition points changes the game so drastically, teams that utilize the white bridge will find themselves without the boost they need to get them to where they want to be. In fact, it actually changes the entire dynamic of the last ~30 seconds of the game, and can in fact cause teams who have been ranked highest in normal FIRST events to drop significantly because their robot is meant to score in a way that isn't in the top basket. This also alters alliance selection in ways you can't imagine.

I don't know how much weight my argument will hold, since I'm only going to be a spectator this year, but speaking only for myself if this rule holds up I'm glad our team isn't going to IRI because we would have very little chance.

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 11:42

Completely removing the Co-Copertition points changes the game so drastically, teams that utilize the white bridge will find themselves without the boost they need to get them to where they want to be.

Our team has had a knack this year of storming back from some early misfortune/bad luck at events to secure Top 8 status. I think it's happened at Wisconsin, Queen City, Galileo, and MARC. The co-op bridge was essential to our ability to rise up.

People discount the importance of having good strategy and negotiation skills in working with the opposition to plan and execute a co-op. We love that aspect of the game.

Andy Baker

25-06-2012, 12:05

I cannot possibly fathom how a rule that so obviously favors one design over another and ties a team's fate even MORE into the "random" match schedule can be permitted to fly. It's not like we longbots can chop our frames down....
... gives wides a decided advantage in scoring points and winning matches, and removes any co-op recourse needed for longs to still keep pace with them in the standings. I would have accepted #2 by itself, but #2 and #3 combined? I cannot view this as anything but a forced competitive disadvantage for my team and others like us before I even arrive at the venue, and that is a very unfortunate reality.

This is a whole new game. Old strategies for elims are out. A triple balance is high risk and so is a triple defensive play.

Completely removing the Co-Copertition points changes the game so drastically, teams that utilize the white bridge will find themselves without the boost they need to get them to where they want to be.

I vehemently disagree.

All these changes do is alter the method that teams are ranked at the end of the qualification matches. Scoring for the Elimination matches are exactly the same as they have been for the entire season. I would contend that we (the IRI committee) changed this game less than previous seasons. Point values in the finals are the same. Hybrid mode values are the same. No rules regarding robot interaction have changed. The only thing that has changed is that we removed a method for ranking that was a robot task that was not ever used in the finals.

Andy B.

JohnSchneider

25-06-2012, 12:06

During this years game, if I had a robot that consistently scored 180 points, I would win all my matches but there is no guarantee that I would be the #1 alliance captain.

At IRI, if I have a robot that consistently scores 180 points, I will (probably) win all my matches and I will (probably) be the #1 alliance captain. I don't have to rely on my opponents for my ranking.

But we've seen the robots and what theyre capable of. We know no one scores 180 points. Most robots at IRI will score similarly, and so we'll see matches determined by the end game (As if thats something new...). But our end game isn't really fair anymore.

we shall see how it pans out though...Hopefully we'll have several overzealous wide robots...

lemiant

25-06-2012, 12:10

How exactly did all you long bots who feel screwed plan on playing in elims?

BJC

25-06-2012, 12:11

And the point of IRI is to eliminate that as best as possible.

And I fail to see how you are 'in control of your ranking'. when you arent even allowed to play the full game...

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your post but you are most defiantly more in control of your final rank now than when co-op points make up half of your ranking points. There are two scenarios:

1: With the system that we have been playing with all season half of one’s ranking points were directly determined by how good your opponents were at balancing on the co-op bridge. This meant that no matter how good you were, you could still loose valuable ranking points if your opponent could not balance the bridge with you. So, even if you have the best robot in the world, if none of your opponents are able to balance the co-op bridge with you then you are not ranked first.

2: Now all of your ranking points are determined by how good YOU are at playing the game. If you win, you move up. If you win all your matches and have a high hybrid score you’re in first place. While your partners have a great deal of impact on one’s likelihood of winning the respective match the fact remains that if your robot is better than all three of the opponent’s robots combined it doesn’t matter who your partners are, you will win. So, while you don’t have control over your partners or opponents, every team has control over how good their robot is at playing the game and every team had the opportunity during the build season to build a robot that could beat any other combination of three robots.

/Snip

I don't know how much weight my argument will hold, since I'm only going to be a spectator this year, but speaking only for myself if this rule holds up I'm glad our team isn't going to IRI because we would have very little chance.

The point of qualifications is to see who is the best. If the system worked perfectly the best 8 robots would be 1-8 every time. The Co-op bridge allowed an avenue for teams who were not the best to seed higher than teams who were better than them. Some people liked it because the powerhouse teams didn't always seed 1-8. You say your team would have no chance if they went to IRI without the co-op bridge. That may be true with your current robot, however, every team has the opportunity right now to work on their robot to their heart's content. If your team was going there would be nothing stopping you from making your robot more competitve so that you could rank higher.

Of course, these are only my opinions. Feel free to disagree with me, its certainly an interesting topic with several points of view.

Regards, Bryan

Tetraman

25-06-2012, 12:15

I don't know exactly how to put into words how that change feels to me. It's almost catering to a certain robot design and leaving every other robot out there that has won events in the traditional game out in the cold because they didn't design their robot perfectly enough to play IRI.

If these rules were in place at the beginning of the FIRST season, you'd find very few long-bots at all, since being able to balance 3 robots at any time is worthwhile enough to design a small robot from the get-go. Additionally, you'd find fewer teams that go for only the 2-point basket, as that 1 point less each score isn't worth it when obtaining the maximum score is so critical.

There is only one reason I would like to think this change was made for, determining for the GDC whether or not the Coopertition points would make a difference. If that's the reason I say go for it. But otherwise it looks like the only way to make top 8 is to go undefeated, which even in the event where "the best teams should win" doesn't stack up, as FIRST has always been "The best alliance should win".

What ever happened to the Money Ball? It was a very well received component.

I vehemently disagree.

All these changes do is alter the method that teams are ranked at the end of the qualification matches. Scoring for the Elimination matches are exactly the same as they have been for the entire season. I would contend that we (the IRI committee) changed this game less than previous seasons. Point values in the finals are the same. Hybrid mode values are the same. No rules regarding robot interaction have changed. The only thing that has changed is that we removed a method for ranking that was a robot task that was not ever used in the finals.

Andy B.

The problem is that teams are given randomly generated allies in qualifying rather than in elimination matches where having the right alliance is something a team can build. If Team 0000 is forced into battle with two teams that are unable to complete at an even higher standard than normal, yes Team 0000 can move on to their next match and are still allive in the competition, but their hopes of being a seeded team are done and over in just one loss. With Co-op points, there is the opportunity, granted not much but still the opportunity, that they can bounce back and make top 8.

The point of qualifications is to see who is the best. If the system worked perfectly the best 8 robots would be 1-8 every time. The Co-op bridge allowed an avenue for teams who were not the best to seed higher than teams who were better than them. Some people liked it because the powerhouse teams didn't always seed 1-8. You say your team would have no chance if they went to IRI without the co-op bridge. That may be true with your current robot, however, every team has the opportunity right now to work on their robot to their heart's content. If your team was going there would be nothing stopping you from making your robot more competitve so that you could rank higher.

Of course, these are only my opinions. Feel free to disagree with me, its certainly an interesting topic with several points of view.

I'd argue that the point of qualifications is not to see who is best. Elimination matches are to see who is best. The point of qualification matches is to earn seeding points and be ranked based on your robot's and your ever changing alliance's results. Why are we punishing teams that can make it to a top 8 but are just inferior against the other robotics teams? You have every right to turn a team down - it's part of the competition and we saw it a lot this year as "lower" power teams are passed up because other alliance captians bet their skills can be utilized on their own with their own alliance rather than with them. Again, why punish teams that can make it to a top 8? Is it just because they aren't "good enough"?

And yes, you are very right that our team can make any and all tweaks we want to better our robot and ensure a higher competition robot - that doesn't mean the finished product will be that way, or that we would have the money and resources to pull it off, or time allowed by our school to use the shop facilities during the summer.

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 12:37

How exactly did all you long bots who feel screwed plan on playing in elims?

"all you long bots" - the robot class thing that is setting up here is kinda interesting. Longs. Wides. Etc. But I digress.

Let's separate the removal of the co-op bridge into a different discussion and focus solely on Rule Change #3. That is my primary concern with these changes.

In the elims, a Long alliance captain has the right to CHOOSE an alliance that is triple-compatible with them. 4334 was chosen by two Longs on Archimedes for a singular, extremely well executed purpose. Of course, a longbot has to earn an alliance captain spot before being granted this privilege. I believe that has just become much, much harder for Longs to accomplish at IRI, given how quickly devastating a triple can be to a match outcome, and given the fact that Wide bots have a statistical advantage in being paired with two other triple compatible bots. Some wides can triple with 2 longs. Many can do 1 long/1 wide, and of course, most all can triple with 2 wides - the last case being almost trivially easy to accomplish relative to the other configurations. Longs cannot realistically triple with 2 longs, and given that 47%-ish of the robots at the event are going to be longs, you are going to see quite a few long/long/long alliances during qualifying. No Long alliance captain in their right mind would assemble such a group in the elims (would they?). They will have no choice during qualifying.

No one can choose who we will be paired with in qualifying. Making a previously elimination-only gameplay element legal in qualifying - one that is so critically dependent on the physical configurations of the three randomly-paired partners - almost guarantees that more of those in the Long class are going to experience pain relative to the Wides in the rankings. THAT is the key issue, in my mind. We all want to be alliance captains, right? We all wish to have some modicum of control over our elimination destiny, right?

If a new rule makes it more likely that a Wide with similar basket scoring ability to a Long is going to advance higher than the Long in the standings, I cannot see how anyone can view that as a legitimately fair situation.

Akash Rastogi

25-06-2012, 12:49

No one can choose who we will be paired with in qualifying. Making a previously elimination-only gameplay element legal in qualifying - one that is so critically dependent on the physical configurations of the three randomly-paired partners - almost guarantees that more of those in the Long class are going to experience pain relative to the Wides in the rankings. THAT is the key issue, in my mind. We all want to be alliance captains, right? We all wish to have some modicum of control over our elimination destiny, right?

I can see what Travis means here.

Andy, when you say "All these changes do is alter the method that teams are ranked at the end of the qualification matches."

I read that as a "all it merely does," but long bots at IRI will need to be top 8 seed to get the alliance they want to win because teams will want a triple balance alliance for elims and more than likely may not pick a long bot.

Just like any other competition, your fair chance of being top 8 is cut down, and as we all know, top 8 is the only way to secure a spot in elims and with the teams you want.

I believe the ruling was first made to act as a handicap for teams who had built a long bot and so that they wouldn't be highly disadvantaged in qualifications, but if this is taken away, it is sort of like shooting a long bot in the foot (the wheel?) and makes it that much harder for them to control what happens to them once alliance selection rolls around. These are teams who walk into an event and think "alright so if I can seed high enough, I can probably pick an alliance to triple with in elims."

Sorry for the possibly incoherent response, I've got the flu! I just felt that Travis needed to be backed up here a bit.

+$0.02

pfreivald

25-06-2012, 12:53

I agree with Travis. Robots are designed not just to "win the game" but to play the system of seeding followed by an eliminations tournament. There is a fundamental difference between designing a robot to *nail* a two-robot balance and designing one to triple-balance with the right partners. Changing a rule that directly favors one type of robot build over others for seeding purposes is, IMO, unreasonable.

(Note that I have nothing personally vested in this -- we're not going to IRI.)

Duke461

25-06-2012, 13:00

Proposal:

Just as you ask the CD Community for rule modifications and suggestions, perhaps, upon completing a tentative/finalized list of rule changes, you could present those rule changes in a thread?

In other words, this thread would now become "IRI Tentative Rules Changes-2012-Open Forum"

I completely understand that there is a committee of sorts in place to handle and make these rule changes to the best of their abilities, but you're not in a situation like FIRST's GDC where you have to keep everything a secret—we already know the game and we have already made our robots. Your rule changes won't, or at least shouldn't, affect our game designs. IRI is simply meant to improve the quality of the match, not the committee's subjectively desired quality in terms of robot design.

I'm not asking you to hand over the decisions to us, or to allow us to vote in a poll. I'm simply requesting you rewrite the original post like so:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The rule changes / refinements for the 2012 IRI are pretty simple.

1. +5 pounds allowed. Honor system, unless the referees question you.

2. No Co-Op points. Ranking based on win-loss and the existing tie-breakers.

3. Alliances may balance 3 on their alliance bridge during qualifications. Three robots balanced is worth 40 points.

All other rules will be per the 2012 FRC rules as interpreted by the referee crew.

The CD Community may now proceed in a moderated, mature, and rational open forum discussion regarding the tentative rules. In no way is the GDC of IRI required to listen to or follow the suggestions/concerns posted below. However, we will do our best to rationally look through each post, and if deemed mature, rational, and well written, we will consider a discussion for further modification of the rule(s). In roughly a week, we will post a finalized rule update to IRI, which may or may not be affected by the posts on this thread. Remember, just because your rule suggestion/complaint is not adhered to, that does not mean we did not take it into consideration or discussion. We try our best to make IRI the best competition possible, and nothing less. None of our decisions are an attempt to thwart certain robots or certain teams. With this being said, please proceed to post any concerns you have.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just my thoughts.
-Duke

Clinton Bolinger

25-06-2012, 13:11

DampRobot

25-06-2012, 13:12

I'll be very interested to see what comes of the elimination of coop points. I always felt like they just added too much noise that tended to mask what teams were really playing the game well.

jblay

25-06-2012, 13:18

I'm interested to see if some long robots will become triple balance defense specialists, I suspect many teams that realize that they wont be able to triple balance in most alliance setups will start practicing blocking the triple balance for the qualification rounds.....These matches are going to be awesome.

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 13:20

Personally, I think that if you make a robot(s) on the co-op bridge be worth 10 points during the qualification rounds it would be a good compromise.

That way the triple balance only gives you a 10 point advantage for completing it.

-Clinton-

Oh the carnage that would take place at that bridge....tipping of bots already on the bridge, etc. But a test of bridge tender might would be fun - kinda like arm wrestling. :)

Here's a thought - do what you said, but only allow one and only one robot up on the co-op for 10. Here's the kicker - first one up and balanced gets the 10 points, but they have to STAY there the remainder of the match. Tipping the bridge once this balance is completed is a tech foul, as is leaving the bridge once balanced.

If one alliance goes for the triple, the other is free and clear to get the center bridge, while his partners can keep scoring and double late to try and negate the triple. If both alliances say forget the triple, they can contest for the center bridge, but he who gets there first, wins.

M. Mellott

25-06-2012, 13:25

I too am opposed to this change. The Rules Update section of the IRI website states they would consider "minor rule changes...but not make a change that will encourage teams to alter their robot", then turn around and do the exact opposite?!?

I understand there will always be rule changes at IRI, but it looks like teams with long-bots are being "encouraged" to take a look at robot modifications instead of running what got us invited to IRI in the first place.

D.Allred

25-06-2012, 13:30

[QUOTE=Travis Hoffman;1175271 No Long alliance captain in their right mind would assemble such a group in the elims (would they?). QUOTE]

Great question. You'll have to ask 987, the Curie champions.

Travis, I agree with your point in principle since qualification pairings of 3 longs eliminates the 40 point choice. However, that doesn't mean the 3 other randomly paired robots will be successful with a triple.

As a fan of the game, I am wanting to see a shooting alliance out gun a triple balance alliance.

Bjenks548

25-06-2012, 13:30

I see 3 ways 3 longs can triple balance...
1) The center robot gets pushed up sideways
2) 3 robots in long configuration
3 (the fun one)) Robot 1 balances the bridge and turns 90. Robot 2 pulls the bridge down to their side and climbs on. Robot 2 uses a stinger to level out the bridge. Robot 3 from the other side lowers the bridge and climbs on.

Needs:
1) 1 robot with low traction and 1 with high torque
2) 2 robots that can hang very, very, very far off (averaging 19" on the bridge assuming the center one is max and bumpers are not stacking)
3)1 robot with a stinger and 1 robot with a very powerfull bridge lowering device

548 also has a trick that we never used in the season, but I might get to pull out if we can't do any of these 3...

Not saying I like these rules, but they're not going to change so make the best of them!

JaneYoung

25-06-2012, 13:32

I understand there will always be rule changes at IRI, but it looks like teams with long-bots are being "encouraged" to take a look at robot modifications instead of running what got us invited to IRI in the first place.

Or.. deal with the consequences.

Jane

Joe Ross

25-06-2012, 13:33

I simulated a match schedule for IRI, using the team list and robot stats from this post (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1175109&postcount=184). There are 34 long robots, 31 wide robots, 2 Mecanum robots, 4 Swerve robots, and 2 Square robots. I assume that a triple balance can occur if there are no more then 1 Long robot on an alliance (although there have been notable exceptions, I think this is a safe assumption for randomly selection qualification matches). I did not try to look at stingers or overhang, as the data is less reliable

There were 110 alliances where a triple balance is possible and 86 where it is not. I then looked at two long robots and two wide robots who's members participated in this thread. I looked at whether or not that team's alliance could triple, as well as what the opponent could do, and whether that put the team at an advantage or disadvantage).

Team NoTriple Triple Adv DA Neutral
48 (long) 4 4 2 1 5
234 (wide) 2 6 2 2 4
744 (long) 5 3 1 4 3
3940 (wide) 2 6 2 1 5

Here's the raw data in case someone wants to expand the analysis

Match Red 1 Red 2 Red 3 Blue 1 Blue 2 Blue 3
1 3947 781 3193 1538 829 2590 Long Long Long vs Long Wide Wide
2 2949 3138 868 27 1741 68 Wide Long Square vs Long Mecanum Wide
3 340 1676 48 772 1718 2168 Long Long Long vs Long Wide Long
4 3310 67 269 71 1592 341 Long Wide wide vs Swerve Wide Wide
5 1023 118 1732 192 461 973 Wide Wide Wide vs Long Long Swerve
6 33 359 744 25 330 2194 Wide Long Long vs Long Long Wide
7 125 624 2826 3098 3357 1730 Long long Long vs Wide Wide Wide
8 379 1902 1714 573 3322 1640 Long Long Wide vs Long Wide Swerve
9 907 148 503 16 2614 447 Wide Wide Mecanum vs Swerve Long Long
10 2056 217 2054 245 469 51 Long Long Long vs Wide Square Wide
11 233 234 1024 399 3940 2337 Long Wide Wide vs Wide Wide Long
12 45 4334 292 2834 111 1114 Wide Wide wide vs Wide Long Long
13 269 868 2826 548 33 973 wide Square Long vs Long Wide Swerve
14 1592 3310 25 1902 461 1718 Wide Long Long vs Long Long Wide
15 3138 1538 573 2194 3357 1732 Long Long Long vs Wide Wide Wide
16 781 1741 503 772 1023 379 Long Mecanum Mecanum vs Long Wide Long
17 1640 48 1730 341 217 359 Swerve Long Wide vs Wide Long Long
18 292 2168 71 2337 3322 2614 wide Long Swerve vs Long Wide Long
19 829 68 233 340 2054 624 Wide Wide Long vs Long Long long
20 2949 2590 447 245 111 3940 Wide Wide Long vs Wide Long Wide
21 2056 118 744 1676 2834 907 Long Wide Long vs Long Wide Wide
22 4334 234 16 27 3193 469 Wide Wide Swerve vs Long Long Square
23 3947 1714 330 67 3098 45 Long Wide Long vs Wide Wide Wide
24 548 148 192 125 399 1114 Long Wide Long vs Long Wide Long
25 51 379 2614 1024 68 461 Wide Long Long vs Wide Wide Long
26 781 3940 2054 359 1592 973 Long Wide Long vs Long Wide Swerve
27 1902 1730 71 2056 233 111 Long Wide Swerve vs Long Long Long
28 292 3357 469 118 1718 829 wide Wide Square vs Wide Wide Wide
29 3193 3098 1732 868 503 25 Long Wide Wide vs Square Mecanum Long
30 245 1538 16 125 1676 330 Wide Long Swerve vs Long Long Long
31 1640 192 45 340 744 2949 Swerve Long Wide vs Long Long Wide
32 1741 234 48 1714 33 2834 Mecanum Wide Long vs Wide Wide Wide
33 3310 3138 624 3322 148 2590 Long Long long vs Wide Wide Wide
34 27 2168 217 548 67 1024 Long Long Long vs Long Wide Wide
35 399 447 341 2826 4334 1023 Wide Long Wide vs Long Wide Wide
36 2337 3947 907 2194 1114 51 Long Long Wide vs Wide Long Wide
37 772 573 125 269 2949 2056 Long Long Long vs wide Wide Long
38 118 2614 359 340 1714 868 Wide Long Long vs Long Wide Square
39 33 2054 71 16 3138 1718 Wide Long Swerve vs Swerve Long Wide
40 469 233 1640 3310 2834 3098 Square Long Swerve vs Long Wide Wide
41 1592 1741 1538 48 624 4334 Wide Mecanum Long vs Long long Wide
42 25 973 27 45 447 829 Long Swerve Long vs Wide Long Wide
43 2194 1024 245 292 148 781 Wide Wide Wide vs wide Wide Long
44 3322 1023 548 573 1730 3947 Wide Wide Long vs Long Wide Long
45 269 2337 2590 379 192 1732 wide Long Wide vs Long Long Wide
46 67 3357 68 503 1114 1676 Wide Wide Wide vs Mecanum Long Long
47 330 772 217 2826 461 3940 Long Long Long vs Long Long Wide
48 111 399 51 3193 744 2168 Long Wide Wide vs Long Long Long
49 341 907 868 1902 234 624 Wide Wide Square vs Long Wide long
50 1640 4334 1718 3947 1024 118 Swerve Wide Wide vs Long Wide Wide
51 48 3098 192 2056 2614 829 Long Wide Long vs Long Long Wide
52 2194 447 2054 379 125 3310 Wide Long Long vs Long Long Long
53 461 1676 27 359 148 573 Long Long Long vs Long Wide Long
54 3322 781 217 744 1732 16 Wide Long Long vs Long Wide Swerve
55 973 2168 68 2834 1538 1730 Swerve Long Wide vs Wide Long Wide
56 340 111 1023 2337 67 33 Long Long Wide vs Long Wide Wide
57 1592 503 2949 2826 234 51 Wide Mecanum Wide vs Long Wide Wide
58 292 772 548 3193 233 341 wide Long Long vs Long Long Wide
59 45 71 3940 3357 1741 907 Wide Swerve Wide vs Wide Mecanum Wide
60 269 399 1714 3138 245 25 wide Wide Wide vs Long Wide Long
61 1902 1114 2590 469 330 2168 Long Long Wide vs Square Long Long
62 2194 868 2056 16 1640 67 Wide Square Long vs Swerve Swerve Wide
63 1718 111 3098 148 234 217 Wide Long Wide vs Wide Wide Long
64 461 2834 548 2054 2949 2337 Long Wide Long vs Long Wide Long
65 292 340 973 503 573 3310 wide Long Swerve vs Mecanum Long Long
66 3947 624 379 399 71 359 Long long Long vs Wide Swerve Long
67 3357 48 269 27 781 330 Wide Long wide vs Long Long Long
68 1114 447 1732 233 1592 33 Long Long Wide vs Long Wide Wide
69 1676 192 3322 2826 1741 1024 Long Long Wide vs Long Mecanum Wide
70 125 2590 907 68 1023 25 Long Wide Wide vs Wide Wide Long
71 3193 118 45 2614 245 1730 Long Wide Wide vs Long Wide Wide
72 3138 1902 829 4334 51 772 Long Long Wide vs Wide Wide Long
73 341 744 3940 1714 1538 469 Wide Long Wide vs Wide Long Square
74 399 2194 2834 27 1718 503 Wide Wide Wide vs Long Wide Mecanum
75 67 233 3322 973 2949 48 Wide Long Wide vs Swerve Wide Long
76 111 25 1676 781 624 548 Long Long Long vs Long long Long
77 359 3357 1024 1023 3310 3193 Long Wide Wide vs Wide Long Long
78 16 51 3098 573 118 269 Swerve Wide Wide vs Long Wide wide
79 2614 217 1741 125 3947 1902 Long Long Mecanum vs Long Long Long
80 461 341 33 45 2590 2056 Long Wide Wide vs Wide Wide Long
81 3940 1730 330 292 192 3138 Wide Wide Long vs wide Long Long
82 148 744 829 1592 868 2337 Wide Long Wide vs Wide Square Long
83 4334 1732 2054 1714 2168 907 Wide Wide Long vs Wide Long Wide
84 1538 379 2826 1114 340 245 Long Long Long vs Long Long Wide
85 71 1640 234 68 772 447 Swerve Swerve Wide vs Wide Long Long
86 469 573 2614 399 67 781 Square Long Long vs Wide Wide Long
87 118 125 111 503 48 3138 Wide Long Long vs Mecanum Long Long
88 2590 359 1718 548 51 1741 Wide Long Wide vs Long Wide Mecanum
89 1902 1023 744 2054 3098 292 Long Wide Long vs Long Wide wide
90 245 2168 3947 461 233 868 Wide Long Long vs Long Long Square
91 973 4334 330 2056 234 379 Swerve Wide Long vs Long Wide Long
92 2194 829 2949 217 1676 71 Wide Wide Wide vs Long Long Swerve
93 16 1024 1730 1592 772 1714 Swerve Wide Wide vs Wide Long Wide
94 3193 1114 624 3940 1640 269 Long Long long vs Wide Swerve wide
95 33 192 3310 27 907 1538 Wide Long Long vs Long Wide Long
96 148 2826 68 1732 45 469 Wide Long Wide vs Wide Wide Square
97 340 2834 25 3357 341 3322 Long Wide Long vs Wide Wide Wide
98 2337 781 1902 447 359 2056 Long Long Long vs Long Long Long

Joon Park

25-06-2012, 13:34

Personally, having been on a team that used Co-op Bridges to place well during qualifications, I'm not a big fan of the fact that they are no longer valid. I've always thought that FIRST did a great job this year with Co-op points and integrated coopertition into the game as was never done before. The unpredictability of the seeding was a very exciting aspect of Rebound Rumble, and I believe it was largely due to the coopertition points.

That said, I do see the rationale of wanting more triple balances to occur (hence the rule change to allow it during quals). Yes, I certainly do think allowing triple balance during quals is a great idea. However, I don't think the coopertition points should be discontinued.

Hence, my ideal rule change would be allowing triple balance during quals and still keeping coopertition.

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 13:39

Grim Tuesday

25-06-2012, 13:43

I have to say, I'm very disappointed with these rule changes, specifically number two. Whether people like it or not, the Co-Op bridges are an integral part of Rebound Rumble. I can see the argument that changing the bridges amounts to no more than the change in Minibots last year. However, there is one fundamental difference.

When changing over the minibots last year, that was in in-game change. Nothing changed but the scoring. Removing the Co-Op bridge changes the rankings and changes how robots should accomplish the same task. With the minibot change, it was still advantageous to have the fastest minibot. With the bridge change, the task has changed from double balancing reliably to triple balancing every match, and as many have pointed out, this negatively affects a demographic of robots.

When we are given the challenge at the beginning of the season, we have to consider all the factors. The Coopertition bridge and associated ranking points were part of that challenge and if a team didn't plan for them, they were punished

I don't see how this change reduces chance in the tournament--I feel that it increases it greatly. The match schedule and what robots you are paired with are out of your hands. That is a given. With the Coopertition bridge in place, you always took two robots and balanced them on the bridge. At IRI, this would have been a given, since in any matchup, there are surely two robots who could do this. This is a bit boring, but it is fair. In the new system, you are thrown in with teams who may or may not be able to triple balance. In alliance selection, this is a careful selection process. Now it is thrown to chance. There is little doubt in my mind that in any given game, the two alliances will have different abilities to triple balance thus making chance a greater factor in the game than before.

As an experiment, this has merit. I'm sure many (including the myself) have wondered what Rebound Rumble would be like without the Coopertition bridge.

It will no doubt make the games more fun to watch, but at what cost? The game being played at IRI will not be Rebound Rumble.

efoote868

25-06-2012, 13:59

But we've seen the robots and what theyre capable of. We know no one scores 180 points. Most robots at IRI will score similarly, and so we'll see matches determined by the end game (As if thats something new...). But our end game isn't really fair anymore.

we shall see how it pans out though...Hopefully we'll have several overzealous wide robots...

Substituted 180 with some other arbitrarily high number.

D.Allred

25-06-2012, 14:09

[QUOTE=D.Allred;1175283]

I would, but they won't be at IRI. ;) We always knew they were kinda crazy out there. :)

Oops. I made a mistake. The Pink Team was captain. 987 was their first pick with 207 on defense. In either case, it was a great shoot out!

BJC

25-06-2012, 14:12

I'd argue that the point of qualifications is not to see who is best. Elimination matches are to see who is best. The point of qualification matches is to earn seeding points and be ranked based on your robot's and your ever changing alliance's results. Why are we punishing teams that can make it to a top 8 but are just inferior against the other robotics teams? You have every right to turn a team down - it's part of the competition and we saw it a lot this year as "lower" power teams are passed up because other alliance captians bet their skills can be utilized on their own with their own alliance rather than with them. Again, why punish teams that can make it to a top 8? Is it just because they aren't "good enough"?

And yes, you are very right that our team can make any and all tweaks we want to better our robot and ensure a higher competition robot - that doesn't mean the finished product will be that way, or that we would have the money and resources to pull it off, or time allowed by our school to use the shop facilities during the summer.

I would argue that the entire competition (hence the name) is about winning. That begins with your first qualification match and hopefully ends in the finals. Because statistically 70% of #1 seeded alliances win their respective competitions everyone is trying to get there. This is where I lost you, I don’t really understand how eliminating noise in the qualification system is punishing anyone. If you could better articulate yourself on this point I would appreciate it.

I don’t really want to get into the already widely discussed topic of money and resources in this thread when it has been discussed so many times before. All it really comes down to is hard work. I’ll provide an example and leave it at that. In 2010, team 33 lost its primary sponsor in the Chrysler Foundation when they filed for bankruptcy. That summer our team contacted many companies providing letters, robot demonstrations, and presentations on how their money impacts our students. Everyone worked together, including the parents, to make sure that we would have the money to compete at the level we normally do. We acquired over 10 new sponsors which more than covered the absence of Chrysler. Any team is capable of doing that if they have the drive.

-------
Oh, and because the topic of conversation seems to have shifted towards triple balancing in qualifications. I have to say that I agree that it is not a good rule modification. While the rule does not greatly affect my team I know I would be upset if I built a long robot and this change was made. So while I understand if the rule stays, I hope that a solution can be agreed upon that does not so heavily disadvantage long robots.

Regards, Bryan

Holtzman

25-06-2012, 14:27

Cory

25-06-2012, 15:00

[QUOTE=Travis Hoffman;1175289]

Oops. I made a mistake. The Pink Team was captain. 987 was their first pick with 207 on defense. In either case, it was a great shoot out!

Unrelated scenario anyways. They had no choice. 233 would have been stupid to pass up 987. Neither of them had a dingus and therefore were never going to triple even if they had picked a wide bot.

Normally you have more control over constructing an alliance that can triple balance.

LeelandS

25-06-2012, 15:01

I'm a little hesitant to jump in here, since I'm not competing at IRI this year, but here's my two cents.

I don't quite understand where all the complaining in coming from.

On the point of removing coopertition points, coop points were just a method of ranking. I don't see them as an integral part of the game, ESPECIALLY at the level of play IRI will exhibit. Let's be honest. At least 90% of matches would have had a coop anyway. Having the coop points would have crucified the handful of unlucky teams who missed out. The coop bridge did add an element of strategy that I rather enjoyed, but I don't see it as a huge loss for the game.

For the triple balance in qualifications, I actually really like that. I didn't see the point in not giving a triple bonus in qualification matches, so I like this change. Many people that are complaining about this are teams that don't have confidence that their ability to compete with this in play. Tyler hit the nail on the head. I hate to be so course, but if you don't think you can triple balance, I strongly suggest you find a way to win without triple balancing. It's not "favor towards one type of robot." It's an element of the game that has always existed, and is now being expanded. Like Tyler said, 2056 is going to put in a bajillion balls in those last 30 seconds of play, undefended with 18 balls to work with. You need a lead of 21 points with a double balance to cancel out the triple. That's 7 balls in the high hoop, if the alliances are relatively even in scoring (otherwise, you'd just get hosed down anyway and lose to a wash of doubles). That's definitely doable for a large majority of the teams at IRI.

If you're worried about these things, I suggest you stop worrying about the rules, and start working on how you're going to turn them in your favor.

jblay

25-06-2012, 15:04

Unrelated scenario anyways. They had no choice. 233 would have been stupid to pass up 987. Neither of them had a dingus and therefore were never going to triple even if they had picked a wide bot.

Normally you have more control over constructing an alliance that can triple balance.

To be fair, 233 could have gone with 1986 but I thought at the time they made the right call and the elimination rounds showed that they did.

Tristan Lall

25-06-2012, 15:20

On the point of removing coopertition points, coop points were just a method of ranking. I don't see them as an integral part of the game, ESPECIALLY at the level of play IRI will exhibit. Let's be honest. At least 90% of matches would have had a coop anyway. Having the coop points would have crucified the handful of unlucky teams who missed out. The coop bridge did add an element of strategy that I rather enjoyed, but I don't see it as a huge loss for the game.
As FIRST constructed the game, the co-opertition points were part of the method for earning your ranking (and the associated privileges of picking, etc.). I think it's fair to say that most teams optimized their robots to seed high under the original rules—and for many of those, that involved taking advantage of the middle bridge to succeed in qualifications.

Where once there was a qualification game and a distinct elimination game, the IRI rule changes basically amount to playing the elimination game all the time. I'd say that for some teams, that will be a big deal, and that for a select few, it won't matter. That changes the implicit balance of power and gives the strategists something different to think about and the builders something new to build. Was it the intention of the IRI committee to give the teams a new challenge with a short implementation window? If so, they succeeded. (Of course, with FRC, you're told in advance that this is going to happen...with IRI, it seems to have taken us by surprise.)

I don't think I'd have made such a big a change to the way the competition works, but since I don't have a robot there, I'm merely interested to see what happens.

Tetraman

25-06-2012, 15:27

I would argue that the entire competition (hence the name) is about winning. That begins with your first qualification match and hopefully ends in the finals. Because statistically 70% of #1 seeded alliances win their respective competitions everyone is trying to get there. This is where I lost you, I don’t really understand how eliminating noise in the qualification system is punishing anyone. If you could better articulate yourself on this point I would appreciate it.

Team 0000 is not a good team with a subpar robot. It shoots good 3s and balances great, but lets pretend it's actually 20th in actual standings. Yet throughout qualifications this team was able to scrape up a ton of co-op points and make it to 3rd seed. The only reason this team was able to make it to the 3rd seed was due to the co-op points. And because team 0000 made it to 3rd seed using the rules of the game, they have the right to pick their alliance like all the other powerhouse teams that rocked the event.

So the question is, is having this subpar team 0000 in 3rd seed a mistake? Would having this team as 3rd seed be ruining the statement that "Only the best teams at the regional should be seeded"?

No. Using the rules of the game this team was able to make it to 3rd seed. Other seeded teams will refuse this 3rd seed left and right, as no one believes (or knows) that they can ever stand a chance winning with this 3rd seeded team, but still even after 4th-8th reject them they still get the right to pick yet again until they form an alliance to compete in the elimination matches.

This is my point - by removing the co-op points you alienate a group of robots who were able to reach a top seed because of those points. In effect, you are punishing those subpar teams from having the luck to gather points and end up in the top seed all for the sake of maintaining an ethos that "only the best robots at the event should be a top seeded team."

Granted the best robots at the event should be top seed, but in the same way one team maintained a top seed by scoring an amazing amount of points (as part of the game) another robot should be allowed to place top seed because of their skill with wrangling up enough co-op points (as part of the game).

I don’t really want to get into the already widely discussed topic of money and resources in this thread when it has been discussed so many times before. All it really comes down to is hard work. I’ll provide an example and leave it at that.

Thats great. Our team does that too with mixed and minimal results. I's just how it ends up. Any chance you could PM me some of your team's pointers and tips for getting in contact with area business, how to get more parents involved and making presentations, as well as all other sorts of info like that? We could use some new directions to take if your team can do it and we can't measure up.

akoscielski3

25-06-2012, 15:29

I am a little worried because we are long. but like Holtzman said, you wont have defense during the time they are trying to triple, that will give you the possibility to score more. Since we have our time to score a lot lower than ever we should be getting atleast 20 points in those 40 seconds.

I dont mind the rule changes, but i would have chosen rule #2 or #3. not both.
I dont think that this will change the rankings as much as people are thinking.

LeelandS

25-06-2012, 15:32

As FIRST constructed the game, the co-opertition points were part of the method for earning your ranking (and the associated privileges of picking, etc.). I think it's fair to say that most teams optimized their robots to seed high under the original rules—and for many of those, that involved taking advantage of the middle bridge to succeed in qualifications.

Where once there was a qualification game and a distinct elimination game, the IRI rule changes basically amount to playing the elimination game all the time. I'd say that for some teams, that will be a big deal, and that for a select few, it won't matter. That changes the implicit balance of power and gives the strategists something different to think about and the builders something new to build. Was it the intention of the IRI committee to give the teams a new challenge with a short implementation window? If so, they succeeded. (Of course, with FRC, you're told in advance that this is going to happen...with IRI, it seems to have taken us by surprise.)

I don't think I'd have made such a big a change to the way the competition works, but since I don't have a robot there, I'm merely interested to see what happens.

I definitely understand why changing the coop points can be major. And were this any other competition, I would agree. But what I'm trying to say is, having the coop bridge in play would be less of a reward for the teams that do it, and more of a punishment for the teams that don't.

When considering the quality of teams going to IRI, I have no doubt that a coop would be attempted every match. And at least 90% of the time, it will work. But for that 10% who couldn't get it right for whatever reason (malfunction, bad luck, etc.) it will be a crippling factor in ranking. Thus, the majority of teams who successfully coop will have an inherent advantage over those that didn't right off the bat. Even if it's just a single failed coop balance, it could cripple a team who otherwise won every match and cooped.

Andrew Lawrence

25-06-2012, 15:35

I always thought the coop points added an interesting aspect to the game. In Tetraman's scenario, Team 0000 got seeded high for cooperating every match. And of course, people are complaining that team 000 should never had gotten the third seed. The problem I see, is teams who are complaining don't coop themselves sometimes, or don't make it their priority. If the "top teams" cooped each time and won the matches they normally would, then the top 8 would consist of the best robots fit to be in it. FIRST added coopertition to the seeding this year, and those who didn't play to it payed the price.

In a game where every "good" robot coops, there would be no confusion over why someone is in the top 8 when they shouldn't.

Siri

25-06-2012, 15:41

Tyler hit the nail on the head. I hate to be so course, but if you don't think you can triple balance, I strongly suggest you find a way to win without triple balancing. It's not "favor towards one type of robot." It's an element of the game that has always existed, and is now being expanded.I haven't formulated a value judgement on Rule 3 yet, but I disagree that it's always been a element of the game. Ok, maybe the element was, but the molecule wasn't. Triple balancing with one alliance of your selection (or gracious acceptance) has always been a element molecule of the game. Triple balancing with 8 (8, right?) random alliances was not. By my view, 1 by selection to 8 by random is not an expansion, it's an inherently different thing. In fact, they're inherently different strategic design issues.

That's not to say I disagree triple balancing with 8 randomly assigned alliances will likely be harder for everyone--even those geometrically/CoG capable of accomplishing it. Nor do I disagree that many teams there, long and wide, are quite capable of doing amazing things on offense during that time. I'm not sure I consider this change a "slight tweak", though.

As confirmation, does the lack of relevant comment mean that the refs will call triple balance defense the same way it was at Worlds?

AdamHeard

25-06-2012, 16:15

People keep mentioning the mediocre yet solid team that seeds high via the co-op bridge and how this change will unfairly punish them, I disagree with this point.

Lets assume normal FRC 2012 rules for IRI, then it would likely have the highest percentage of successful co-ops of any event, meaning win-loss would ultimately be the tie breaker.

The robots that had the strategy of focusing on co-op and merely being capable in other aspects of the game would actually likely do very poorly at IRI as aren't contributing much point value to the rest of the match. All year we've heard "cooperating is just as important as winning", at IRI it would have been "winning is just as important as cooperating".

What people have more credibility in being upset in is the triples being allowed in qualifying matches, but even that I don't think is something to be upset with.

It is going to be HARD to triple with a random qualifying alliance of robots that all have the physical capability to do so, so the success rate there would likely be lower than in elims. In elims teams were able to do it quicker due to better planning and repeated practice, in quals more time must be taken to perform the triple; as Tyler on 2056 already said, that is a LARGE amount of time for a competent scorer (which most random qualifying alliances at IRI will have) to score completely undefended with access to every ball on the field.

For any team that had a shot of leading an alliance to victory as a captain at IRI (keeping in mind that it's incredibly unlikely for a sub-par captain to win over the better alliances at IRI), their seeding will be mostly unaffected.

LeelandS

25-06-2012, 16:16

I haven't formulated a value judgement on Rule 3 yet, but I disagree that it's always been a element of the game. Ok, maybe the element was, but the molecule wasn't. Triple balancing with one alliance of your selection (or gracious acceptance) has always been a element molecule of the game. Triple balancing with 8 (8, right?) random alliances was not. By my view, 1 by selection to 8 by random is not an expansion, it's an inherently different thing. In fact, they're inherently different strategic design issues.

That's not to say I disagree triple balancing with 8 randomly assigned alliances will likely be harder for everyone--even those geometrically/CoG capable of accomplishing it. Nor do I disagree that many teams there, long and wide, are quite capable of doing amazing things on offense during that time. I'm not sure I consider this change a "slight tweak", though.

As confirmation, does the lack of relevant comment mean that the refs will call triple balance defense the same way it was at Worlds?

Haha! Okay, I can dig your molecule-element analogy. What I meant by saying it's always been a part of the game is the triple balance itself, though admittedly, I didn't consider tripling with an elimination alliance and tripling with a random alliance to be two different facets of the game. I was saying that the act of triple balancing in itself has been in the game since day one. It's nothing new. It's not like they're cutting off a foot from each bridge. It's the same mindset as in an elimination match. If you're confident your alliance can triple, you're gonna go for the triple. If you're not, you find some other way to keep yourselves on the map. No one is forcing teams to triple balance. Teams have been finding ways to overcome the triple balance all season. The only difference I see this making is it will be all elimination-style matches.

EricH

25-06-2012, 16:17

The problem I see, is teams who are complaining don't coop themselves sometimes, or don't make it their priority. If the "top teams" cooped each time and won the matches they normally would, then the top 8 would consist of the best robots fit to be in it. FIRST added coopertition to the seeding this year, and those who didn't play to it payed the price.
OR... Some other alliance denied them the chance to get the coop points by refusing to coop. Those who played that way tended to do worse themselves, and quite possibly made themselves disliked by teams that were hurt by the refusal to cooperate. At one fell swoop, that whole thing is laid to rest...

...And there's a nice useless bridge in the middle of the field. (Well, useless in terms of the end game. I can think of uses for it, but for the sake of not seeing them in action, I won't post them.)

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 16:36

Haha! Okay, I can dig your molecule-element analogy. What I meant by saying it's always been a part of the game is the triple balance itself, though admittedly, I didn't consider tripling with an elimination alliance and tripling with a random alliance to be two different facets of the game.

I'm glad someone else pointed out the distinction so I didn't have to.

If you're confident your alliance can triple, you're gonna go for the triple. If you're not, you find some other way to keep yourselves on the map.

As Siri aptly asked, does one way of "keeping yourself on the map" include appropriately-applied blocking defense to disrupt the attempt? I would ask the IRI folks to clarify this as an important aspect of the game.

Chris Fultz

25-06-2012, 16:52

The rule changes have been thought out and discussed, and several options were considered, including "none".

We made the decisions we made with this type of thought process.

We would expect a high percentage of alliances to co-op balance. Most teams can do it, and teams would be hesitant to not do it because it would hurt their ranking, as well as be bad from a reputation standpoint. So, if everyone co-ops, then it becomes irrelevant to the rankings. This change probably has little impact on rankings.

The triple balance, and attempts at it, are very exciting. Alliances will need to determine if it is worth the reward (+40) for the risk (maybe 0, maybe robot damage), compared to an almost guaranteed double balance and more scoring from the 3rd robot. Not every alliance can triple, and even many of the "3 wide alliances" will not be able to triple. With the match schedule, alliances will not have time to go practice with each set of partners. We believe it is going to be exciting to watch the attempts.

The changes were not meant to help or hurt any robot or design. Many long robots are good at triples, many wide ones are not.

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 16:58

We're long. We're not worried. There will be many matches where all 3 of our opponents devote 40 seconds to attempting to triple and fail. We will continue to score undefended while our partners double.

What about the few matches where they devote 20 seconds or less to the triple and succeed? You willing to be a longbot that goes up against that with your "randomly generated" partners?

You don't think some of the teams in attendance can't execute smooth superfast triples with their uber balancing devices? How much practice is REALLY needed for 67 and two wides to say "ok boys, stick together and let's go!" and run the train right up the track with the super monkey arm pushing up from behind (I love that thing)?

Are Longs willing to "take your medicine" in such a scenario, when now one loss likely means so much in the standings?

That is why I would like to at least be given the OPTION to defend triple attempts during qualifying to give disadvantaged alliances at least SOME way to throw a wrench into the works.

Finally, let's be clear, I do not believe one bit that anyone responsible for IRI rule changes MEANT to place one group of bots ahead of another, but the disadvantage IS there, and I feel that it will impact at least a few teams in the rankings to the benefit of widebot brethren. We shall see, won't we?

R.C.

25-06-2012, 17:03

In terms of the 40 extra points, wouldn't 30 make the triple balance more reasonable in quals?

Even if there was 3 long vs a 3 wide alliance. A good alliance in a quals match can triple between 10-20 seconds easily. In that time any decent robot can score 3-4 extra balls?

Just a thought,

-RC

akoscielski3

25-06-2012, 17:37

rick.oliver

25-06-2012, 17:42

The rule changes have been thought out and discussed, ...

The changes were not meant to help or hurt any robot or design. Many long robots are good at triples, many wide ones are not.

Accepted without question; trust and respect your judgement and integrity.

I think that you have introduced an element which has a high probability of increasing the impact of referee's judgement and random pairings upon the seeding results of the qualification matches. Neither of which supports an emphasis on robot performance.

I agree with folks who see the addition of points for triples in qual's as a significant change.

It will definitely be a different game in qual's than has been played through the season.

Travis Hoffman

25-06-2012, 18:26

I don’t really want to get into the already widely discussed topic of money and resources in this thread when it has been discussed so many times before. <snip> Any team is capable of doing that if they have the drive.

Bryan - I wanted to comment on this point briefly. I do not believe Evan was referencing an example of a team who was experiencing a major funding catastrophe. He was describing a very logical reality that teams of all kinds face as they attempt to operate during the summer.

Some very stable teams don't have the leeway to budget for unplanned robot upgrade projects (especially during the summer), nor do they have full time summer access to their schools/shops where they can enter the building any time they want. Some amount of advanced planning and scheduling with school officials is required. There are certain union and administrative realities that block some teams from gaining access when the primary school team leader is away on vacation.

More importantly, most teams in such situations have little to no realistic recourse to alter those realities in the less than one month they have between now and the IRI competition.

We are going into battle at IRI with the robot we had at MARC, because we have already developed and tested triple compatible systems for the machine. It can do what it can do, which is a lot, including tripling with many teams in many configurations (including 67 and a standard widebot, apparently - alas...MARC practice only). Short of inventing a shrink ray, there is nothing more we can do to enhance its triple compatibility given the realities of our summer budget and school access. I imagine many others are in a similar or worse situation.

GaryVoshol

25-06-2012, 20:21

Chris, Andy and Stu,

No comment on the rule changes. (I'm not playing, so I don't have a dog in the fight.)

How much are you planning on altering FMS? At MARC we couldn't run FMS Elimination matches because we had 4 on the alliance, so had to run them like practice matches so we could put in team numbers. We found that the head ref panel did not give an option for a triple balance as it was not considered an Elimination match. The scores had to be manually adjusted in any match with a triple balance.

Andy Baker

25-06-2012, 21:24

Chi Meson

25-06-2012, 21:41

I support revisiting the change and tweaking the tweak.

I really like the option of making the center bridge worth 10 points, but just during eliminations.

Without coop points (I'm not sorry to see them go!) the elims are all about finding the top 8 best all-round robots.

I'd say that a robot that can collect and score 3 balls in the final 20 seconds and then get up on the bridge for a 3-second solo-balance is a special robot indeed!

GCentola

25-06-2012, 22:15

Without coop points (I'm not sorry to see them go!) the elims are all about finding the top 8 best all-around robots

I would agree, as I fail to see the problem with this. Shouldn't the top 8 best robots be the top 8 seeds and pick their strategically-determined alliances accordingly? Most of the robots at IRI are high caliber, and if they can prove their worth, will play in eliminations. You don't always need to be an alliance captain to do well.

Second, I think Holtzman said it perfectly. 2056 is long, but if they go undefended, they have a great chance at winning IRI. Travis, 48 has a great robot as always in addition to great strategy. Effectively countering a triple by means of a 21 point lead and a double seems entirely likely. People seem to be complaining about the luck of the draw schedule-at IRI, you can usually trust your partners. Once again: Stop Whining.

BJC

25-06-2012, 23:54

Team 0000 is not a good team with a subpar robot. It shoots good 3s and balances great, but lets pretend it's actually 20the in actual standings. Yet throughout qualifications this team was able to scrape up a ton of co-op points and make it to 3rd seed. The only reason this team was able to make it to the 3rd seed was due to the co-op points. And because team 0000 made it to 3rd seed using the rules of the game, they have the right to pick their alliance like all the other powerhouse teams that rocked the event.

So the question is, is having this subpar team 0000 in 3rd seed a mistake? Would having this team as 3rd seed be ruining the statement that "Only the best teams at the regional should be seeded"?

No. Using the rules of the game this team was able to make it to 3rd seed. Other seeded teams will refuse this 3rd seed left and right, as no one believes (or knows) that they can ever stand a chance winning with this 3rd seeded team, but still even after 4th-8th reject them they still get the right to pick yet again until they form an alliance to compete in the elimination matches.

This is my point - by removing the co-op points you alienate a group of robots who were able to reach a top seed because of those points. In effect, you are punishing those subpar teams from having the luck to gather points and end up in the top seed all for the sake of maintaining an ethos that "only the best robots at the event should be a top seeded team."

Granted the best robots at the event should be top seed, but in the same way one team maintained a top seed by scoring an amazing amount of points (as part of the game) another robot should be allowed to place top seed because of their skill with wrangling up enough co-op points (as part of the game).

Thats great. Our team does that too with mixed and minimal results. It's just how it ends up. Any chance you could PM me some of your team's pointers and tips for getting in contact with area business, how to get more parents involved and making presentations, as well as all other sorts of info like that? We could use some new directions to take if your team can do it and we can't measure up.

I think I fundamentally disagree with you. I believe that every team's final rank should be resultant from how much they win (how good they are) because that is what we are competing to find out. Everyone is competing to see who is the best, so when the ranking system utilizes a metric which has nothing to do with winning it throws a tremendous amount of noise into the ranking system. If the ranking system is supposed to rank teams by how good they are why should hypothetical team 0000 be ranked over hypothetical team 9999 when 9999 worked harder during the build season, can more effectively play the game, and won more qualification matches? Now if when team 0000 is playing team 9999 and comes up with a cleaver strategy to beat 9999 that is a completely different story. Here is a comparison. In the NCAA basketball teams are ranked 1-16 for March Madness (eliminations) based on their record in the normal season (qualifications.) Now imagine the outrage if team's rank was half-based on how awesome their mascot was? Do you see the problem? The co-op bridges are like mascots.

_________________
I'll PM you tomorrow. One of our parents is a public relations guy and really guided us on how to do this. I'll publicly say this:

-A professional looking letter (not email) begins the process.
-Actually going to the company to present one's team is absolutely key to recruiting sponsors.
-Bringing a cool-looking and performing robot to demonstrate and explain is also very important.
-The absolute most important thing is to have a bunch of enthusiastic, knowledgeable students explaining what the program is about and how the robot works.
-Firm handshakes and looking people in the eyes is extremely important. Teenagers are very bad at this. All our presenters actually practiced this along with their pitch numerous times.
-A follow up letter is very important to close the deal.
-Once we have a sponsor we try very hard to keep them. Every year we make plaques for every company that sponsors us signed by every student to show our appreciation. We also invite every companies CEO's to come to our kickoff party, robot unveiling party, and end of the year picnic. Most of them don’t come, but it’s the thought that counts.

Bryan - I wanted to comment on this point briefly. I do not believe Evan was referencing an example of a team who was experiencing a major funding catastrophe. He was describing a very logical reality that teams of all kinds face as they attempt to operate during the summer.

Some very stable teams don't have the leeway to budget for unplanned robot upgrade projects (especially during the summer), nor do they have full time summer access to their schools/shops where they can enter the building any time they want. Some amount of advanced planning and scheduling with school officials is required. There are certain union and administrative realities that block some teams from gaining access when the primary school team leader is away on vacation.

More importantly, most teams in such situations have little to no realistic recourse to alter those realities in the less than one month they have between now and the IRI competition.

We are going into battle at IRI with the robot we had at MARC, because we have already developed and tested triple compatible systems for the machine. It can do what it can do, which is a lot, including tripling with many teams in many configurations (including 67 and a standard widebot, apparently - alas...MARC practice only). Short of inventing a shrink ray, there is nothing more we can do to enhance its triple compatibility given the realities of our summer budget and school access. I imagine many others are in a similar or worse situation.

I love quotes. I’m going to toss some famous quotes at you that I believe apply to the situation.

“The great thing about working hard is that you can always work harder, the great thing about being good is that you can always be better.” -- unknown

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it” – Thomas Jefferson

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” -- Beverly Sills

There is another in my signature. The point is that if these “stable” teams do not have the drive to find the money and/or shop space elsewhere to work during the summer, then you’re right. They won’t have a chance at IRI -- because IRI is filled with teams that have already taken that step. Ok, one more quote: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” What I’m talking about doing does take more than a month. It may take more than a year. But it is a step that every “powerhouse” team has taken. Over the last couple years I have watch my team go from one that is all but inactive during the summer to one that participates in VRC, OCCRA, three offseason FRC competitions, is working on a drivetrain gearing optimization project, is further developing our 2011 drivetrain, and is improving our 2012 robot for IRI. There is no secret, there is only hard work.

Regards, Bryan

smistthegreat

25-06-2012, 23:56

I've thought about this for a while, and this is what I've come to. When I first read the update, my reaction was something along the lines of "WHAT!? That's just not fair to a robot whose random partners can't triple." Except not quite. After a little recollection of my experiences on the Curie playoff field, my decision changed. Us (1507, 34" long, with a significant overhang, with breaks), 51 (wide), and 3098 (wide with a stinger) tripled several times on the practice field. With those aids, and with that practice time, we still failed in the match we tried it. That was terribly worded, but the point I'm trying to make is that tripling, unless the alliance is W/W/W with practiced drivers, is by no means easy. And even then, the caliber of bots at IRI is such that there will be several (maybe even more) long robots that can put up 18+ points in 20 seconds while the other 5 are balancing.

I'm still not 100% sold, but I don't think this is the end of the world for long bots.

davepowers

26-06-2012, 00:28

Justin Montois

26-06-2012, 03:45

...

Without coop points (I'm not sorry to see them go!) the elims are all about finding the top 8 best all-round robots.

...

I think you meant to say quals.. and i'm not trying to pick on you specifically but all rules change threads have had someone say something along those lines and it bothers me.

Rebound Rumble was the game we were all given. It wasn't just scoring baskets and balancing. Each game is a strategy filled, complex game that requires teams to excel in many different areas in order to be successful. To infer that The Top 8 robots must be all around great robots takes away from what makes FIRST so addicting. If a team ranks high by specializing, they deserve it. You're devaluing teams that made decisions that they thought early on in January would make them successful. Now, in July, you're asking them to play a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT game. That's truly unfair in my opinion. Teams that chose to excel in quals by dominating and specializing in CoOp balancing are now SOL. And i'm speaking as a team that did not go that route.

IMO, the CoOp bridge was the most unique and paradigm breaking aspects to a competitive competition that I have ever seen. I thought it was awesome.

I've always thought that IRI reserves the right to make changes to fix the little things that end up being annoying through the course of the season. A lane infraction here or a contact penalty there. Not to make large, game altering changes. Rebound Rumble, as it was played all season, will go down as one of the best FRC games of all time. To change it this much was unnecessary.

Also...
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106213

In that poll, the FRC community voted 120-92 to keep the CoOp bridge at at least one point. I think that would have been a fair compromise.

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 04:17

I love quotes. I’m going to toss some famous quotes at you that I believe apply to the situation.

“The great thing about working hard is that you can always work harder, the great thing about being good is that you can always be better.” -- unknown

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it” – Thomas Jefferson

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” -- Beverly Sills

There is another in my signature. The point is that if these “stable” teams do not have the drive to find the money and/or shop space elsewhere to work during the summer, then you’re right. They won’t have a chance at IRI -- because IRI is filled with teams that have already taken that step. Ok, one more quote: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” What I’m talking about doing does take more than a month. It may take more than a year. But it is a step that every “powerhouse” team has taken. Over the last couple years I have watch my team go from one that is all but inactive during the summer to one that participates in VRC, OCCRA, three offseason FRC competitions, is working on a drivetrain gearing optimization project, is further developing our 2011 drivetrain, and is improving our 2012 robot for IRI. There is no secret, there is only hard work.

Regards, Bryan

That's wonderful for you. Over the past few years, we've begun to transition in much the same way. This year, we are attending MARC and IRI and Rochester in the fall. We've already attended more demos in May/June than I care to recall. We are going to have team-building activities in August as well as continue work on the t-shirt cannon robot we developed LAST summer.

As I said, we are satisfied with the robot, heading into IRI. If I cared to do so, I could exfiltrate the robot and tools and visit one of our NEOFRA neighbors' facilities to work on it further. In fact, before we arranged for any summer access at the new school building last year, we worked on the bot at 379's facility. But I kinda like the notion of a break. And July is a good time to do it, since our school team leader will be away, and we already proved the bot/drive team out at MARC. We will practice a bit shortly before leaving, but that is all. I also kinda like the notion of not spending money we do not have on projects we don't need. Perhaps the United States government will someday have the same notion, but I digress.

And now I am going to shift gears a bit - there is a fine line you have to draw between offering constructive advice and encouragement to other teams from a position of an active, well-resourced program and entering the realm of the mildly condescending.

The manner in which you deliver advice can be a turnoff to your intended audience, if it is done in a relentless, in your face fashion. I personally have had to learn this more times than I care to count, and I'm still learning. Less is sometimes more.

waialua359

26-06-2012, 05:59

Triple balancing is over-rated and under-analyzed IMO.
With the quality of teams participating at IRI this year, you will easily see 90+ points for alliances that dont triple balance.
90+ points is good enough to win, especially if alliances employ some sort of defensive strategy that's been seen all season long, especially at CMP.

Havent we all seen enough matches this year, to NOT generalize and say that a triple is the only way to win AND that you must have a widebot to succeed?

Chi Meson

26-06-2012, 09:02

I think you meant to say quals.. and i'm not trying to pick on you specifically but all rules change threads have had someone say something along those lines and it bothers me
.
I did mean quals. It was late.

I can't disagree with anything you said other than in matters of degree. Strategy was a great aspect of this years game, but the coop balance was not the keystone of strategy, and as has been noted, it will be less of a real factor at IRI with so many superior robots.

My point was that if the coop points are removed, I would like to see something made Of the center bridge that would add a new and different twist for strategizing.

Jim Zondag

26-06-2012, 10:12

And now I am going to shift gears a bit - there is a fine line you have to draw between offering constructive advice and encouragement to other teams from a position of an active, well-resourced program and entering the realm of the mildly condescending.

The manner in which you deliver advice can be a turnoff to your intended audience, if it is done in a relentless, in your face fashion. I personally have had to learn this more times than I care to count, and I'm still learning. Less is sometimes more.

I will chime in a bit in Bryan's defense (although I will agree that he does offer 'relentless' advice :) ) :
Bryan is very passionate about FRC and our team. Part of the reason he comes off the way he does is because during his time on the Killer Bees, we went through a very difficult period in our team history. The economic challenges which hit our sponsoring companies and this region of our country effectively removed about 90% of our team income in the fall of 2008. This very easily could have destroyed us. Instead of allowing this to happen, we decided that we had to change our approach to almost everything we do. Before this, in retrospect, we were lazy. Now we set goals and targets for everthing we want to do and then figure out how to achieve the results we desire. The results of our efforts over the last 4 years have been amazing (these were Bryan's 4 years on the team, so it is all he knows) and these results have come as the outcome of relentless commitment to success. This is a year-round effort for us. A lot of this drive has come from me and a few other leaders on my team, and I do push this pretty hard, so not surprisingly, it rubs off on some of our students.

All I can say is that if I had 40 students as determined as Bryan, I cannot imagine how much more we could accomplish. (BTW, my company just hired him :) ). Despite near going bankrupt in the recent past, today our team has more money, more mentors, more students, more ability and more measurable success than we ever had in the past. Our plan is simple:
1. Decide what you want.
2. Determine what resources you have.
3. Define what you will do.
4. Repeat incrementaly until you can achieve your goals.

All of this is a bit off topic for this IRI Rules thread, other than to say that if you want or need to make changes to be competitive at the IRI, the is key to commit to acting on this desire, and then make a plan to do it.

Jacob.B

26-06-2012, 10:14

Back to the thread...
I think these rule changes are for the bettter. Like it was said above many teams now can change there robot with 5 pound allowance to make a long bot triple balance. Yet, with the elimination of co-op balance and the addition of triple balances during eliminations, the good triple balancing bots to move up in the rankings and the now top bots to shift or move down. A powershift is in the makings for IRI and I'm ready to see the outcome.

OZ_341

26-06-2012, 10:47

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 11:08

While I do think these rule changes play to the strengths of teams that can triple balance, the decision to go for a triple balance in a qualifying match has to be calculated very carefully.
Our triple balances at the MAR Championship and on Curie were the result of very carefully selected partnerships.
Going for a triple with an untested partnership in a qualifying match, could result in zero bridge points and cost you the match.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (see what I did there?)! It's eaaassssy to triple, Wides. You know you want to try the triples...destiny is calling your name. Fortune and glory! :)

Justin Montois

26-06-2012, 11:13

...
Going for a triple with an untested partnership in a qualifying match, could result in zero bridge points and cost you the match.

Which is exactly why, in most cases, teams will just balance two and keep one scoring. The end game just got a whole lot less exciting.

Tetraman

26-06-2012, 11:28

In the NCAA basketball teams are ranked 1-16 for March Madness (eliminations) based on their record in the normal season (qualifications.) Now imagine the outrage if team's rank was half-based on how awesome their mascot was? Do you see the problem? The co-op bridges are like mascots.

To actually make your point clearer, Co-Op Bridges are more like Slam Dunks. If some teams gained an advantage in the standings due to the number of Slam Dunks they earned, three-point shooting teams would be upset.

However, the argument doesn't hold up.

At the beginning of the FIRST season, teams built their robots to a specific set of rules - one of those rules included additional points to those teams who can co-op with their opponent on the white bridge. These were the official rules of Rebound Rumble. They were part of the game. And so a season went on where the white bridge was involved. Then came IRI, who had a bunch of teams sign up first, and then announced that the white bridge's effect on the game is going to be completely removed.

At the beginning of college basketball season, teams build their roster to a specific set of rules - one of those rules included that any shot made inside the 3-point line would be worth 2 points. Theres were the official rules of Basketball. They were part of the game. And so a season went on where the 2-point shots were involved. Then came the NCAA tournament, who slotted 68 teams first, and then announced that Slam Dunks would earn 3 points rather than 2.

Some basketball teams build themselves around defense and rebounding, or transition shooting, or they could "live or die by the 3-point shot". Coaches recruit students that work in a particular system too, and mold players to be as effective as possible. The best teams are almost always those who can do everything about the game in the best possible way, and sometimes those fringe teams who excel in one or two aspects of the game make it to the top too. Now those teams who rely on 3-point shooting find themselves at a huge disadvantage going into the tournament because they could have earned the same amount of points by just dunking the ball with less risk than going long. (see what I did there?) However, they had no idea that their initial build was going to be hurt due to a change in the rules once they were accepted into the tournament. Thankfully they have a few weeks to learn some new maneuvers and alter their roster, but in the end all of the fundamentals of the game have been severely altered for them and they start the tournament at a disadvantage against those teams who have studied the art of the slam dunk all season long.

I'll PM you tomorrow. One of our parents is a public relations guy and really guided us on how to do this. I'll publicly say this:

Thank you so much. It means a lot.

LeelandS

26-06-2012, 11:37

I think you meant to say quals.. and i'm not trying to pick on you specifically but all rules change threads have had someone say something along those lines and it bothers me.

Rebound Rumble was the game we were all given. It wasn't just scoring baskets and balancing. Each game is a strategy filled, complex game that requires teams to excel in many different areas in order to be successful. To infer that The Top 8 robots must be all around great robots takes away from what makes FIRST so addicting. If a team ranks high by specializing, they deserve it. You're devaluing teams that made decisions that they thought early on in January would make them successful. Now, in July, you're asking them to play a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT game. That's truly unfair in my opinion. Teams that chose to excel in quals by dominating and specializing in CoOp balancing are now SOL. And i'm speaking as a team that did not go that route.

IMO, the CoOp bridge was the most unique and paradigm breaking aspects to a competitive competition that I have ever seen. I thought it was awesome.

I've always thought that IRI reserves the right to make changes to fix the little things that end up being annoying through the course of the season. A lane infraction here or a contact penalty there. Not to make large, game altering changes. Rebound Rumble, as it was played all season, will go down as one of the best FRC games of all time. To change it this much was unnecessary.

Also...
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106213

In that poll, the FRC community voted 120-92 to keep the CoOp bridge at at least one point. I think that would have been a fair compromise.

Justin,

I agree with you on some points and disagree with you on some others.

First, I agree with you that Rebound Rumble was an amazing game to play. Challenging, inventive and exciting. Along those lines, I certainly agree these changes are quite drastic. I would never have imagined that IRI would remove the coop bridge. But they have. And here is where I disagree with you.

Secondly, I don't think a team that specializes in one thing is deserving of a #1 Seed finish. I believe the #1 seed should be the best robot for the game. If that means they specialize in one thing and dominate the field for it, then they'll take the #1 seed spot. But I think that's a different discussion we can have elsewhere.

The main point I disagree with you on is the removing of the coop bridge being unfair to some team and that those teams are "SOL". I agree that it is a change that teams will have to account for, but no one is "SOL". It's down to a "Win-Loss" situation, so those teams will need to play Rebound Rumble. Make baskets and balance on alliance bridges. If teams weren't prepared to do that... Well, I don't know what to say. Maybe IRI isn't a great place for them. Maybe that itself is not a fair statement, but I don't see how the removal of the coop points leaves anyone at an unfair disadvantage. This isn't regional competition. This is an event where the best of the best play off.

Drawing a loose tangent that will probably be torn apart by others, take the change in minibot points last year to 20-20-15-15 (I think that was it...). Say you have a team that put up 3 or 4 tubes, which is "good" for regional levels, but a minibot that broke speed records. They were good in teleop, but astounding in the end game. At IRI, their tube scoring ability would be "just okay", and with the new minibot spread, their end game was FAR less valuable. It's the same thing. A game change hurts teams who planned for the minibot to be a game changer. You find ways to adapt. You find ways to succeed. If the lack of coop points is truly what cripples a team, I feel that they may not be ready for IRI.

Bjenks548

26-06-2012, 11:37

Which is exactly why, in most cases, teams will just balance two and keep one scoring. The end game just got a whole lot less exciting.

That definatly depends on the score, where the basketballs are, and what your opponents are doing on the bridge.

If it's your only chance of winning, and with no coop to help your standings in a loss... It will be attempted in quite a few matches

Tetraman

26-06-2012, 11:49

We would expect a high percentage of alliances to co-op balance. Most teams can do it, and teams would be hesitant to not do it because it would hurt their ranking, as well as be bad from a reputation standpoint. So, if everyone co-ops, then it becomes irrelevant to the rankings. This change probably has little impact on rankings.

In the same vein, you should expect a high percentage robots that score in the 2-point and 3-point hoops. Most teams can do it and teams would be hesitant to score in the 1-point hoop because it would hurt their overall score and ranking and reputation. So if no one uses the 1-point hoop, it becomes irrelevant to gameplay. Removing the 1-point hoop probably has even less of an impact on rankings.

Do we remove the 1-point hoop?

Not disrespecting the decision that was made, but arguing that I believe it is the wrong one.

Chinmay

26-06-2012, 11:52

At the beginning of college basketball season, teams build their roster to a specific set of rules - one of those rules included that any shot made inside the 3-point line would be worth 2 points. Theres were the official rules of Basketball. They were part of the game. And so a season went on where the 2-point shots were involved. Then came the NCAA tournament, who slotted 68 teams first, and then announced that Slam Dunks would earn 3 points rather than 2.

I have a slight issue with this ongoing analogy. It seems to me that people repeatedly are associating IRI with the NBA official tournaments. IRI isn't an official FIRST event. They are not required to play by the same rules. They can make these changes because it's an offseason event... Street ball has different rules than the NCAA tournaments doesn't it? I think that IRI is essentially some really high class street ball.

Also, if coaches are allowed to modify their roster for play in the "off season" with these modified rules, then they should go ahead and do so. Some coaches may not have the resources to hire new plays (read: modify their robots) but thats part of the game...

Adam Freeman

26-06-2012, 11:54

At the beginning of the FIRST season, teams built their robots to a specific set of rules - one of those rules included additional points to those teams who can co-op with their opponent on the white bridge.

What did any team do in their design process that was specifically pointed at performing a Coop balance? I have seen very few teams that do anything other than drive on the bridge and hope it balances.

If you looked back at the beginning of the season, most teams didn't even attempt a coop balance.

We designed and built our robot primarily for balancing, and I still wouldn't say if was specifically for a Coop balance. It was more designed for effective triple balancing.

I see nothing in these rule changes that, at this point in the season, changes the design of any robot. Most teams have already added some type of balance assist mechanism to triple balance.

You could say that if we could have tripled in quals during the season, then more teams would have built wide instead of long. I would disagree with that statement, since triple balancing was always a possibility in elims, where it is most important to win. Teams either valued it highly or didn't in their design process. The possibility of completing a triple in quals is even lower than the possibility of doing it in eliminations.

I think these rule modifications change some strategy options...but not designs.

I am excited to play this IRI version of Rebound Rumble... I think there will be a lot of excitement, successful triples, failed triples, extreme scoring bursts, etc...

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 12:19

...I feel that they may not be ready for IRI.

While the competition invites many elite teams in FIRST to participate, I think the general population has to take care not to elevate IRI onto so high a pedestal as to become elitIST in describing it.

LeelandS

26-06-2012, 12:27

While the competition invites many elite teams in FIRST to participate, I think the general population has to take care not to elevate IRI onto so high a pedestal as to become elitIST in describing it.

I certainly wasn't trying to play IRI as an elitist event, though rereading, that's what it seemed to come out as. And if that's what it came out as, it doesn't matter I meant. I'm sorry I unintentionally played IRI up as "elitist".

At the same time, IRI is definitely not a place for the weak of heart. I will never refer to a team as "too weak for IRI", but if asked personally (not that anyone should put stock in anything I say) if a team is ready to COMPETE at IRI, there are teams I would say no to. Attending and learning is one thing, competing is another. There are teams who, competitively, are not ready for IRI.

I didn't mean to refer to IRI as an elitist event. IRI is an amazing event and it's not like some high-society snooty country club where the commoners aren't allowed. But it is an ELITE event, where the elite go to play.

Tetraman

26-06-2012, 12:28

LeelandS

26-06-2012, 12:30

Again I say I do not disrespect the rule alteration, I think it's a bad idea, even as an exhibition event.

I believe it alters the game too much and will make a loss or two in qualifying an insurmountable feat to overcome, especially if you put the triple balance in play and teams will be ranked by points after the are ranked by standings. In this particular FIRST game, I think it's a bad idea.

Along that thought pattern, what happens to the teams in the handful of matches where a coop is failed (expecting IRI to have a very high coop percentage). Losing with no coop would be twice the insurmountable feat to overcome.

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 12:32

At the same time, IRI is definitely not a place for the weak of heart.

I like that characterization much better. :)

EricH

26-06-2012, 12:33

IRI isn't an official FIRST event. They are not required to play by the same rules. They can make these changes because it's an offseason event... Street ball has different rules than the NCAA tournaments doesn't it? I think that IRI is essentially some really high class street ball.
Yes and no. It really depends on the street ball you're playing, and where you're playing, and who you're playing with, and which game/game type you're playing. I've seen it at 2/basket, regardless of distance; you could be playing halfcourt, short basket. It really depends on all those factors.

Most common, of course, is that the official scoring rules, height rules, etc. are left alone except as needed for half/full court situations.

Oh, but wait! There are some changes made in official tournaments! For example, in the NCAA, the time is often shortened in the wide spaces of the bracket. This is because there are games on back-to-back days, and having players play tired isn't good for anybody. I seem to recall that there's something similar in international competitions. But the only things messed with are time and possibly number of officials and replay.

I would suggest that IRI isn't street ball. It's the Olympics. You're supposed to tweak small stuff. The problem is, the tweak this year was to change the inbounding rules (or whatever other basketball rule you want to use--slam dunks was a good one earlier), which changes the face of the game.

JVN

26-06-2012, 12:44

Also...
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106213

In that poll, the FRC community voted 120-92 to keep the CoOp bridge at at least one point. I think that would have been a fair compromise.

"A vote says more about the voter than the thing being voted on."

-John

Akash Rastogi

26-06-2012, 12:47

There is no reason to have co-op points at an event like IRI.

The co-op bridge and points were determined by many to be a way for underperforming teams to have a chance at being seeded high (you may not share this opinion, but I do). No that doesn't mean that it always shot lower performing teams into the top 8, but I don't think that IRI is the place to cater to the underperforming teams. Most of the teams attending are above average or top tier.

I see no place for the co-op bridge or co-op points at the IRI. This rule change, I believe, was a correct one.

+$0.02

Tristan Lall

26-06-2012, 14:33

I think I fundamentally disagree with you. I believe that every team's final rank should be resultant from how much they win (how good they are) because that is what we are competing to find out. Everyone is competing to see who is the best, so when the ranking system utilizes a metric which has nothing to do with winning it throws a tremendous amount of noise into the ranking system. If the ranking system is supposed to rank teams by how good they are why should hypothetical team 0000 be ranked over hypothetical team 9999 when 9999 worked harder during the build season, can more effectively play the game, and won more qualification matches?
I don't think it follows that how much they win = how good they are. We can measure wins easily, but we factor other things into our assessment of goodness.

Given that the original rules seemed to count the ability to balance the co-opertition bridge as a good thing, I have to disagree with the premise of your argument.

If you use wins as a proxy for goodness, you should expect error because you're neglecting other factors. But that error isn't noise in the conventional sense—it's a collection of unidentified explanatory variables.

pfreivald

26-06-2012, 14:49

Given that the original rules seemed to count the ability to balance the co-opertition bridge as a good thing, I have to disagree with the premise of your argument.

I agree 100%. There's a difference between "good at playing any particular match" and "good at Rebound Rumble." There are a lot of commonalities between these two things, but they are distinct -- distinct enough to call these rules changes significant game-changers for which competitors thus disadvantaged could feel justified in their disgruntlement.

Justin Montois

26-06-2012, 15:18

"A vote says more about the voter than the thing being voted on."

-John

I don't disgree, but why then have the vote...

Bjenks548

26-06-2012, 15:29

This is going to put a new strain on Qual partners, someone has to be in charge of calling the balance and when. In Elims, its been fairly eazy as there is always a captain. Now each alliance will have to have someone incharge of balancing because 2 going for a double and 1 going for a triple does not work well. I know many (mostly michigan) teams pretty well and trust their coaches, but there are many more that I don't know. I hope to go into every match with an idea of how my alliance can triple balance, even if we don't use it. Also, really hoping to get paired up with 67 and/or 118 and another wide as I know we can triple quickly and reliably with them. Should be a lot of fun to see how triples progess (or don't) throughout qualifications.

BJC

26-06-2012, 16:01

I don't think it follows that how much they win = how good they are. We can measure wins easily, but we factor other things into our assessment of goodness.

Given that the original rules seemed to count the ability to balance the co-opertition bridge as a good thing, I have to disagree with the premise of your argument.

If you use wins as a proxy for goodness, you should expect error because you're neglecting other factors. But that error isn't noise in the conventional sense—it's a collection of unidentified explanatory variables.

Every robot is built to try to win matches in its respective game. Even though there are other factors involved (such as your partners and opponents) I think that how many matches you win overall during the season is still a fairly good indicator of how "good" your robot is. It's not perfect, but its the metric used by competitions everywhere. It is, in any case, a better way to determine robot rank at a competition then the co-op bridge is. So no, it is not the only or best metric to determine how "good" a robot is. Additionally, I believe that my use of "good" has been slightly misunderstood because it is such a vague term. I eariler used "good" to describe how high a robot would seed. While I can't think of a better term, that is probably a poor choice of words for the reasons you described. I hope I explained myself well enough.

Regards, Bryan

Tetraman

26-06-2012, 16:45

Every robot is built to try to win matches in its respective game. Even though there are other factors involved (such as your partners and opponents) I think that how many matches you win overall during the season is still a fairly good indicator of how "good" your robot is. It's not perfect, but its the metric used by competitions everywhere. It is, in any case, a better way to determine robot rank at a competition then the co-op bridge is.

But that's the thing, the co-op bridge isn't the only way in which your rank is determined. You have to win the match before you can reap the real benefits of the co-op bridge. There is a benefit in earning co-op points when you lose, but the real winner is the robot that wins the match and earns co-op points too. And in order to gain those points, your alliance must still win the match. So yes, you are right, if a robot is deemed "good" it's usually because of how many matches they win, but part of the game of Rebound Rumble and what makes teams (not robots) good in Rebound Rumble is their ability to utilize the white bridge.

Every robot at IRI is going to win their fair share of matches. That's for certain. And the robots that are expected to be in the top 8 will most likely do so. But the co-op bridge allows you to extend your victory and turns it into the same as two victories. Cooperating is a skill of Rebound Rumble, and it is a whole lot more than just another way to rank robots. It's a skill, and an alliance can be rewarded for utilizing and implementing that skill.

I find that removing the co-op points is more than just the removal of a "fairness" system that FIRST implemented because Coopertition and GP and all that, it's also removing a core and fundamental part of the game just so the teams and spectators can watch a few more triple balances.

EricH

26-06-2012, 16:46

Every robot is built to try to win matches in its respective game. Do not continue from this point until you define the game and the match.

This is where the people who like the rule change and those who don't like it differ. They have different definitions of the game. Those who like it say that the rule change focuses on winning the match. What match?

First I'll look at the "2:15" match definition. In that match of the game, each match lasts 2:15, and the game is to win each match. People who see the IRI rule change as a good thing will tend to cite the number of what you might call "sub-par" teams in the top 8, fairly high in the top 8, in fact, and the relatively high number of teams who were really good but not in the top 8 as a bad thing. They tend to express the opinion that coop points ruined the game. They play by the Game section of the Manual.

Now, I'll look at another definition. In this, a "match" is about the length of a regional. A game lasts a full season. This is where the people who don't like the IRI change tend to hang out. The game they play is defined by the Game and Tournament sections of the Manual. The game changes every year. This group plays to win events.

In normal play, the two definitions are the same for about 5 hours. Saturday afternoons at a regional or district are full of teams playing to win matches to win events. But before then, there are teams who play to win matches and teams who look at their rankings, knowing that the only way to guarantee a spot in the eliminations is to be top 8. These ranking-watchers know that they can affect their rankings by scoring for their opponent--or, in extreme cases, actively preventing themselves from scoring. Teams like that understand the full game, top to bottom.

IRI is different, however. Normally, the rule change affects the game play as defined by the Game section of the Manual. This year, it affects the game play as defined by the Tournament section of the Manual. Does it penalize teams unfairly? Possibly. But not for sure. Does it take away the meta-game that was discussed during the season? Definitely. Is that meta-game important?

That question is one that each team decided during the season. In my personal opinion, it was very important to play that meta-game well during the season. At IRI, it has no value.

For many sports leagues, there is actually a meta-game. It's called seeding. If you win, you get so many points towards seeding. If you lose, you might not get any--or you might get some based on how much you scored. It is possible, in some leagues, to lose a single game--and yet come out ahead in the meta-game by scoring a lot of points in those losses, forcing your opponents to score even more to beat you.

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 17:36

What did any team do in their design process that was specifically pointed at performing a Coop balance? I have seen very few teams that do anything other than drive on the bridge and hope it balances.

Perhaps the skills developed by teams surrounding the "art of the co-op" are not solely centered around the robot?

In addition to a solid drivetrain, perhaps the skills that separate good co-op teams from those who aren't as regularly able to take advantage of it include the ability to effectively strategize with the opposing alliance before the match and communicate an effective co-op plan, and repeat and execute that planning process every match, like clockwork. Knowing how best to:

Decide which two robots will co-op (there was a standard we used all season that worked very well for us here).
Decide when the teams would head for the co-op bridge.
Decide who would tend the bridge.
Decide how and where the 2nd bot gets on.
Communicate the balancing method - who "leads the dance".
Convince the opposition that you would honor the co-op contract and had the driver skills/robot capability necessary to make it work.
Make it clear that robots violating the co-op contract by continuing to score instead of balancing would incur your graciously professional wrath.
And accomplish all this within a very short amount of time.I don't think these things were as easy to accomplish as people make them out to be, especially at events where the pool of co-op partners was filled with more robots/teams with various deficiencies. Navigating that minefield successfully at each regional/district was a learned skill.

I understand why the co-op bridge process has been removed at IRI, but let's not trivialize the efforts of those who were able to grasp what the GDC was intending for teams to accomplish at the bridge and use the system to their advantage.

IndySam

26-06-2012, 17:44

AdamHeard

26-06-2012, 17:50

Every robot at IRI is going to win their fair share of matches. That's for certain. And the robots that are expected to be in the top 8 will most likely do so. But the co-op bridge allows you to extend your victory and turns it into the same as two victories. Cooperating is a skill of Rebound Rumble, and it is a whole lot more than just another way to rank robots. It's a skill, and an alliance can be rewarded for utilizing and implementing that skill.

I don't understand this point. Teams will win/lose just as much as before.

The co-op would've been negligible at IRI anyway with a 90%+ success rate, so why even have it? Teams would've been sorted win/loss pretty much.

The removal of co-op is completely separate from the addition of triples, and shouldn't upset anyone once you analyze what likely would have happened.

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 17:50

So with the advent of these rule changes and the quality of the robots at IRI will we finally see the advent of a major ball starvation strategy?

If you have 3 robots that have a more than reasonable chance of tripping and are decent at ball collecting would it be advantageous to collect 15 of the balls before going to triple so the other alliance can't put up big points on you while your trying?

Of course, the same strategy could be played by those expecting an opposing triple, preserving ammo for late in the match for that final scoring + double push.

A lot probably depends on who wins hybrid mode.

JVN

26-06-2012, 17:53

Perhaps the skills developed by teams surrounding the "art of the co-op" are not solely centered around the robot?

In addition to a solid drivetrain, perhaps the skills that separate good co-op teams from those who aren't as regularly able to take advantage of it include the ability to effectively strategize with the opposing alliance before the match and communicate an effective co-op plan, and repeat and execute that planning process every match, like clockwork. Knowing how best to:

Decide which two robots will co-op (there was a standard we used all season that worked very well for us here).
Decide when the teams would head for the co-op bridge.
Decide who would tend the bridge.
Decide how and where the 2nd bot gets on.
Communicate the balancing method - who "leads the dance".
Convince the opposition that you would honor the co-op contract and had the driver skills/robot capability necessary to make it work.
Make it clear that robots violating the co-op contract by continuing to score instead of balancing would incur your graciously professional wrath.
And accomplish all this within a very short amount of time.I don't think these things were as easy to accomplish as people make them out to be, especially at events where the pool of co-op partners was filled with more robots/teams with various deficiencies. Navigating that minefield successfully at each regional/district was a learned skill.

I understand why the co-op bridge process has been removed at IRI, but let's not trivialize the efforts of those who were able to grasp what the GDC was intending for teams to accomplish at the bridge and use the system to their advantage.

This sort of thing happened before every single FRC qualification match I was the coach in, and it's been a while since I was in the booth so it can't be a new thing :). To imply that the Coopertition bridge introduced Cooperation to FRC is somewhat silly.

It is a skill, but not a new skill -- it just meant you needed to talk to 6 teams instead of 3.

-John

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 18:04

Laaba 80

26-06-2012, 18:41

This sort of thing happened before every single FRC qualification match I was the coach in, and it's been a while since I was in the booth so it can't be a new thing :). To imply that the Coopertition bridge introduced Cooperation to FRC is somewhat silly.

It is a skill, but not a new skill -- it just meant you needed to talk to 6 teams instead of 3.

-John

While not a completely new skill, there was definitely something different about the coop bridge. Since you cannot communicate with your opponents during the match (excluding hand signals, i did my fair share of flailing) you really needed to go over every possible scenario with your coop partner. Often times this seemed repetitive, yet at the Lake Superior regional in matches when our bridge manipulator broke, or 2 of our opponents died we were still able to achieve a coop balance.

At our first regional, I really liked the coop bridge. Coop balances were rare, and many of our coop partners had not double balanced before. It was pretty cool to congratulate our opponents after we had a successful coop balance. As the year progressed, the pre match discussions began to shorten, as it became expected for teams to coop. Post match, successful coop balances began to lose their luster, and the failed ones upset all teams involved. It was at that point that the "coopertition" bridge began to lose its meaning to me, and I believe IRI would have taken it to the next level. With the expected 90%+ success rate, the successes would be virtually ignored, and a failed attempt could lead to some serious tension between teams.

AdamHeard

26-06-2012, 18:44

Someone should scrape this thread and analyze correlation between base orientation and objection to this change.

GCentola

26-06-2012, 18:56

Someone should scrape this thread and analyze correlation between base orientation and objection to this change.

*and whether or not the poster's team is attending IRI.

mikemat

26-06-2012, 19:05

Someone should scrape this thread and analyze correlation between base orientation and objection to this change.

I think the reason for the correlation is the long guys chose long because they felt the benefits outweighed the drawbacks in the game as it was presented at the beginning of the season. The wide bot teams went down the opposite road, choosing to take the potential maneuverability and stability penalties in favor of a better chance of triple balancing. But now, we are playing a game that the robots are, effectively, not designned to play. Instead of only needing to triple with an alliance of your choosing, which could be tailored to fit its captains robot, you get a random alliance for all of your qualification matches. Many teams would probably have built a different robot to play these rules than the ones they came to competition with.

pfreivald

26-06-2012, 19:06

We're not attending octocanum. :D

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 19:12

*and whether or not the poster's team is attending IRI.

Does any of the below really surprise anyone?

Folks are welcome to correct any of these, or diversify the lists. I skimmed through very quickly.

This is in reference to #3 rule change only.

<Snip edited list in post below>

I also know of one other longbot team attending who is not in favor of #3 but does not believe the net disadvantage toward longs will be that large. I'm tending to agree with that person, but I am of the mind that any unfairness at all is blar and wish it would not be present. We, too, will abide by whatever rules are ultimately the law of the land.

lemiant

26-06-2012, 19:20

Does any of the below really surprise anyone?

Folks are welcome to correct any of these.

This is in reference to #3 rule change only.

PRO #3 (or NOT-CON - neutrality in posting infers pro. Being on the planning committee infers pro - makes sense, right?):

33 (W)
67 (W)
68 (W)
234 (W)
341 (W)
829 (W)
868 (SQ)
907 (W)
3940 (W)
4334 (W)CON #3 (or ain't no big thang we'll beat it anyway, or triples are overrated, or we should add 10 points to the coop bridge as an option, or.... ;)):

48 (L)
340 (L)
359 (L)
461 (L)
548 (L)
744 (L)
772 (L)
2056 (L) :cool:
2168 (L)
2337 (L)
3193 (L)
3310 (L)I also know of one other longbot team attending who is not in favor of #3 but does not believe the net disadvantage toward longs will be that large. I'm tending to agree with that person, but I am of the mind that any unfairness at all is blar.

This is an interesting list. Your addition of "ain't no big thing, we'll beat it" and "triples are overrated" to opposing the change is really inaccurate though. Go back, read Tyler's post. Him and anyone with similar opinions are definitely in the pro (or at least neutral) camp

GCentola

26-06-2012, 19:24

I think the reason for the correlation is the long guys chose long because they felt the benefits outweighed the drawbacks in the game as it was presented at the beginning of the season. The wide bot teams went down the opposite road, choosing to take the potential maneuverability and stability penalties in favor of a better chance of triple balancing. But now, we are playing a game that the robots are, effectively, not designned to play. Instead of needing to triple with an alliance of your choosing, which could be tailored to fit its captains robot, you get a random alliance. Many teams would probably have built a different robot to play these rules than the ones they came to competition with.

You don't need to be an alliance captain to do well. No, seeding may change some. Honestly, the teams at IRI know are there because they know how to win and awould be smart enough to coop nearly every match anyway so I don't know how much the rankings will actually be affected. The robots that win their matches will seed accordingly and strategically select partners for the elimination rounds. If you are a long robot, and you don't think you can play the new qualification style, then so be it. If you can shoot well, if you can balance with a planned alliance, if you can prove that your team would be a valued member of the winning alliance, then you will get picked, and you wil probably do well. If we consider 359 last year, they were not the alliance captain. They had an outstanding robot and were pciked as a backup team for the (if I recall correctly, please correct me if I am wrong) 4th seeded alliance. They got to play, and they helped the alliance win. You may not seed 1st, but that doesn't mean you can't do well. My team won't be attending so my words not may hold much value here. I still think Holtzman said it best.

Go back, read Tyler's post. Him and anyone with similar opinions are definitely in the pro (or at least neutral) camp
Second, I think there are two debates going on here. Debate #1: For/Against. Debate #2: We hate it/Stop whining.

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 19:25

This is an interesting list. Your addition of "ain't no big thing, we'll beat it" and "triples are overrated" to opposing the change is really inaccurate though. Go back, read Tyler's post. Him and anyone with similar opinions are definitely in the pro (or at least neutral) camp

Hey I'm padding the stats to start. :D

Those who are indifferent/defiant to the presence of triples are definitely not pro. I can dig NEUTRAL. Let's refine:

#DISCLAIMER - a team number appearing below indicates a member of that team has indicated their preference for rule #3 one way or another. That does not automatically mean the entire team shares their viewpoint. It was easier to note the CD user's team number. If two members of a team indicate differing opinions, I will indicate this via their usernames. Not that this list is anything more than an informal two-minute skim of information that was already clear from reading the thread. :-)

PRO:

67 (W)
68 (W)
234 (W)
341 (W)
868 (SQ)
907 (W)
3940 (W)
4334 (W)NEUTRAL:

33 (W)
359 (L)
548 (L)
829 (W)
1640 (SW)
2056 (L)CON:

48 (L)
340 (L)
461 (L)
744 (L)
772 (L)
2168 (L)
2337 (L)
3193 (L)
3310 (L)
Secret Unnamed Team (L)

BJC

26-06-2012, 19:40

Do not continue from this point until you define the game and the match.

This is where the people who like the rule change and those who don't like it differ. They have different definitions of the game. Those who like it say that the rule change focuses on winning the match. What match?

First I'll look at the "2:15" match definition. In that match of the game, each match lasts 2:15, and the game is to win each match. People who see the IRI rule change as a good thing will tend to cite the number of what you might call "sub-par" teams in the top 8, fairly high in the top 8, in fact, and the relatively high number of teams who were really good but not in the top 8 as a bad thing. They tend to express the opinion that coop points ruined the game. They play by the Game section of the Manual.

Now, I'll look at another definition. In this, a "match" is about the length of a regional. A game lasts a full season. This is where the people who don't like the IRI change tend to hang out. The game they play is defined by the Game and Tournament sections of the Manual. The game changes every year. This group plays to win events.

In normal play, the two definitions are the same for about 5 hours. Saturday afternoons at a regional or district are full of teams playing to win matches to win events. But before then, there are teams who play to win matches and teams who look at their rankings, knowing that the only way to guarantee a spot in the eliminations is to be top 8. These ranking-watchers know that they can affect their rankings by scoring for their opponent--or, in extreme cases, actively preventing themselves from scoring. Teams like that understand the full game, top to bottom.

IRI is different, however. Normally, the rule change affects the game play as defined by the Game section of the Manual. This year, it affects the game play as defined by the Tournament section of the Manual. Does it penalize teams unfairly? Possibly. But not for sure. Does it take away the meta-game that was discussed during the season? Definitely. Is that meta-game important?

That question is one that each team decided during the season. In my personal opinion, it was very important to play that meta-game well during the season. At IRI, it has no value.

For many sports leagues, there is actually a meta-game. It's called seeding. If you win, you get so many points towards seeding. If you lose, you might not get any--or you might get some based on how much you scored. It is possible, in some leagues, to lose a single game--and yet come out ahead in the meta-game by scoring a lot of points in those losses, forcing your opponents to score even more to beat you.

Exactly, as I've said earlier in so many words I dislike the co-op bridge based on principle because it puts teams in situations where they have to choose between winning and ranking high and where winning does not necessarily get you a high final rank. I find that crazy. As others have said, at IRI the co-op bridge would be balanced most matches and would not really affect the outcome of the final rankings to sufficiently justify it as such a major part of the seeding system. As such, even if it did not force teams into the above there is no real reason to include it other than because that is the way it has been for the regular season. So, all other feelings aside, I am really looking forward to seeing some fantastic matches being played and extremely exciting end games at the IRI.

Hope to see you all there!
Regards, Bryan

Edit: Travis, could you please put 33 in Neutral. As I said eariler:

Oh, and because the topic of conversation seems to have shifted towards triple balancing in qualifications. I have to say that I agree that it is not a good rule modification. While the rule does not greatly affect my team I know I would be upset if I built a long robot and this change was made. So while I understand if the rule stays, I hope that a solution can be agreed upon that does not so heavily disadvantage long robots.

Thank you.

IndySam

26-06-2012, 19:41

I didn't post pro or con just posed a question. Put us in neutral please.

Travis Hoffman

26-06-2012, 20:00

Edit: Travis, could you please put 33 in Neutral. As I said eariler:

Oh, and because the topic of conversation seems to have shifted towards triple balancing in qualifications. I have to say that I agree that it is not a good rule modification. While the rule does not greatly affect my team I know I would be upset if I built a long robot and this change was made. So while I understand if the rule stays, I hope that a solution can be agreed upon that does not so heavily disadvantage long robots.

Thank you.

Definitely overlooked that one. Fixed! Thanks for the sympathy. Are you sure you don't want to change your vote to CON? Come to the dark side! :cool:

AdamHeard

26-06-2012, 20:09

I view this as a lesser change than the weightings of minibots last year in terms of "not playing the game we designed to play". Where was the outrage last year?

BJC

26-06-2012, 20:10

Definitely overlooked that one. Fixed! Thanks for the sympathy. Are you sure you don't want to change your vote to CON? Come to the dark side! :cool:

Haha, will there be fruitcake? But seriously, I can't really speak for my team without consulting them. Thus far, all of the things that I have said in this thread, while reflecting on my team, are in fact my own opinions. As it is, I think I'll say in Neutral where no one is mad at me.:D

Regards, Bryan

JohnSchneider

26-06-2012, 20:22

I view this as a lesser change than the weightings of minibots last year in terms of "not playing the game we designed to play". Where was the outrage last year?

A team with the fastest minibot has a right to be mad about one of their most useful features being made less significant. I believe that applies in this situation too. Why would a team that benefits from a rule change, object?

Also I would like to be moved to neutral...I may not like it, but I don't speak for our entire team ::eek: We are long though, and I suspect the kids would be rather upset if they lost a match because they couldn't triple with an incompatible alliance.

Paul Copioli

26-06-2012, 20:41

Love the changes. Didn't think they would do the changes, but really happy they did.

BTW, this is not the biggest change they have made to an FRC game. I claim the biggest change was in 2003 for the both the qualifying and eliminations.

I can't wait to MC this year!

OZ_341

26-06-2012, 21:16

I would characterize 341 as neutral, not pro. Even though the changes favor our particular design, it does produce a different game. Changing the game always raises concerns about what the end result will be. My previous comment was only made to point out that tripling in the qualifying rounds may be trickier than people think. However, we are ready to play either game and we respect the organizers right to change the game at an off-season event.

sprocketman92

26-06-2012, 23:08

As a team with a long bot we kind of saw this coming we knew this would make the game more interesting throughout the day. However, it does hurt us for now, but we have decided to use this as an opportunity to better our bot in a way that we should have at the beginning of the season. 5 pounds is a lot and there is a lot you can do with it :D ;) :cool:

AlexD744

26-06-2012, 23:09

First, I would say 744 is in the neutral camp. Does it kinda suck for us? yeah. But all that means is that we're adapting our robot in an attempt to make it triple easier. We're (trying to) add a stinger and a lot of smaller tweaks. There are three of us are in the lab every day working on the robot like it's build season. (we were almost done with what was originally just tweaking until this rule change came out, but we're not letting that stop us, we're gonna make us as competitive as we can)

Also, I think the below post accurately describes why a team would build a different robot with these rules. A triple in the eliminations can be carefully designed by a long bot captain, but a triple in qualifiers is a completely different animal, albeit, and animal we're willing to face.

I think the reason for the correlation is the long guys chose long because they felt the benefits outweighed the drawbacks in the game as it was presented at the beginning of the season. The wide bot teams went down the opposite road, choosing to take the potential maneuverability and stability penalties in favor of a better chance of triple balancing. But now, we are playing a game that the robots are, effectively, not designned to play. Instead of only needing to triple with an alliance of your choosing, which could be tailored to fit its captains robot, you get a random alliance for all of your qualification matches. Many teams would probably have built a different robot to play these rules than the ones they came to competition with.

Gregor

26-06-2012, 23:19

BTW, this is not the biggest change they have made to an FRC game. I claim the biggest change was in 2003 for the both the qualifying and eliminations.

What were the changes made to the 2003 game?

Karthik

26-06-2012, 23:29

This thread is a train wreck, I know I shouldn't read it, but I can't pry my eyes away. Seriously, I think we can all agree this thread jumped off the tracks as soon as EricH started talking about street ball.

In the midst of some these inane arguments was a really intelligent post by Joe Ross, I recommend that you all read it carefully.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1175286&postcount=38

Things aren't nearly as dire for long robots as people are making it seem. Throw in the fact that there are already many known strategies to counter the triple balance, as well as an entire community brainstorming new ones, I think the long robots will do just fine. Sure things seem to get a harder for them in qualifying, but you know, "limits, like fears, are often just an illusion..."

I would be curious to see an actual poll conducted about these rules changes. 6 options: Long in favour, Long don't care, Long oppose, Short in favour, Short don't care, Short oppose.

JosephC

26-06-2012, 23:31

Travis, please put 68 in neutral or remove them from your list, the opinions and thoughts of one or 2 students is not the opinion on the whole team, nor should it be treated as such. I'll refrain from posting anything else about the IRI rules (I'm more than slightly biased as we are a wide bot, as stated above), besides that they're going to change strategies up quite a bit.

Good luck, and see you all in Indiana!

efoote868

26-06-2012, 23:44

PRO:
<snip>
868 (SQ)
<snip>

Do we have to include a disclaimer in each of our posts that
I am in no way posting in an official capacity for my team, and that any opinions contained within this post represent the opinions of the poster, and not the opinions of the entire team.

By the way, won't triple balancing in qualifications benefit your team when you demonstrate that you're able to do it with another long bot? Won't that help generic assumptions made about the necessary composition of elimination alliances more than the effort you'd have to put in demonstrating on the practice field that you're able to triple in a controlled environment? Food for thought.

ratdude747

27-06-2012, 01:28

I approve of the rule changes.

(Then again, I was one the first posters to suggest it in the rule suggestions thread).

BrendanB

27-06-2012, 01:50

Holy cow is there any horse left to beat! ;)

I think the new rule change is interesting but not a real game changer! Many alliances that have the capability to triple won't unless absolutely necessary because the the undue risk it entails. Most alliances will double balance and have one robot stay on offense, others will try to triple and fail in the process because it isn't easy, and some will triple and succeed because they are good.

Any team attending IRI with little to no experience with triple balancing should look at team 1717 and the drills they ran to beat the triple balance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCzHHwj2qZo

Travis Hoffman

27-06-2012, 04:41

Haha, will there be fruitcake? But seriously, I can't really speak for my team without consulting them. Thus far, all of the things that I have said in this thread, while reflecting on my team, are in fact my own opinions. As it is, I think I'll say in Neutral where no one is mad at me.:D

Regards, Bryan

No, but perhaps there will be cookies.

I edited the list and indicated your sentiment in a disclaimer - the presence of a team number in the list only means a person on the team indicated their preference - it does not mean the entire team thinks that way (although let's be real - it seems logical to me that most wide team members would like the rule or haven't said they like it, while most long team members would dislike the rule or are defiantly neutral). If another team member indicates a differing opinion from you, I'd indicate that by including your CD username.

Not that I really want to keep updating the thing - I think the point is made - wides tend to like it/are neutral-pro-biased; longs tend to dislike it/are neutral-against-biased.

I view this as a lesser change than the weightings of minibots last year in terms of "not playing the game we designed to play". Where was the outrage last year?

Perhaps relatively few IRI teams were so "minibot-heavy" on capabilities last year such that their tube scoring capabilities couldn't make up for the loss of minibot points? Most teams were like "ok we'll just hang more tubes".

This year, some teams in attendance are more likely to be affected by a random pairing that gives the opposition a scoring advantage based on physical drive base orientation. Can that be countered by increased basket scoring plus a double and/or defense (the legal application of which has yet to be defined) and/or dark magic? Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not.

And heck longs aren't the only ones at risk - what if a wide is placed in an alliance with two incompatible longs, while the opposing alliance is a 3 wide who triples uber fast?

This rule would make perfect sense if you could guarantee that each and every alliance was at least physically capable of tripling each match, but ya can't.

Joe Ross can analyze the numbers all he wants to indicate that the problem *isn't so bad* (thanks, by the way), but guess what...it's still a problem! And for me, even ONE match occurrence of [alliances match hybrid/teleop scoring prior to endgame (GEE - seems like based on that they should have an equal chance at winning the match, no? But wait, there's more...), one alliance can triple very quickly and does/other alliance cannot triple and does not have enough time to overcome, non-tripling alliance loses (thanks for playing, though...)] is one occurrence too many. Oh well, tough break, losing alliance. Sucks to be you! ;)

I was done debating this on Page 4 (really, go back and check), but the request for a list based on orientation sucked me back in. I will now retire *Mass applause* ...unless someone really rocks the boat in the other direction. Or I can find a dead pig to beat (we can roast it and eat it for dinner on Friday afterward). So shhhhhh. Longs uber alles!

...now how about some more scintillating debate on Rule #2, eh?!!?!

Gdeaver

27-06-2012, 07:39

Some time has past since the rule change was announced. At first I was shocked and mad by the major change to the game. After talking it out and cooling down I'm more OK with it. First is like the real world. Government regulatory agencies change rules all the time. I must change my business process to meet the rule changes and continue to make money. The IRI regulatory agency has changed the rules. Our team will adapt and find strategies to deal with the rule changes and compete to the best of our ability. In real life I do not have the power or money to contest government rules. Our team can not change the IRI rules. We will use the grey matter and find a way to thrive.

qzrrbz

27-06-2012, 09:46

Kind of lost in all the bigger movings and shakings was the simple "fix" of putting balls shot over the endline into the corral instead of back onto the field.

Maybe they'll just do that, and they won't be publicizing it? :)

Chi Meson

27-06-2012, 09:51

I would still love to see a use for the center bridge.

I'll join the chorus of "hey, I'm really OK with the rule change, and I'm not speaking for my whole team," but I don't want to back off from my early and consistent hope that a 10-point center bridge bonus (heck, even 5-points) were available to counterbalance* the huge bonus for triples.

*See what I did there? ;}

Thinking through the probabilities: the benefit of tripling through the quals (which I do find highly enticing!) is that the many strong robots at IRI will get over twice the opportunity to practice this skill. As a result, there will be a lot of failed attempts. This means a lot of flipped robots and bent stingers. The potential for costly disaster is much higher with the arbitrary alliances of the quals.

I am not "against" the rule change; I am in the category of "tweak the tweak." My personal (and strongly yet respectfully submitted) opinion remains that there should be some mitigating opportunity for a robot/driver to compensate for an opponent's 20-point surge.

Clinton Bolinger

27-06-2012, 10:10

The co-op would've been negligible at IRI anyway with a 90%+ success rate, so why even have it? Teams would've been sorted win/loss pretty much.

I don't know if I agree with that. I think that MSC would be the closes thing to IRI interms of level of competition. The Co-op success rate was only 73% at MSC, which is very high but not 90%+.

I thought that MSC is was going to come down to win/loss but everyone else thought the same thing. Teams risked going for the win more then going for the co-op. I think you would have seen the same thing at IRI.

(I know this was an old post and people aren't really discussing the co-op rule change. But I thought it was interesting information.)

Also see the Co-op success rates for the rest of the Michigan events here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105441

-Clinton-

Zach O

27-06-2012, 10:51

I thought that MSC is was going to come down to win/loss but everyone else thought the same thing. Teams risked going for the win more then going for the co-op. I think you would have seen the same thing at IRI.

Even if you base MSC data off of just win/loss, your rankings within the top 10 basically shuffle. You drop/gain 2 teams.

Win/Loss Top 10
469 - 22
2054 - 20
2137 - 20
573 - 20
70 - 18
548 - 18
67 - 18
4294 - 16
2337 - 16

Compared to the Coop Top 10:
469 - 46
67 - 42
2054 - 40
3098 - 38
573 - 38
548 - 38
4294 - 38
2337 - 36
51 - 36
862 - 36

Dropping coop at IRI isn't an issue at all.

However, I'm going to leave this stat here. On average at MSC, a match was one by 19 points (19.3046875, to be exact). So on average, the 20 extra points from the triple would have changed the winner of the match. If the original losing alliance had gone for a triple and the original winning alliance hadn't gone for a triple in the matches where the outcome of the match could have been changed by 20 points, 75 matches would have been changed (approx 59% of the matches played at MSC).

If someone has a link for the long vs wide at MSC, I'd be more than willing to do basically the same thing that Joe Ross did for MSC. Since, as it is now, it's hard to draw a conclusion based off of only that data.

Chris is me

27-06-2012, 12:37

However, I'm going to leave this stat here. On average at MSC, a match was one by 19 points (19.3046875, to be exact). So on average, the 20 extra points from the triple would have changed the winner of the match. If the original losing alliance had gone for a triple and the original winning alliance hadn't gone for a triple in the matches where the outcome of the match could have been changed by 20 points, 75 matches would have been changed (approx 59% of the matches played at MSC).

While this is interesting, do keep in mind that tripling is taking another ball scorer away from the game. If the tripling alliance scores even one less ball on average, than tripling wouldn't have an outcome on the average match.

My completely unnecessary 2 cents: I like the change. I really don't think that the sky is falling because of it. There are still plenty of strategic options. Reducing the triple balance by 10 points in quals would make it completely unbalanced and worthless in my opinion.

Astrokid248

27-06-2012, 12:39

I think this rule change really emphasizes the difference between IRI and the main FIRST organization. I remember a few years back when IRI's slogan was "Where the egos go to play", and I think that's why this change was made. In the regular FRC season, it's all about providing as many opportunities for as many teams to win as possible. This means that teams who built first class robots may not beat a rookie team with a wooden frame and an upturned bucket protecting the cRio. But IRI isn't a FIRST sanctioned event, and IRI is all about the robot. IRI is where teams get to show off, shake their tail feathers, and win for the sake of winning, instead of for spreading STEM inspiration. This rule change is all about that: coopertition allows teams who by all rights should be dead last to rank in the top 8. Removing coopertition allows the game to be won in a much more standard fashion. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it is definitely something to keep in mind as we argue about this.

Clinton Bolinger

27-06-2012, 12:40

After running the data on MSC, assuming that a Triple Balance is successful, if 2 or more Wide Bots are on the Alliance.

26 Matches would have a different out come.

Match Red 1 Red 2 Red 3 Blue 1 Blue 2 Blue 3 Rscore Bscore Win Red 1 Red 2 Red 3 Blue 1 Blue 2 Blue 3 R#Wide B#Wide RTriple BTriple Rnew Bnew NewWin Diff
1 123 2246 3572 4003 2054 217 40 55 Blue L W L L L L 1 0 0 0 40 55 Blue 0
2 1023 1684 2834 85 3234 3322 39 26 Red W W W W W W 3 3 1 1 59 46 Red 0
3 67 858 1718 3617 3538 3098 67 53 Red W W W W W W 3 3 1 1 87 73 Red 0
4 1025 1918 2591 3620 862 1711 36 8 Red L W L W L W 1 2 0 1 36 28 Red 0
5 2851 66 3601 3509 2586 201 28 21 Red W L W L L L 2 0 1 0 48 21 Red 0
6 503 3546 314 3656 245 2337 39 45 Blue L W W W W L 2 2 1 1 59 65 Blue 0
7 226 830 51 904 2767 247 21 44 Blue L W W L L L 2 0 1 0 41 44 Blue 0
8 573 4294 1504 3618 240 548 52 45 Red L L L W L L 0 1 0 0 52 45 Red 0
9 3539 141 2000 2137 2959 27 29 65 Blue L W L W W L 1 2 0 1 29 85 Blue 0
10 2474 302 3537 33 469 3568 42 84 Blue L W L W W L 1 2 0 1 42 104 Blue 0
11 308 70 123 494 107 2851 42 23 Red L W L W W W 1 3 0 1 42 43 Blue 1
12 3656 904 3546 3617 1918 217 20 47 Blue W L W W W L 2 2 1 1 40 67 Blue 0
13 3098 240 1023 3620 2586 3601 59 20 Red W L W W L W 2 2 1 1 79 40 Red 0
14 3234 3509 2137 201 226 3572 52 34 Red W L W L L L 2 0 1 0 72 34 Red 0
15 830 2054 2959 1684 33 3537 65 43 Red W L W W W L 2 2 1 1 85 63 Red 0
16 1711 308 2337 2246 862 141 40 5 Red W L L W L W 1 2 0 1 40 25 Red 0
17 314 51 107 3539 4294 2591 47 49 Blue W W W L L L 3 0 1 0 67 49 Red 1
18 245 2834 27 858 1504 3538 73 29 Red W W L W L W 2 2 1 1 93 49 Red 0
19 2000 548 3322 67 70 469 62 86 Blue L L W W W W 1 3 0 1 62 106 Blue 0
20 302 1718 247 85 494 503 29 40 Blue W W L W W L 2 2 1 1 49 60 Blue 0
21 1025 66 3568 4003 2767 573 31 34 Blue L L L L L L 0 0 0 0 31 34 Blue 0
22 2474 226 2959 3618 2337 3098 33 61 Blue L L W W L W 1 2 0 1 33 81 Blue 0
23 1711 33 2851 217 3601 3539 68 54 Red W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 88 54 Red 0
24 240 2591 904 1023 3234 123 48 55 Blue L L L W W L 0 2 0 1 48 75 Blue 0
25 1918 308 3322 503 27 51 55 30 Red W L W L L W 2 1 1 0 75 30 Red 0
26 469 3572 573 2767 245 1718 79 59 Red W L L L W W 1 2 0 1 79 79 Blue 1
27 1504 247 3656 70 2137 3537 32 59 Blue L L W W W L 1 2 0 1 32 79 Blue 0
28 201 107 3620 548 2834 2474 57 70 Blue L W W L W L 2 1 1 0 77 70 Red 1
29 67 1025 2246 1684 3509 3568 65 25 Red W L W W L L 2 1 1 0 85 25 Red 0
30 2586 4003 3538 302 830 862 22 32 Blue L L W W W L 1 2 0 1 22 52 Blue 0
31 3546 85 3617 141 494 4294 39 59 Blue W W W W W L 3 2 1 1 59 79 Blue 0
32 3618 66 858 314 2000 2054 41 70 Blue W L W W L L 2 1 1 0 61 70 Blue 0
33 107 1918 2474 3537 2851 1718 39 41 Blue W W L L W W 2 2 1 1 59 61 Blue 0
34 548 3539 3572 1023 226 503 61 40 Red L L L W L L 0 1 0 0 61 40 Red 0
35 3568 2959 3538 1711 2137 201 29 60 Blue L W W W W L 2 2 1 1 49 80 Blue 0
36 3234 308 67 3601 3546 573 70 40 Red W L W W W L 2 2 1 1 90 60 Red 0
37 314 2591 3098 302 1684 2246 25 47 Blue W L W W W W 2 3 1 1 45 67 Blue 0
38 217 904 2337 858 70 4003 55 52 Red L L L W W L 0 2 0 1 55 72 Blue 1
39 862 4294 2054 2834 141 3322 56 43 Red L L L W W W 0 3 0 1 56 63 Blue 1
40 85 3620 240 2767 3656 469 14 76 Blue W W L L W W 2 2 1 1 34 96 Blue 0
41 830 3509 1504 494 123 2000 22 49 Blue W L L W L L 1 1 0 0 22 49 Blue 0
42 66 33 27 1025 3617 51 23 46 Blue L W L L W W 1 2 0 1 23 66 Blue 0
43 247 3618 70 2586 245 2591 49 39 Red L W W L W L 2 1 1 0 69 39 Red 0
44 4294 904 3537 862 3572 2474 30 42 Blue L L L L L L 0 0 0 0 30 42 Blue 0
45 201 3539 469 217 67 3546 80 48 Red L L W L W W 1 2 0 1 80 68 Red 0
46 85 2137 3601 2054 858 123 43 59 Blue W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 63 59 Red 1
47 1718 2246 314 226 3620 1504 31 22 Red W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 51 22 Red 0
48 503 2959 4003 2586 27 3234 57 59 Blue L W L L L W 1 1 0 0 57 59 Blue 0
49 1918 141 1023 66 245 247 63 41 Red W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 83 41 Red 0
50 2000 3618 573 1684 494 3538 44 32 Red L W L W W W 1 3 0 1 44 52 Blue 1
51 3098 2834 308 3568 1711 830 55 49 Red W W L L W W 2 2 1 1 75 69 Red 0
52 3656 240 51 2851 302 1025 37 36 Red W L W W W L 2 2 1 1 57 56 Red 0
53 3322 3617 33 548 3509 2337 48 41 Red W W W L L L 3 0 1 0 68 41 Red 0
54 2767 3601 3234 107 2246 27 33 62 Blue L W W W W L 2 2 1 1 53 82 Blue 0
55 2591 247 2000 3539 904 4003 18 44 Blue L L L L L L 0 0 0 0 18 44 Blue 0
56 3537 1023 217 314 226 573 59 63 Blue L W L W L L 1 1 0 0 59 63 Blue 0
57 1684 503 858 141 3568 3620 53 25 Red W L W W L W 2 2 1 1 73 45 Red 0
58 3098 245 2054 201 494 548 68 74 Blue W W L L W L 2 1 1 0 88 74 Red 1
59 2851 862 2767 2959 3618 67 49 43 Red W L L W W W 1 3 0 1 49 63 Blue 1
60 70 3322 3546 240 1711 2474 35 30 Red W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 55 30 Red 0
61 2137 2834 302 66 1918 3509 36 40 Blue W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 56 40 Red 1
62 308 3572 3538 85 3656 33 14 59 Blue L L W W W W 1 3 0 1 14 79 Blue 0
63 469 2586 51 1504 107 3617 74 30 Red W L W L W W 2 2 1 1 94 50 Red 0
64 830 123 4294 1718 2337 1025 42 41 Red W L L W L L 1 1 0 0 42 41 Red 0
65 862 503 3601 494 217 2474 13 85 Blue L L W W L L 1 1 0 0 13 85 Blue 0
66 240 245 4003 2834 3509 2246 62 50 Red L W L W L W 1 2 0 1 62 70 Blue 1
67 1711 3234 548 3656 302 2000 67 19 Red W W L W W L 2 2 1 1 87 39 Red 0
68 70 904 2586 3620 27 2054 30 45 Blue W L L W L L 1 1 0 0 30 45 Blue 0
69 1918 2959 314 3617 469 308 47 68 Blue W W W W W L 3 2 1 1 67 88 Blue 0
70 1504 2591 3572 3539 67 66 23 92 Blue L L L L W L 0 1 0 0 23 92 Blue 0
71 1684 2137 1718 2337 3546 2767 66 63 Red W W W L W L 3 1 1 0 86 63 Red 0
72 141 123 201 51 3537 3618 24 31 Blue W L L W L W 1 2 0 1 24 51 Blue 0
73 3538 33 107 3098 573 247 45 62 Blue W W W W L L 3 1 1 0 65 62 Red 1
74 2851 858 85 3322 1025 830 24 56 Blue W W W W L W 3 2 1 1 44 76 Blue 0
75 226 3568 302 4294 1023 70 11 55 Blue L L W L W W 1 2 0 1 11 75 Blue 0
76 3546 3509 2054 314 862 1504 52 51 Red W L L W L L 1 1 0 0 52 51 Red 0
77 3539 3537 3617 3618 4003 3601 41 46 Blue L L W W L W 1 2 0 1 41 66 Blue 0
78 240 1718 217 308 2959 1684 50 59 Blue L W L L W W 1 2 0 1 50 79 Blue 0
79 1918 201 573 830 858 3572 52 42 Red W L L W W L 1 2 0 1 52 62 Blue 1
80 226 494 2337 107 3656 66 60 40 Red L W L W W L 1 2 0 1 60 60 Blue 1
81 3620 3322 2767 3538 141 247 38 35 Red W W L W W L 2 2 1 1 58 55 Red 0
82 2591 51 548 85 27 3568 58 26 Red L W L W L L 1 1 0 0 58 26 Red 0
83 2246 33 1023 2000 2851 2137 48 53 Blue W W W L W W 3 2 1 1 68 73 Blue 0
84 2586 503 67 2834 469 123 64 61 Red L L W W W L 1 2 0 1 64 81 Blue 1
85 904 2474 3234 245 1711 1025 59 46 Red L L W W W L 1 2 0 1 59 66 Blue 1
86 3098 217 2959 4294 66 3322 66 42 Red W L W L L W 2 1 1 0 86 42 Red 0
87 302 1504 2337 3601 308 201 50 34 Red W L L W L L 1 1 0 0 50 34 Red 0
88 1684 27 830 862 1023 107 42 68 Blue W L W L W W 2 2 1 1 62 88 Blue 0
89 2054 247 3572 2851 240 3568 44 31 Red L L L W L L 0 1 0 0 44 31 Red 0
90 2834 3618 494 469 1025 2137 52 58 Blue W W W W L W 3 2 1 1 72 78 Blue 0
91 3539 85 3509 3098 1918 70 36 70 Blue L W L W W W 1 3 0 1 36 90 Blue 0
92 1718 548 3538 314 141 904 61 29 Red W L W W W L 2 2 1 1 81 49 Red 0
93 2586 33 858 226 2591 3546 44 52 Blue L W W L L W 2 1 1 0 64 52 Red 1
94 4003 2246 3656 573 2474 51 39 77 Blue L W W L L W 2 1 1 0 59 77 Blue 0
95 2000 1711 2767 123 3617 503 39 37 Red L W L L W L 1 1 0 0 39 37 Red 0
96 3620 3537 67 4294 245 3234 79 44 Red W L W L W W 2 2 1 1 99 64 Red 0
97 3618 3568 3322 904 1718 3601 49 42 Red W L W L W W 2 2 1 1 69 62 Red 0
98 314 2137 66 830 240 107 61 53 Red W W L W L W 2 2 1 1 81 73 Red 0
99 85 141 217 2586 1504 2474 39 55 Blue W W L L L L 2 0 1 0 59 55 Red 1
100 2834 51 2000 3546 3572 3098 61 71 Blue W W L W L W 2 2 1 1 81 91 Blue 0
101 308 1025 548 3509 3537 2591 51 21 Red L L L L L L 0 0 0 0 51 21 Red 0
102 123 302 3620 2959 3539 573 42 55 Blue L W W W L L 2 1 1 0 62 55 Red 1
103 4294 201 3538 70 2246 503 21 15 Red L L W W W L 1 2 0 1 21 35 Blue 1
104 2767 67 494 4003 1918 33 65 81 Blue L W W L W W 2 2 1 1 85 101 Blue 0
105 27 247 2337 469 2054 3234 41 71 Blue L L L W L W 0 2 0 1 41 91 Blue 0
106 2851 245 226 1711 3617 1684 28 41 Blue W W L W W W 2 3 1 1 48 61 Blue 0
107 862 858 2959 1023 3656 548 61 80 Blue L W W W W L 2 2 1 1 81 100 Blue 0
108 314 1025 70 3601 141 3572 42 21 Red W L W W W L 2 2 1 1 62 41 Red 0
109 85 3537 2246 66 503 904 35 56 Blue W L W L L L 2 0 1 0 55 56 Blue 0
110 3620 3546 830 302 3618 27 55 14 Red W W W W W L 3 2 1 1 75 34 Red 0
111 494 3617 573 2591 3322 2137 37 42 Blue W W L L W W 2 2 1 1 57 62 Blue 0
112 1711 1023 51 67 2054 2337 72 86 Blue W W W W L L 3 1 1 0 92 86 Red 1
113 858 2474 4294 308 3509 247 55 23 Red W L L L L L 1 0 0 0 55 23 Red 0
114 3098 469 1504 4003 3234 2851 82 34 Red W W L L W W 2 2 1 1 102 54 Red 0
115 1684 201 2767 2586 3539 3656 48 53 Blue W L L L L W 1 1 0 0 48 53 Blue 0
116 2000 226 217 240 2834 1918 27 44 Blue L L L L W W 0 2 0 1 27 64 Blue 0
117 862 245 33 3568 123 1718 63 27 Red L W W L L W 2 1 1 0 83 27 Red 0
118 107 3509 1025 3538 2054 1023 40 39 Red W L L W L W 1 2 0 1 40 59 Blue 1
119 573 503 2137 904 2851 3098 48 41 Red L L W L W W 1 2 0 1 48 61 Blue 1
120 3656 2474 141 67 2591 830 46 63 Blue W L W W L W 2 2 1 1 66 83 Blue 0
121 201 4003 27 1711 85 314 48 39 Red L L L W W W 0 3 0 1 48 59 Blue 1
122 3546 66 1684 548 247 123 50 61 Blue W L W L L L 2 0 1 0 70 61 Red 1
123 494 1718 3539 858 240 2246 54 38 Red W W L W L W 2 2 1 1 74 58 Red 0
124 245 3572 107 2959 302 3322 57 33 Red W L W W W W 2 3 1 1 77 53 Red 0
125 3617 2767 70 3537 2834 862 48 37 Red W L W L W L 2 1 1 0 68 37 Red 0
126 3618 3620 3234 217 33 51 24 80 Blue W W W L W W 3 2 1 1 44 100 Blue 0
127 3568 2337 2586 1918 2000 1504 39 29 Red L L L W L L 0 1 0 0 39 29 Red 0
128 469 3601 3538 308 226 4294 82 60 Red W W W L L L 3 0 1 0 102 60 Red 0
26

-Clinton-

meaubry

27-06-2012, 13:37

Ranking determined by winning. Winning determined by accumulating more points than the opposing alliance. Points scored by balls going thru hoops, plus balancing on bridges, minus penalties.

Coop pts eliminated, and Triple balance added to qualifying matches.

Kinda late, but I think it would have been really fun to have the Coop part be included in the Triple Balance - 2/3 pts to one alliance, and 1/3 to the other. Incentive with very high risk/reward or no reward - for those matches where the alliance probability of having 3 wides is very high, yet not so, if including all 6 robots. Heck, make that score even higher than an regular old normal triple, with 3 bots from the same team.

That also keeps some opportunity for both teams to continue to score baskets until the end. Excitement and fame for all teams, if they want to try the very illusive CTB (Coop Triple Balance).

Wish I was attending, Have fun - I think that is still the objective, regardless of the rules.

Mike

Travis Hoffman

27-06-2012, 14:04

While this is interesting, do keep in mind that tripling is taking another ball scorer away from the game. If the tripling alliance scores even one less ball on average, than tripling wouldn't have an outcome on the average match.

Wouldn't most matches at MSC have all six bots going for bridges regardless? Old way - the third alliance bot went for the co-op bridge while the other two doubled, at about the same time the new way's three alliance bots would be going for the triple.

You're essentially exchanging time spent co-oping for time spent tripling, assuming they both take roughly the same amount of time. Amirite?

It's still all about who can triple faster - who can spend maximum time scoring before breaking away to triple. If your random alliance can't triple, then it's about starting the countdown clock when the opponent breaks away, and hoping to Jeebus you can make up the difference in that time.

Can you allocate TWO bots to scoring during that triple time, and still have time to double? You might have to if the triple alliance is hella fast.

Or you get one bot balanced early as insurance and the other two keep scoring, hoping the triple alliance screws up royally. Or (if it is ALLOWED, which I'm still going to harp about until the IRI folks explicitly define what is legal IRI triple D), the third bot goes and blows up the triple while the other two keep scoring, and one balances late.

It's going to be a lot fun in most random pairing configurations, until it isn't (the no matter what you do, you're hosed scenario I've outlined ad nauseum).

Finally, count me as one who wants the lonely, neglected co-op bridge to be worth something to spice things up a bit more. We haven't had a king of the hill anything since 2004!

Speaking of 2004 - OOOH OOOH CRAZY THOUGHT - let's go retro and give teams the option to play without their bumpers....more room on the bridge... :p

jwfoss

27-06-2012, 14:32

Enough already.

Racer26

27-06-2012, 17:26

Speaking of 2004 - OOOH OOOH CRAZY THOUGHT - let's go retro and give teams the option to play without their bumpers....more room on the bridge... :p

Speaking as someone who saw xtremachen back in 2003 for the first time at the then Canadian Regional: Must be someone from 48 suggesting a return to the pre-bumper days.

I remember that gold frame with lexan paneling jousting atop the Stack Attack ramp.

I also remember needing to sawzall a chunk of 1075's 2004 frame out because the 1" square tubing got whacked so hard it had moved ~1" into the wheel and was preventing it from turning.

Michael Hill

27-06-2012, 17:30

I would like to have seen triple balancing in quals, but make the score 30 rather than 40. 40 points is just too much in quals when co-op points aren't available.

Travis Hoffman

27-06-2012, 17:33

Speaking as someone who saw xtremachen back in 2003 for the first time at the then Canadian Regional: Must be someone from 48 suggesting a return to the pre-bumper days.

I remember that gold frame with lexan paneling jousting atop the Stack Attack ramp.

I also remember needing to sawzall a chunk of 1075's 2004 frame out because the 1" square tubing got whacked so hard it had moved ~1" into the wheel and was preventing it from turning.

Ahhh, the good old days.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/858/858957eff984ad6d1ae964a8686ae6c4_l.jpg

Didn't look like that at the end of the season (we ditched the center wheels), but close enough.

I might have video of your match from the 2003 Canadian Regional up at homarv13 on YouTube. Not sure if I uploaded all of them. 1114's first ever robot is featured in one of the matches.

Little known fact - some maintenance lackeys at a local university where that robot was stored likely pilfered that robot and sold it for scrap. The bot was stolen. So sad. We don't like that place much any more.

Racer26

27-06-2012, 17:43

Looks like not. We made it all the way to the finals that year, with 188 and 306.

Nick Lawrence

28-06-2012, 01:23

The amount of successful co-op balances likely to take place at IRI really negates the whole effect the co-op points would have on the rankings.

However, the added triple balance bonus in qualification rounds is an interesting change.

But it is not a game changer.

IRI will have teams with new drivers. It's going to be impossible to practice triple balancing with all of your alliance partners throughout the qualification rounds before your matches. Even with 3 wide robots, triple balancing is difficult, case and point made here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKWuPlvxGD8) These guys had plenty of practice with this too, and it still fell apart. (Sorry Mr. Lim, but it was the best example I could come up with.)

All of these stats people have are with veteran drivers.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you will see two, max three successful qualification triple balances.

So longbots, need not to worry.

-Nick

Mike Starke

28-06-2012, 16:06

PRO:

67 (W)
68 (W)
234 (W)
341 (W)
868 (SQ)
907 (W)
3940 (W)
4334 (W)NEUTRAL:

33 (W)
359 (L)
548 (L)
829 (W)
1640 (SW)
2056 (L)CON:

48 (L)
340 (L)
461 (L)
744 (L)
772 (L)
2168 (L)
2337 (L)
3193 (L)
3310 (L)
Secret Unnamed Team (L)

This list says it perfectly! Notice a trend? You can't deny it! Those for the rule change are all wide bots, while those against it are all long bots. This would be similar to the MLB extending the salary cap. All the Yankees fans would be totally for it (because they could afford it), while the Astros fans would be totally against it (as they couldn't afford anyone else). You would be giving an unfair advantage to certain teams, and that's what the IRI planning committee is doing here, whether it was their "intent" or not. Not a tit for tat example but hopefully you get my idea.

I can only speak for my team, but back in January, we had a quite lengthy discussion on whether to go wide/long. We eventually decided on long (but with weight distributed back so we could overhang). We came to this conclusion as you could only balance two robots for both qualification alliance bridges and coop bridges.

I LOVE the point Evan brought up Originally Posted by IRI Website
"We are considering some minor rules changes to the 2012 FRC game, Rebound Rumble. These changes will only be slight tweaks and will not be significant. Our intent is to make a slight change that may improve the game, but not make a change that will encourage teams to alter their robot."
So they pretty much did the exact OPPOSITE of what they said they were going to do. Rule #3 is in no way a "slight change". "Minor" rule changes wouldn't have teams question the reason why they built the robot they did.

After talking with Justin, and reading Tyler's post, I'm in complete agreement.
We're long. We're not worried. There will be many matches where all 3 of our opponents devote 40 seconds to attempting to triple and fail. We will continue to score undefended while our partners double. [/URL]
Triple balancing is HARD. Teams could barely perfect it by Finals Match 3, and that was after trying it up to 8 times before then. You have to nail a triple with two teams you may never have done it with before. Justin made a good prediction that teams are going to realize how hard it is, and after many failures by a lot of alliances, teams are just going to stop trying for the triple balance during qualifications, and go back to the double. Many alliances died by the triple balance; attempting the triple when only needing a double, or just failing at the triple for a loss throughout the season(148/33 and 67/2826 for example). The triple balance during quals at IRI will be high risk for little reward. There are going to be so many great scorers there, the extra 20 points won't be that significant and in my opinion won't make the difference in too many matches.
Sorry for the rambling, IRI will be fun no matter what.
Mike

Tetraman

28-06-2012, 17:34

After thinking about it, I've come up with a few more thoughts.

1) I still believe the #2 and #3 rule changes are bad ideas. I believe they take away from the core fundamentals of Rebound Rumble and I think will alter the tournament in a negative way.

2) That said, I'm becoming more interested in finding out if I am right or wrong. This experiment might end up as a good thing for FIRST - why? Because it may determine the future of FIRST robotics games. I theorized at the end of the FIRST robotics season (to myself, I didn't write it anywhere) that we won't be seeing any more Co-op point interactions in the near future. However, I think this might end up giving the GDC the factors they need to greenlight more Co-Op interactions in the future or hammer the nail in the coffin.

3) Why is rule #1 enforced on the honor system? Are the robots not weighed and inspected at IRI? And why is it worded like that? Is the rule stating that your original robot must maintain it's original weight +5 pounds? With all the talk about being able to do some upgrades on your robot, why is the rule +5 pounds rather than maximum robot weight is 125 pounds? And +5 pounds since when? Since championship or the end of the ship date, since many robots are altered greatly at each event they attend.

Gregor

28-06-2012, 17:48

Hey I'm padding the stats to start. :D

Those who are indifferent/defiant to the presence of triples are definitely not pro. I can dig NEUTRAL. Let's refine:

#DISCLAIMER - a team number appearing below indicates a member of that team has indicated their preference for rule #3 one way or another. That does not automatically mean the entire team shares their viewpoint. It was easier to note the CD user's team number. If two members of a team indicate differing opinions, I will indicate this via their usernames. Not that this list is anything more than an informal two-minute skim of information that was already clear from reading the thread. :-)

PRO:

67 (W)
68 (W)
234 (W)
341 (W)
868 (SQ)
907 (W)
3940 (W)
4334 (W)NEUTRAL:

33 (W)
359 (L)
548 (L)
829 (W)
1640 (SW)
2056 (L)CON:

48 (L)
340 (L)
461 (L)
744 (L)
772 (L)
2168 (L)
2337 (L)
3193 (L)
3310 (L)
Secret Unnamed Team (L)

Where are you getting this information from? I don't see anywhere saying that 907 is pro the change? Put us in the "just deal with it and stop complaining" section please....

akoscielski3

28-06-2012, 17:50

Where are you getting this information from? I don't see anywhere saying that 907 is pro the change? Put us in the "just deal with it and stop complaining" section please....

I was thinking the same thing. I doubt it will hurt us. we can hang over so far that i think (as along as we can be on the outside) that we will be able to triple most of the time. Even though we have never tripled at competitions as we only tried it once in queen city, we also put our COG on the outside of the bridge and just flipped.

Chris Fultz

28-06-2012, 21:09

1. +5 pounds allowed. Honor system, unless the referees question you.

3) Why is rule #1 enforced on the honor system? Are the robots not weighed and inspected at IRI? And why is it worded like that? .

It has always (for at least the last several years) been this way, so that teams can make repairs and modifications and not be worried about the 120 pound weight limit. +5 refers to the FIRST rule of 120 pounds.

No, we don't inspect at IRI. We trust teams to be legal and stay legal. We don't weight robots, but if a robot appears to be signficantly heavy, the referee can check it.

DampRobot

29-06-2012, 14:57

Hey I'm padding the stats to start. :D

Those who are indifferent/defiant to the presence of triples are definitely not pro. I can dig NEUTRAL. Let's refine:

#DISCLAIMER - a team number appearing below indicates a member of that team has indicated their preference for rule #3 one way or another. That does not automatically mean the entire team shares their viewpoint. It was easier to note the CD user's team number. If two members of a team indicate differing opinions, I will indicate this via their usernames. Not that this list is anything more than an informal two-minute skim of information that was already clear from reading the thread. :-)

PRO:

67 (W)
68 (W)
234 (W)
341 (W)
868 (SQ)
907 (W)
3940 (W)
4334 (W)NEUTRAL:

33 (W)
359 (L)
548 (L)
829 (W)
1640 (SW)
2056 (L)CON:

48 (L)
340 (L)
461 (L)
744 (L)
772 (L)
2168 (L)
2337 (L)
3193 (L)
3310 (L)
Secret Unnamed Team (L)

Count one Secret Unnamed, and long, Team to Pro. In my opinion, cooperation points just masked what teams played the game best. Not that our team would have done better, just that cooperation points didn't rank teams such that teams that would do better in eliminations would be ranked higher. It added noise to the system.

Travis Hoffman

29-06-2012, 15:00

Count one Secret Unnamed, and long, Team to Pro. In my opinion, cooperation points just masked what teams played the game best. Not that our team would have done better, just that cooperation points didn't rank teams such that teams that would do better in eliminations would be ranked higher. It added noise to the system.

To be clear, that list was only relevant to Rule Change #3 - the qualifying triple rule change.

Hey Dustin - step away from your popcorn and post your meme. It summarizes the general gist of the #3 rule change analysis fairly accurately. :-)

I think Rule Change #2 (no co-op bridge) has been generally accepted by most participating teams, expressed in a range of opinions spanning from "awesome!" to "not horrible".

Aren Siekmeier

30-06-2012, 13:38

waialua359

30-06-2012, 15:25

Well here we are, doing what we CDers are best at...

I may as well chip in. My only real issue (as I've stated before) is the elimination of the coopertition bridge, probably my favorite feature of this game. (So I guess my response to that specifically is more adverse than "not horrible".) But there will certainly be plenty of excitement with triple balances in quals, with the caliber of the teams attending.

Also, I completely agree that the perceived detriment to long bots from this change is quite overblown. For one, you can never completely avoid being randomly assigned a match that is weighted heavily against you (doesn't mean you can't win though...). However, at this event, the caliber of those attending shouldn't give you much to worry about when it comes to your alliance's ability. But in any case, it's a great opportunity to make your robot even better to meet whatever challenge is specifically posed to your team.

And as many have mentioned, the organizers certainly have their right to make rule modifications to make the event more exciting for spectators, more inspiring for teams, and generally better. I have no doubts that the committee were very thoughtful and deliberate in this decision.
I couldnt agree more.
Not because we are a long bot, but because teams still have to be able to score. There is still a large difference between teams that can score quickly down to the ones that have a much more difficult time.
If the rule change was that detrimental, we would have either canceled or made a widebot in preparation of this tournament.

The rule change makes elimination matches in every match, nothing more, nothing less.

Coopertition, while great in concept, had flaws that created drama between several teams this season. Anything to revise or adjust the concept in the future to avoid such situations would be great.
The most odd part of it all that baffles me, is that two different games were being played in order to be successful between qualification and elimination matches.