Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day

[cgmv123]

Human Actions
G35


The most recent FRC Blog describes the observations and lessons learned about ULTIMATE ASCENT game play during the two Week 0 scrimmages attended by FRC staff. One observation in particular is the basis for an edit, shown below, to Rule [G35].

During the creation and refinement of ULTIMATE ASCENT, we anticipated DISCS to occasionally and accidently be shot off the FIELD by ROBOTS and FEEDERS. However, we underestimated the intensity and degree to which FEEDERS would launch DISCS at the opposite ends of the FIELD. The aggressive throws plus the propensity for DISCS to leave the FIELD at high velocity caused a more distracting, and more notably hazardous, environment than anticipated for participants and equipment in and around the ARENA.

We strongly resist any significant rule changes after games are released, but this change is required to improve the safety for all FRC event participants. After discussing several options, we believe this particular change is the most effective and efficient way to mitigate risks. We apologize for our error and for having to make this game modification.

DISCS may be fed onto the FIELD only under the following circumstances:

A. during TELEOP through the FEEDER SLOTS for any DISCS and

B. during the last thirty (30) seconds of TELEOP over the FEEDER STATIONS for Red and Blue DISCS.

Violation: FOUL

root
Game Manual


As a reminder to Teams, a required Driver Station update was released on February 5. All Teams must update their Driver Station software to at least version 1.29.13.00.

Teams should not touch the GOALS at any point as this could impact the weight sensors used to score DISCS. Teams will be reminded of this during the Drivers’ Meeting, and the GOALS will be labeled with “Do not touch” stickers.

and

On Saturday, February 16th, FRC staff supported two ‘Week 0’ scrimmages, one in Connecticut and one in New Hampshire. These events were run with official fields and electronics that will be put on the road during competition season. FRC supports these events so we can test out our systems and see how the game plays with real FRC Teams. We carefully review what we see at these events, and work to improve our systems, and if necessary, the game, in preparation for competition.

Here’s what we learned about which we thought you’d like to hear:


Field reset can be fairly quick, although it will require more coordination than in past years. Provided there’s a plan and organization about collecting and staging discs, it’s pretty manageable. Practice day will be a huge help in getting everyone on the same page and running smoothly.
The belay system is effective at helping remove robots from the pyramids, but it will require much communication and collaboration between the team and the field staff to make sure it’s done safely and effectively (thanks to Team 811 for giving us several opportunities to try this out!).
To mitigate cost and complexity and maximize access for testing and troubleshooting, the goals are designed to be fairly open. Because the FMS calculates the score based on the weight of the discs in the goals, it’s important that teams not touch any of the goals (over their head or the low goal). We’ll make sure this reminder is covered in the Drivers’ Meetings and we’ll be labeling the goals with “Do Not Touch” stickers.
The netting on the sides of the field was helpful, but we still had significant issues with discs leaving the field during the match. During the last 30 seconds, when feeders are allowed to enter discs onto the field over the feeder stations, discs were going everywhere. This period was described on the forums as a ‘blizzard’ and it ‘raining’ discs. These are accurate characterizations. There are several issues with this, the most significant being safety. While discs thrown by robots for the most part stayed within the confines of the field, many discs thrown by the feeders did not. This is understandable – feeders are attempting a difficult shot at an awkward angle. This makes it exciting when a disc goes in a goal, but also increases the chance that a disc will leave the playing field and potentially strike someone. We noticed that during the last 30 seconds of the match, many folks closest to the field had their heads up to make sure they weren’t going to be hit by an errant disc, rather than enjoying the action on the field.


This last bullet is particularly compelling and, unfortunately, was serious enough that we felt the need to modify the game to rectify the situation (the official rule change is in today’s Team Update). As we hope we conveyed in the Team Update, we don’t take significant rules changes lightly as we know that teams carefully study the rules and invest hours or even days coming up with the best strategy they can within the framework of those rules.

We know that the robots we saw at these events were still works in progress, as teams still had three days before they needed to bag up. Even so, we were impressed with and excited by what we saw and can’t wait to see more. We’re so grateful to the event planning committees and the teams themselves for giving this opportunity to do a couple of dress rehearsals. We hope it was a fun and valuable experience for all participants.

Stop Build Day

In case you lost track of time, today is Stop Build Day! Robots must be bagged up by the stroke of midnight – your local time - tonight (when today, of course, turns in to tomorrow).



I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

Major change. One that will probably take away from the game, but I understand why they did it.

[dodar]

So, normal discs cannot be thrown at all?

[Andrew Lawrence]

So, normal discs cannot be thrown at all?

That's what I get from it.

[dodar]

That's what I get from it.

This will greatly lessen the end game. Imagine if all those epic endgame shots hadnt happened last year; some of those moments were more amazing than some by the robots.

Oh, and this is my 1,592nd post!!! :D
Go Bionic Tigers!

[cgmv123]

So, normal discs cannot be thrown at all?

That appears to be the case.

[Chris is me]

Well, I guess I'm glad we didn't go with floor loading after all.

Sucks for any teams who designed around scoring a volley of frisbees in the end game. I'm never a fan of mid season rule changes - I'd rather they have made better netting, but at least it doesn't affect my team too much.

[Grim Tuesday]

Let the jimmies rustle.


This is the easily the most game changing change I have ever seen the GDC make late in the season. While I see the safety issue, it is absolutely irresponsible for them not to have noticed this earlier. While we didn't choose to use floor pickup, many teams made design decisions based on the throwing and pickup of white discs in this time period.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Well THAT's a game changer if I've ever seen one. So long frisbee blizzard and ultimate frisbee human players. Definitely a blow to ground-pickup robots everywhere. On the plus side, late game maneuverability just got a lot easier.

[dodar]

Well, I guess I'm glad we didn't go with floor loading after all.

Sucks for any teams who designed around scoring a volley of frisbees in the end game.

I guess the only thing those robots can pray for is that robots just drop artillery fire to their goal side so they can then pick up those. Just have teammates wildly fire shots just to get frisbees into play and down range.

[IndySam]

uhhhh, wow.

Real glad we sacrificed climbing for floor loading. Thanks GDC.

[PayneTrain]

I really don't know hot to put this in perspective. I don't feel good about it.

EDIT with perspective: To all ground loaders, don't dismay. There were a ton of frisbees on the ground before endgame at Week Zero events.
And besides, it's not like both alliances aren't going to have to deal with the rule change.

[AllenGregoryIV]

This is devastating. Our strategy was that fast floor pickup could even out not having a 30 point hang. This completely removes that idea. I understand safety concerns but why did my students just spend 6 weeks perfecting floor pickup and being able to drive around on a lot of discs. I'm just glad there seems to be a lot of full court shooters, that can replace the humans throwing.

More than anything this just killed team moral.

[dodar]

This is devastating. Our strategy was that fast floor pickup could even out not having a 30 point hang. This completely removes that idea. I understand safety concerns but why did my students just spend 6 weeks perfecting floor pickup and being able to drive around on a lot of discs. I'm just glad there seems to be a lot of full court shooters, that can replace the humans throwing.

But you dont know the amount per regional. It could be 2 at one and 25 at another; or you could have 10 at a regional but all shoot 80% plus. I do feel bad for all the teams that highly focused on their ground game.

[Radical Pi]

B. during the last thirty (30) seconds of TELEOP over the FEEDER STATIONS for Red and Blue DISCS.

I don't see anything that prevents the humans from throwing the colored discs into the 3 point goal. New prediction: there will be more colored discs scored in the 3 point goal than in the pyramid goal.

[BJC]

This is very... irritating.

What's done is done though, no amount of complaining will change it back. Keep that in mind when posting in this thread.

Regards, Bryan

[dodar]

I don't see anything that prevents the humans from throwing the colored discs into the 3 point goal. New prediction: there will be more colored discs scored in the 3 point goal than in the pyramid goal.

I dont see that happening unless a station runs dry of white discs. Those color discs will be a coveted commodity; unless you dont have a pyramid scorer team on your alliance.

[Madison]

They wrote a rule that allowed human players to throw a large quantity of frisbees at goals 50' away -- but only in a limited time frame -- and they're surprised that .. they do? I don't understand how you could ever imagine that the last 30 seconds was going to play out any other way.

[Kevin Sevcik]

While the timing of this decision is extremely unfortunate, I don't think you can argue much with the rationale. The nets are several feet back from the field, meant to protect the crowd and venue. Inside the nets are refs, scorers, field reset, etc. The refs in particular have to work right next to the field to properly ref the game. Particularly in the end game when they need to make calls on the legality of climbs. The GDC had to make the call of whether to let the rules stand or let the refs decide between properly observing and calling a match or getting clocked in the head by errant HP frisbees.

I think the call is the right one from a safety and game management standpoint, I just think it should have been blindingly obvious to the GDC from the start that the original rules were going to result in this. Give a HP even a small chance at a scoring a point, and they're going to take it. You only have to look at the cross court shooting attempts from last year to see that.

EDIT: My mistake, nets are right on the guard rails. On the other hand, the nets don't cover the area over the goals. Which means lots of frisbees flying over the player stations, which is presumably what they're worried about. So trade clocking a ref with clocking a queued team/robot instead.

[Ankit S.]

Well our human players are gonna be bummed...

Inside the nets are refs, scorers, field reset, etc. The refs in particular have to work right next to the field to properly ref the game.

I think the refs are outside the nets actually, but I can double check today.

[RoboTigers1796]

Wow... the day of stop build. That seriously stinks and changes our whole outlook on our success this season.

I'm sure many others are in our boat too. As IndySam indicated, we went against the norm and opted for an efficient pick-up instead of a climb. We anticipated this "blizzard" from day 1 of build, why couldn't the GDC.

With this in mind we thought in 25 seconds we could score at least 6-8 discs for 18-24 points with a 3 second 10 point hang to effectively beat or match a standard 30 pt hang thanks to the 30 second nemo storm. And with that our season is enormously affected. Such a shame.

Oh well, best of luck to the rest of the teams that went with this strategy.

[Akash Rastogi]

This is very... irritating.

What's done is done though, no amount of complaining will change it back. Keep that in mind when posting in this thread.

Regards, Bryan

Yeah I gotta agree. As a fellow floor loader, sucks but oh well.

This will certainly make matches less exciting though. Why didn't they discuss taller netting instead of eliminating part of the game?

[Andrew Lawrence]

While I can understand how this can be devastating for teams who planned on amazing group pickup, there are still great uses for ground-pickup bots.

-Not every frisbee is going to be scored on its first try. This is for both alliances. Discs will miss, and in a match where there is a full-court shooter on each alliance, I think every missed frisbee, on both alliance sides, will be the difference between loosing a match. I think a ground pickup bot that utilizes the frisbees missed by an opponent can easily change the tide of the match. Instead of 45 frisbees for each team, suddenly the team with the ground pickup bot gets 60 frisbees, and the other team gets 30.

-Autonomous mode is the second-highest ranking factor next to qualification scores. Teams who can get the frisbees from the ground are not only going to score a major lead for their team, but also rank higher.

All is not lost.

[Steven Donow]

They wrote a rule that allowed human players to throw a large quantity of frisbees at goals 50' away -- but only in a limited time frame -- and they're surprised that .. they do? I don't understand how you could ever imagine that the last 30 seconds was going to play out any other way.

I think they expected the nets to work significantly better than they seemed to/found the large amount to be significantly distracting to the audience close to the field-even if the nets worked fine.

Overall, I'm not sure how to feel about this; again, it makes floor pickup feel more like something we could have possibly given up, but I'm confident it's importance isn't TOTALLY diminished now...I guess my opinion will depend on how our climbing mechanism goes...

[ehfeinberg]

NOOO!!!

I really wanted to score some discs into the top goal, but I agree that the GDC made the right choice. There were just too many discs being thrown. Now to start practicing on the nearly impossible pyramid goal!

This decision does help my team, and all other teams with a full court shooter. Now that there is no fury of discs in the last 30 seconds, teams with ground pickup are going to need some quick supply of discs across the field.

[bduddy]

They wrote a rule that allowed human players to throw a large quantity of frisbees at goals 50' away -- but only in a limited time frame -- and they're surprised that .. they do? I don't understand how you could ever imagine that the last 30 seconds was going to play out any other way.I agree - I find it incredibly disappointing and borderline unbelievable that the GDC did not anticipate what was going to happen during the last 30 seconds of the game. What other possible outcome could there be, other than all of the remaining frisbees being thrown as quickly as possible in the vague direction of a goal or robot? And why could they not simply expand the nets, for example, rather than changing a clearly stated rule on the last day of build?

[Tom Line]

This is devastating. Our strategy was that fast floor pickup could even out not having a 30 point hang. This completely removes that idea. I understand safety concerns but why did my students just spend 6 weeks perfecting floor pickup and being able to drive around on a lot of discs. I'm just glad there seems to be a lot of full court shooters, that can replace the humans throwing.

More than anything this just killed team moral.

Yes. We made a lot of design trade offs to support floor pickup. BIG ones. Now, unless we have a 'pray and spray' teammate, we're going to be at a disadvantage having to traverse the field to get discs.

We sacrificed a high climb mechanism based on the math of a floor pickup with readily available discs, and what we could do in 30 seconds.

I'm pretty angry about this.

[Hjelstrom]

Now they should lower the climb points to 5,10,15 to even it out! :-)

[JohnSchneider]

Youre still going to have lots of Frisbees on the floor from the tons and tons* of full court shooters. And your floor pickup still gives you a huge edge in autonomous.

[dodar]

Now they should lower the climb points to 5,10,15 to even it out! :-)

No. Climbing would not even be worth it if they were that low.

[GaryVoshol]

Inside the nets are refs, scorers, field reset, etc. The refs in particular have to work right next to the field to properly ref the game. Particularly in the end game when they need to make calls on the legality of climbs.

Everyone is outside the nets during the match. The refs are outside the nets. Probably because of their position close to the nets, they are more protected from discs than others that are standing or sitting 8, 10 or 15 feet away.

I'm sure the GDC and others at FIRST saw the potential for people that have to be near the field - FTA, score table, reset, next match on deck, etc - being bombarded by errant discs. It was bad enough when we had to avoid flying tubes, and only a limited number of those. When a disc is launched for a 54' hail mary, I can see it would be very easy for it to fly over the opposite alliance station or curve out over the net.

It's unfortunate that a rule change has to be made this late, but better now than after Week 1.

[Andrew Lawrence]

No. Climbing would not even be worth it if they were that low.

Maybe 10, 15, 20? Or 10, 20, 25, since from what I hear once you're on the second rung, you can easily get to the third.

[MooreteP]

Well THAT's a game changer if I've ever seen one. So long frisbee blizzard and ultimate frisbee human players. Definitely a blow to ground-pickup robots everywhere. On the plus side, late game maneuverability just got a lot easier.

During the least 30 seconds, I would be surprised to see a floor pickup and shooting robot manage even one cycle with white frisbees thrown by the human players.

Floor pickup will still be important with the number of Frisbees that will start on the floor, as well as those from missed shots.

After attending the Suffield Shakedown, I can attest to the safety issue involved here. If you want to, blame the lawyers, not the GDC.
The GDC made a thoughtful choice here.

Less than 10 percent of the Frisbees thrown made it into a goal.

At least the game reset crew is probably going to have an easier time of it.

Let's not make this a bigger deal than it is.

[nuggetsyl]

During the least 30 seconds, I would be surprised to see a floor pickup and shooting robot manage even one cycle with white frisbees thrown by the human
We can easily do 2 if not 3 cycles in 30. I have to say this rule changes the game for us. I would like to see climbing lowered to level things out.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Let's not make this a bigger deal than it is.

It's a pretty big deal. Personally coming from a team that elected to go with a floor loader + 10pt hang as apposed to a 30 point climber because it gave us a greater potential to score more points in the last 30 seconds, this essentially kills our strategy based on the endgame blizzard. Unless we are lucky enough to be matched with a bot that can cross-court shoot, our floor loader is MUCH less useful.

I understand frisbees are less predictable and controllable than a ball or tube, and way more likely to deviate off course, but at some point, game element like this (nonscoring related) should not be changing.

[SM987]

Let's not make this a bigger deal than it is.

Given that it's stop build day, I haven't seen anyone overreact. That said, this is a minor plus for climbers and a minor bummer for floor loaders. I don't see it being a huge issue in anything but the highest level of competition.

[dodar]

Honestly, teams should have built for both human loading and floor loading.

[Madison]

Honestly, teams should have built for both human loading and floor loading.

...based on what reasoning?

[Vikingtech2054]

We can easily do 2 if not 3 cycles in 30. I have to say this rule changes the game for us. I would like to see climbing lowered to level things out.

I feel the same way. We designed a fast pickup for getting the frisbees at the end. I like the idea of lowering the climb points to even it out. Or possibly come up with a low cost netting system for behind the goals, and change the rule back

[steelerborn]

Team 1671 The Bird Brains made their entire bot to have an amazing pick-up system, to easily get disks from the ground. Now there will be only missed shot disks for us to pick-up. This really lowers the advantage that we had in the last 30 seconds. We could easily get 2 shots of 4 off in that time. I agree that something needs to be done to even the game out not sure what it would be.

Not too happy with FIRST about this decision but oh well :/

[Sam390250]

I think I am mostly just disappointed because that frenzy of discs was so fun to watch in the last 30 seconds! Just like building a slip n slide off the top of your house, you know its probably not the safest idea but it is so fun you can't resist! However, with FIRST being held responsible for the people on that slip n slide, I can regrettably understand their decision.

That being said, there were still a ton of discs on the floor from missed shots at our week 0 event. Though this change will obviously impact strategy, it might not be quite as drastic as initially thought. Our strategy of no floor pickup seemed a little questionable at our event because the number of discs that ended up on the floor early in the match was higher than we anticipated.

[dodar]

...based on what reasoning?

1. It should have been relatively easy to do.
2. Almost every year, the good teams have been able to get game pieces off the ground or from HP(2012,2011,2010,2009,2007,2006,etc..)

[AllenGregoryIV]

Honestly, teams should have built for both human loading and floor loading.

That's just not true. Everyone's strategy is different and based on the game rules. We were hoping to never leave our auto zone so human loading was not needed.

[Andy Grady]

GREAT rule change. While I could understand some frustration to not realizing this earlier, this is why there are week 0 events. Anyone who was at any of the scrimmages could have told you that the last 30 seconds were an absolute mess and needed to be changed...for the better of the game, and for the safety of those involved. Those of us who volunteer on the field are greatly appreciative of it, I assure you.

-Andy

[BugByte]

That's just not true. Everyone's strategy is different and based on the game rules. We were hoping to never leave our auto zone so human loading was not needed.

Were you planning to get discs before the last 30 seconds?

[dodar]

That's just not true. Everyone's strategy is different and based on the game rules. We were hoping to never leave our auto zone so human loading was not needed.

Well then this really doesnt affect you save the last 30 seconds of the match. So, 3/4 of your match strategy doesnt change.

[MooreteP]

We can easily do 2 if not 3 cycles in 30. I have to say this rule changes the game for us. I would like to see climbing lowered to level things out.

You may be right and I may be wrong.

Your team consistently builds clever and effective robots.

I would be amazed by a 10 second cycle.

One solution may be to ask a weak shooting partner to load and shoot from across the field, that way, you would have a constant supply for more than just the last 30 seconds.

Was your team able to solve the upside down frisbee pickup problem?

[nicholsjj]

Well from a climber perspective it's not a huge bonus to our game strategy except for the fact that our robot will sit at the feeder station and shoot all 15 of our shoots. If we miss then that gives our alliance the "snow" to do their 30 second strategy. This means that an alliance can get two chances to score the same 15 disks.:cool:

[JesseK]

Meh, I'm too tired to care. Maybe I'll feel differently later. It's a game changer for some, but it isn't for us. We totally did a double-wide scoop for autonomous, and as such it isn't the most efficient at swift floor pickup as others seen here. Though with such a quick hang, I was totally hoping to get at least an extra hopper from floor discs just because they were so close. Heavy sigh.

I wonder why they simply didn't reduce the window of time to something much smaller, or limit the quantity, or give a 3-point penalty per errant disc?

[dcarr]

This will greatly lessen the end game. Imagine if all those epic endgame shots hadnt happened last year; some of those moments were more amazing than some by the robots.

Maybe so. But I do FIRST to inspire/be inspired about STEM, not athletic ability...there are plenty of other sports for that.

[dag0620]

While I understand the frustration with a mid-year rule change, I have to applaud FIRST for doing this.

As an attendant at Suffield, I can tell you the blizzard got out of hand. Several of my team mates and I did or almost did get hit by a Frisbee in the final 30 seconds. This is so needed for safety's reason.

I do also understand that many people would assume we would improve the nets. However at this point the next step to protect spectators would be nets hanging from the ceiling of the venue, and there's just too many variables, expense, and hastle to make that happen.

Overall great rule change, and I'm happy to see it happen.

[dodar]

Maybe so. But I do FIRST to inspire/be inspired about STEM, not athletic ability...there are plenty of other sports for that.

Its not about athletic ability, but to inspire you have to have the quality of a product to attract, and then hook students and mentors. Would a new student rather see 3 teams completely dominate another alliance because they have an amazing distance shooter and 2 hangers or see a match where that alliance is going up against a distance shooter, a hanger, and a ground clean up bot and the score is decided by HP scores? I would say the latter could be a greater way to inspire.

[nuggetsyl]

While I am disappointed in the rule change. I have talked to a few people that were at a week 0 event. The GDC made a decision to protect the kids and field crew and I fully support their decision. We will adapt and go kick some bot. On am added note I agree with Cory a few posts down in how the GDC could not see this coming is almost a crime in itself.

[dodar]

How tall were the nets? And are the media people for each team required to stay behind the nets? Also, are the nets going to be too tall to see psat them with the regional webcast? Because seeing streams and team videos through netting will be extremely annoying.

[Cory]

It's laughably bad that the GDC didn't have the foresight to realize this was going to happen.

Seriously, who didn't think that there would be a barrage of frisbees flying everywhere?

It's like a year ago when they came up with the game they said 2+2=5 and then today realized it actually equals 4...

How tall were the nets? And are the media people for each team required to stay behind the nets? Also, are the nets going to be too tall to see psat them with the regional webcast? Because seeing streams and team videos through netting will be extremely annoying.

I highly doubt you'd even be able to see the netting from a webcast. I'm sitting 6' from some right now and it doesn't obstruct your view at all.

[Andrew Schreiber]

...based on what reasoning?

Silly reasoning. Silly wrong reasoning.

The fact is we all picked our strategy under a different set of rules than what we will now be playing under. While this may not be a problem for some teams it is a problem for others.

I'm not looking forward to explaining to my students this change. Not because it may or may not impact our strategy or our robot's performance but because of what it says at a deeper level. I don't want to have to explain to my students (again) why we are playing Whose Line Is It Anyway... The points are made up and the rules don't matter. Why all the analysis we did at the beginning of the season is changed now that it's too late to fix anything. What I'm telling them is that life isn't fair and it doesn't matter if you use due diligence only if you have dumb luck and the powers that be don't make a change that should have been obvious if they'd given this game even a modicum of thought.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Silly reasoning. Silly wrong reasoning.

The fact is we all picked our strategy under a different set of rules than what we will now be playing under. While this may not be a problem for some teams it is a problem for others.

I'm not looking forward to explaining to my students this change. Not because it may or may not impact our strategy or our robot's performance but because of what it says at a deeper level. I don't want to have to explain to my students (again) why we are playing Whose Line Is It Anyway... The points are made up and the rules don't matter. Why all the analysis we did at the beginning of the season is changed now that it's too late to fix anything. What I'm telling them is that life isn't fair and it doesn't matter if you use due diligence only if you have dumb luck and the powers that be don't make a change that should have been obvious if they'd given this game even a modicum of thought.

Thank you for wording this better than I could. I just had to explain it to my team and it was the most unpleasant moment of the season by far.

[nicholsjj]

It's laughably bad that the GDC didn't have the foresight to realize this was going to happen.

Seriously, who didn't think that there would be a barrage of frisbees flying everywhere?



Should teams have not have had the foresight then that this would occur or were we the only team to?

[Chris is me]

Should teams have not have had the foresight then that this would occur or were we the only team to?

You anticipated that the GDC would make a ship day rule change completely changing how the game is played, invalidating a potentially great endgame strategy? I wish I had that kind of foresight.

[IndySam]

Should teams have not have had the foresight then that this would occur or were we the only team to?

Can you get your team to pick powerball numbers for me?

[Alexa Stott]

1. It should have been relatively easy to do.
2. Almost every year, the good teams have been able to get game pieces off the ground or from HP(2012,2011,2010,2009,2007,2006,etc..)

I beg to differ. We couldn't pick pieces up from the floor in 2006 and did pretty well for ourselves.

I think everyone upset about this has every right to be.

I certainly understand why the decision was made--safety is incredibly important. As many others have pointed out, it's very surprising that the GDC did not anticipate this ahead of time. All they really had to do was look at something like 2009's endgame and recall the balls flying all over. Add in that frisbees can move in pretty strange ways and you've got the perfect recipe for, well, a blizzard.

[Keefe2471]

I think he was saying the opposite actually. That the GDC should have antipated our anticipation :D

On a more personal note this is an awful time to change the game. A more specialized net should have been the first thing attempted. Although the size of these nets has been concerning me the entire season, this response seems "nuclear" in the magnitude it affects the game.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Should teams have not have had the foresight then that this would occur or were we the only team to?

Honestly? No. I knew this part of the game was potentially dangerous. However, I assumed that FIRST had taken steps to mitigate this danger. I assumed that the people who design these games had learned from past games (2012, 2007, and 2006 come to mind).

[DampRobot]

I beg to differ. We couldn't pick pieces up from the floor in 2006 and did pretty well for ourselves.

Team 25 had an awesome robot in 2006. Their robot's success formed a large part of our decision not to bother to pick up from the floor this year. I still believe a good 30 point climber, executed correctly, is a lot more advantageous than a floor pickup.

It's really too bad that the GDC chose to change rules this drastically this late in the game. I really have a hard time believing that they didn't even think that human players would try to throw game pieces when they were allowed to. Teams with a floor pickup have every right to be upset. They would do well to remember though that there will be other frisbees on the ground...

Looking on the bright side, I foresaw a lot of robots would be crippled due to driving over frisbees in the last 30 seconds of the game. This should make it less of a problem.

[Anupam Goli]

I know I anticipated the blizzard, but I still feel like floor pickups will be useful, especially for missed shots. Perhaps now climbing is more weighted without the blizzard, so I'm expecting maybe for climbing points to be changed at championships.

[Drivencrazy]

Just to echo everyone else on this thread, I can't believe they didn't see that one coming. I thought at the beginning of the season that even with the nets we would see way more game pieces fly off the field than ever before and I even underestimated how many would be flying around based on my observation of week 0.

As for changing things this late in the season I can see both sides of the story. Yes it sucks. There is no denying it. Especially because it seemed so blatantly obvious that this would happen. And it sucks that it happened so late in the season. Remind anyone else of last year's troll bot?

On the other hand I understand why they did it. Let's face it, a lot of people who build robots aren't the most coordinated people in the world and even the most athletically inclined among us will make a bad toss every once in a while. It only takes one bad hammer to get someone hurt and I know that everyone in FIRST is concerned with people's safety.

I'm sorry for all the teams this has hurt. If I know anything I know that FIRST teams always find a way to make magic happen.

[Andrew Schreiber]

On the other hand I understand why they did it. Let's face it, a lot of people who build robots aren't the most coordinated people in the world and even the most athletically inclined among us will make a bad toss every once in a while. It only takes one bad hammer to get someone hurt and I know that everyone in FIRST is concerned with people's safety.


Just to be clear, I'm not upset about the rule change. In fact, I applaud the GDC for having the courage to make this safety critical change. I'm mad they were foolish enough not to realize that it'd be a problem initially.

[topgun]

Floor Pickup will still be valuable for autonomous for those teams going for a 7 disc autonomous. The extra four discs can still add 24 points.

I think it raises the value of those robots with less than accurate long shooters as a potential alliance pick. They will be able to rain in the discs if needed for an accurate floor feeder.

Floor feeders can still pickup at the feeding stations though it does add the trip time to their cycle time.

I see the floor feeders as still more versatile than feeder station only robots.

Having said all that, a bag day rule change that affects a team's choice of strategy still hurts.

[Bob Steele]

The rule is changed.... we move on...

I do think that perhaps another change might be in order to at least give credence to the teams that were counting on frisbees the last 30 seconds and designed around that contingency.

Perhaps either the game could start with more frisbees on the field? perhaps 8 more on each side...along the walls.... this would allow a team to use those during the last 30 seconds...

Or, perhaps a better approach would be for 8 or some other number of frisbees to be tossed in from the side of the field by the resetters...

This would allow for better safety and still allow teams that planned on picking up frisbees during the end game to have them available.

I am not sure how this could be implemented but I think it could be done easily... especially starting with more on the floor. put four on each side of the center line against the wall.... for a total of 16 extra frisbees....8 each side.

Just a thought... trying to make it better for those teams that feel they have had their strategies compromised....

Good luck to all on the field...

[DonRotolo]

Ya know...sometimes, design specs get changed at the last second. Or the market changes while you weren't watching. It Happens.

I have to agree that safety comes first.

And remember this: What may be obvious to you will be a surprise to someone else.

I am very confident that the GDC put a huge amount of thought and effort into the game. Mistakes happen. They did say they were sorry. Sure, I wish I was part of the GDC, so I could've pointed this out...but even odds are that I'd have missed it too.

So, onward!

[Tuba4]

I do also understand that many people would assume we would improve the nets. However at this point the next step to protect spectators would be nets hanging from the ceiling of the venue, and there's just too many variables, expense, and hastle to make that happen

I am not sure what the variables really would be. You already have one or more lifts and riggers to hang lighting systems, PA systems and curtains from the ceiling. Longer netting should be all that would be needed.

[waialua359]

You may be right and I may be wrong.

Your team consistently builds clever and effective robots.

I would be amazed by a 10 second cycle.

One solution may be to ask a weak shooting partner to load and shoot from across the field, that way, you would have a constant supply for more than just the last 30 seconds.

Was your team able to solve the upside down frisbee pickup problem?
With no defense, we can do 4 made shots with a complete round trip from the feeder station in 12 seconds.
With an effective floor feeder around/near the pyramid with tons of frisbees on the ground as a result of human throwing error, I see that as very possible.

Many teams have made shooters that can unload all of their frisbees in protected zones around/under the pyramid in the low 1.X second range.

I just saw another team in Hawaii showcase all 4 frisbees in less than 1 second.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I am not sure what the variables really would be. You already have one or more lifts and riggers to hang lighting systems, PA systems and curtains from the ceiling. Longer netting should be all that would be needed.Plus more rigging, plus the extra labor for rigging those nets, plus all the many, many district events that DON'T have lifts, riggers, and lighting systems. There's a reason that the current nets are supported by freestanding steel frames.

[waialua359]

Team 25 had an awesome robot in 2006. Their robot's success formed a large part of our decision not to bother to pick up from the floor this year. I still believe a good 30 point climber, executed correctly, is a lot more advantageous than a floor pickup.

It's really too bad that the GDC chose to change rules this drastically this late in the game. I really have a hard time believing that they didn't even think that human players would try to throw game pieces when they were allowed to. Teams with a floor pickup have every right to be upset. They would do well to remember though that there will be other frisbees on the ground...

Looking on the bright side, I foresaw a lot of robots would be crippled due to driving over frisbees in the last 30 seconds of the game. This should make it less of a problem.
I respectfully disagree to an extent.
From the videos posted on CD so far, none/very few if any, posted times of less than 30 seconds.
30 seconds is enough time for many teams to make 2 trips to the feeder station to unload 8 discs and hang from the 10 pointer to effectively beat the high hang.

[1493kd]

We are much faster loading from the floor then driving to the feeder station and I am not to worried about this rule change. I was worried about damage to bots from the Frisbee storm at the end and I think there will be a good amount of them on the floor for us to still pick up. I

[waialua359]

Given that it's stop build day, I haven't seen anyone overreact. That said, this is a minor plus for climbers and a minor bummer for floor loaders. I don't see it being a huge issue in anything but the highest level of competition.

This just about sums it up.

At the highest level at competitions.....i.e. playoffs, regional finals, Einstein, etc. it will make a big difference.

[dtengineering]

Rather than changing a rule, perhaps it would have been sufficient to add a rule:

"Any discs thrown by a human player that are seen to leave the playing field will result in a 10 point penalty to the offending alliance."


Human players would learn very, very quickly to keep their discs within bounds. Teams could still safely throw discs downfield to floor loaders, and could even aim for the low goals.

Actually, to ease reffing, it could probably be extended to a penalty for any disc leaving the field, whether fired by a robot or thrown by a human. It would be consistant with the guidance that discs are to remain within the bounds of the playing field.

And I'll cut the GDC some slack on this one... they probably tried throwing discs downfield to hit the goals as part of their game testing. They probably didn't do it, however, with the "enthusiasm" of a half-dozen excited teenagers with nothing to lose. I'll even grant them the fact that after observing a potentially dangerous situation that they were obliged to act to limit the danger. I just don't know if they chose the least disruptive way to go about it.

Jason

[cgmv123]

Rather than changing a rule, perhaps it would have been sufficient to add a rule:

"Any discs thrown by a human player that are seen to leave the playing field will result in a 10 point penalty to the offending alliance."

I'd prefer a cap on the number of white discs that can be thrown. That doesn't get at the whole problem, but it's better than before..

[PVCpirate]

Thinking back to 2010: at least they didn't make the change after week 1.

[Nick Lawrence]

Colour me unimpressed. I feel bad for the teams who built floor loading mechanisms. How could they not have seen this?

They should have enclosed the field more. End of story.

I hope this is fixed very very soon. If not, I know exactly what kind of robot will win a world championship this year.

-Nick

[Tom Line]

Thinking back to 2010: at least they didn't make the change after week 1.

You're the second or third person to say this, and I have to disagree. For teams that chose to forego climbing for floor pickup, 1 week or 3 weeks makes no difference. You aren't going to be redesigning your bot to suddenly make it climb to thirty.

[JHammond]

Would not be surprised if the GDC did not anticipate human players throwing discs at a vertical orientation high and hard so that some carried 10+ feet over the field ends or spun out far beyond the corner of a field. In practice these flew very differently than a traditional horizontal Frisbee throw. They were more like missiles than anything at the Nashua event. You'd get 5 or 6 of these high hard throws in the air and it was a bit dicey.

[rcmolloy]

Colour me unimpressed. I feel bad for the teams who built floor loading mechanisms. How could they not have seen this?

They should have enclosed the field more. End of story.

I hope this is fixed very very soon. If not, I know exactly what kind of robot will win a world championship this year.

-Nick

I bet 469's strategic team bought the celebratory champagne (sparkling cider for others) right after the announcement.

On another note, this shouldn't kill gameplay at all. If you have a floor pickup mechanism, you have a much better chance of seeding higher than most of the teams at your competition if utilized well not only during autonomous but teleop as well. Having that one extra component of your robot that can do something most others cannot is just a plus in my opinion.

Trust me, I'm not even upset at this at all. That's a little surprising for me though since I have been trying to figure out the floor pickup problem with my kids for about 4 to 5 weeks. If you're looking to get ahead in the game before everyone else you will most definitely have some way of getting frisbees off the ground and into your robot.

[Blackphantom91]

Colour me unimpressed. I feel bad for the teams who built floor loading mechanisms. How could they not have seen this?

They should have enclosed the field more. End of story.

I hope this is fixed very very soon. If not, I know exactly what kind of robot will win a world championship this year.

-Nick Care to clue us in on what robot?

On a side note I think it was a bad move to do something this drastic so late. It is unfortunate that many teams put their hard time and effort into design for the rules of the game to change. Many people have spent long weeks designing these soon to be spectacular robots. although, at the end of the day what is done is done. I guess it may lead more into people investigating the 30lbs withholding :ahh: I personally don't like it but I can't gripe there must have been an logistical reason behind it.

[connor.worley]

If the San Diego week 0 event showed me anything, there will still be no shortage of disks on the floor.

[connor.worley]

SOOO looking forward to watching finals on Einstein with 6 - 100% accurate full court shooters... at least 2 robots playing defence on each other for access to the un-protected feeding stations will provide some contrast.

Not.

TOTALLY looking forward to seeing 84" plastic sheetbots shut down full court shooters. :D

[Garten Haeska]

When I first read this, my heart dropped. We focused on making our robot pick up this year, mainly in the last 30 seconds was the easiest because of the surplus of Frisbees. Nevertheless, we are still glad we made our robot pick up because we can for sure shoot 4 frisbees in auto, but are still working on getting that 5th one in there.

We cant change it for safety reasons, but with this being said, there are those teams that are happy with the choice, and those who are utterly upset that this came on bag and tag day, and then we have all of the human players that are mad because they cant show off their skills.

[Steven Donow]

Colour me unimpressed. I feel bad for the teams who built floor loading mechanisms. How could they not have seen this?

They should have enclosed the field more. End of story.

I hope this is fixed very very soon. If not, I know exactly what kind of robot will win a world championship this year.

-Nick

I don't know about other teams, but when deciding to do floor loading, "endgame flood" was just an additional benefit and not a major drive behind the design decision to floor load. No matter what, I think the floor will be fairly crowded due to missed shots. Maybe sometime tomorrow I'll do some math, but as of now, I'm just plain tired from build season. Also, while watching the stream of Suffield Shakedown, I think I saw plenty of discs upside down from HP throws, a contrast to most shot discs landing right side up.

And, looking at a video posted from Suffield Shakedown, I think this is definitely a good decision on the GDC's part, to at least in some way limit how much can be thrown in the last 30 seconds. There is most definitely a safety risk involved, and arguably can be seen as a distraction to the audience...

Now, when a thrown disc knocks down the alliance's own robot from climbing...that'll be something...

[Karthik]

My general principle is that there should be no significant rules changes after kickoff unless there's a safety issue involved. That's the case here. The GDC was in a very difficult position, having to choose between two unpleasant options; making a significant in-season rule change or leaving a significant safety hazard in play. In my opinion they absolutely made the right choice. Unfortunately, I know that right now this is very little consolation to the affected teams, especially because some of them made their strategic decisions based predicting this storm of frisbees that wasn't envisioned by the GDC.

As for how this will impact game play, there's no denying that this will change the game dynamic, I don't think the change is as large as people are making it out to be. The main value of a floor pickup is extra points that can be scored in the autonomous period; this hasn't been altered. Yes, there will be less discs available in the last 30 seconds of the match, but many of these discs would have been very difficult or even impossible to pick up by most teams. (Flipped over, clumped in piles, etc.) In general there won't be a shortage of discs; In 2012 Teams only made 66% of their shots on the Archimedes division at championship. I expect shooting percentages to be in that ballpark once again, leaving a huge supply of discs on the floor.

The group of people who I feel the worst for right now are the students who have been training and practicing for the past six weeks to be human players. There are definitely going to be some disappointed HPs tonight.

[RoboTigers1796]

As others have said, I see this only affecting elims and championships.
Standard qualification matches will still have bountiful discs to pick up in my opinion.
However, I think a lot are over anticipating how many discs will be on the field without the blizzard, remember a lot of what I saw anyway from suffield was the result of not having 6 robots on the field and teams still fine tuning their shooters.
However, once you get to eliminations when there are 6(4?) of the best scorers on the field, I feel the supply on the floor will dissipate quickly before the end of the match, and that's why I'm disappointed to see it go. When it counts the most, what we believed to be an upper hand has turned into a vastly less significant feature.
*I am not trying to complain, I understand the need to take action for safety's sake, just discussing the strategy we had that was lost by the update

[LeelandS]

As a former human player who took great pride in his craft (primarily in 2011, with the tube throwing), I can agree with Karthik when he says there will be some disappointed human players.

I don't see a truly huge change in the game. Yes, I think the GDC may have slipped up on not foreseeing this (even playing Catalyst, I could tell it would be an issue. One second you're lining up for a shot and the next you can't see a darned thing). But the frenzy of frisbees is a serious issue. From fieldside at the Rochester Rally, that "blizzard" is absolutely terrifying. You get 6 people lobbing hard plastic discs of death across the field, someone does get hit or something gets broken. I agree 100% with the GDC in this decision.

No, it's not great to come out with this on the day of stop build. It's actually a really bad thing to do, but the GDC can't just be like "Well, it's a safety issue. But teams have built their robots for six weeks under these rules, so we have to let it go." Yes, teams built their robots under these rules and it really does suck that now those decision made are invalidated. But the GDC has to put their foot down and make a decision, and at the end of the day, safety will always be first, no matter what.

[Donut]

Given that it's stop build day, I haven't seen anyone overreact. That said, this is a minor plus for climbers and a minor bummer for floor loaders. I don't see it being a huge issue in anything but the highest level of competition.

I think this could have a drastic effect in low level qualification matches. Say you are a floor loader and are partnered with two robots with broken/inoperable/nonexistent shooters; the only method of getting frisbees is to get them from the loading station yourself, pick up the handful on your side of the field at the start of the match, or have human players throw them in the last 30 seconds. That last option is now gone, which means there is no way to get a suddenly large influx of discs that your rapid fire shooter can score. If you're going up against a good alliance that round what was already a difficult qualification match to win just became almost impossible.

The changes at the highest level of competition are up in the air to me. At the highest level most of the shooters would be very accurate and many teams would probably have floor pickups, which means there are likely to be few if any missed shots lying around before the last 30 seconds. Depending on how defense plays out this year though the alliance may have already exhausted most of the 45 human loading frisbees, in which case there's no difference since there is nothing to throw. I think the effect on the high level will be dependent on how effective defense is.

[GCentola]

I wasn't exactly sure what to say because most of it has already been explained somewhere so I guess I will say this:

This is frustrating. Making a change this late in the season seems a bit of a smack in the face to many teams who would have made different decisions were these rules in place week 1, but we may find out that it doesn't change much. Teams with the ability to floor-load may have an advantage during some parts of the game, but if you can do both well, it shouldn't be an issue. But as mentioned above, the lack of foresight is almost more frustrating than the rule-change itself - but it happened and the reasoning for doing so makes complete sense. The frisbee blizzard is rather terrifying behind the glass; "the game pieces are not foam balls or inflatable tubes-they are hard plastic discs of death." (thanks for the quote, Leeland)

There are a few posts throughout the thread (Andrew, Karthik, Leeland to name a few) that sum things up very well. In my opinion, the elite teams will always adapt whether or not they are frustrated and this is why they rise to the top every time. No doubt the best teams this year, whether they can floor-load or not, will move on and play a great game. Perhaps this is what we should do as well.

[Lil' Lavery]

1. It should have been relatively easy to do.
2. Almost every year, the good teams have been able to get game pieces off the ground or from HP(2012,2011,2010,2009,2007,2006,etc..)
1. That depends greatly on your strategy and design.

2. Blatantly false. Very few teams (let alone "good" teams) loaded directly from the HP in 2011 or 2012. Fewer still could do both (especially in 2011). The HP didn't even load robots in 2010 (unless you're counting the mandatory ball return, which was only directly interfaced by a handful of teams, and never to "load" their robot). 2009 was a mixed bag, but most HP took the opportunity to score directly over loading a robot. Almost nobody human loaded in 2007, and none of the elite teams did with regularity. 2006 is the only year you have a real argument for great teams doing both, but a majority picked human loading as their primary method, with several being exclusive human loaders (25 and 217 being the obvious examples).

[Gray Adams]

I've been completely isolated from any team or strategy for the last 5 weeks so maybe I haven't disocvered a lot of things you guys have, but I really don't see a massive strategy change. Whether or not there was a flood of frisbees in the endgame I still would have wanted a robot that picks up off the floor. It surprises me that teams would decide on picking up off the floor based on the last 30 seconds of throwing alone. My former team decided to pick up off the ground and climb for 30 points in the initial few strategy meetings (not sure what their plans are now, but I digress) because the intent was to pick frisbees up from missed shots, not just for the end of the game. Sure there's going to be a few less discs around, but at high levels of play human players seem to avoid the blizzard just to starve the opponents. What kind of change are we really going to see?

Sorry guys, I really don't see a big change in the way the game is played.

[coalhot]

I can see why the GDC changed the rules like they did, but I have a question: they only prevented the human players from throwing frisbees during the endgame. So what happens when a team with an overpowered shooter misses (for arguments sake, 50%) of the shots, and that 50% sail above the goal? There isn't a rule against this (as far as I know), and if a teams takes 20-40 shots a match, that's a lot of disks being chucked at the teams getting queued, possibly at a higher velocity then the HP would throw them.

A few teams had ridiculously overpowered shooters last year, I remember at BE, watching a shooter direct driven to two CIM's make every shot clear the alliance wall by about 20 feet. It's more difficult this season, but not impossible.

All in all, It's a decision that needed to happen when it happened; but it's something that the GDC should have seen coming, and put safety nets around the whole field, not just the two sides...

[Peyton Yeung]

Well our HPs are disgruntled to say the least. While the last 30 seconds of the match wasn't the only reason we went for ground loading it was a major one and it caused us to design everything on our robot around it. I guess we will just need to practice different strategies...or hope our alliance partners aren't very good at shooting.

[Lil' Lavery]

I can see why the GDC changed the rules like they did, but I have a question: they only prevented the human players from throwing frisbees during the endgame. So what happens when a team with an overpowered shooter misses (for arguments sake, 50%) of the shots, and that 50% sail above the goal? There isn't a rule against this (as far as I know), and if a teams takes 20-40 shots a match, that's a lot of disks being chucked at the teams getting queued, possibly at a higher velocity then the HP would throw them.
<G03>

[Grim Tuesday]

The real issue I see is that throwing DISCS is still allowed. While there won't be quite the blizzard there was before, I fully expect six colored discs to be thrown for the HIGH GOAL in just about 75% of qualification matches. See the recent Q&A:

Q532 Q. In light of the 2/19/13 team update do colored discs thrown by human players in the last 30 seconds into the LOW, MIDDLE, or HIGH GOALS still count as SCORED?
A. Yes.


Our FEEDER was seeing ~4/20 in the HIGH GOAL and 1/20 in the PYRAMID GOAL. I'm sure there are better FEEDERS out there but just thinking about the numbers, that's 12 pts vs 5 pts. There is no reason to shoot for the PYRAMID GOAL with your colored DISCS and you will just end up with the same problem we had before of it being dangerous.

This seems like a game balance rather than a safety fix. Sure there are not going to be quite the blizzard of DISCS flying around but twelve is still quite a large number, more than enough to hit someone or break something.


On a balance side it makes sense. Our team had a number of people who could, from 50 ft and no pyramid in the way make in the range of 4 of 20 into the top goal. I have no doubts that other teams had better FEEDERS and we could be seeing humans hitting multiple shots per match. I don't want humans deciding my matches. This is a robotics competition.

I also suspect that the GDC noticed a large number of discs piling up on the center line and missed shots. This leads me to echo the thought that this will effect higher levels of play much more than lower; the more robots who use all three in AUTO the less there will be to pickup on the field.

My final question is why there was no way to reduce the effect of the DISCS no longer appearing near your goals in the last 30 seconds. If all that is required is that humans no longer throw DISCS in then why not have up to 12 (how many and if colored decided by the alliance) DISCS get dumped in like the balls in 2004. This would solve both the problem of the robots who were relying on the influx of DISCS in the last 30 seconds and the humans throwing hard shots.

[SM987]

This just about sums it up.

At the highest level at competitions.....i.e. playoffs, regional finals, Einstein, etc. it will make a big difference.

I agree Glenn, it definitely could.

I think this could have a drastic effect in low level qualification matches. Say you are a floor loader and are partnered with two robots with broken/inoperable/nonexistent shooters...

I think many teams can relate here. You get the same dice roll stop build day changes or otherwise. I can recall a few matches won last year by a human player score, or where the scoring consisted of human player shots entirely. So it certainly could impact "lower level" competition.

Individually, many of us are bummed because it feels like our robot has lost some competitive value. Whether an alliance we are on is less valuable as a result... Guess we have to wait and see.

[dcarr]

I don't want humans deciding my matches. This is a robotics competition.


This is really what it comes down to. It's very unfortunate that the rule had to change this late, but in fact I believe it's a "better" rule.

[Bill_B]

At the outset, the GDC must have done some thinking about how the last 30 seconds would be played. The total number of disks in the game was decided at some point based on factors like expected scoring rate, percentage success and how many could be fit through those slots. It seems likely, however, that week 0 performances and machinery is quite a bit below the expected level of play for the game. If the GDC was expecting some number of disks to have already been scored (and out of play) at the 30 second mark, the remaining numbers of disks in a week 0 game probably far exceeded that number.

Then there is the time allotted for HP activity. I wonder if the GDC even considered reducing it to 20 or 15 seconds or even 10. Maybe that's too great a change to the match management software to have been considered. We should be used to the GDC offering only partial explanations for their decisions by now.:rolleyes:

Teams do not bring their completed machines to week 0, in general. I heard several explanations about the robots being the practice machine or not carrying all mechanisms. Floor pickup devices were among those listed as missing or under development. It was obvious that even in the elimination matches, the teams had intermediate goals for their play that were only experimental or developmental. For example, if a shooter had been out of adjustment, the team would explore alternate tactics that did not involve shooting.

[Wayne Doenges]

FRC Team isn't to concerned about the rule change. We can floor harvest or human load. We can pick up frisbees right side up or inverted. No Problem.

[Squeakypig]

Our team originally made our floor pick-up for autonomous mode, so no harm done there. However, a large concern in the design of our pick-up was inverted discs. We decided we needed to be able to right them since the "hammer throw" was the most common way we could see teams throwing discs at the end, and they landed upside-down. We could have designed a much simpler frisbee pick-up if we knew that there probably wasn't going to be very many (if any) upside down frisbees.

That being said, +24 points in autonomous is still too good to pass up!

[Kevin Sevcik]

Then there is the time allotted for HP activity. I wonder if the GDC even considered reducing it to 20 or 15 seconds or even 10. Maybe that's too great a change to the match management software to have been considered. We should be used to the GDC offering only partial explanations for their decisions by now.:rolleyes:You think telling 6 overzealous teenagers that now they only have 15 seconds to score as many points as possible is going to make things less crazy? One of the recorded matches from Suffield shows an HP hurling frisbees overhand behind his back every 1-2 seconds. Spray and Pray sure came to mind there.

I think telling them they only have 6 discs and 30 seconds makes things better. Then they have an incentive to make every disc count and are much more likely to be accurate.

[Steven Donow]

This seems like a game balance rather than a safety fix. Sure there are not going to be quite the blizzard of DISCS flying around but twelve is still quite a large number, more than enough to hit someone or break something.



I think it primarily IS a safety fix; yes 12 is still plenty of discs, but, assuming half of all discs are shot (low-mid level play?), 12 discs being thrown is a lot less than 45 discs being thrown.

[Brandon Holley]

While the blizzard of frisbees at the end of a match was not they key driver in a floor pickup mechanism for us, it certainly was a benefit we were planning on enjoying.

I have two main issues with the update. As Cory stated a few pages back, how could the GDC not have seen this coming? That is one I will never understand.

The other issue, and the more important one, is the mitigation steps taken to avoid the safety hazard. They did not need to eliminate all throwing of white frisbees to make a safe environment around the field. Adding penalties for discs thrown outside the field of play or limiting the number of discs able to be tossed all help the issue.

I'm definitely disappointed by the update. I definitely understand the reasoning behind it. I wish there was some better forethought on the GDC's part. I also hope they considered less drastic ways of altering the game before coming to this conclusion.

-Brando

[Bill_B]

You think telling 6 overzealous teenagers that now they only have 15 seconds to score as many points as possible is going to make things less crazy? One of the recorded matches from Suffield shows an HP hurling frisbees overhand behind his back every 1-2 seconds. Spray and Pray sure came to mind there.

I think telling them they only have 6 discs and 30 seconds makes things better. Then they have an incentive to make every disc count and are much more likely to be accurate.

*I* don't think shortening the time would change much. I was only wondering if it had been considered.

The six disk count is further reduced by the number of 5-pt goal shots being attempted by robots. We're wondering what we have to do on an alliance to convince our partners we "deserve" custody of the colored disks for dumping. Maybe they should consider increasing the number of colored disks? IRI?

[ks_mumupsi]

We were one of the many teams with a floor pickup.

We as a team considered the possibility of the frisbees being thrown into the field at the end, but history tells me that the requirement for human players to throw frisbees, to have enough around is not going to be a big change. The most accurate of shooters last year still allowed a lot of balls on the field.

As for the highest levels of competition, I fully expect the highest levels of competition to have a 30 point climb and the ability to pickup from the floor. As impressive as many of the videos posted here have been, I think there's better out there.

On a side note - This has been a very hard year with trying to figure out strategy, the GDC has made so many changes since week 1, lacking clarification on bumpers, then have a cylinder rule change for climbing and its just been non-stop.

If there is anything I am disappointed in, it is that.

[Mike Copioli]

Soooo.... humans throwing discs over the player station at a target 54 feet away is a greater safety hazard than a 28" tall robot launching a disk using a flywheel spinning at 5000+ rpm? Huh?

How does limiting the amount of discs thrown in the last 30 seconds make this game any safer?

It seems to me a velocity restriction similar to the the one in 2006 would have been more appropriate.

This is a game changer.

Karthik,

I disagree with your comparison to 2012 in regards to shot percentages.

This years target is much larger than last years. The projectiles retain their form better and are more stable during flight. While your initial projections may be close I think you will see a marked improvement in percentages as the season progresses.

Time will tell.

[Steven Donow]

*I* don't think shortening the time would change much. I was only wondering if it had been considered.

The six disk count is further reduced by the number of 5-pt goal shots being attempted by robots. We're wondering what we have to do on an alliance to convince our partners we "deserve" custody of the colored disks for dumping. Maybe they should consider increasing the number of colored disks? IRI?

I wouldn't be too concerned about not getting the colored discs-I don't know about others, but I'd be much more trusting in a robot to score the discs than a HP, especially in early qualification matches.

[FrankJ]

If defense of the GDC. (As if they needed any) Since any hint of an upcoming game will spark all sorts of rumors... Details of the game cannot be discussed with anybody outside of the GDC prior to kick off. (I know there are a few exceptions, but work with me). If the game was more widely vetted flaws on hindsight are obvious would be caught. Unfortunately they do not have that luxury.

I am going to miss the hale of Frisbee at end game though ::safety::

Or if you think this is bad, be glad you are not a tax accountant. :ahh:

[Ty Tremblay]

It seems to me a velocity restriction similar to the the one in 2006 would have been more appropriate.


Limiting velocity would be detrimental to the teams that dedicated their season to designing a full-court shooter.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a velocity that the frisbees can be effectively launched at that is also safe for human impact. That being said, if a robot at competition repeatedly shoots frisbees out of the field in an unsafe manner, I assume the refs will issue a warning followed by a yellow card for additional aggregious infractions.

[Mike Copioli]

Limiting velocity would be detrimental to the teams that dedicated their season to designing a full-court shooter.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a velocity that the frisbees can be effectively launched at that is also safe for human impact. That being said, if a robot at competition repeatedly shoots frisbees out of the field in an unsafe manner, I assume the refs will issue a warning followed by a yellow card for additional aggregious infractions.

My comment was in regards to the human players, not the robots.

[cmrnpizzo14]

I appreciate the GDC making this change as I believe that it will increase the level of play. While human player shots are exciting, most people have seen a hammer throw sometime in their life. Successful climbs are not commonplace and probably would be more entertaining to watch. Some of those HP's throw hard! Disks slamming into those walls can't possibly make lining up a climb easy. I was not behind the driverstation at a week 0 event, but just from being on the sidelines I definitely diverted part of my attention to the flying disks. I don't think I could line up a climb as quickly with the disks slamming into the wall in front of my face.

Also, I really don't think that this detracts from the value of any 'bots that teams might have made. I hope 1671 will let me use theirs as an example (again, thank you for joining us in Galileo last year). Full court shooters seem fairly prevalent. Even the best will not be able to make them all. If I were a team with a full court shooter (that will probably dominate qualifying rounds, I think we can assume that this will be true for the first few weeks at least), the first team that I would want is one with a floor pick up. A second full court shooter probably wouldn't do me any good as I would already be preparing to shoot all of my disks. I would want the "clean up bot" if you will to gather all of my misses and score them so that our alliance is almost guaranteed to score all 45 of the alliances white disks. Also, a floor pickup would help get me the extra AUTO points that would give me the edge over another full court shooting alliance. I believe that a floor acquiring 'bot would probably be the top pick at most regionals, possibly second only to a 30 point climber with a dumper.

I don't believe that any team should feel slighted by this at all. If it comes down to it and you still want to get your finale cycles in, just score the 6 colored disks that your HP throws. Honestly, I see 2 cycles as being ambitious even for the best teams. 6 disks, relative to 8, is not a huge loss. Heck, if you can even score them in the pyramid goal, that gives you an advantage.

I understand why teams feel as if they were cheated by the GDC, but I really think that this will just add to the number of successful climbs and only slightly decrease the number of acquired disks during the endgame but will make floor pickups more valuable during the first 3/4 of the match.

[Kevin Sevcik]

My comment was in regards to the human players, not the robots.How exactly were you expecting a human player velocity restriction to be enforced? It was easy on robots in 2006 because you'd ramp a shooter up to full power and that was as fast as it'd shoot. I'm uncertain how you determine the maximum velocity a human can throw a frisbee. What if she's sandbagging during the test? How would you know? How would you enforce a limit on the velocity on the field?

[KrazyCarl92]

While I am disappointed in the implications of this decision for the competitive value of our team's robot, I understand why FIRST made this decision and I can't be upset at them for making a change that they feel is necessary for the safety of volunteers, teams, and spectators.

From a strategic stand point, it's difficult to quantify the impacts. It could be up to 24 points per match less that we can score, but the average will probably be somewhere between 3-9. It is hard to tell because we don't know exactly how those thrown frisbees translate into high goals.

It's easy to say that our strategy would have changed with the new rules from day 1, but I cannot really be sure that it would have. What I mean is that the difference between the rules on day 1 and day 45 has been marginalized for us. With these juxtaposed we see that climbing is more valuable and floor pickup is less valuable than it previously was. On day 3ish we decided there was a trade off based on our resources for really 2 types of robots climbing: and shooting or floor pickup and shooting. We can't say for sure if we would have changed our decision if the rules had been as they are now. In fact, I doubt we would have.

This just means we have even more work to do for continuous improvement of our robot, and it makes scouting, strategy, and alliance selections even more important. This does not change that I am thrilled about the robot we bagged for competition last night, and despite diminishing the competitive advantage of our robot I am still excited to see what we can do to make it even better.

[QuackAttack177]

I was a human player at the Suffeild Scrimmage for team 177, and it was one of, if the best moment of my robotics experience. Over the course of a day I hit a total of 11 shots with my highest score in a single match being eight, (two three pointers and one two pointer) FIRST took all of the fun out of being a human player, while simultaneously ruining many teams overall strategy of relying on the discs of blizzard time. I am disappointed not only of the shortsightedness of FIRST (I mean what did you expect?) but also how poorly they responded to this problem. Instead of finding a rational solution that wouldn't change the overall flow and style of the game, the instead decided to cut out and ignore the problem all together. Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

[dodar]

I was a human player at the Suffeild Scrimmage for team 177, and it was one of, if the best moment of my robotics experience. Over the course of a day I hit a total of 11 shots with my highest score in a single match being eight, (two three pointers and one two pointer) FIRST took all of the fun out of being a human player, while simultaneously ruining many teams overall strategy of relying on the discs of blizzard time. I am disappointed not only of the shortsightedness of FIRST (I mean what did you expect?) but also how poorly they responded to this problem. Instead of finding a rational solution that wouldn't change the overall flow and style of the game, the instead decided to cut out and ignore the problem all together. Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

Actually, ignoring it would have been FIRST doing nothing.

[Gabe Salas Jr.]

I do agree with the general consensus of the lack of foresight that the GDC did not anticipate a 'blizzard' during endgame and have incorporated the proper amount of safety features.

Perhaps the GDC had enough faith in the Human Player's ability to be accurate with their shots considering that a disc has a more stable flight path than a ball.

In every sport, there is inherent risks involved with participating. This also extends itself to the referees and anyone else spectating close to the field of action.

Take a look at baseball umpires (http://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/baseball-umpire.jpg) and hockey referees (http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4cd32c73ccd1d51b4d160000/nhl-hockey-referee.jpg). In these sports where calls have to be made close to the action, they have to wear protective gear. Even though in these sports, it is one object (baseball, puck) that is used in play there are other factors they need to observe during the game (players interacting illegally with other players, etc.).

Safety has been the cornerstone to rules implemented within sports and especially within FIRST. I understand that negotiating between safety and an exciting game can be difficult.

Based on the new update to G35 (http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/Updates/0#term 86) it seems they trust six robots either firing discs or climbing a pyramid because the play of action is done in field (acceptable risk). But a bit contradictory that there is more concern over Human Players, perhaps because referees cannot E-stop them (I'm jesting, but I digress). Introducing Human Players to start throwing in discs can be a bit overwhelming but the discs that do matter are ultimately those thrown in field. If the concern was for individuals supporting the event inside the net, then perhaps provide those individuals with proper head gear (helmet with a face guard). If they want to wear extra padding under their clothes that is fine, but the refs attention should be on what is in field, and not distracted by an incoming plastic disc hitting them in the face.

Any referee anticipating not getting hit by a disc needs to know that it will happen and it is an inherent risk with this year's game with or without Human Players creating a 'blizzard'
_______________

Before Week 1 of competition, I propose HQ to implement protective head gear for referees, along with adequate placement of netting around the field and the GDC to retract the most recent update to G35 but know that it would be in vain. Prove me wrong.

[Mike Copioli]

How exactly were you expecting a human player velocity restriction to be enforced? It was easy on robots in 2006 because you'd ramp a shooter up to full power and that was as fast as it'd shoot. I'm uncertain how you determine the maximum velocity a human can throw a Frisbee. What if she's sandbagging during the test? How would you know? How would you enforce a limit on the velocity on the field?


It would not be the first rule that was subjective.

I still feel the the robots are the bigger hazard. This ruling, IMO, changes the game more than it improves safety.

BTW the 2006 velocity restriction was not that easy to enforce during game play.

[notmattlythgoe]

Perhaps a better fix would have been to allow human players to throw discs around the side of the feeder stations instead of over the top. That would most likely reduce the number of discs leaving the field.

[QuackAttack177]

Actually, ignoring it would have been FIRST doing nothing.

Your right, this is more like them covering up the problem instead of ignoring it. Thanks for the clarification!

[dodar]

Your right, this is more like them covering up the problem instead of ignoring it. Thanks for the clarification!

Ya, kind of like instead of cleaning their clothes they just threw them away.

[Anupam Goli]

I was a human player at the Suffeild Scrimmage for team 177, and it was one of, if the best moment of my robotics experience. Over the course of a day I hit a total of 11 shots with my highest score in a single match being eight, (two three pointers and one two pointer) FIRST took all of the fun out of being a human player, while simultaneously ruining many teams overall strategy of relying on the discs of blizzard time. I am disappointed not only of the shortsightedness of FIRST (I mean what did you expect?) but also how poorly they responded to this problem. Instead of finding a rational solution that wouldn't change the overall flow and style of the game, the instead decided to cut out and ignore the problem all together. Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

hmm, i'm not so sure to call it "ignoring a problem' the problem in this case was the potential safety hazard of the crew and the equipment from flying discs. following this train of logic, ignoring the issue would've been to not have any crew or field equipment. Instead, they reduced the safety hazards (in this case the flying discs).

[QuackAttack177]

hmm, i'm not so sure to call it "ignoring a problem' the problem in this case was the potential safety hazard of the crew and the equipment from flying discs. following this train of logic, ignoring the issue would've been to not have any crew or field equipment. Instead, they reduced the safety hazards (in this case the flying discs).

You are right, that was miss worded on my part, it really is more like them covering up the problem instead of dealing with it would be a more accurate statement.

[artdutra04]

Preface: I spent a large portion of the build season out of the country, so this is the least involved I have been in FRC in quite a few years.


One of the things that people here on Chief Delphi always ask for, is that FIRST should be more open and transparent with their decisions. And in regards to this, I would like to commend FIRST for this Team Update.

As outlined in the blog post, they did not anticipate the blizzard of discs thrown in the last thirty seconds; and as soon as they became aware of such occurring at Week 0 scrimmages, they quickly moved to improve the safety for everyone at an event and released a team update three days later. Their blog post very clearly laid out what they viewed as a problem and their course of actions to rectify it, and provided about as much transparency as is possible in a situation such as this.

While such a fast turnaround correction is to be commended, the timing of the update (hours before bag-n-tag deadline) likely contributed to the tsunami of pent-up, build-season stress and angst that was vented in this thread*.

Once everyone takes a few days to recuperate and regain lost sleep and look at this change from a big picture standpoint, I believe they will see that this does not drastically alter any portion of the game, and nor does it make any teams robots invalidated. IMHO, this game is probably the best game since 2004 to have all kinds of strategic checks-and-balances, which makes me very excited for the competition season.


* At this point in the season, I am sure that any change to the manual would cause outrage in the FRC community. They could release an update saying they were going to give every team free puppies and kittens, and many teams would vehemently complain this change was too late to budget dry kibbles into their budget.

[techvikesmom]

Soooo.... humans throwing discs over the player station at a target 54 feet away is a greater safety hazard than a 28" tall robot launching a disk using a flywheel spinning at 5000+ rpm? Huh?

AGREED!!
OR a possible 120 pound robot falling 60"???

Again, frisbee throwing change affects us and many other teams. This is my 4th year with FIRST and every year these updates/rule changes are very frustrating. Every year we feel that our strategy plan is challenged by these changes and we do get pass the "initial shock" of the changes.

I also want to say this program has changed our son and our students' lives to the better to what we have exposed them too.

[Kevin Sevcik]

* At this point in the season, I am sure that any change to the manual would cause outrage in the FRC community. They could release an update saying they were going to give every team free puppies and kittens, and many teams would vehemently complain this change was too late to budget dry kibbles into their budget.Surely you'd get more complaints about the already excessive numbers of dogs and cats in the country and the large numbers of unwanted pets languishing in animal shelters.

[Mike Copioli]

Their blog post very clearly laid out what they viewed as a problem and their course of actions to rectify it, and provided about as much transparency as is possible in a situation such as this.

Art,

I disagree. If discs being hurled across the field at high velocity is a hazard then the entire game is hazardous. I still do not see what the ACTUAL danger is here. Was someone injured? Close call?

What problem is this fixing?

[Mike Copioli]

At this point in the season, I am sure that any change to the manual would cause outrage in the FRC community. They could release an update saying they were going to give every team free puppies and kittens, and many teams would vehemently complain this change was too late to budget dry kibbles into their budget.

No, we would only complain if FIRST choice ran out of puppies :)

[Andrew Schreiber]

No, we would only complain if FIRST choice ran out of puppies :)

Since when could puppies handle 60A of continuous current?

[QuackAttack177]

Soooo.... humans throwing discs over the player station at a target 54 feet away is a greater safety hazard than a 28" tall robot launching a disk using a flywheel spinning at 5000+ rpm? Huh?

AGREED!!
OR a possible 120 pound robot falling 60"???

Again, frisbee throwing change affects us and many other teams. This is my 4th year with FIRST and every year these updates/rule changes are very frustrating. Every year we feel that our strategy plan is challenged by these changes and we do get pass the "initial shock" of the changes.

I also want to say this program has changed our son and our students' lives to the better to what we have exposed them too.

I agree completely. When the first robot falls and hurts someone (hopefully never, but there is always the possibility) are they just going to get rid of climbing? I doubt it. They will find a SOLUTION to the problem. I see no reason why they cant do the same for the problem they face now.

[Jay Trzaskos]

Let me start by saying that I feel awful for the human players who might feel that they are now unable to actively affect their teams’ success during the match, and cannot show off a skill set that they have been working on over the past 6 weeks.

But for some perspective, I’m 6’4” and played competitive ultimate in college for multiple years. I haven't spent any time throwing discs full field this year, but last night I tried putting 30 seconds on the clock to see how many backhands I could throw (rapid fire) that distance. I stopped after about 10 seconds and 12-15 discs because I only managed to get 2 to stay in the field. I entirely understand the GDC’s decision to limit the number of discs haphazardly attempting to enter the field in the last 30 seconds.

Now, I understand that some teams have been planning and practicing with specific throws that fit their floor pick-up strategy. I know that if I had done hammer throws my percentage would have increased, but I was operating under the assumption that teams would prefer to have the discs landing right side up, effectively voiding the effectiveness of that throw. My throws also may not have been from an optimum position behind the drivers station.

You have to look beyond the scope of how this affects one quarter of your teams match. You have, minimum, 8 days to rethink your strategy for competition. Take the time to sleep on it, look at the broader issue. Your HP may be able to hit his throw with some degree of accuracy, but what about the other 5 (over-zealous) students out their hucking discs as hard as they can and hoping they hit something.

I believe that the GDC expected some amount of discs to leave the field during the last 30 seconds, what I don't believe is that they should have expected the reckless abandon with which some teams would throw them. I especially don't believe that they expected students to be throwing the discs without even looking at the field. There is certainly no reason that any robot or human player should be launching discs above the drivers station wall either. Unless you have done almost nothing to control the accuracy of your shooter.

We have all been focused on our robots and our strategies for 6 weeks straight, now take some time to truly look at the game as a whole and decide for yourself if, over the full spectrum of teams competing, you think this change is so incredibly unfair of the GDC to make? We’re trying to draw people into our community by focusing on our actions and our attitude, there isn’t a whole lot going on in this thread that speaks positively about either of those attributes. All design is an iterative process; the GDC iterated the game design in order to fix a specific and unforeseen safety issue. Please move past this and start thinking about how you can iterate your match strategy and adapt to fit this change.

[PVCpirate]

I think it's just too hard for a referee or spectator at field level to keep track of all the different frisbees coming from the human players in all 4 corners of the field. This way, all the frisbees are being launched by robots on the field, so it's easier to see the where the shots are coming from.

[MooreteP]

Art,

I disagree. If discs being hurled across the field at high velocity is a hazard then the entire game is hazardous. I still do not see what the ACTUAL danger is here. Was someone injured? Close call?

What problem is this fixing?

Mike, the successful shots from the Human Players were with a "hammer throw". It is different from a frisbee launched by a 5000 rpm spinning wheel in that it has a much higher translational velocity.

These hammer throws were traveling TWICE the distance of the field. Spectators on the ends of the field are already at a viewing disadvantage due to the goals this year, which really block the view of the gameplay. :(
They would not see it the disk coming at them and could easily suffer facial contusions. (the term that a lawyer would use when suing FIRST)
I was at the Suffield Shakedown and witnessed more than a few spectators sitting at the ends of the field "bonked" by a disk.

The public has not signed (nor electronically submitted :rolleyes: ) a Consent and Release form. While an injury and attendant lawsuit at a FIRST Robotics Competition would increase our media presence, it is an unacceptable risk.

Placing more netting at the ends of the field is not impossible, but more problematic given the less than two weeks until the season begins and the variety of venues at which the events are held.

A better solution may have been to allow the human players to throw around the feeder stations and disallowing the hammer throw. Spectators and human players would be more familiar with that style.
The GDC does not have the luxury of assessing this adjustment, so they erred on the side of safety. (As we all try to.)

Nonetheless, "what's done cannot be undone" ~Shakespeare.

Or can it? ~Mooretep

[MooreteP]

No, we would only complain if FIRST choice ran out of puppies :)

Hmmm, maybe that was the real reason that they changed this rule.:ahh: ;)

I also Game Announce and was considering referring to Frisbees leaving the field as souvenirs.

Have you tried to order Frisbees from AndyMark lately?

[BHS_STopping]

One idea might be to impose a penalty if a disc thrown by a human player leaves the field. It might encourage more care by the human players, and still give teams an opportunity to throw discs onto the field (not necessarily into the goals) in order to feed their robots.

[bduddy]

Preface: I spent a large portion of the build season out of the country, so this is the least involved I have been in FRC in quite a few years.


One of the things that people here on Chief Delphi always ask for, is that FIRST should be more open and transparent with their decisions. And in regards to this, I would like to commend FIRST for this Team Update.

As outlined in the blog post, they did not anticipate the blizzard of discs thrown in the last thirty seconds; and as soon as they became aware of such occurring at Week 0 scrimmages, they quickly moved to improve the safety for everyone at an event and released a team update three days later. Their blog post very clearly laid out what they viewed as a problem and their course of actions to rectify it, and provided about as much transparency as is possible in a situation such as this.

While such a fast turnaround correction is to be commended, the timing of the update (hours before bag-n-tag deadline) likely contributed to the tsunami of pent-up, build-season stress and angst that was vented in this thread*.

Once everyone takes a few days to recuperate and regain lost sleep and look at this change from a big picture standpoint, I believe they will see that this does not drastically alter any portion of the game, and nor does it make any teams robots invalidated. IMHO, this game is probably the best game since 2004 to have all kinds of strategic checks-and-balances, which makes me very excited for the competition season.


* At this point in the season, I am sure that any change to the manual would cause outrage in the FRC community. They could release an update saying they were going to give every team free puppies and kittens, and many teams would vehemently complain this change was too late to budget dry kibbles into their budget.The main problem I and many others have with this is that this problem could have (should have!) been anticipated in the first place - probably the majority of the students that took a little time to think about the game realized that the last 30 seconds were going to be a blizzard of disks, and I really have no idea why the GDC never realized the same thing. And whether or not it "drastically" changes the game, it does make a substantial change to the rules too late for most teams to do anything about it, and it does affect some teams significantly more than others, which is the real problem.

[MooreteP]

One idea might be to impose a penalty if a disc thrown by a human player leaves the field. It might encourage more care by the human players, and still give teams an opportunity to throw discs onto the field (not necessarily into the goals) in order to feed their robots.

IMHO, the referees are already overtaxed in this game.

Just wait for that first 20 point technical and 30 points climb penalty as you leave your loading zone and hit a robot touching its pyramid.

[stjonl]

The main problem I and many others have with this is that this problem could have (should have!) been anticipated in the first place - probably the majority of the students that took a little time to think about the game realized that the last 30 seconds were going to be a blizzard of disks, and I really have no idea why the GDC never realized the same thing. And whether or not it "drastically" changes the game, it does make a substantial change to the rules too late for most teams to do anything about it, and it does affect some teams significantly more than others, which is the real problem.

Rule change on the last build day can happen, and did this year. I fully support and understand the reason the GDC did this.
Safety does come first. This rule change is still a MAJOR shift in the game and the stragerty that teams made decissions about during the entire build season.
There should be another game change to re-balance the stragtery of this rule change, weather it be a reduction in climbing points (10, 20, 25),
changing 45 white disk to 40 with the extra ten discs starting on the floor, or some other means or a combination of these or other ideas.
A pently for errand disks will be nearly impossible for the refs to track as they will be wondering what HP or robot made that shot.
Another game change is needed so this rule change that has happen will have minimum impact for all of this years teams.

[FrankJ]

A couple of thoughts from this thread. (no 3)

The issue seems to be the barrage of Frisbee coming from HPs not from overpowered robot shooters.

How many complaints would there be if you added that the robots couldn't shoot Frisbees?

They change the rules again to make it "more fair". Another 10 pages of complaints of how they ruined the game for some team.

I think I am suffering from post lock up day withdrawals. Wait, we have a practice bot to build. Never mind.

[ToddF]

I might as well weigh in...

I don't have a problem with a rule change for the sake of safety. I'm not even all that bothered that the GDC didn't anticipate the problem.

My problem is that their solution needlessly changed the strategic analysis of the game. I came into this thread late, but reading through the posts, it seems that most people don't disagree that a rule change was needed. They are just outraged at the unfairness of the actual change. It didn't need to be this way.

With just a little thought, a rule change could have been made which would have satisfied nearly everyone, because it would have left the strategy of the game intact (nearly). The best ones I've seen suggested are to either start with more disks on the floor, or to have referees toss out a handful of them at each side of the field (or the centerline) with 30 seconds left in the match.

The idea I like best would be:
"everybody wins"
-increase the number of disks on the centerline at the start from 2 to 8
-drop eight more on the centerline (four on each side) with 30 seconds left.
-ban all throwing of disks (not just white ones). If hard thrown disks are a safety hazard, it doesn't what color they are. This restores the stragic balance by making everyone happy, climber/dumpers and floor pickup robots.

"everybody looses"
As an alternative, only allow colored disks to count as scored if they are shot into the pyramid goals, not dumped. That would restore the strategic balance between floor pickup and climber/dumpers. Teams who just climb without dumping and those who only load from the feeder stations are unaffected, and floor pick-up'ers and dumpers both loose scoring potential which is roughly equal.

[Steven Donow]

As an alternative, only allow colored disks to count as scored if they are shot into the pyramid goals, not dumped. That would restore the strategic balance between floor pickup and climber/dumpers. Teams who just climb without dumping and those who only load from the feeder stations are unaffected, and floor pick-up'ers and dumpers both loose scoring potential which is roughly equal.

I think that would be even a more absurd change than what was done...designing with the sole intention of climbing and dumping in the top(if that is what you are saying should be made illegal) is VERY different than floor loaders having less disks to pick up off the ground...taking that away from teams that designed SOLELY to climb and dump essentially devalues those robots EXTREMELY. Committing to designing a robot that SOLELY climbs and dumps is a much bigger commitment than designing one that picks up off the ground

[robochick1319]

I think that would be even a more absurd change than what was done...designing with the sole intention of climbing and dumping in the top(if that is what you are saying should be made illegal) is VERY different than floor loaders having less disks to pick up off the ground...taking that away from teams that designed SOLELY to climb and dump essentially devalues those robots EXTREMELY. Committing to designing a robot that SOLELY climbs and dumps is a much bigger commitment than designing one that picks up off the ground

I couldn't agree more. People are upset about FIRST changing the rules at the last minute and having it affect their robots and strategy. This is awful, I agree. But why turn around and do the same to someone else?

Where's the GP in that?

I liked the idea of adding more discs on the field in the beginning though. That would certainly help a bit.

[~Cory~]

They change the rules again to make it "more fair". Another 10 pages of complaints of how they ruined the game for some team.


The problem is teams develop their strategies around weighted value of each objective/action.

Game designers have to deal with this problem a lot. They listen to their player communities to see what kind of actions are over powered or under powered and make corresponding changes to keep the intent of the game. The GCD has changed a vital action and the intent of the game has changed (Hanging is more important than the Frisbees in the end game). Just like the game industry, the other corresponding actions should be nerfed or buffed.

If you are interested in game mechanics, take a look at this wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_(game_design)

Note: the GDC stands for Game Design Committee. I think it would be appropriate for them to at least know some of the theory behind game design and act upon it.

IMHO, the Frisbee doesn't decide how dangerous it is based on its color or if a robot or human threw it. A penalty should be assessed for errant shots.

Food for thought: Baseball is an inherently dangerous activity to watch and yet the games hasn't changed. Robots hurtling frisbees and climbing is inherently dangerous too!

[robochick1319]

The problem is teams develop their strategies around weighted value of each objective/action.

Game designers have to deal with this problem a lot. They listen to their player communities to see what kind of actions are over powered or under powered and make corresponding changes to keep the intent of the game. The GCD has changed a vital action and the intent of the game has changed (Hanging is more important than the Frisbees in the end game). Just like the game industry, the other corresponding actions should be nerfed or buffed.

If you are interested in game mechanics, take a look at this wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_(game_design)

Note: the GDC stands for Game Design Committee. I think it would be appropriate for them to at least know some of the theory behind game design and act upon it.

IMHO, the Frisbee doesn't decide how dangerous it is based on its color or if a robot or human threw it. A penalty should be assessed for errant shots.

Food for thought: Baseball is an inherently dangerous activity to watch and yet the games hasn't changed. Robots hurtling frisbees and climbing is inherently dangerous too!

I like most of what you said but frankly sports have changed due to safety concerns and baseball is no exception. Example, google "Babe Ruth" and try to find a picture of him with a helmet on like today's players use.

The GDC made the right move, just 6 weeks too late.

[Mr B]

This is disappointing. It isn’t so much about the game as it is the inspiration. We are here to show students just how awesome it is to be a scientist or an engineer, and encourage them to pursue it as a career. A critical part of the process is clearly identifying the problem (pink spends the entire kick-off day analyzing the game), and then finding the best solution for that specific problem. Yes it is fun to win, but it doesn’t compare to the rush that you feel when you see the problem conquered – and know that it was your brain that helped conquer it. That feedback is wonderfully motivating, and makes it easy to wake up for work in the morning. This changes the problem and it kind of takes away some of the payoff.

Still, I understand that we have to be reasonably safe, and I’ll bet the GDC dislikes the change as much as we do. And in the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of those “FIRST world problem” memes :D. We will just man-up and do the best we can. Who knows, maybe we will rise to the occasion and play even better.

[pfreivald]

To some extent, FIRST is simulated life. In life, sometimes the rules change, even when you don't want them to and were told they wouldn't.

Adapt, survive, get over it. I think they made a good call, here, and can't be too judgmental about their not foreseeing the problem.

[TheMadCADer]

This is disappointing. It isn’t so much about the game as it is the inspiration. We are here to show students just how awesome it is to be a scientist or an engineer, and encourage them to pursue it as a career. A critical part of the process is clearly identifying the problem (pink spends the entire kick-off day analyzing the game), and then finding the best solution for that specific problem. Yes it is fun to win, but it doesn’t compare to the rush that you feel when you see the problem conquered – and know that it was your brain that helped conquer it. That feedback is wonderfully motivating, and makes it easy to wake up for work in the morning. This changes the problem and it kind of takes away some of the payoff.

Still, I understand that we have to be reasonably safe, and I’ll bet the GDC dislikes the change as much as we do. And in the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of those “FIRST world problem” memes :D. We will just man-up and do the best we can. Who knows, maybe we will rise to the occasion and play even better.

I know exactly what you mean about how great it feels to solve a tough problem, that's why I'm addicted to this junk. However, when you teach about engineering it's good to also teach about what engineers have to deal with on a regular basis, including how fickle most customers can be. If you're working on a project and your project manager hasn't given you a major design change in the past couple weeks, something is up and you should be on your toes. This counts double towards the end of a project, if you give a customer time to think it over, they'll change their mind or something will "come up" and you have to work it out. Fast.

In this case, one could consider FIRST to be your customer, and they tell you what they want, and you give them exactly that and not something else. You meet the requirements or you lose the "contract" (and probably your job).

Maybe, for an example, a hypothetical deepwater drilling rig in the gulf explodes and causes a massive, highly publicized oil spill. New safety standards incoming, do all of your products hold up to this new scrutiny? Maybe you can't drill where you wanted to anymore, now what? This is the same thing, simply on a less... explosive... scale.

[dag0620]

Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree. The addressed the problem and fixed it. Yes it might not be a solution that worked for everyone, but Safety is a number one concern above everything we do in FRC. And they addressed the issue. FIRST did what they had to do. They're setting a good example.

I know this is upsetting but if you look at all the logistics FIRST has to deal with, this is the clear only choice they had.

[Mike Copioli]

Mike, the successful shots from the Human Players were with a "hammer throw". It is different from a frisbee launched by a 5000 rpm spinning wheel in that it has a much higher translational velocity.

These hammer throws were traveling TWICE the distance of the field. Spectators on the ends of the field are already at a viewing disadvantage due to the goals this year, which really block the view of the gameplay. :(
They would not see it the disk coming at them and could easily suffer facial contusions. (the term that a lawyer would use when suing FIRST)
I was at the Suffield Shakedown and witnessed more than a few spectators sitting at the ends of the field "bonked" by a disk.

The public has not signed (nor electronically submitted :rolleyes: ) a Consent and Release form. While an injury and attendant lawsuit at a FIRST Robotics Competition would increase our media presence, it is an unacceptable risk.

Placing more netting at the ends of the field is not impossible, but more problematic given the less than two weeks until the season begins and the variety of venues at which the events are held.

A better solution may have been to allow the human players to throw around the feeder stations and disallowing the hammer throw. Spectators and human players would be more familiar with that style.
The GDC does not have the luxury of assessing this adjustment, so they erred on the side of safety. (As we all try to.)

Nonetheless, "what's done cannot be undone" ~Shakespeare.

Or can it? ~Mooretep

Thank you for clearing up what the actual problem is. I was not aware that teams were "hammer throwing" discs. I can see how this could become hazardous. However, it seems to me that the ruling is equivalent to using a shotgun to swat a fly.

As you stated, why not just disallow humans from hammer throwing? This would have much less impact on game play.

[ToddF]

I couldn't agree more. People are upset about FIRST changing the rules at the last minute and having it affect their robots and strategy. This is awful, I agree. But why turn around and do the same to someone else?

Where's the GP in that?

Yep. That's why I called it the "everybody loses" option.

I liked the idea of adding more discs on the field in the beginning though. That would certainly help a bit.

Does anyone else have suggestions for "everybody wins" options? Maybe if we develop a good proposal, it could be adopted...

I like adding a few more disks at the beginning because it encourages teams to develop more creative autonomous routines. Adding them at the end undoes some of the inbalance that results from prohibiting thrown disks, but in a safe way.

[Djur]

Would not be surprised if the GDC did not anticipate human players throwing discs at a vertical orientation high and hard so that some carried 10+ feet over the field ends or spun out far beyond the corner of a field. In practice these flew very differently than a traditional horizontal Frisbee throw. They were more like missiles than anything at the Nashua event. You'd get 5 or 6 of these high hard throws in the air and it was a bit dicey.

Seconded. Our human players had to be careful not to get brained by frisbees.

[Ian Curtis]

Karthik,

I disagree with your comparison to 2012 in regards to shot percentages.

This years target is much larger than last years. The projectiles retain their form better and are more stable during flight. While your initial projections may be close I think you will see a marked improvement in percentages as the season progresses.

Time will tell.

I would suspect at the regional level in 2012 the scoring percentage was significantly lower than 66%, which is why Karthik used the Championship percentage. I must say I am a big fan of these game pieces though, there are lots of examples of open loop launchers with repeated trajectories, and I imagine the closed loop ones are probably even better.

[Squeakypig]

In the whole banning of the hammer throw people are mentioning, I feel like that would hurt the cause more than it would help it. I do not see any of our human players throw discs outside of our arena while using the hammer throw, but when using a normal frisbee throw, due to the steep angle you have to throw the frisbee, they fly out at a 50% rate. The toss might be harder, but in these circumstances, they seem to be more controlled.

[BrianT103]

I fully support FIRST's decision behind changing the rules on this one as it mitigates some serious safety concerns. However, I think a better solution would have been to ban hammer throws and/or assess a FOUL for a disk leaving the field from a HP.

[OZ_341]

I do think the GDC should find some way to place a fair estimated percentage of the HP disks on the field in the last 30 seconds. Placing these disks at center field (or at both ends) in the last 30 seconds would more closely simulate the original game design.

[EricLeifermann]

In the whole banning of the hammer throw people are mentioning, I feel like that would hurt the cause more than it would help it. I do not see any of our human players throw discs outside of our arena while using the hammer throw, but when using a normal frisbee throw, due to the steep angle you have to throw the frisbee, they fly out at a 50% rate. The toss might be harder, but in these circumstances, they seem to be more controlled.

Our HP jumps up and throws the discs "normal" over the player station. He was quite good. Now he's talking about just wearing our mascot outfit as he feels the HP has become rather useless now.

[Kims Robot]

I've been watching this thread for a while now, and I completely understand the frustration - especially for all those teams just coming off of soooo many sleepless nights!!

Several good points have been made already. Karthik's was the earliest one that made a ton of sense, and Pete's more recently echoed my thoughts.

But here is another thought... many have been mentioning banning hammer throws, or only allowing a certain number of white disks to be thrown, or several other limitations that aren't quite as restrictive as the "only colored disks" ruling. The problem with this is that it places a lot more work on the referees... what happens if they miss "how" the frisbee was thrown because they were trying to watch a robot climb?, who is going to count how many white disks a human throws? I think this would just lead to more referee errors, and extend the problems.

Netting over the goals - this is a possibility, but the structures are already really really tall, and I think it would be hard to add onto the structures in such a way that it worked for all venues. Sure many of the Regionals have lights and everything rigged, but you don't want to hang nets that will be hammered by frisbees on expensive lighting. Plus District events (and offseasons) won't have anywhere near the same ability to rig. Making the structures taller with nets seems even more dangerous. I helped set up the home made field for the Rochester Rally and while it was a lot more stable than we would have expected, putting up really tall nets would have been tough.

For teams that are upset about the last 30 seconds, I'm really surprised that so many think that will be such a disadvantage. In reading strategies early on, it seemed like the clear advantage to floor collectors was in autonomous. I would be surprised to see more than a handful of robots that can get more than one cycle in the last 25 seconds of play (presumably it would take at least 5 seconds for 4 human thrown frisbees to be on the floor - and that assumes they all land within easy pickup range).

For the human players that put in a ton of practice... I do feel a bit bad for them, but I think they still have potential to win games that are close. In watching the preships, it seemed like it was possible that humans would score a lot more points than robots... and that doesn't really make this a robotics competition - it makes it a human competition with a robot component. I think the humans are just going to have to work harder at increasing their accuracy... before you could get away with mere chance... 2/20 was still two scored... now each disk has to really really count. Its a little more like last year where when you weren't bombarded by a high scorer, you had a limited number of balls in endgame, so each had to count. We still saw some amazing shots.

And for anyone wondering what the netting looks like, there may be more recent photos from any changes from Suffield or NH, but at Kickoff they looked like this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimsrobot/8350753321/in/set-72157632447784120/). They are right up next to the field.

In all - I get this change. At the Rally, there were points where we just had to tell the humans to stop throwing because it was getting dangerous to walk anywhere in the gym. And while I get the frustration, as others have said, I don't think its as detrimental to robot designs as many are making it out to be. In fact I'd wager that if we played an offseason half with and half without the change, we'd end up with nearly exactly the same scores robot-wise. As with every year, I think everyone is overestimating their ability to score as they haven't played against defense or with 6 robots on the field or with frisbees littering the field.

Hopefully everyone takes a breather, gets some sleep, and figures out how to play an amazing game!

[JGecko146]

I was at a Week Zero event. Not only was this a very serious safety issue, but dozens of disks hitting the driver stations caused so much chaos that most drivers weren’t able to see/focus enough to score during the last thirty seconds anyway. In my opinion this rule change will actually greatly help teams during the final thirty seconds. With regards to "epic" human player shots, I only saw a handful of shots go in during the entire day. It's a lot harder than you think. Just my two cents.

[berrybotics]

First, let me state, we are not using floor pickup as a strategy, we are strictly feeding station loader.

I am not sure how this is a huge blow to floor pickup strategy. Yes, it changes the strategy and the amount of time to score, but I fail to see that this changes everything as that seems to be the theme for a floor strategy.

The rule states

"DISCS may be fed onto the FIELD only under the following circumstances:

A. during TELEOP through the FEEDER SLOTS for any DISCS and

B. during the last thirty (30) seconds of TELEOP over the FEEDER STATIONS for Red and Blue DISCS."

Though it will be a little bit more tricky to pick up as many times to shoot, frisbees can still get on the floor through the feeder station and then they can be picked them up from the floor. You can only hold four at a time anyway, so it is not like you can drive around looking to pick up more than that. Those of you picking up from the floor, you will be able to load much faster over us that are loading from the feeder station (at least ours). We have to slow down, make a turn, line up, load and then go. It will take us longer to get four in, from what videos I have watched.

Now part of the strategy has changed slightly that you have to fend off another team trying to take your frisbees being dropped by your HP but once they get four they have to move on. For a true rookie team, by true rookie team I mean having no one on the team that has ever done this, I see this as helping us be more competitive. Maybe it is a little naive to simplify this issue, but I for one want to be able to watch a match with out also looking for flying discs coming at me.

I am open to hear what I am missing here, since I am newbie and could only help us understand better game strategies in the future. I have been around enough complex issues that there is always a way to over come a set back like this and will be looking forward to the creative ways those of you that have been doing this will over come this one!

My views don't necessarily reflect that of our team. -Cyle (Asst. Coach for BerryBotics)

[Arefin Bari]

Safety issue - completely understandable and I agree 100% with GDC. But we should have had this change made atleast 2-3 days prior to bagging so we could have made appropriate changes. Week 0 events were mostly on saturdays. This update should have came out on saturday night to warn teams like us who is planning on floor loading. Yes yes I get the point that there will be a lot of disks laying around but it still doesnt satisfy our strategy with our human player to be able to throw the frisbee at the same spot everytime.

On a completely different note, FIRST should allow teams to unbag their robot for a 8 hour period to make appropriate changes. After all we made a robot according to the rules GDC gave us. And now GDC has changed the rules on us.

[notmattlythgoe]

First, let me state, we are not using floor pickup as a strategy, we are strictly feeding station loader.

I am not sure how this is a huge blow to floor pickup strategy. Yes, it changes the strategy and the amount of time to score, but I fail to see that this changes everything as that seems to be the theme for a floor strategy.

The rule states

"DISCS may be fed onto the FIELD only under the following circumstances:

A. during TELEOP through the FEEDER SLOTS for any DISCS and

B. during the last thirty (30) seconds of TELEOP over the FEEDER STATIONS for Red and Blue DISCS."

Though it will be a little bit more tricky to pick up as many times to shoot, frisbees can still get on the floor through the feeder station and then they can be picked them up from the floor. You can only hold four at a time anyway, so it is not like you can drive around looking to pick up more than that. Those of you picking up from the floor, you will be able to load much faster over us that are loading from the feeder station (at least ours). We have to slow down, make a turn, line up, load and then go. It will take us longer to get four in, from what videos I have watched.

Now part of the strategy has changed slightly that you have to fend off another team trying to take your frisbees being dropped by your HP but once they get four they have to move on. For a true rookie team, by true rookie team I mean having no one on the team that has ever done this, I see this as helping us be more competitive. Maybe it is a little naive to simplify this issue, but I for one want to be able to watch a match with out also looking for flying discs coming at me.

I am open to hear what I am missing here, since I am newbie and could only help us understand better game strategies in the future. I have been around enough complex issues that there is always a way to over come a set back like this and will be looking forward to the creative ways those of you that have been doing this will over come this one!

My views don't necessarily reflect that of our team. -Cyle (Asst. Coach for BerryBotics)

The problem is with frisbees being thrown the floor feeders wouldn't have had to drive across the field to get to the feeder station to pick up discs.

[Isaac501]

Late rule changes (or spec changes) in the name of safety and user experience, pre-release, are to be expected. This is just a taste of real-world engineering.

Keep calm and robot on.

[MrForbes]

I was up late working on a robot Tuesday, and yesterday we had no internet at our house. So I missed all this fun. Oh well.

I got beaned in the nose by a human-thrown DISC on kickoff day. I like this rule change.

And....I can't see any way that the rule change affects how our robot plays the game.

I also wonder how those teams that anticipated the blizzard problem, could not foresee the GDC's solution, or at least have notified the GDC that there was the potential for a serious safety issue.

[DMike]

Is there any proof of the value of a retrieving system in the last 30 seconds? Like a video simulating the conditions and performance.

[Libby K]

Bad timing? Yes. Teams have been planning on this and it's a little (or a lot) disappointing to have things changed so late in the game.

Necessary safety solution? Very yes. I'd much rather not see the 'blizzard' if it means my Grandmother won't be risking a black eye while she's watching the elimination rounds.

[KrazyCarl92]

First, let me state, we are not using floor pickup as a strategy, we are strictly feeding station loader.

I am not sure how this is a huge blow to floor pickup strategy. Yes, it changes the strategy and the amount of time to score, but I fail to see that this changes everything as that seems to be the theme for a floor strategy.

The rule states

"DISCS may be fed onto the FIELD only under the following circumstances:

A. during TELEOP through the FEEDER SLOTS for any DISCS and

B. during the last thirty (30) seconds of TELEOP over the FEEDER STATIONS for Red and Blue DISCS."

Though it will be a little bit more tricky to pick up as many times to shoot, frisbees can still get on the floor through the feeder station and then they can be picked them up from the floor. You can only hold four at a time anyway, so it is not like you can drive around looking to pick up more than that. Those of you picking up from the floor, you will be able to load much faster over us that are loading from the feeder station (at least ours). We have to slow down, make a turn, line up, load and then go. It will take us longer to get four in, from what videos I have watched.

Now part of the strategy has changed slightly that you have to fend off another team trying to take your frisbees being dropped by your HP but once they get four they have to move on. For a true rookie team, by true rookie team I mean having no one on the team that has ever done this, I see this as helping us be more competitive. Maybe it is a little naive to simplify this issue, but I for one want to be able to watch a match with out also looking for flying discs coming at me.

I am open to hear what I am missing here, since I am newbie and could only help us understand better game strategies in the future. I have been around enough complex issues that there is always a way to over come a set back like this and will be looking forward to the creative ways those of you that have been doing this will over come this one!

My views don't necessarily reflect that of our team. -Cyle (Asst. Coach for BerryBotics)

Part of what this analysis is missing is a marginalized wholistic game strategy perspective. What I mean by this is that if your goal is to maximize your robots scoring potential, you should always look to what will add more additional points to your score when analyzing different parts of the game. For example, with the old rules you may figure the following scoring during the end game:

No floor pick up, spend last 30 seconds or more climbing for 30:
30 points
(possibility of additional 20 pts here too)
30-50 points total

Floor pickup with 10 point hang in last 30 seconds (field littered with discs):
12-24 points from frisbees
10 points from hang
22-34 points total

When deciding that trade off, we said the second option gave us an advantage in autonomous, didn't hurt us much in the end game, opened up a variety of wonderful alliance strategies for any alliance we're a part of, and significantly simplified the design of our robot. We designed our robot such that it shoots and hangs from the same location on the field, so it's not even about collecting two rounds then hanging, it's really just collecting two rounds of discs and the hanging will happen because we won't need to go anywhere.

I personally believe that good strategy and general game play will result in a field with lots of discs anyway, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. However, there will still be some matches where the rate of our robots scoring in the end game is limited by the number of discs on the field, whereas by the old rules this wouldn't have been the case ever.

The frustration comes out of making a significant design trade off decision based on the old rules, and now having them changed in a manner that makes the decision less of an advantage, or possibly even a greater disadvantage, we will never know.

I understand FIRST's decision and while I think there may have been better solutions to explore (no upside down throws allowed???, hammer throws are still allowed so as far as I'm concerned the safety hazard is not mitigated), it is for the best to have a safer environment at the events. All we can do as teams is try to do the very best we can to work within the new rule, take it in stride, and work toward continuous improvement of our robots and strategies to be the best we can within these new parameters. Anything less would not be gracious professionalism.

[sdcantrell56]

I also wonder how those teams that anticipated the blizzard problem, could not foresee the GDC's solution, or at least have notified the GDC that there was the potential for a serious safety issue.

Perhaps we didn't see the blizzard "problem" because we were anticipating using it to our advantage. We correctly predicted game play and built a robot to take advantage of it only to have this advantage taken away at the end of build.

Pretty shady move on the part of the GDC, although after so many years in this program it seems this is to be expected.

[45Auto]

We correctly predicted game play and built a robot to take advantage of it only to have this advantage taken away at the end of build.

No, you ALMOST correctly predicted game play. Some teams CORRECTLY predicted game play in that the frisbee free-for-all at the end of the game would be drastically modified or removed during the build season updates and built their robot accordingly.

[Madison]

To some extent, FIRST is simulated life. In life, sometimes the rules change, even when you don't want them to and were told they wouldn't.

Adapt, survive, get over it. I think they made a good call, here, and can't be too judgmental about their not foreseeing the problem.

In real life, if someone asks you to build a boat and then, when you deliver it, they say, "There's actually no water here. We want a plane instead," your performance isn't judged on the effectiveness of your boat as an airplane.

In this case, we are in no position to make material changes to our product in response to the shifting requirements and we will be judged, in terms of our performance on the field, based on the outdated result.

Apples and oranges, in my opinion.

[sdcantrell56]

No, you ALMOST correctly predicted game play. Some teams CORRECTLY predicted game play in that the frisbee free-for-all at the end of the game would be drastically modified or removed during the build season updates and built their robot accordingly.

You're correct, all of the teams who chose to forgo the added engineering challenge of designing an effective floor pickup correctly predicted the GDC making yet another late season game change.

In the future I will encourage my team to always choose the simpler path so we hopefully won't be effected by these last minute game changers. Lesson learned.

In the meantime I would love access to the crystal ball granting you the insight into these changes.

[Brandon Holley]

No, you ALMOST correctly predicted game play. Some teams CORRECTLY predicted game play in that the frisbee free-for-all at the end of the game would be drastically modified or removed during the build season updates and built their robot accordingly.

I undoubtedly tip my cap to the teams who built their robots KNOWING the game would be drastically modified the day of bagging....

-Brando

[ghostmachine360]

I'm glad, just as a referee. Had to dive out of the way of some frisbees during a Frisbee blizzard in a scrimmage match.

[billbo911]

In the meantime I would love access to the crystal ball granting you the insight into these changes.

You might be better served by an "Uncertain 7-Cube" (http://www.sparkfun.com/news/1074). See the second video in that link.

[Anupam Goli]

You're correct, all of the teams who chose to forgo the added engineering challenge of designing an effective floor pickup correctly predicted the GDC making yet another late season game change.

In the future I will encourage my team to always choose the simpler path so we hopefully won't be effected by these last minute game changers. Lesson learned.


The sarcasm is strong in this one. (Please don't stop building complex and awesome robots.)

I'm pretty sure the GDC was able to predict the blizzard. You just have to go back to the past 2 years and see how a flurry of game pieces were always being hurled. However, I don't think they estimated the amount of force that a desperate human player imparts on the frisbee when trying to score it. The amount of force and the nature of the disc itself was a major safety hazard

Right move? I don't know. While our robot's floor pickup was going to be only used for autonomous and missed shots, I do feel somewhat wronged by the GDC for developing a floor pickup. I feel like instead of outright limiting the number of discs thrown, the GDC could've spent at least another day figuring out another way to make the game more safe, but not rule out many strategies.

[Nuttyman54]

No, you ALMOST correctly predicted game play. Some teams CORRECTLY predicted game play in that the frisbee free-for-all at the end of the game would be drastically modified or removed during the build season updates and built their robot accordingly.

Therein lies the problem. FIRST has had over a year to develop this game. Moreso than they have in the past, they have made efforts to fully test the gameplay to the best of their abilities. Many, many teams were able to correctly predict that there would be a hailstorm of frisbees at the end, and assumed that the bright folks at FIRST would also have anticipated that and had tested it well enough prior to kickoff that the safety features (nets, high walls at either end of the field) to mitigate the risk.

In short, we put our faith that if we were able to easily anticipate the hailstorm, FIRST did to and had chosen to leave it in the rules because their field design adequate to provide a safe environment. There is an inherent expectation by the teams that the gameplay allowed in the rules will be safe. It is the teams' responsibility to analyze the rules and determine the appropriate strategy, it is NOT the teams' responsibility to determine if parts of the rules present an unsafe situation and anticipate a GDC rules change.

To all the teams who are saying "Why didn't you anticipate they would change the rules and plan accordingly?", it's just not that simple. The ONLY strategy basis teams should have to go off of are the rules as they are written. What if a team designed their robot anticipating this rule change, and it didn't get changed? Would they then complain about an unfair disadvantage because they think it's unsafe but the GDC doesn't? If a team anticipates it would be a safety issue, why didn't they make an attempt to inform the GDC of this during build season? I'm guessing the answer is because they, like everyone else, assumed the GDC was aware of the potential hazard and the lack of any changes meant that the GDC was confident in the safety of the field and gameplay.

That being said, I don't think it's the hail of frisbees that caused this ruling from the GDC, but rather the number of frisbees that left the field entirely during this period and sailed off into the stands/scoring table/etc. They pose a hazard for spectators, field personnel and judges, as well as being a field reset issue. As unfortunate as it is that it took week 0 events for this to become apparent, that's what happened, they made the change because they had to, and we will all deal with it. I agree with Karthik and others, I do not think it will be as big of an issue as most people are making it out to be.

[Ian Curtis]

In real life, if someone asks you to build a boat and then, when you deliver it, they say, "There's actually no water here. We want a plane instead," your performance isn't judged on the effectiveness of your boat as an airplane.

In this case, we are in no position to make material changes to our product in response to the shifting requirements and we will be judged, in terms of our performance on the field, based on the outdated result.

Apples and oranges, in my opinion.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Boeing_314_Clipper-cropped.jpg/640px-Boeing_314_Clipper-cropped.jpg

Doesn't mean you can't have the best of both worlds... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314)

I totally agree though. FIRST doesn't have anything to lose in making these changes except their credibility*, and based on the reaction here it looks like they had already lost that in the eyes of many old timers.

*This is regardless of whether it was a necessary change or not (and it sounds like it probably was). It just means that participants will not trust FIRST in the future to keep to their original specifications, which breeds ill-will in any organization.

[billbo911]

My $.02?

I am 100% certain floor pick up will be a valuable asset.
I can absolutely guarantee that there are going to be missed shots on the floor. Not every robot is capable of 100% accuracy.

That said, the number of disks on the floor will diminish as you progress through eliminations. Regardless, disks will still be on the floor.

Consider the alliance that has a robot parked in the loading station to simply forward disks to the brutally accurate shooting robot that feeds from the floor.

[sircedric4]

I totally agree though. FIRST doesn't have anything to lose in making these changes except their credibility*, and based on the reaction here it looks like they had already lost that in the eyes of many old timers.

*This is regardless of whether it was a necessary change or not (and it sounds like it probably was). It just means that participants will not trust FIRST in the future to keep to their original specifications, which breeds ill-will in any organization.

I am not quite as old timer as some of the other mentors and teams here but I can't remember a year where FIRST didn't make some controversial change after kick off. Sometimes it affected us, sometimes it didn't.

One thing we did take away from the years we have been here is that like a customer at a job, FIRST is just as likely to introduce scope creep and make your wonderful solution obsolete.

I feel for those that have had their strategy effected. We always discuss in our strategy meetings what are possible gotcha's for the year and as my fellow mentor said in a more inflammatory way, we did see the frisbee blizzard as a possible gotcha. Heck, we went into our current strategy with the foreknowledge that FIRST can change our scoring later, but built the best bot we could with the resources and commitment we have. I am sure the floor loaders will still find frisbees to play with.

Participating in this game reminds me of the rocket science I used to do; it has extremely high highs, but also extremely low lows. Don't lose heart and the high from overcoming an incredible challenge will help you forget the disappointments. Have fun at the competitions and enjoy the incredible machine you have spent 6 weeks building. :-)

[QuackAttack177]

For the human players that put in a ton of practice... I do feel a bit bad for them, but I think they still have potential to win games that are close. In watching the preships, it seemed like it was possible that humans would score a lot more points than robots... and that doesn't really make this a robotics competition - it makes it a human competition with a robot component. I think the humans are just going to have to work harder at increasing their accuracy... before you could get away with mere chance... 2/20 was still two scored... now each disk has to really really count. Its a little more like last year where when you weren't bombarded by a high scorer, you had a limited number of balls in endgame, so each had to count.


Your right some human players were just too good. And when we are talking about it we might as well just get rid of some teams shooters they are obviously just too good and provide an unfair advantage to them. And the teams that can climb to 30 points? UNFAIR! get rid of them

[GaryVoshol]

After a couple days ruminating on this, I think we have to give the GDC and other powers-that-be some slack.

I don't think they failed to anticipate a flurry of discs in the last 30 seconds.

Rather, I think they failed to anticipate how incredibly bad the feeders would be at throwing the discs and keeping them on the field. :eek:

There must not have been the same problem with regard to robots shooting discs. Had there been, they would have been able to modify a rule and make it a foul any time a disc went over the net or alliance wall.

[pfreivald]

Apples and oranges, in my opinion.

I did say *simulated* life. :)

[CLandrum3081]

My $0.02:

I don't have time to read through all the comments. If I repeat what someone else has already said, my bad.

Several people have raised that the GDC should have seen this coming. I agree - partly for reasons already mentioned (30 seconds to throw discs and students actually throw them :rolleyes: and bad aim (let's be honest -many of us are athletes, but not as high of a proportion as on, say the ultimate Frisbee team)) - but partly for another reason.

3081 is a young team. However, even the rookies had some idea that the discs would be flying everywhere. This being my second year, I witnessed basketballs flying everywhere and hitting everything - thank heavens they were made of foam. One kid remarked shortly after the reveal, "This is sure going to make the endgame interesting if everyone's still throwing things and those things are much harder."

My point: We throw things. We throw things badly. If it hurts when these things hit us in gym class, we shouldn't have dozens of these things flying around in a very short frame of time.

Am I disappointed? Well, not really by the rule change, but in the GDC's failure to recognize this beforehand. I would have preferred some arbitrary last-minute bumper rule over this. Perhaps the GDC should make safety a priority BEFORE bag and tag day. ::ouch:: At least they did it before week 2, and at least they did it at some point. I would rather be angry about this rule change than angry about an injured teammate or volunteer.

That was longer than I expected. Sorry :o

[kz1290]

That is really annoying I was looking forward to the frisbee throwing as the human player :(. But on another note, are there any videos of these matches? A 'blizzard' of frisbees sounds hilarious.

[CLandrum3081]

That is really annoying I was looking forward to the frisbee throwing as the human player :(. But on another note, are there any videos of these matches? A 'blizzard' of frisbees sounds hilarious.

Sorry. Searched for a video of the one 3081 went to and only found a video of the Harlem Shake that happened there. :mad:

As a practice driver for a few matches, it was scary. I remember saying, "Someone's gonna get hurt." Hopefully with the rule change, no one will (other than the occasional metal splinter here and there; for some reason we can never seem to stop those).

[markmcgary]

That is really annoying I was looking forward to the frisbee throwing as the human player :(. But on another note, are there any videos of these matches? A 'blizzard' of frisbees sounds hilarious.

Frisbee Blizzards in SoCal (https://vimeo.com/60228920)

[Wayne TenBrink]

Frisbee Blizzards in SoCal (https://vimeo.com/60228920)

There were lots of discs on the floor prior to the blizzard in each case. If I were a referee in that situation, would be watching out for discs instead of watching the game. Good rule, unfortunate timing IMHO.

[Wayne Doenges]

To offset the lack of white frisbee's, for the floor picker uppers, maybe we can limit the 30 point climbers to only 2 frisbees carried to dump in the 5 point goal? :rolleyes:

[MarcD79]

All I can say is WOW! I see a lot of controversy for & against the rule change. Those who read CD all the time have seen my responses. I feel for the HPers who have practiced for the past 6 weeks. GDC can only guess the ferocity of players because when practicing, the will to win is not the same as the real thing. I also see very unprofessional responses. Remember Gracious Professionalism. The real world always springs the unexpected upon us. Instead of complaining, brainstorming is the next best thing.
I was Field Supervisor at Suffield, as well field setup. We did raise the netting another 12" to a total of 14'. It still didn't address the issue of the Frisbees flying over the driver stations & past the corners on either side. The DJ did get hit on the head with a Frisbee and he was behind the netting. You can't assume that everybody will be watching Frisbees all the time. I saw some real powerhouse throws. Enough to shake the driver's station walls. I loved to see that last 30 seconds, the frenzied throwing, the energy. But at what expense.
Let's move forward. Be professional.

[OZ_341]

OK before I make this comment, let me just say that Safety is Paramount.
If the GDC can't guarantee event safety, then they have to act. I get that and support that.

Warning:
Please don't hit me with a hammer throw for my next opinion. :)
What Bothers me about the decision is that there seems to be no attempt to keep the "Spirit of the Game Design" (i.e. minimize the impact of the decision on teams that designed for the blizzard). There might be a variety of solutions, but I think they should at least place extra disks on the field in the last 30 seconds. What the right number would be, I will leave up to those more brilliant than myself.
The reality is that anything done at this point would be an approximation. I just wish the GDC would try to create that approximation.

OK I will duck now. :ahh:

[Tristan Lall]

I expect that the GDC, FRC engineering and FRC logistics all had roles to play in making this decision. After all, changing the game was not the only way to achieve an acceptable degree of safety: there were clearly alternatives that would have left the game intact, the most obvious one being more netting to protect spectators and hockey helmets for the field staff. But I suspect the logistics and engineering staff would have had something to say about the cost and schedule constraints related to the implementation of those changes.

In assessing the costs and benefits, there's no a priori reason why changing the game couldn't be the least-bad of several onerous resolutions. So as long as the GDC gave due consideration to the alternatives, I don't fault them for it, because I understand their responsibilities.

That doesn't mean I have to like it.


As for why I don't have to like it, consider that FIRST is not supposed to be a perfect simulation of real life—as sufficient demonstration of that, would we accept it if all our conventions about gracious professionalism were substantially diluted? That would be like real life. FIRST's real and perceived leaders write volumes of documentation every year, give many speeches, set many examples, and nowhere do they state or even clearly imply that "this is real life, with all its hazards".

FRC is a sandbox where many of the constraints of real life are lifted or simplified. One of the most valuable of those simplifications is a self-contained rule set that is freshly imposed at kickoff every year, so that precedent—notoriously hard to keep straight—is marginalized. Cheating is disincentivized by fostering a sense of "co-opertition" that dampens many of the less desirable dynamics of a high school sporting event. And as long as FRC sticks to the plan, it's a very good thing, because everyone can focus on the multitude of intentional challenges the games bring, without worrying about the full range of perils the world has to offer. Skills are developed that way, even if it means they'll need to be honed a little to be useful in the real world.

But every time FIRST springs a big change on the teams after kickoff, the wheels come off. We're forced to worry about the effects of the change—which often disproportionately affect a subset of teams. We question FIRST's motivations and its competence, and as was suggested above, we consider whether we should be accounting for the GDC's unwelcome surprises in our design processes.

And the truth is, we do have to account for that kind of stuff. Not because FIRST tells us to, but because they usually inadvertently give us a reason to do so. Human error is a real-world constraint that they never express or explain, but which inevitably finds its way into the competition. That's a lesson about how the world works, but simultaneously an indictment of FIRST. Whether or not that real-world lesson has any place in FRC, it would be preferable to teach it without introducing systematic inequity, and without the GDC making itself look silly.

Maybe this is the more important lesson: even though the GDC weighed the options and made their choice, there was no 100% right decision available to be made. Next time, hopefully the GDC avoids getting backed into that particular corner, and we can concentrate more on the game, and less on the meta-game.

[JB987]

OK before I make this comment, let me just say that Safety is Paramount.
If the GDC can't guarantee event safety, then they have to act. I get that and support that.

Warning:
Please don't hit me with a hammer throw for my next opinion. :)
What Bothers me about the decision is that there seems to be no attempt to keep the "Spirit of the Game Design" (i.e. minimize the impact of the decision on teams that designed for the blizzard). There might be a variety of solutions, but I think they should at least place extra disks on the field in the last 30 seconds. What the right number would be, I will leave up to those more brilliant than myself.
The reality is that anything done at this point would be an approximation. I just wish the GDC would try to create that approximation.

OK I will duck now. :ahh:

If there was a safe way for field personnel to introduce the disks during the last 30 seconds I would agree with you, Jared. I am willing to bet many teams opting for a quick ground pick up figured that they could get off two loads of disks and do a quick 10 pt hang in the final 30 seconds (with a field littered with human disks)...34 pts to help neutralize a climber. 8-10 disks flung on to the field might do the trick. Then again, week one may just reveal there is still an abundance of disks on the floor anyways and this adjustment would be a moot point, right? We are counting on your team to show the way...;)

[coldfusion1279]

I was on the side of a field while human players were practicing throws, only one throw at a time. I was at the opposite feeder station (off the field) looking at our robot.

It was very stressful and I was nervous about being hit. Frisbees come will come in fast and numerous with 6 people throwing. If referees paid attention to incoming discs and missed a call on the field, everyone would be up in arms about that.

FIRST is putting safety first. Yes, they moved your cheese without telling you. It's time to let this one go.

[Brandon Holley]

FIRST is putting safety first. Yes, they moved your cheese without telling you. It's time to let this one go.

Mike-
Reading through these comments, a majority of them contain positive remarks regarding the push for a safer environment. Very few of them are calling into question the creation of a safer arena.

What many of us are focused on, is how can we create a safer arena environment, yet still maintain the same type of gameplay that would play out under the original rules. Many people have proposed some good ideas including placing discs on the floor at some point in the match (30 secs remaining), while others have proposed harsher penalties for a frisbee leaving the playing field when tossed by a human player.

I think these types of discussions are more than appropriate, and a good exercise for game design and how to avoid these types of changes in the future.

-Brando

[Alpha Beta]

If there was a safe way for field personnel to introduce the disks during the last 30 seconds I would agree with you, Jared. I am willing to bet many teams opting for a quick ground pick up figured that they could get off two loads of disks and do a quick 10 pt hang in the final 30 seconds (with a field littered with human disks)...34 pts to help neutralize a climber. 8-10 disks flung on to the field might do the trick. Then again, week one may just reveal there is still an abundance of disks on the floor anyways and this adjustment would be a moot point, right? We are counting on your team to show the way...;)

I think there will be plenty of disks on the ground from missed shots. They will almost all be right-side up (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1222552&postcount=6) however. If humans could throw in the last 30 seconds the ground pick-up teams would encounter a lot more discs that are upside down. The rule change seems to have the biggest affect on those who invested resources into reorienting the disks, or especially those who specialized in the upside down disc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrhiPnBz-iI). So, if you throw some in at the last minute (and I'd rather we didn't) then throwing them in upside down would make the most sense.

[Gray Adams]

My $0.02:

I don't have time to read through all the comments. If I repeat what someone else has already said, my bad.

Several people have raised that the GDC should have seen this coming. I agree - partly for reasons already mentioned (30 seconds to throw discs and students actually throw them :rolleyes: and bad aim (let's be honest -many of us are athletes, but not as high of a proportion as on, say the ultimate Frisbee team)) - but partly for another reason.

3081 is a young team. However, even the rookies had some idea that the discs would be flying everywhere. This being my second year, I witnessed basketballs flying everywhere and hitting everything - thank heavens they were made of foam. One kid remarked shortly after the reveal, "This is sure going to make the endgame interesting if everyone's still throwing things and those things are much harder."

My point: We throw things. We throw things badly. If it hurts when these things hit us in gym class, we shouldn't have dozens of these things flying around in a very short frame of time.

Am I disappointed? Well, not really by the rule change, but in the GDC's failure to recognize this beforehand. I would have preferred some arbitrary last-minute bumper rule over this. Perhaps the GDC should make safety a priority BEFORE bag and tag day. ::ouch:: At least they did it before week 2, and at least they did it at some point. I would rather be angry about this rule change than angry about an injured teammate or volunteer.

That was longer than I expected. Sorry :o

If you were wrong though, as many, many game predictions made during kickoff are, there are no consequences and nobody makes a big fuss. Its easy to look back when your prediction is confirmed and say how clear it was right from the start that this was going to happen, but I'm very surprised at the number of people claiming they knew with absolute certainty how a big part of this game would play out.