FYI: Team Update #1 is posted.

[Aidan F. Browne]

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/doc_updt.htm

[Aaron Lussier]

Game Changes:

<G02> Add- "Small balls may only be doubled once"
So theres no adding two doubler balls on top of one goal.

<G17> Add- " Or by small balls falling Unabated from ball release into Moblie Goal.
Robots are allowed to push the Movable goal under the ball carrier in order to get points.

"New Rules"
<G26> Robots may only block one chute at a time
Therefore both chutes are open during the match for both human player to use.

<G27> (Paraphrased) No pinning for more than 10 Seconds, must back off three feet before returing to the pin, If rule is violated, Ref throws 10-point penalty flag

I have just written down the chages to the 'GAME' part of the manual there are alos changes to the 'KIT' and 'TOURNAMENT' sections of the manual.

[Joe Ross]

Minimalist Rules: We want this to be a purely offensive game. Don't do anything that we didn't think of to score or keep people from scoring.

[Aignam]

Minimalist Rules: We want this to be a purely offensive game. Don't do anything that we didn't think of to score or keep people from scoring.
Yes, that sums it up, right there. I hope the very few feasible defensive strategies remain legal through the 99 expected updates.

[IMDWalrus]

Minimalist Rules: We want this to be a purely offensive game. Don't do anything that we didn't think of to score or keep people from scoring.
Just remember: with this year's scoring system, defense isn't neccesarily a good thing. You want to win, but you definitely want your opponent to score too. If the opposing alliance only scores 20 points, that's all you'll be getting too.

[JVN]

Yes, that sums it up, right there. I hope the very few feasible defensive strategies remain legal through the 99 expected updates.
1. Blocking other robots from picking up small balls.
2. Blocking other robots from delivering small balls to HP.
3. Knocking off/Stealing big balls from goals.
4. Moving goals away from opponent HPs to prevent scoring.
5. Keeping another robot from climbing on the bar.
6. Hoarding big balls.
7. Capping an opponents goal early to prevent small ball scorage.
etc... etc.... etc


They all seem pretty feasible to me!
I'm still amazed at the options given a coach in this game.

This year's game is all about coaching and driving, and *gasp* defense!
Those that can't see the defensive moves, aren't looking hard enough.

John

[JVN]

Minimalist Rules: We want this to be a purely offensive game. Don't do anything that we didn't think of to score or keep people from scoring.Minimalist Rules:
We want this game to be as simple to understand and fun play as possible, while still making sure it is a positive experience for all those involved. Common sense and gracious professionalism rule the day...

Heck... in my opinion, they nailed this one, and everything in this addon HELPED what they are doing. This is a GREAT game.

Let's see:

1. It's fun to design for.
I'm having fun. Lots of engineering being done. Lot's of options. A true design challenge is present, but there is also a "rookie" solution.

2. It's fun to play.
Coaches game. A good drivetrain with a mediocre robot can outsmart a poorly driven "swiss watch". I love it! Everyone has to learn how to play the game.

3. It's fun to watch.
Big balls, small balls, pretty colors, decently easy scoring..... HANGING! Cmon guys... I can't wait!

4. Hanging.
Yeah, let's reemphasize... hanging rocks. Not only did FIRST give us back hanging (like we ASKED for) but they made it tougher. I can't wait to see the solutions teams come up with to get to 10ft. Let's face it... plow bots are boring compared to 10ft high robots with 30" balls!

FIRST is nailing it.
Let's help them along.

John

[tkwetzel]

John- This year's game is not all about coaching and driving. It depends a lot on human player skill, because they are the only ones that can really get you points (besides hanging).

[KenWittlief]

hey hey HEY! lets not start bashing people for developing defensive strategies!

what are you going to tell a small team with limited funds and no mentors? if you cant build a bot that can perform all the SCORING functions, then STAY HOME?!?!?!

this is a TWO against TWO game that is being played. There are many defensive moves a bot can legally make against your team - PLAN FOR IT!

this is NOT a race against the clock to see whose flimsy-bot can score the most points in 120 seconds - its a robot-sporting event

Two teams AGAINST two teams.

[KenWittlief]

please dont paraphrase the rules and make it look like you cut and pasted them from the first website:

the exact wording on this one is:

"<G26> A ROBOT can only block 1 Ball Chute at a time."

not ROBOTS! - this means that one robot can block one chute, two robots can block two chutes...

[Rich Wong]

Minimalist Rules:

4. Hanging.
Yeah, let's reemphasize... hanging rocks. Not only did FIRST give us back hanging (like we ASKED for) but they made it tougher. I can't wait to see the solutions teams come up with to get to 10ft. Let's face it... plow bots are boring compared to 10ft high robots with 30" balls!

FIRST is nailing it.
Let's help them along.

John
I 2nd that!
This year's game appears to be the best one I have faced in my 6 years doing FIRST. And I like hanging; The 2000 game was fun and exciting.
:D

[Todd Derbyshire]

Back to the drawing board thanks FIRST. Or maybe not

[JVN]

Back to the drawing board thanks FIRST. Or maybe not
Ya know, a wise man once told me:
"Well John, you know what drawing boards are for? Going back to them."

It's day 4 not week 4, and I'm not crying for you.
Besides, if you're the "strategy big-boss man" you claim to be... this should be only the most minor of setbacks.


So yes: Thank you FIRST for making an important rule clarification, that will help make this game play better, and this season a positive experience for all.

[miketwalker]

I am very glad they added the rule on being able to block only one chute. Since this is human-layer dependent with the ball scoring, it would require 2 robots to just sit there blocking both chutes which will give everybody a bad score. At the same time, if they hadn't added this and we had some teams blocking 2 chutes, we would have a "fight". It would have to be legal as well, because you really can't do much else except climb the bar, what's a 2x ball to you if you have no balls in the goal? Teams would literally start ramming other teams to get them out of their chutes, I am very glad they have added this. I think this will keep most teams from wanting to block chutes now, meaning more action on the main focus of the game... making this game even more fun. Great job on FIRSTs end, I really like it.

[Todd Derbyshire]

Ya know, a wise man once told me:
"Well John, you know what drawing boards are for? Going back to them."

It's day 4 not week 4, and I'm not crying for you.
Besides, if you're the "strategy big-boss man" you claim to be... this should be only the most minor of setbacks.


So yes: Thank you FIRST for making an important rule clarification, that will help make this game play better, and this season a positive experience for all.

Don't worry about my strategy changes worry about adaptations and circumventions do to this rule. What exactly do they consider blocking a ball chute it can be anything from an inch of the ball chute to 13inches to have a ball being permissable to the chute and that is it. Also what is the penalty for this foul? Get five green flags? Back off three feet?


Oh and for those of you thinking that we (88) are going all defense well you will have to find out and don't worry for those that won't be going to Jersey I will give you a prelude of what you will see during the offseasons if you are going to BAE with my college team (1307). Rookies by number Veterans at heart.

[Aidan F. Browne]

What exactly do they consider blocking a ball chute it can be anything from an inch of the ball chute to 13inches to have a ball being permissable to the chute and that is it. Also what is the penalty for this foul?
Todd - let me remind you of Dean's advice: "We use words to mean what words mean." So... when FIRST says block, they mean what block means. Let me help you out with Webster's: "Block - v. - To obstruct so as to prevent passage or progress; to prevent passage from, through, or into, by obstructing the way"

I think the meaning is quite clear. I think it will be quite clear to the referees. My advice is to tread lightly on trying to get technical with interpretation of rules. If there is any doubt in your mind, play the safe route.

It shouldn't really matter to you at this point what the penalty is. It is against the rules. So do not go there. It's the Graciously Professional way.

:)

Aidan

[Joe Johnson]

There is just no pleasing us FIRST folks is there?

We complained about X, they make an attempt to try to address X and we complain about the fix.

While FIRST is a far from perfect organization, I am continually amazed at how well they adapt and improve.

If you really feel so strongly that Defense is THE KEY to the success of FIRST, perhaps you should start a letter writing campaign to Dean, Woodie, the FIRST board of directors, NASA, Delphi, DCX, GM, Baxter, Motorola, etc. insisting that FIRST change its name to FIRD (For Inspiration and Recognition of Defense, of course).

Think about it. FIRST's mission is not to make sure that defensive strategies are part of the game. Again, changing the culture is the name of the game.

For the first time since 2000, I am sure that my relatives are going to enjoy watching a FIRST tourney. I am preparing to plug the snot out of the Regional Season.

With this game and the economy poised to take off again, I predict that we all look back at 2004 as the Perfect Storm Year, when everything finally came together for FIRST to break into prime time.

I am just shaking my head at all the doom and gloomers out there who keep posting "the End is Near" messages on these boards.

Joe J.

[Aignam]

If you really feel so strongly that Defense is THE KEY to the success of FIRST, perhaps you should start a letter writing campaign to Dean, Woodie, the FIRST board of directors, NASA, Delphi, DCX, GM, Baxter, Motorola, etc. insisting that FIRST change its name to FIRD (For Inspiration and Recognition of Defense, of course).

Think about it. FIRST's mission is not to make sure that defensive strategies are part of the game. Again, changing the culture is the name of the game.
While I am inclined to agree with the majority of your post, and I do agree that we should all be more than grateful for the opportunities that FIRST is providing us with, I do feel that the game FIRST chooses is quite important. Robotics, more specifically the competition, is FIRST's vehicle to inspire. Thus, the FIRST game is the name of the game, because that is how they will change culture. It would follow that in order to be most efficient in changing culture, a game that comes as close to possible to pleasing everyone, i.e. being well rounded in both offensive and defensive strategies, would be the best vehicle for changing culture. I do understand that FIRST will never create the perfect game and there will always be people complaining, but I also have faith that FIRST might've been able to make this year's game more well-rounded. But don't, by any means, skew this into an attack of FIRST's choice. Thank you, FIRST, for everything! Keep up the good work.

[KenWittlief]

how important is the game to us and to FIRST?

time to inflict somemore data driven analysis on everyone.

Our team will be meeting wed evening and all day saturday for 6 weeks

meetings = 72 hours

to travel to a regional we will spend 3.33 days together

regional = 62 hours

we will be at the regional itself for 20 hours

and during that time, we will actually be playing the game for, what maybe 8 two minute matches? = 16 minutes or 0.26 hours

clearly the most important thing in FIRST is the time we spend together at the team meetings

second is the time we spend travelling together

third is the time we spend at the regional while NOT actually playing (most of this time is spent in the pits)

so only 0.2% of our time is used to actually PLAY the games

kinda puts it all into perspective, doesnt it?

[JVN]

so only 0.2% of our time is used to actually PLAY the games

kinda puts it all into perspective, doesnt it?
New Perspective:
Without the game, NONE of that would happen.
We're all here to play in some way or another. The game is the means to an end.

[White Wolf]

Am I reading the update to tournament play correctly?

Modify 7.4.4, the 2nd bullet as below.A maximum of four matches will be played; if, after four matches, neither Alliance has two wins, match 4 will be replayed until an Alliance has 2 wins.

Thus, if the first three matches in an elimination round are ties, then the fourth match will be played forever, since no alliance will ever have two wins.

I think it would be much clearer to just remove everything after the line: "The first Alliance to win two matches advances."

[Matt Adams]

I guess I'd just like to throw out my ten cents on this...

During the early days of brainstorms, someone on my team shot up the idea of, "Hey, let's bulid really long arms and block both chutes. We'd win guarenteed."

Though I don't think that's a completely true statement, it would be a very worthwhile strategy in many cases. However, I looked among the members of my teams and simply said, "We're not going to play the game that way."

In my opinion, some things are great strategy, and some things are just dirty. Building a robot that can just sit with two arms and block chutes, in my opinion, isn't in the spirt of the game. Nor is developing arms that are make to pull robots or hooks off the bar, neither is intentionally tipping robots off the 12" step...

The strategy is just so vast in this game, I can't believe that people are whining that they're not allowed to make a robot that just moves across the field and sits for 2 minutes blocking both chutes. If you have the engineering talent to build something like that, you can easily do a little hanging and ball manipulation to PLAY THE GAME along with the rest of us.

Imagine how boring basketball would be if there wasn't a shot clock. It seems to me that some people would just sit on the ball for the entire game after they got a lead. They'd win 2-0...

"Hey Matt, it's called strategy."I'm aware.

However, in my opinion, blocking both chutes for two minutes is a really lame strategy considering the AWESOME amount of strategy that can go into this game.

Don't be lame. Play with the rest of us.

My dime,

Matt

[KenWittlief]

Without the game, NONE of that would happen.
We're all here to play in some way or another. The game is the means to an end.

thats not why Im here. Im here to give students an opportunity to see what a career in engineering and science is like. the game is only the tail end of the engineering design cycle, where you take your design out into the real world, and see how it stands up against the competition

and (as I was trying to point out) its only a small part

if you have to win to be inspired, then only one team out of the 930 this year will be truely inspired.

if you have to place in the top half of the seeding rounds to feel successful, then half our teams are winners and half are losers.

the game is not what we are here for - the game is the end of the design cycle

designing robots is not what we are here for either - the robot design IS the means, the bridge we walk across to show the students what is LIKE to be an engineer.

The real end we are targeting here is a student who decides this stuff is incredibly awesome, and THIS is what they want to do for a career.

[Greg Ross]

Thus, if the first three matches in an elimination round are ties, then the fourth match will be played forever, since no alliance will ever have two wins.
Ooh, you're right. I hadn't even considered that all of the first three matches could be ties (no matter how unlikely.) And I bet FIRST must not have considered it either. I'm just wondering why they decided to change the rule in the first place. What's wrong with taking the highest match score as the tie breaker? (Or maybe they did think of the possibility of three ties, and that's why they changed it. They just didn't think hard enough about their new rule.)

[JVN]

thats not why Im here. Im here to give students an opportunity to see what a career in engineering and science is like. the game is only the tail end of the engineering design cycle, where you take your design out into the real world, and see how it stands up against the competition

Before you joined FIRST did you go into HS's and mentor HS students about enginerding? FIRST exists to inspire, and it's method is the game, and all those wonderful things associated with the game.

The game itself is arguably one of the most important parts of the FIRST experience. Building the robot is one thing, but watching it "come alive" is truly magical.

Ken, I agree with most of your points, but I feel you underestimate the significance of the game, and the impact the competition itself has on the kids.

In many respects (I feel) the weekend of competition can be more powerful than the 6 weeks.

John

[ScottWolchok]

You know, if you were really counting on being able to block both chutes, just build a fast box on wheels and spend two minutes "playing Pong".

[White Wolf]

What's wrong with taking the highest match score as the tie breaker? (Or maybe they did think of the possibility of three ties, and that's why they changed it. They just didn't think hard enough about their new rule.)

I agree possibility of three ties is remote, but in my first life I was a mathematician; I think of these things.

I suspect the reason the highest match score is being used is it is an unsatisfying finish. This is same reason most soccer players hate a tournament to end with a shootout.

Such things are best settled on the field.

[Joe Johnson]

Am I reading the update to tournament play correctly?


Modify 7.4.4, the 2nd bullet as below.A maximum of four matches will be played; if, after four matches, neither Alliance has two wins, match 4 will be replayed until an Alliance has 2 wins.

Thus, if the first three matches in an elimination round are ties, then the fourth match will be played forever, since no alliance will ever have two wins.

I think it would be much clearer to just remove everything after the line: "The first Alliance to win two matches advances."
I agree, but they must have some limitations on their scoring program that can't keep going on forever. So, I read their rule to mean that if you play more than 4 matches, the "official record" will not reflect that fact.

Joe J.

[Anthony S.]

FIRST ceases to amaze me. It seems they make the game better, more challenging, and make us think more everytime. I admire FIRST for their creativity. That's why I try not to complain, I don't think FIRST will ever be able to satisfy everyone.

Defense is still an important part of a game. What is a game without defense? That would be boring. Also, the idea of getting your opponents score will prevent a team from getting slaughtered by the really good teams every time. Therefore, defense is limited. Makes coaching and strategy a challenging and spur of the moment type of thing, I LOVE IT!!

[tkwetzel]

"FIRST ceases to amaze me. It seems they make the game better, more challenging, and make us think more everytime. I admire FIRST for their creativity. That's why I try not to complain, I don't think FIRST will ever be able to satisfy everyone."

Anthony - Your first sentence there is completely opposite of what the rest of the paragraph says. I think you were trying to say that FIRST never ceases to amaze you, because cease means "to come to an end"

[Todd Derbyshire]

You know, if you were really counting on being able to block both chutes, just build a fast box on wheels and spend two minutes "playing Pong".

So because now there are "limited" forms of defensive strategy available everyone knows that FIRST wants an entertaining high scoring game this year. Awesome all for it however as a strategist it disappoints me that an option has been taken away from me. I feel that with that rule still being available kept teams from overly committing offensive manueves and kept them honest in their strategy. This year yes defense is alive but its not going to be as dominating as in the past.

[Psycho Penguin]

Anthony - Your first sentence there is completely opposite of what the rest of the paragraph says. I think you were trying to say that FIRST never ceases to amaze you, because cease means "to come to an end"
I think it was Lincon who said "You can please some people sometimes but you can't please everybody all the time." Just accecpt what the rules are because no matter how much first cahnges the some people will say. "Why can't you drop off the bar onto another robot who is trying to get up to the bar on purpose??" so give first some slack they are trying as best they can to make the game as fun as they can.

[Anthony S.]

Thank you tkwetzel for the correction, I did mean "FIRST never ceases to amaze me".

I think it was Lincon who said "You can please some people sometimes but you can't please everybody all the time." Just accecpt what the rules are because no matter how much first cahnges the some people will say. "Why can't you drop off the bar onto another robot who is trying to get up to the bar on purpose??" so give first some slack they are trying as best they can to make the game as fun as they can.

I totally agree with that, that is almost exactly what I wanted to say.