3 YEAR FRC CYCLE ? - The PRO's

[Chris Fultz]

The FIRST booklet in the Popular Mechanics magazine mentions going to a 3 year cycle, where the game would stay the same for 3 seasons, and then a new game announced. With ths cycle, all 4 year students would see 2 games, and most other students would see either 1 or 2 games depending on the cycle.

I can think of many positives and negatives to such a system - what do you think?

This thread is for the POSITIVES ONLY! A separate thread is for the negatives.

EDIT - THIS IS IN THE "RUMOR MILL" BECAUSE IT IS BREIFLY MENTIONED IN THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE PM MAGAZINE. I DO NOT KNOW WHERE THE IDEA CAME FROM OR EVEN IF IT IS BEING CONSIDERED AT FIRST. IT IS AN INTERESTING IDEA, SO I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GOOD TO SEE WHAT THE CD COMMUNITY THOUGHT.

[Akash Rastogi]

Positive:

More elaborate games
Potentially less registration costs
More events
Insanely cool and complex robots
Iteration to the max

That's all I got for now.

Thanks for making separate threads for positives and negatives!

[tim-tim]

Allow for iterative design...

[Chris Fultz]

Positives -

Rookies could be more successful since they could review and learn from proven designs.

Rookies could be more successful since veteran teams in the area could devote more time to them during the build season.

Mentor burn-out could be reduced since the most hectic "new game" activities would only occur every three years.

Veteran robots would get better and better, really pushing the capabilities of the students, mentors and machines.

There could be significant cost savings with $10K+ robots being used for three seasons instead of one.

[Alexa Stott]

I guess one could make the argument that this would be more realistic in terms of what happens in industry. Sure, you have a deadline for projects, but that usually will not be the final iteration of the product. If it were, cars would be the same every year and everyone would still be using big, clunky cell phones. It allows teams to take their robots and update them with new technologies (providing the rules allow this), just as you would do in a real setting.

It would also allow teams who can only afford one regional to have another shot at winning. Teams that attend 2-3 regional/district events each year usually make improvements between events in order to better compete at the next one. Heck, we even change things for off-season events! As I said, however, all teams are not afforded this opportunity. Implementing a 3 year cycle would give them this chance.

[Vikesrock]

Referee and inspector consistency should improve in years 2 and 3 of the cycle.

[ajlapp]

I would support it for all the reasons mentioned above....plus...

The level of competition would be greatly increased at the start of the season.

More robots on the field doing the intended activities...not just driving about.

Auton could possibly be longer and more complex as well.

[Jared Russell]

PRO: The Vex Robotics Competition would experience an influx of excited teams and mentors.

[Chris is me]

Pros:
-Iterative design. Teams would be able to review robot design successes and failures and build on them for next season.

-Public consistency. It is much easier to sell the same game every year, if the game is good. Plus, robots would get better every year, and a more competitive field makes FIRST look better.

[Akash Rastogi]

PRO: The Vex Robotics Competition would experience an influx of excited teams and mentors.

This is best.

[Zuelu562]

If done correctly (I.E. set up to prevent Year 2/3 Week 1 completes...), it could become a process of reverse engineering and problem solving; more-so than now.

EX: Year 1 of 3: Logomotion Presented. Team XXXX develops a typical arm design to tackle the challenge and comes dead last at their regional. Team XXXX returns to their home base and keeps an eye on other regionals and robots. They decide to attempt a roller claw, which 4 of the top 6 robots at their event possessed, for next year.

Year 2 of 3: Team XXXX implements their roller claw, and to their horror, it fails utterly during testing, and they have to revert to their original claw design. With experience from last year, they understand both the strengths and weaknesses of their robot and drive team and take seed 3 and win the regional.

In between Year 2 and 3: Team XXXX figures out what failed catastrophically in their roller claw testing, and decides to use it for Year 3.

Year 3 of 3: Team XXXX implements their (revised) roller claw in record time and are comfortable with its performance by week 3. With time on their side, they decide to attempt to make a mechanum drive to increase their scoring ability. With minutes to to spare, they complete their somewhat shaky mechanum drive. At their event, Team XXXX takes a mid-range qualifications finish and are selected by the number 7 seed and are eliminated in the semi-finals versus the regional winner.

If done correctly, situations like this will be common in my opinion. It will increase the envelope with new ideas and untested plans. If a team is comfortable, they may try something new and fall way below where they usually were before the cycle. Some teams may struggle the whole build and walk away from their event Champions, and their alliance captain to boot.

More thoughts about the cons and situations that lend themselves to the cons in the other thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1052781&postcount=14).

[Taylor]

Some questions I have about the proposal:

Would the game be identical each year, or would there be a "base game" (Y1) followed by twists/additions to the "base game" (Y2, Y3)?

How would this affect the build season as we know it? Would it change to a more VEX-like arrangement where teams have practically the full year to strategize and build, or would there be a hands-off policy for the not-build-or-competition season? How would the pre-fabricated components section of the rules be affected? Would the teams use the same robot for all three years, or would they redesign/rebuild each year?

If this idea was paired with an expanded competition season and a more pervasive and complete district competition model, it may be something I could get behind. If FIRST truly wants to adapt the sports model, this would be a better analogue.

[1086VEX]

if this were to happen the game would have to be one of the best FIRST games to date. i'd hate to be stuck playing Lunacy for 3 years :yikes:

but if they slightly change the game year to year to improve game play or add/remove elements, that could be a really fun system.

[Travis Hoffman]

One of the main points brought up in the booklet article is the notion of leaving the game alone to promote spectator familiarity.

They don't completely reinvent the rules of popular televised American sports every year, and that is one of the main reasons such sports maintain the public's interest.

A 3 year game cycle would help the public grow attached to and fully understand and appreciate a particular game for a year or two before reinventing it for the next cycle.

[EricH]

I'm also going to post this in the cons thread...

But this isn't the first time this idea has come up. Back in 2005, the following thread proposed a replayed game: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37726

Of course, it did have a few other proposed tweaks, but we'll assume those are completely forgotten about.

[Alexa Stott]

One of the main points brought up in the booklet article is the notion of leaving the game alone to promote spectator familiarity.

They don't completely reinvent the rules of popular televised American sports every year, and that is one of the main reasons such sports maintain the public's interest.

A 3 year game cycle would help the public grow attached to and fully understand and appreciate a particular game for a year or two before reinventing it for the next cycle.

Response to that here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1052813&posted=1#post1052813).

[PayneTrain]

PRO: The Vex Robotics Competition would experience an influx of excited teams and mentors.

Probably including this team.

[Dmentor]

Positive:

More elaborate games
:
Insanely cool and complex robots

I like this line of thought. Games played over multiple years could have significantly more complex cooperative game objectives (ie. tasks that require 2 or 3 robots with potentially unique designs to accomplish). In prior games that I have participated in, cooperative objectives have been fairly "simple" (ie. robot elevation in 2007, suspending from another robot in 2010). In the first year, teams would initially focus on optimizing for the single robot objectives within the game while advanced teams would also start to incorporate capabilities for objectives requiring 2-3 robots to complete. Because the density of robots capable of cooperating at competitions would be low, these events would be rare in year one. In years 2-3, these events would become more common as teams master single robot objectives and move on to the cooperative objectives. Assuming that three unique designs are required to obtain a single game objective, then we could see designs that specialize in one, two, and possibly all three and the combinatorial design possibilities are interesting to me. The trick would be in carefully balancing the points between the layers of cooperation.

[Tetraman]

1. Attendance in Off-Season events will increase. The ability to use an Off Season event to test out and try new concepts on a robot would be a welcome tool. Why waste your time on a prototype that you aren't sure is going to work during a regional event? Test it out between years in off season events and get it working to perfection or drop it and try a new direction before the real competition returns.

and that's all I have. I find more cons to this than pros.

[Andy A.]

Kit costs could be reduced, significantly, perhaps with a corresponding decrease in registration fees. It would also reduce the FIRST's field cost, as relatively minor as that may be.

Likewise outlays for robot materials would average out much lower over the course of three years.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Chris, two threads for such a wild and contentious notion is highly inconvenient, though I imagine it's quite effectively tamping down the back and forth argument that so often balloons these threads to hundreds of posts.

That said, my comment is more in the vein of how I think this could be successfully implemented, so it's positive-ish and in this thread.

The presumed merits of this are to simplify game design, rule refinement, and rookie and spectator friendliness. The obvious cons, briefly, are the risks of boredom, plagarism, and even more dominance by veteran teams. I think the correct approach to the "minor" annual changes can really minimize those cons and make this a decent idea. The key is in just how "minor" those changes are. We have some good examples of this working well in various off-season competitions, so I'm pretty confident it could be done. The key is in making changes that render previous strategies and robot designs much less useful, if not useless, while maintaining a similar look and feel of the game.

For instance, take this year's game. I think there's some obvious changes to make that would keep things largely the same, but require all new robot designs and strategies:

Change the game pieces to something heavier or less rigid. (Floppies, anyone?)
Change the scoring locations. Feeders with drivers, grid on opposite side of the field.
Change the minibot game. Last place wins, flat rate for finishing, bonus points for stopping in a target area.
Change the strategic value of the minibot. Feeders can't enter pieces until after 45 sec or their tower is triggered.
Change piece entry. Only triangles in first 45, then circles, then squares.
Change robot size/weight restrictions ala 2007. Esp if you work it to restrict the winning designs from earlier years.
Switch to colored game pieces, colorless grids.

And that's just what I came up with over lunch. I think there's ample ways to change any game enough to keep things interesting while maintaining a familiar look and feel.

[DCA Fan]

The ability for 1114 and 254 to more easily earn blue banners? Only kidding.

[JaneYoung]

The ability for 1114 and 254 to more easily earn blue banners? Only kidding.

There may already be clear signs that another tier in FRC is needed. A 3 year cycle of the same game could very possibly drive the creative/strategic minds on the elite (and other) teams bonkers.

So, the pro is - the 3 year cycle would help better showcase that need.

Another possible pro would be savings on trophies and making plates to attach to the same trophies that highlight the year garnered.

I'm not being sarcastic - there may be something to this and a goal to strive towards, esp. in the inaugural 3 year cycle.

Jane

[EricH]

I can think of one pro that would only help everybody.

The GDC would have 3 years to develop each game. This would hopefully give their minds time to figure out about half of the ways that their game design will be "misplayed" or their rules "misinterpreted" BEFORE the game begins.

Now, if they'd do that normally... (Well, they did take 2 years for Breakaway.) Hey, GDC! Start now for the 25th year game! (And don't make it a repeat of Logomotion.)

[FrankJ]

Not really a pro or con. But it seems you would have to change the rules about reusing last years design.

[Bill_B]

Sometimes I marvel at the inventiveness of the postings here. Other times I wonder about what could be called containerized thinking.

So far, I've seen the 3 year postulate taken to mean a simple expansion of the current four month (essentially) game cycle. the principal theory has three build seasons followed by three competition cycles of the same "game."

Suppose it's more complicated than that. Year 1 has the announcement of two games, one to be played in the usual time frame, and a second to be constructed and played in one year. Year 2 kickoff refines and solidifies the previous year's game description and gives descriptions for two more games to be played in 1 and 2 years' time. Year 3 kickoff gives refinements for the current year's game and announces a game to be played in two more years hence. At this point there would be three games outstanding. One to be constructed and played that year, and two subject to design and thought processes for subsequent years.

More food for thought from someone who only has to think about how the FLL practice pits will be run at the World Festival this year. Happy cogitation, CD-land.

[KleinKid]

What is most apparent to me in FIRST is the unevenness of the teams. You have some teams that have 4 members and have always been small while you have many teams with a great background and support. The overall costs not just in money but manpower to get a team started and going is immense.


What could be done is a multi year multi tier system.

Year XXXX - Two games introduced with highly developed teams who currently make finals into the higher tier and the less developed and smaller teams in the lower tier.

The higher tier competes as normal with a more advanced game in the current system of 6 weeks of build time and several weeks of regionals and championships.

The lower tier competes as normal with a simpler game in the current system of 6 weeks of build time and several weeks of regionals. No championship or maybe smaller state championships. (Since these are teams with less resources travel to a far away city would be impracticable)

Year XXX1 - One game introduced

The higher tier competes as normal with a new game and all of the challenges of a short highly competitive season. Several weeks of regionals and national championship.

The lower tier competes in tier 1's previous game and has the entire year to develop for the next years game which is more advanced than normally possible now. With this the tier 1 teams can help tier 2 teams develop a game strategy and develop those ideas that they had to build from the previous year. Several weeks of regionals before the tier 1 regionals and several state championships.


With this more advanced teams with continue to have the challenge of what our current system allows while still giving less developed teams the chance to compete fairly without being completely overwhelmed in the build season.

Certain criteria would have to be established for what teams go into each tier. Perhaps something along the line of rookie through junior teams compete in the lower tier and then after those first 3 years have the chance to move up by getting to the semi finals at a tier 2 competition. Also if a team under performs (places in the bottom %15) in the top tier for several years they will be kicked back down to the lower tier.


As first grows this could expand into a 3 tier/year cycle where the tiers are even more separated. Maybe i'm just babbling nonsense but i'm just typing out my thoughts.