Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

Personal I think that the public nature of the Q&A is the root of the problem. Maybe next year FIRST should allow for Questions to be submitted privately or publicly (it is up to the team). If a question is deemed to be legal then the GDC will respond privately to the team. If it is considered illegal then the GDC post a clarification in the Game Manual, still keeping the original question and team private.

This would allow for teams to be honest and forth coming with the GDC, yet not show their hand to all of the other teams.

-Clinton-

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

I'm all for 100% transparency on all GDC communications with teams. I can only imagine the rage that would be generated by some teams learning that something is legal while other teams do not. Given how badly people overreact to the GDC's every twitch now -- complete with assignation of less than pure motive on far, far too many occasions -- I foresee accusations of favoritism, cheating, elitism, and incompetence well beyond anything we've ever seen in the past if we went down this road.

So it's a great idea, except for the things that make it a terrible idea. (That's meant to be somewhat ironic without being abrasive. One of my favorite quotes of all time is, "It's a wonderful idea, but it doesn't work.")

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

If you thought the GDC was slow in answering questions this year, just wait until a hundred teams all ask the same exact question because all Q&A posts were private and they didn't know such a question was already answered.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

I can only see teams getting upset because they didn't think of that strategy or ask the right question. There are a lot of people to this day that still think diverting balls in 2010 is still "cheating" (if you are 469, otherwise it is ok).

Instead we have a system now that causes teams to be vague in their Q&A questions because they don't want to reveal their strategy. Then build a robot for 6 weeks that fits this strategy, only to be deemed illegal by the GDC because some one else figured out the same strategy six weeks later and asked the question that should have been asked at the beginning.

-Clinton-

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

Not if the questions were answered in the form of the Team Updates, every Tuesday and Friday. That way team anonymity would be secure, everybody would get the answers simultaneously, and the system is already in place.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

I agree that this is the only reason that team members should get upset, but that doesn't mesh with reality and human nature as demonstrated on this forum and elsewhere on many different occasions.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

I do not like this idea at all. If you think the Q&A is inconsistent now, just wait until every team in FIRST reads a *unique* version of the Q&A.

In general, I am "okay" with the fact that a disruptive strategy or concept carries high risk with it. You can either keep it on the DL to minimize imitation and hope that your strategy stands, or you can risk the novelty by asking a direct question. If you let teams ask their questions in private, you remove almost all of the risk and turn strategizing into 2500 private interrogations of the GDC looking for cracks.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

I just read the last two days worth of posts in this thread, and I have to say I'm appalled by the arrogance and lack of respect shown by some of the posters in here.

For all those who "knew this was coming", congratulations. Do you want a cookie with that? Seriously, right now we have a rookie team who's robot has been rendered somewhat useless, and the potential that many other teams have suffered the same fate. Instead of offering constructive suggestions, we have a bunch of people piling on in two separate threads telling them about how dumb they were for not seeing this coming, how they should have used common sense, how they wouldn't hire someone who would think that way, and basically saying "I told you so". How is this helpful to anyone?

The approach taken by teams who decided to build these little wedge bots (I refuse to call them troll bots, it sounds ridiculous) is definitely not one I would have taken, and there are lessons to be learned from this situation by all teams (i.e. If you're going to take a design risk ask on the Q&A. Granted they might not answer since they're unable to comment on specific designs, but you have to try). However there's no need for anyone to be using this thread to state how amazing their common sense is, while demeaning others.

Finally, for anyone who feels need to discount Aren's abilities based on the decision his team made, I urge you to consider this:

https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index....ils&tpid=62757

He's been involved in the creation of some of the best robots in FIRST since 2006. He knows what he's doing, and frankly we could all learn a thing or two from him about robot design. (And now that I've said that, I'm never saying anything nice about him again)

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

You're right, it's the bridge that needs to be balanced. But I don't understand how having the bridge supported from below, could be considered to be "balanced". That's not what the word means.

I'd like to offer some constructive suggestions, but I can't think of any....sorry.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

This is where you're wrong.

Direct queries like you suggest are not made to the GDC through Q&A, because the invariable response is along the lines of "The GDC will not comment on the legality of specific robot designs. Rephrase your question in a more general sense of its direct application to specific rules."

Since the GDC refuses to comment when asked directly, we are forced to ask obtuse, somewhat tangental questions that may or may not transmit the concept of exactly what we're hoping to achieve.

The GDC was asked what defined the bridge, for the purposes of its interaction with the specific rule, regarding supporting and balancing, and their response (to two different, similar questions) was that it included everything in that drawing. That drawing included the lexan anti-ball-jamming piece, and therefore, that piece was twice defined as part of the bridge, for the purposes of that rule.

People designed their robots around that definition, having come from the GDC, not their own assumptions (what else are we supposed to use as definitions, if we can't trust the GDC to mean what they say, when asked a direct question). Someone pointed out a specific case of what the GDC's definition meant, and the GDC realized that they hadn't intended to create that situation as a viable solution to their problem. Were it early in the build, say week 1 or week 2, when those original questions were asked, nobody would have had an issue with the definition changing like this. Changing it now, nearly at ship date, when several teams had designed their robot to take advantage of an out of the box, but much simpler solution to the GDC's posed problem of balancing 3 robots, according to the GDC's definition of supported and balanced, is wrong.

This doesn't affect me or any team I'm associated with or close with, but it irks me that the GDC has nixed a creative interpretation of a rule they clearly defined so close to ship.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

You are correct, my assumption was wrong. Some of the posters took things personally that would not bother me but perhaps I was too strident. Some emotions are too difficult to convey in this type of forum I reckon. I "agreed to disagree" with each poster and wished them well, still some neg-repped me but 2X as many pos-repped me. I apologize again if I have offended anyone in this thread.

I read the beginning of this thread and was intrigued (like many of you) but advised our students not to jeopardize an entire season based on incomplete information. To a person who has suffered the consequences (of being too far outside of the box) in real-world engineering efforts, this was a no-brainer. And I don't expect "a cookie" for it ;o). I tried to convey wizened decision-making criteria and processes to students and to the younger (and awesome) mentors on this thread.

But I can see how it is frustrating that you can't get a direct answer from the GDC. Many posters in the last page or so had good ideas to correct this, maybe the GDC will listen. Good luck to the teams affected by this process, I hope your season turns out well.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

In real-world engineering, you would have the ability to go to the client and ask "does this solution meet all of your requirements? as far as we can tell, from the specification given, it does. are we missing something? did you perhaps accidentally omit some other specification?" and get a straight answer.

Since the GDC won't do that, we are left in a hard place as engineers and designers.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

Agreed, based on the lack of data we decided to be conservative and not get near the "hard place".

How does one explain the traditional decision versus a decision to build a trolling bot? It is not that I don't want to build kewl things - I have built some really wild systems in the "real world". I guess we thought the sponsor money, student time, teacher time and mentor time was too much too risk. My company put up the $$$ to go to a regional - I put in a lot of money and many hundreds of hours - the teachers and students put in huge amounts of time (more than the mentors) - it just seemed too much to risk. Is that so hard to understand?

I tell you one thing - try starting a business (with your money) based on a product you develop. One learns to be (a lot more) prudent quickly and it is a good thing.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

...I have started a business, with my own money, AND made it profitable in less than 6 months.

Teams take risks in their design, going for something radical. Sometimes it pays off, see: 148 in 2008. Other times it doesn't, see: 1519 in 2008.

My team, the first time we tried swerve, it was atrocious, didn't work well, and broke frequently. In 2004, 2007, and 2008, my team built multi-position pneumatics. In 2009, 2010, 2011, and now 2012, we've built swerves. They've gotten consistently better than that first attempt in 2006.

In 2010, we were the first team to ever (so far as we know anyway), build a fully invertable swerve driven robot. It turned out to be unnecessary, as we thought flipping on the bump would prove to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.

I don't think its fair to chastise a team for taking a calculated risk, no matter what it is.

Re: The Ultimate Game-Breaker Robot: 2012 Edition
 

And with enough effort, we "risked" very little, hence why my initial disgruntledness with the GDC is much smaller than how angry I am with the ignorance of some CD members.

Wireties,

We did know it was possible that this would be made illegal, as I've been around long enough to see other inane GDC rulings. But trying to defend them with what you view as "common sense" and calling me naive does not make you or them correct in how they handled it.

I base my level of risk by the task at hand, am I starting my own company? Nope, am I building something for a customer? Nope, I'm competing in FRC, and happen to know some amazing things are capable of being accomplished if you merely take the leap.