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Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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So, normal discs cannot be thrown at all?
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Oh, and this is my 1,592nd post!!! :D Go Bionic Tigers! |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.
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uhhhh, wow.
Real glad we sacrificed climbing for floor loading. Thanks GDC. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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.
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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. |
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Well our human players are gonna be bummed...
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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. |
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This will certainly make matches less exciting though. Why didn't they discuss taller netting instead of eliminating part of the game? |
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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. |
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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... |
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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. |
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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. |
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Now they should lower the climb points to 5,10,15 to even it out! :-)
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Honestly, teams should have built for both human loading and floor loading.
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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 :/ |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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. |
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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..) |
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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 |
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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? |
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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:
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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? |
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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. |
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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.
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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.
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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... Quote:
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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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... |
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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! |
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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. |
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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. |
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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
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At the highest level at competitions.....i.e. playoffs, regional finals, Einstein, etc. it will make a big difference. |
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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 |
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Thinking back to 2010: at least they didn't make the change after week 1.
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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 |
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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.
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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. |
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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. |
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If the San Diego week 0 event showed me anything, there will still be no shortage of disks on the floor.
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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. |
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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... |
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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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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 |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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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). |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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... |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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.
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Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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:
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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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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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. |
Re: Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day
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