Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

I disagree.

Depending on the Forum or thread, there are representatives of all aspects of FIRST on CD.
There is no barrier or requirement to join or post. (click here to watch Anchorman 2 :ahh: )

These comments are anecdotal at best and the plural of anecdote is not data.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

It's been covered in great detail that @FakeGDC is just that - a fake. Run by a student.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

Even more technical things to worry about on the field? Oh jeez.....
Though i think would be cool, i feel that a lot of the field is malfunctioning at most times :P

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

Just because hockey is the only game in the hint that has not been played does not mean it will be the game. Hockey has been a popular guess on chief delphi since early last year. The GDC does read chief delphi so its likely that they just decided to add hockey into their game hint just to point towards assist.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

And your post is just an anecdote and a single anecdote is even weaker than a plural of anecdotes.

You're right that there really aren't any (significant) entry barriers to Chief Delphi, but that doesn't mean that the population is an even representation of opinions of a very large community.

If we look at the first page on the "Most Posts" sort function under the Members tab, 23 out of 36 people affiliated with a team are affiliated with a team with a number less than 1000. Obviously, that's a relatively weak statistic (what with people changing teams and all that), but I would hardly thing that anyone would argue that teams that have been around longer tend to have a different perspective than new teams. Only six do not list FRC as their competition (keep in mind that the vast majority of FIRST teams are in FLL, and a larger amount are in FTC than FRC).

Only one is listed as having started competing in 2011 or later (ie, a student who started FRC and is still a student), which means everyone else is an alumni, mentor, or otherwise who has been in the program for more than four years.

These 49 people (we aren't counting the archiver bot) have contributed approximately 20% of Chief Delphi's posts.

Yes, there are representatives of all aspects of FIRST on Chief Delphi. Some of them are just louder and more common than others.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

This deserves a +1. :D While it would be a field management nightmare, it just sounds SO much more interesting than giving points to the other team for penalties.

P.S. I always hate it when penalty points swing matches, and I think disabling the offending robot for 5-10 seconds would solve the problem of repeated offenses, and encourage teams not to commit penalties on purpose. 5 - 10 seconds can make the difference in most matches; 3 points: usually not so much.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

Ok, get ready for some baseless game conjecture. I've wanted to post this somewhere but didn't know where, and as it has SOME bases in what people think the hint means, I decided to put it here. If there is a game conjecture thread, someone may direct me to it and I will move it there.

I've been looking at past games and trying to figure out, based off trends (but not off the game hint, since that wasn't really understood until today), what it might be. While there's a 99% chance I'm wrong, I would like to put down my thoughts.

There seem to be a lot of games involving balls as the main playing piece, and since last year's was a frisbee, although this is no guarantee, I'm thinking we'll have a ball game this year. Yet this year, while looking toward being ball based, also seems likely to be a slightly more obscure game (less obvious than the past years of basketball and frisbee), so I don't think we'll have a definite sport. The ball may be weird in some way, which got me thinking: beach balls. Another reason I came to this conclusion is that last year's game primarily had shooters as the way to move game pieces, and while it's certainly possible to have that again this year, I feel that won't be the primary means of moving a game piece. Instead, I theorize that the game may involve some kind of "kicker", where robots are thrown beach balls by a human player and must keep them in the air without holding on to them, and score them into some form of baskets for points. This could also lend to the idea of assists, where potentially a ball could be worth more if it has been handled by more than one robot. There could be red and blue balls for each alliance, and white balls which can be scored either in autonomous or maybe by either team for more points.

I am fairly sure beach balls has not been done before, nor has some form of volleyball (which is not that obscure a sport, I guess, but the beach balls change it up), so that's a possibility. Also, lighter playing pieces with some floatieness could add an interesting dynamic to the game. Beach balls also are not that expensive to buy or make, so that wouldn't be problematic. However I think they stated the game this year may be somewhat easier than last year's game, as newer teams last year were discouraged by the difficulty. I don't know if this gameplay would be easire or harder, but there would probably be some way robots could gain points by pushing balls into a goal as well, something that even the simplest robot could do.

With the glow-in-the-dark tape measure, someone had suggested caves of some sort. As a way to score extra points, there could be tunnels a robot could go under while they send the ball over to score extra points. The one problem I see with my theory (aside from the fact that everything is simply conjecture at this point) is that I'm pretty sure I've heard the game will be easier to score, whereas this would require careful watching and marking down to see if balls are passed, sent over caves, held, or dropped. Despite this, and especially after hearing assists, I think the idea is plausible, if not the most likely idea out there.

One last thought, and this is past theory and more just my stupid idea. First often likes names with puns, and I thought of a perfect one for this idea: "Keep It Up."

2 other points I wanted to make:

1: With assists also, maybe if all 3 members of the alliance hit the ball there would be a huge multiplier or point bonus. I'm betting while FIRST loves to make teams really work together, this game will focus a lot more on that with the idea of "assist". Teams must work together and help one another, rather than rely on one good bot, to truly succeed.

2: Most of my theories are probably just confirmation bias, as I thought of these last week and may simply be molding the "assist" clue to fit my idea.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

New idea: each team has to wear drunk googles and each robot has a 1 full second delay for the controls

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

I've been looking at the clues. A hockey-themed game seems to fit.

'10 was soccer, '12 was basketball, so following the 2-yr pattern, Hockey fits. Maybe they'll bring back the low-friction surface from '09 Lunacy. Ice field?

Also - going out on a limb - it's also right around the time the Winter Olympics start. Maybe they wanted to keep in theme with a major sporting event of this year? Going on around the same time as regionals?

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

Hey, I like that line, and I'm gonna steal it :)

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

It's a pretty safe assumption (in fact, overwhelmingly so) that the people who post on Chief Delphi are not a representative sample of the FRC community as a whole.

I'm pretty sure you can think of a number of selection biases which don't involve an explicit barrier or requirement to post.

Actually, given the relatively small size of the community here c.f. the entirety of FRC, and the fact (AFAIK) that CD is not officially endorsed by FIRST, I'd guess this probably isn't so far from the truth. I would be mightily surprised if the GDC gave much weight at all to "reactions on CD" (at least, in isolation) in their evaluation of what makes a good game.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

I really like this idea, and I've seen similar mechanics used in several racing games. I don't really think its feasible though, at least not with the way the control system is set up right now. I could be wrong though. Not only that, but the definition of "repeat offender" varies from Ref to Ref, regardless of how defined it is in the rule book. I do like the idea, but I think that (as of right now) it would create more problems than it would solve. Maybe in the future they can make something like this work? We'll see! Prety good idea though. :P

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

Breaking the rules should be penalized in a way that affects the outcome of a match. Is it just the direct assignment of points that you object to?

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

I don't disagree with you, but in many FIRST games with protected zones, etc, disabling a robot temporarily would mean it continues to be in the way of the other alliance, and could possibly even give the rule-breaking team a further advantage.

Re: [FRC Blog] Kickoff Broadcast and Game Hint Redux
 

in short, yes.