Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

Jim,

This is an excellent paper. I never realized/forgot that contact inside the bumper zone was never in its own class, and I never knew that penalties started in FRC at the same time I did.

I think your spell check may have gone and changed "Aerial" to "Arial" though. Or you may have something against sans-serif fonts. :)

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

As high as penalty values are this year, according to past years tech foul point values are consistent. A tech foul in 2012 was 9 points (a full hopper of 3 balls in the 3 point goal). In 2013 it was 50 points 20 points (a full hopper of 4 alliance disks in the pyramid goal). In 2014 it is 50 points (a 3 assist goal with a catch over the truss).

The GDC seems to pick a value for the tech foul so that there is no situation where it is more beneficial to take the foul than it is to try to play "clean" defense.

Do I think that it is too easy to get a tech foul this year? Yes, some infractions should not be considered automatic technical fouls. Do I think that 50 points is what the value of those fouls should be? Also yes, it is the same logic that set the point values in previous years.

I wish that there were a foul level between regular and technical. Something that was more serious than 20 points but less than 50. Or maybe just more fouls moved from 50 points down to 20 now that the GDC can see the average score of most games.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

Except that in 2012 and 2013, you could have three robots with full hoppers. In 2014, you can only have one robot with a full hopper.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

I hadn't really thought of it this way before. Wouldn't it suck if your robot was holding a 30 point ball, lining up to shoot in the last ten seconds of the match, and then was pinned for 8 seconds? If the value of the fouls was significantly lower, it would be "worth it" for the other team to draw that foul. Intentionally fouling isn't "in the spirit of FIRST," and the point value of these fouls makes a lot more sense now.

Not to say that everything about this year's game is perfect, but I'm certainly finding it harder to complain about the value of technical fouls this year.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

Then theoretically a foul is more damaging because there is only one robot scoring. One foul this year could potentially stop an entire alliance from scoring whereas a foul in previous years slows down the alliance 33% (pseudo-math, I know but I'm not sure how else to look at it without some serious analysis).

By this logic, a tech foul should be actually worth more points this year because it can be more harmful against the scoring alliance.

I think that you are with a lot of people on this one. Most people don't see that the logic behind the values of the fouls is to rule out any situation where it would be beneficial just to take the foul. Imagine if the last 30 seconds of a match became like the last 2 minutes of a basketball game where the losing team actually benefits from fouling in many cases. Even though these cases seem ludicrous, FIRST teams will find a loophole if there is one. I imagine that it wouldn't seem so ludicrous if it was a viable strategy one year, like in 2004 when Jim said teams would force penalties by ramming the opponents into their goals.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

"theoretically" is different from "practically".

Practically:

When a foul occurs, the percentage of time that it affects a robot that has 50 pts in the hopper (very low), compared to the # of times a robot has a full hopper of discs or basketballs (very high) in 2012 and 2013.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

Good point.

I think it's important that point values for fouls and technical fouls be high enough that it's never in a team's rational self-interest to commit a foul. IMO, the values should be high enough that the foul will cost the team at least as much as the scoring opportunity they prevented by committing the foul.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

On the topic of "theoretically" vs "practically" think back last year when 50pt fouls were called for bumping a robot that was attempting to do its 10pt climb.

Practically:
When a foul occurred, the percentage of time that it affected a robot that was capable of a 30 pt climb was (very low).

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

The point of this entire discussion about technical fouls has nothing to do with strategically incurred fouls. I think everyone is in agreement that that kind of action should be penalized harshly. The problem with technical fouls this year is that inadvertent and inconsequential technical fouls happen so often and can bring alliances to the point of despair so much that it's become a joke.

What percentage of G40 penalties have been assessed where the human player was actually in danger of getting injured? Do robots that unintentionally possess opposing alliances' balls ever hold onto it for a meaningful amount of time?

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

In what proportion of matches would this occur? We already know that a 50pt tech foul would swing 53% of matches.

Lets assume for a moment that all tech fouls are now worth 30 points. In your case, in order for it to be worth it to take the foul an alliance must be down less than 10pts (40-30). In what proportion of matches is the winning margin less than 10? Very few. In what number of those does an alliance have a 30point ball in the last 8 seconds? Even fewer.

Would you be in favor of reducing the value of a tech foul to 40 points?

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

Wasn't there a discussion last year about teams intentionally breaking the rules because it would have been worth it, pointwise? I think it was concluded that a yellow card would go out for multiple intentional violations and the violating team would probably be ostracized.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

It doesn't matter. The GDC has stated the intent of this rule to keep this from inadvertently happening. I am glad that folks are starting to take them seriously. I would much rather have a high foul value than have a student get injured. This rule was also edited to allow access to the restricted zone when a robot wasn't near.


We all read the same rule book. We all know the rules. We have to play by them whether we like them or not.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

I think we can all agree some fouls are reasonable. I can see a 50-point foul for pinning being completely okay in some cases.

What I think isn't okay is the possessing an opponent's ball foul. This past weekend, we had a difficult qualifying match, and our alliance was playing incredibly. We had over 100 points, and then a ball dropped seemingly from out of nowhere right into our robot.

Everyone was astonished, and our drivers got rid of the ball right away, however it was assessed as a 50-pt technical foul and we lost the match by 14 points.

In my opinion either the rules need to be less harsh, maybe some clause constituting intent in a case like that, or the foul needs to be worth less. If a tech foul was even 30 points, we would have won that match we worked so hard to win.

We ended up making an adjustment for eliminations that would prevent a ball from falling in the way it did, but it cost us weight, some catching ability, and time that could have been spent otherwise improving functionality. In fact, the addition inhibited our functionality to a degree.

It might sound like I'm just complaining wildly, but stuff like that could have cost us the regional. It cost 1114 a regional already.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

I am completely in favor of keeping HPs safe. That's why I asked the question. But the 50-point penalty for doing it (based on referees' eyes) is extreme in inconsequential occurrences. If the "high foul value" were upped to 100 points, would that be OK? What about 200?

We have to play by the rules, sure. If a team on our alliance said that they disagreed with a rule in the manual and would therefore disobey it in our next match, there might be some literal spanking going on. But FIRST also has to recognize when the rules are bad and should be fixed.

Re: paper: Spanking the Children
 

Here is the summary result of my poll.

78 - would like to see a change
27 - do not wish to implement a change

The detailed suggestions/reasons can be found in the link.