Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Adds the no Einstein timeouts as announced on Frank's blog today, and announces the optional C++ update discussed here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=126102

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Well, that was a letdown. I guess earth-shattering changes are reserved for Thursday evenings now.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Agreed, I'm surprised that the issues of Waterloo SF 1-3 weren't addressed. I was at least hoping to see a modification to G14 in this update. How can I -unintentional or not - cause another alliance to incur more penalty points than I receive for damaging them? I can't see the sense behind allowing these situations to occur any further.

What's to stop a team from "accidentally" breaking something off an opposing robot in any given match? If it's going to give them a net gain in points then nothing but goodwill and the inability to actually make it look "accidental" is what's stopping them. Obviously it's not the ethical thing to do but it shouldn't even be an option if you ask me.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

In 2008, we went to the VCU regional and lost in the semifinals in 3 matches.
In one of the matches, a defender hit our partner Team 401 and they fell over. Because they fell over on its side, they got a penalty because they exceeded the maximum (cant remember the exact dimension) they could be extended horizontally.
We lost that match as a result.
Its been so long, but at that time, I was pretty upset.

Its too bad rules cant account for silly penalties like this based on the situation.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Disappointing.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Agreed
Very disappointed. I guess the game is working as intended. Oh well, there's always next week.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Or a couple days from now, if we're "lucky". :rolleyes:

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

My feelings towards this update.

Ladies and gents, prepare to find your students in random parts of the building in tears after you get knocked out of elims over pure stupidity. That was one hell I thought I wouldn't have to go through again, but GDC 2014 continues to surprise me.

What happened to raising the bar? Now we're going to see a ton of well built machines with stupid threaded rods sticking up in vulnerable places or acrylic panels. Is this the way you want the game to play? Because that's how it played last week.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Is there any chance you could describe what happened in SF 1-3?

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Someone broke 1114 in such a way that a part of their robot was extending more than 20 inches outside their frame perimeter. This got them a technical foul, the team that broke them only received a foul. That difference of 30 points decided the match and eliminated the 1114 alliance.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

To be fair, there is a little more detail than that. The other robot was 1241 who was in the act of picking up their own ball. 1114 attempted to defend them from doing so, and collided with them.

http://www.watchfirstnow.com/archives/89874438

Collision happens at 1:12 in the video. You should watch the 10 seconds prior to the collision for context.

The other side of the argument is that 1241 was given a 20pt penalty for just trying to pick up their own ball because 1114 happened to break due to the collision.

There is a YMTC discussion where people are invited to try and break down a similar situation, and provide analysis of how penalties (if any) should be assessed:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=128131

In particular, after reading the scenarios that Brandon_L had to deal with this season, I'd love to see his analysis of the YMTC above.

Another notable thing about the match is the amazing blue 3-assist low-goal bounce-out that happens at the end of the match (around 2:25 in the above video), which would have sealed the victory for blue - penalties or not.

It's relevant because I think there's an impression that this was supposed to be a one-sided match that easily should have been won by 1114's alliance, when in actuality, the match itself (minus penalties) was extremely close and could have gone either way. This would be surprising to a lot of people who don't know just how good 3683 and 1241 are.

Back on topic, I wish the rules could have dealt with these types of situation in a cleaner, more straightforward fashion, but I'm willing to give the GDC some slack here, because I don't have a good handle yet what those changes should be!

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Thank you, Mr. Lim, for those points. I watched the match, and while the penalty did decide the match, I agree that 1241 getting a penalty at all is no more and no less egregious than 1114 getting a technical foul...

...and it was indeed a very, very close match regardless of the penalties.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

How can anyone say 1114's tech foul is "no more or less egregious" than the regular foul? While 1241's foul was clearly unintentional, they did break the letter of a (dumb) rule on their actions. 1114 broke a rule because of somebody else's actions with really no way to prevent it. What was 1114 supposed to do? Why is it okay for another robot's actions to break you and then get a net gain of points for doing so? The GDC clearly is aware of this, why did they all sit around and go "yup, we should let that keep happening"?

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

I'm trying to think through this as well. Any chance we can attempt to offer the GDC some help here?

For instance, does G24 even need to exist? Why can't putting a robot on the field that willfully employs an anti-R3b strategy just result in a DQ? (I'd argue doing this deliberately is a Red Card offense similar to strategic G12, but it could stay the G24 tech foul if 'willfully' was added.) Or just make the G24 wording like G26, "ROBOT may not intentionally...exceed 20 in. beyond its FRAME PERIMETER." What secondary problems would either of these changes create?

Is there anything to do about G28? The addition of "initiating" is good. Should it remain deliberate or damaging? What, specifically, are the issues with this currently for both robots?

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

These are just areas of the rules that the GDC seems to overlook in addition to most of the FRC community.

FIRST needs to update these rules about perimeter limits and size constraints to include that actions take by other robots causing a robot to come in violation of these rules will not be penalized unless the actions by the robot helped to actively contribute to said violation.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

1114 contacted 1241's extended element--which was in the process of going for the ball--while trying to play defense. So while it was indeed 1241's extended element that caused the damage, it was 1114's action that caused the contact.

You can make an argument that neither penalty was intentional and therefore shouldn't be assessed; though I'm sure I know how that kind of argument would fly in, say, football.

The GDC can't win here; if they loosen the penalties the way many are clamoring for, then they get complaints. If they keep them and enforce them the way many are clamoring for, then they get complaints.

The situation as it happened is unfortunate, but it's no more unfortunate than if 1241 had, say, knocked off a chunk of 1114's bumper and 1114 had been disabled for the rest of the match. You can argue that of course 1114's bumpers are sufficiently robust to prevent that from happening--but were their upper mechanical systems sufficiently robust, that wouldn't have happened either.

My preference on this whole thing would be that all contact inside the frame perimeter is a foul, regardless of who initiates that contact, and to let the penalties fall where they may. If we're absolutely clear on this at the beginning of the season, everyone will design accordingly, or suffer the consequences. (In 2008 we had a rule much like that. We built our robot such that it barely extended outside the frame perimeter because of that foul potential. It was irksome at the time to see the penalty never called.)

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

If you watch the WFN GoPro footage, to me, it seems that 1114 is actually going faster than 1241 at the time of impact, and is actively defending 1241. 1241 is trying to truss the ball they just missed with, not defend. So another plausible reading is "1114 broke themselves trying to defend", rather than "1241 broke another team and caused them to take a tech foul".

Also, after all the ref decisions post SF1-3, it was actually a wash:
-What might've been a 31pt last-second ball that bizarrely bounced out of the low goal was disallowed, after it was decided it doesn't count unless it goes all the way through (essentially minus 31pt for blue)
-1241 was assessed a 20pt penalty for the impact (minus 20pt for blue)
-1114 was assessed a 50pt penalty for being too big (minus 50pt for red)

So blue gained 50pts in a penalty, kinda-sorta lost 31pts for the disallowed ball, and red gained 20pts in a penalty. Result: blue still wins, as the live scoring was showing at the end.

Edits: I thought the upright broke in the ball rejection that happened 5 seconds earlier. Was wrong, but the overall thrust of my post remains: 1241 certainly didn't ram 1114, 1114 was heavily defending 1241 who was trying to truss at the time.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

The ball hit 1114's left upright. The right upright broke. Both robots drove toward each other at the time of the break, but 1241 was outside the bumper zone. Obviously 1241's intent was not to break the robot, but it's quite clear from the video their intake collided with the piece and then it broke.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Chris, please understand this post isn't meant as a personal attack at you. It is most certainly not. I agree with your line of reasoning.

Playing the devil's advocate, I swapped 1114 and 1241 in your quote above, and flipped the description of the penalties.

The quote is not quite accurate for the exact Waterloo SF1-3 scenario, but imagine the broken piece of 1114 breaking completely off, and not causing a <20" frame perimeter tech foul. 1241 would be left with a 20pt net penalty.

(This BTW is a situation Tristan mentions in his YMTC, and I get the impression this is more in line with Brandon_L's concerns)

This is a feasible situation that any proposed rule change would have to deal with as well.

I hope this post doesn't rub you the wrong way, but I am attempting to add a different perspective that sometimes I feel gets lost in the shuffle. AND I always appreciate a good gracious and professional debate/analysis of FRC's open issues!

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

To be clear, I'm not saying 1241 deserved the penalty either - I think an ideal ruleset would make the collision a "no call" for both sides. I just think it's marginally less absurd than the 1114 penalty for being partially broken. I'll stay out of this now.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

I'm with you there. Not sure if there's any plausible rule changes they could make to that end though. Removing the "damaging contact" rule would battlebot-ize the competition. Hardening it would make for even more absurd rulings (or, as someone else suggested, would result in teams 'armoring' themselves with flimsy breakable things).

It's too bad SF1-3 had to be known for the calls afterwards. It (and the other 2 matches in that series) were amazing to watch.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Update G24 or add an over-arching clause to the rules that prevents teams from being penalized for getting damaged (if they want to be really pedantic, they could make it "inconsequential or non-advantageous" damage).

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Does anyone expect the Waterloo SF 1-3 situation to happen again? (I don't, maybe once)

It was a very specific situation that led to the ruling favouring blue. It is equally likely that a similar collision could go the other way if the defensive robot broke completely.

I'm not defending the GDC's decision, but I suspect they are taking "what are the chances it will happen" approach given the complexity of the robot interaction rules. (see 2012 build season cantilevered bridge grappling definition)

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

While I don't think this exact call will pop up more than once or twice again this season, I think there a good chance that a call this controversial will decide at least one division final and an Einstein match too. The fouls are just too big and unevenly enforced to keep huge controversies from boiling up over and over and over...

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

If the damage was in fact caused by contact with the ball, then there should be no foul on blue based on this Q&A:

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

It depends on what "it" is really. If you mean damage causing robots to break the size constraints, it happens multiple times a year - a penalty for not completely breaking. I would have to check again to find instances of this being possibly caused by opponent contact, but I bet I could find one. Personally, I think the fact that you broke your robot is punishment enough, and having this weird edge case where you get a big penalty if your robot partially breaks in a specific way but not in other cases makes zero sense. Robots that are clearly violating the rule solely because they are broken shouldn't be penalized under the rules, though that is how they are written as of now.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

But even then, you could even have controversy: 1114's damage wasn't entirely inconsequential: as I understand it, the uprights were/are required to support their claw pre-match. In a 3-match series where that collision happened in the first one, 1114 could easily argue the damage required them to burn a timeout to fix it, and so a non-call on what they'd perceive as real damage would still be deciding the match in one way or another.

If it comes down to a judgement call, there'd still be people upset about the result.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Not to be "that guy," but wasn't this being discussed elsewhere? Is this now becoming a game of "where can we discuss what should have been called?"

I went to Waterloo, there were some really high-quality matches among some of the best teams in FIRST. It is rather unfortunate that the referee calls are what people are remembering in what was an otherwise excellent showdown. Both alliances were well thought out, and I hate to have seen it work out the way it did because of a set of poorly worded rules that are constantly changing.

Which brings me to my main point: Yes. There are a large number of people who don't like the rules and people who are upset about how poor calls have affected their performance. I have no right to tell you that you cannot be upset because I know I would be too. Week after week, we have complained about the rules and asked for updates only to get angrier about whatever rule changes were released. This week, it seems as if the game is staying the same. At what point would you rather have a consistent set of mediocre rules rather than a set of rules that is difficult to stay up to date with and drastically changes the game each time. It's Week 5 already. The GDC changes the game after people respond, and then people get angry at the changes (Again, not saying they were good changes or that the rules are perfect). In this case, the GDC has done nothing and people are angry.


Otherwise, the update is pretty exciting.



Garrick

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

This situation has absolutely happened before and will happen again. At the NC regional a robot's battery fell out of their robot after a collision and was dragging behind them much greater than 20 inches (the wires were excessively long). They decided to stop driving but NO penalties were assessed to either team.


Basically we have an odd but certainly possible situation (pieces breaking on a robot but not falling off) that is sometimes penalized. It is sort of up to refs discretion unfortunately.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

It's being discussed here because the update was expected by many to address this component of the rules, and it didn't. Discussing potential rules updates in the context of a thread about rules updates makes sense to me.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

In Dallas, one of the robots was dragging an air tank around for part of the match. Did it extend more than 20 inches past the frame perimeter? Maybe.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

I feel like batteries and air tanks not being secured and/or dragging behind the robot should be an auto-disable due to safety reasons.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

Mr Lim,

I feel as if both our scenario and 1114's scenario were called properly by refs doing their job correctly. I was not at Waterloo, so I cannot speak for that event, but at Lenape the refs tried to call the game strictly by the rulebook and that is where I believe the problem lies.

At Lenape, Q3-1, one of our alliance partners backed into a team who's intake were two pieces of 1/4" aluminum round stock that at the time of impact was hanging about halfway out of their frame perimeter. The stock bent ever so slightly, and it was called as damage in the frame perimeter - 50pt not 20pt. In fact, at Lenape, G27 was always a 50pt tech foul and never 20, or called as both 50 AND 20 resulting in 70pts of fouls. The team at the end of the match simply bent it back and marched of the field with a win. Q3-2, we were instructed by our alliance captain not to play defense and to avoid contact as much as possible. Meanwhile, whoever had the ball on our alliance would get dog piled by 2/3rds of the other alliance with little to no fear of a tech foul. We felt punished because our entire alliance engineered our robots too well. To add some irony, we later won the quality award - our first ever award at an event other then District Champions. To say the least, no one involved with the team were much too happy about it.

In my opinion, the rulebook is broken. Very broken. Broken to the point where if refs try to call games strictly by the book, it is near impossible to have consistent calls. Penalty values are out of whack. Many matches there were blatantly obvious g27 fouls that were not called simply because the refs were not watching that specific robot at that specific time. I don't blame them - they have much more on their plate then they should have. To sum up Lenape - It was raining tech fouls from the heavens, and it was frustratingly inconstant. We got the short end of the stick, and according to Ether's twitter data, we're currently the unluckiest team in MAR and it's costing us a potential slot at MAR CMP.

Therefore, I lay my blame not in the reffing staff or the head ref or the volunteers of the event, but on FIRST and the GDC themselves for being out of touch and forcing their picture of the game on us at all costs. They need to fix the rules and let it play out, and admit their mistakes so the season can move on.

My frustration comes from my driver returning from the question box telling me that the head ref said (paraphrasing my driver here) 'he is very sorry he had to make that call, and he knows he shouldn't have to, and that this rule is the reason he did not look forward to reffing this game as any team can simply loosen a wire, get hit and lose comms and gain 50-70 points'.

If the head ref knows it is wrong, and I have parents complaining to me that its wrong and I have to tell them we can't do anything about it, my students end up as distressed as they did as a result, and I have students from a team on the OTHER alliance apologizing for winning 'such a troll game', there is something wrong. We know how to lose, we've done it for years. This wasn't a loss. It was downright unfair. I'm sure other teams feel the same way.

Re: Team UPDATE - 2014-03-25
 

This was also us (FRC418) at Arkansas. In SF3-1, we got slammed by another robot, and that dislodged our cleco attachments we were using to hold on our bumper (our bumper is a uni-bumper that wraps around the robot). Our bumper slammed into systems internal to the robot, and broke zip ties mounting the air tanks and dislodged a couple air hoses (they were still connected, but not "out of harm's way"). We replaced the bumper clecos, and looked for damage but nothing looked suspect (we didn't see the broken zip ties), but the air system held air just fine and everything looked good. We went back out for SF3-2 and during autonomous when our drivetrain started moving an air hose got caught by the drivetrain and ripped the hose and air tank off our robot. The end result was us dragging an air tank behind our robot by its air hose. After a few seconds of dragging the air tank around, the FTA disabled our robot from the Scorekeeper Station. We were not 20" outside our bumper zone, but it wasn't what I would call "safe" either.

-Danny