Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

While that would be funny, I would probably flip a table at kick-off

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

With districts, you already have 45% of the robots out of pit at any time. If y'all think we're moving to a format where 60% of the teams are out of pit at any given time (and at Waterloo, 80% and an impossibility of picking 8 alliances), I have land at the bottom of the Atlantic to sell you.

You don't want 4v4. If you think you want 4v4, you really don't.

I'm really going to try avoiding this thread because this is all to troll even for me.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Pardon? I don't follow.

Are you saying 2007 was a good engineering challenge that was difficult for spectators? Or are you saying that 2007 was somehow a no-wheels game?

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

I was under the impression that the CIM motor (originally starting as the Atwood used in RVs), in it's current revision, is a custom order from FIRST to Chiaphua. I'm not sure if Chiaphua is donating them to the KoP or not (I'm guessing not). I could be completely wrong about this, so if so, please correct me.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Alright, I've given some thought to this.

We won't be seeing a 2v2v2. This would require the eliminations to be much bigger than the format they are now. Bo3 would NOT work, and BO5 could result in 2-2-1. What do we do? First team to 2 points? Well, that could work. Let's assume we do that. In each round, the first alliance to win two games advances. That means we will have 3 * 4 = 12 alliances for the quarterfinals. 12 * 3 = 36 teams. That's a lot of teams in eliminations. In fact, at the New York Tech Valley regional, I think there may be only 34 teams. I am sure that other regionals have enrollment numbers as low as this.

On the topic of a 4v4. This would allow for the current elimination round rules, bo3, and it would create 2 * 4 = 8 alliances, just like now. 8 * 4 = 32 teams. That means at regionals such as the New York Tech Valley regional, only 5 (or less!!) teams will not be picked. But - how would alliance selection occur? 1-8, 8-1, 1-8? The 8th alliance would get destroyed. 8th, 9th, 24th pick? The first alliance would have 1st, 15th, 16th. Sure it may reduce the powerhouses that number one alliances can wind up being, but the middle teams (3-6) would probably end up being the strongest due to best pick numbers. Look, we all know - some teams are better than others. What if you have multiple robots that don't work at the end of quals? Would a team have to pick a nonfunctional robot, and force themselves into a 3v4, or a 2v3 in reference to previously posted ideas? 2v3 isn't fun, I think we all know that.

Maybe it could be a return to 2v2. However, I -highly- doubt that would happen, unless they change the pick order of alliance selection. The number one team would be an absolute powerhouse. Unless they went 8-1. But then, it only allows 16 teams to be picked. It would incredibly stimulate competition on performing well, and you would have little room for error in your robot design. Unless they went to a 16 team bracket, which honestly would be a bit much... fitting 16 captains onto the field would be a bit crazy. Plus, we're up to the 32 teams again. Now a team might be forced into picking a nonfunctional robot, given the competition be small enough.

Anyways. I'm just looking at the math. Yeah, big regionals could handle it, but the small ones wouldn't be fun for anyone. Number one alliance would wind up with 2 powerhouses and 2 run of the mill robots. The lowest alliance would have a semi-powerful robot (enough to seed 8th), two run of the mill robots, and possibly even a non-functional robot, if the regional is small enough.

Perhaps they tried to fix this with inter-district play, but there have got to be some regionals aside from the New York Tech Valley Regional that have less than forty teams.

Should there be a field texture change, I think it would be an uneven ground. It is something we have not seen for a while, except in 2012 in the middle, but this is a completely wild guess. I think it would be a huge blow to teams with mechanum wheels, however, because they now have gravity working against them too if they are being pushed by another bot on said uneven ground. That would probably actually increase the popularity of the oh-so-powerful multi-CIM drives, due to being able to push robots even when you are on the low ground. I doubt that it would be a shooting game should there be uneven ground - defense would be incredibly, incredibly easy. One nudge and now you're at a whole new height. I couldn't imagine it being too uneven though - it might cause drivers inability to actually see the bot if its too small...

As far as I know (my freshman year was 2012 and I never really looked into past years games), we haven't seen field hockey. This could be a real possibility, I think. With big enough balls you wouldn't have the problem of robots getting stuck on them. Plus, bumper rules could change and require much lower bumpers. I think mechanum drives would absolutely strive here - agility is very important, and there probably won't be much "sitting still" time if your robot is fully functional, unless you're playing a goalie role.

For all we know, they could take 2009 and make us throw frisbees into other bots. We can't be sure, and I think all ideas should be taken with a grain of salt.

Just my two cents.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Can you please define "out of pit" as used here?

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

6 robots coming off the field
6 robots going onto the field
6 robots on queue
----
18 teams out of pit


18 /40 teams per district = 45 %

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Have you guys looked at the numbers for this year? I wasn't able timewise to do a detailed compairison, but it seems to me that every event that did not change venues is significantly smaller in terms of number of robots.

I predict longer matches, or a larger field (probably not), or less teams in a match.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Some teams in 2007 had wheel-less robots. They tended to have a set of ramps instead.

For these two, I'm going to guess that there will be rework. HOWEVER, for Brandon, there were almost too many rules protecting the offense in past seasons. (I.E. if they had a ziptie touching the key, you couldn't brush 'em or you'd get hit with a rather nasty foul.) Back in my day, if you didn't have a tough robot, you probably wouldn't make elims because you were fixing stuff. Defense is a legitimate strategy. It should only be restricted if absolutely necessary: Safety, or a clearly-defined, highly visible area where defense cannot be played (and if it's not for safety, leave it at a regular foul unless even that will be an advantage).

That said, I'm going to say that they'll probably be looking really hard at enforcement and impact. Fully half the fouls in the book last year were technical fouls, mostly for minor stuff. (See: G12 in Week 1) And hard to spot, too--anybody see the refs miss a bunch of G40 calls? Oh, so you didn't see 'em either. (All HPs who committed one and got away with it, speak up now. We won't change any match scores.) And the tech foul score compared to an elite-alliance score, not much, but for an average-alliance score, or a 3v2 score, killer if you committed one. And don't forget the whole "refs-as-scorekeepers" part.


Here's what I see for a change in the fouls: I would hope that the GDC puts scorekeepers back in (it's not all THAT hard to train 'em, hopefully), and lets the refs focus on getting the calls right. Also, hopefully the fouls are more balanced, possibly adding a "Minor Foul" category such that the ratio is approximately 1:2:4, minor:foul:technical, and there are fewer of them to be called (and fewer judgement calls, with more flexible judgement, like the later version of G12!). Yellow and red cards are fine, as they are intended to be very severe penalties and only used if warranted.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Apologies for double post, but: Remember to add about 15 teams to any given non-district event from the current posted capacity. Those slots are held back in case a local team is rather late (or happens to be a rookie), and are released later in the registration process.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Oh, I didn't know that. That kind of blows my assumption out of the water.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

It's been a long time since we had any big terrain to drive over. Hump, bump ramp, whatever. I would love to see big humps like Breakaway or ramps like Aim High or Stack Attack or steps like FIRST Frenzy.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Yes! I've been wanting to have some kind of drive challenge these past two games. I want a robot that I can confidently say is all-terrain; these flat floors have pampered us too much.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

An 18" radius half cylinder on the floor of the field would be fun to get over. I'd love to see that.

Re: [FRC Blog] - NASA Grants and Something New for 2015
 

Hmm. Now that we have mini-CIMs they may just ban CIMs. Both motors have the same footprint so we can keep our current investments in COTS gearboxes, yet the rule may address some of the power concerns (i.e. over-current draw) that have been brought up on these forums.