Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

You are far from wrong. You're actually right on point. Scouting and driver practice is key to winning, or at least going far in competition. A team can have an average robot and think they may not be competitive enough, but if you know how to beat the opposing alliance with a strategy (scouting) and if your drivers can execute that strategy (practice) they can more likely win a match. The only reason I would see losing such a match is if the opposing alliance is better practiced and has collected and interpreted better scouting data.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

...do you know what this year's game is?

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Knowing how to beat the opposing alliance means nothing this year.
Winning matches means nothing this year.

Only your average score (throughout the seeding matches) is important.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

In 2008, we modified a method we'd seen online to become very adept at knocking down balls off the overpass.

In 2009, we modified a method we'd seen online to drive our turret.

In 2010, we borrowed some aspects of a lift design to speed up our lift system.

In 2011, a couple tweaks on our minibot came directly from watching how another team's worked.

In 2012, we developed a stinger based on a 4 bar we saw another team use.

In 2013, a design posted online confirmed our design direction and gave us confidence that outside-the-box idea would work.

In 2014, we gained an idea watching another team's sensor system and improved our autonomous with it.

Every year, I can truthfully say that our competitiveness has been improved by watching other teams and utilizing some aspect of their robot that was easily adapted to our robot. Competitive benchmarking is a key in the professional world, and in FIRST as well. In the end FIRST IS still a competition or we wouldn't keep score and declare winners.

We don't share because we choose not to. That's our philosophy. You may decide to share your ideas and designs and I commend you for it, but we choose not to. Don't be annoyed and criticize us for that decision.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I think the privacy this year is due to the lack of variation between many of the robots shown so far. I know super teams are going to do something totally out of the box and crazy so they arent going to give their golden idea out on the internet deffensive game or not.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Our tote handler design is way too far along to do any major changes, but we are certainly open to any ideas that would make it better.

Our RC grabber is another story. The one we are building is the best design "that we know of" - because its the one we came up with and we aren't aware of other workable concepts just yet. It is a stand-alone module, and we are not emotionally attached to it. We have every intention of copying (or should I say "being inspired by") whatever we see as the season progresses. If teams had been posting their solutions we would have begun this process already. I happen to think ours will be competitive at our first event on Week 1, so I am not inclined to show it off to potential competitors just yet.

Actually, I hadn't noticed any less sharing this year than in the past. Its always been pretty quiet until after bag day.

See you at West Michigan!

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

You're welcome.

We haven't got things working early this year, so we haven't shared much. I think there's a video of us doing a tote stack somewhere on the youtube, and maybe lifting a container.

Maybe next year we'll get our act together and post more info about our robot, earlier in the build season.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Yeah, where we were shooting high goals in week 4 last year, we only finally were able to grab totes and containers and manually lift them yesterday (end of week 5). I don't quite get all those who have said this season went like a breeze, because it's slower than last year's for us. That said, we should be done* by Stop Build Day, which wasn't common for use several years ago.

*What is this done robot you speak of?

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Hey guys. I just want to say that we have drastically reduced the privacy restrictions of the past two years. Obviously for a "Premiere Night" we'd like to see your robot for the first time but this year we've asked teams to focus more on video quality and less about robot secrecy. We'd never turn anyone away from participating because they showed too much. If you are proud of what you have and/or you think it might help other teams post it! We'll still love to have you on Premiere Night.

Enjoy the last week of build season!

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I'd say its cause testing mechanisms this year is a tad bit less exciting then last year. Flying yoga ball is more fun to watch then a tote stack (imo of course). Another big thing is that when a team reveals the robot they try the best to be proud and show off the most of it and with last years very limited field equipment that was easy. Last year it was literally check out how far we shot the ball. This year I frowned upon totes for things other then actual mechanism testing because I don't want them to be damaged. All drive practice instead are done with traffic cones because I don't mind those getting a bit beaten up but that means that if I were to tape drive practice I couldn't show you what our robot does because this years game doesn't use traffic cones. Also this year the mechanisms are all fairly clear cut across the board so what the reveal videos should hopefully capture when advertising your robot is not what it has its more how it uses it.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I was talking about in general. I don't think FIRST will have split field games like this forever. I may have misunderstood that the topic of practice and scouting wasn't specifically for this game only.

I apologize that I was being unclear about that.
If you had just read my post on this thread right before the one you replied to, you may have gotten the idea that yes, I know what this year's game is.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

For which scouting of your ALLIANCE PARTNERS is important - so that you can go into each match with a game plan that will maximize the points that these three robots can score. You also need to know the opposing alliance because you are competing with them for the resources on the step, and working with them for coopertition points.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

It's eliminations that count, and that means beating your opponent.
If you can't win in elims, I wouldn't put your chances far better in seeding matches. Scoring points and denying points matters.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Agreed, however I do not believe that the step points will be very contested in the seeding rounds, as many teams will struggle to make even a single stack.


If you do not get into the eliminations, beating your opponents means nothing.

I'd rather score a few more points, giving me an advantage over the entire pack in seeding rounds, than denying a few points, giving me an advantage over 3 teams. ... Just sayin'

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

It's now called Playoffs, not Eliminations.
Friendlier language?
(kind of like referring to the Championship Event as Nationals, not anymore.)

In the QuarterFinals and SemiFinals, only your average score matters, just like in the Qualification matches. And there is no co-opertition.
(IMHO, if the GDC chose to award co-opertion points in the QFs and SFs, the strategies would have been more interesting)

Only the Final matches are Win-Loss-Tie.

Game Theory Rocks!