Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Hi, I'm the lead scout for my team, and there's a thing that both makes me curious and annoyed.

This years game isn't so about competition and blocking the other alliance... So why haven't we seen more robots? The few we have seen are pretty much the same basic design, obviously with some specializations and variations that I really congratulate those teams for doing, but I really expected seeing more robots by now.

Thoughts?

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

It's still a competition to score the most points. If your team has different methods/mechanisms that you think will make you the top scorer, then you don't want people to copy that design and make the competition into purely execution of game strategy.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

FRC top 25 premiere night is probably holding quite a few back.

Was a good show last year and I expect it to be even better this year.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

You will probably see a lot more robots after the 17th.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

We tried to keep our build as transparent as possible this year. We even posted a video which you could literally use as a template for your entire robot, if you paused in the right places. :)

At the risk of over-posting this, here it is.

Given, our robot follows a very conventional design, and it's pretty low-budget. If our team had ambitions that were a bit more unique, though, we would be happy to show them off too.

It's not really in any team's best interest to keep a design away from others. If they do so, they may inspire a slew of copiers (but probably not); or they may gain valuable insight from teams with more experience, so that they can find out what works and what doesn't as soon as possible. Maybe the top 25 teams should try to keep their designs secret. But there are over 1,800 other teams active right now, and every single one of them could likely benefit from another team's advice.

Just my $0.02.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Many people say this every year, and are proven wrong, but here goes: I think a lot of robots this year, with the exception of the very best, will be variations on the same basic design. Most robots will probably be some sort of forklift, and it'll be the little things that differentiate the 'meh' teams from the great teams. As a result, a lot of teams probably want to keep their 'special sauce' a secret until after Bag Day.

There's a good chance that I'll be proven wrong in a week and a half, but that's my theory at the moment.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Here is why: if robot A can outscore robot B. Robot A will (barring malfunction) ALWAYS win. There is nothing robot B can do (out strategize) to win.

As such, if team B knows what team A's robot does, they take that design, improve it, and become robot A in the first scenario.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I agree with this. I know our team has 'tried' (cough cough *coach needs to stop posting on FB*) to keep our designs close to the vest so that we can make the cut for FRCTOP25.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I think there's a VERY good chance that you will be proven RIGHT. I see this every year.


It's not easy to build a robot. Often, multiple teams will come out with similar designs. What differentiates them is something small. Might be a wheel choice, or maybe more driver practice, or some minor mechanism that actually serves a critical function.

And if you can keep that "secret sauce" under wraps until unleashing it at your first event, you can surprise everybody and force them to try to copy it to keep up.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Aside from the "secret sauce" argument, I think that there's a much stronger force keeping designs under wrap: habit. Quite simply, teams are almost all used to keeping their designs under wrap. Almost all of the reasons for this haven't vanished with this game.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

On the field, you are not directly competing against 3 other teams. However with the way the ranking system is set up, each time you play a match you are indirectly playing against the high scores of every single robot at the competition. I would argue that this makes this year even more competitive than previous years, and anything that a team has that could set them apart from the rest is likely going to be held in high secrecy, because this year each point you make that the other teams don't make matters.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I'm sure that the most unique robots will be using good can grabbers, and as a result I don't think it's necessary for many teams to release pics and videos this year. Forklifts will be 90% of robots anyway.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Exactly the reason why I think this game is much more competitive. If a robot has a mechanism or strategy that can score a huge amount of points, that matters in each and every match. In matches where there's a clear winner, the pressure to make the best of the best is not as high, but in the qualifications for this game, you literally have to be the best of the best.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

This is what a lot of people are missing. reducing your opponent's score puts one more robot below you in average score, this effectively bumps you up by one spot in the rankings (in both quals and elims). You don't have to be 1 of the 4 best alliances to make it through quarterfinals, you only have to be better than 4 other alliances. Same goes for semifinals, if you reduce your opponent's score, you effectively only have to outscore one other alliance to make the finals; and in finals your opponent's score directly affects your ability to win.

This is the case in almost every competitive sport, you don't have to be the best at anything, you just have to be better than whoever you're playing. This has been a lot more straightforward in past years, but it's still very much the case this year, you're just playing 8, and 4 team free-for-alls instead of 2 team free-for-alls (aka a 1v1).

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

For us, the issue is much more simple - we're all working so hard on the robot that nobody has had time to make any video or announcement yet.

On the topic of how some teams end up doing better than others, I'd like to add my own view:
* Even a great robot won't do well if the driver doesn't know what to do or where to go - drive team practice and knowing how the game is likely to flow can double the quality of your robot; and
* Scouting is as important as anything else the team does - teams that know how to best support their alliance partners and what the strengths are of their partners are will do better each round than those that either plan to do the same thing every time or just fly around hoping they figure out what to do when the time comes.

Of course, I could be wrong.

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!

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

Did you see my post about this on the previous page? Descoring your opponents definitely matters.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I actually think the change was made so this is actually relevent to FIRST.

I think that for most teams "sharing" takes more work than "not sharing" so you don't see anything from them. I wouldn't assume they have some secret, game breaking strategy they want to keep to themselves. They may just be busy building a robot.

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

I certainly hope not!

Re: Why the privacy in this years game?
 

We shot ours today, and I've already seen some rough edits. I'm excited.