Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

So, I've been watching some week one matches and it didn't take me long to realize that throwing noodles is a very viable game strategy. At first many teams (including I) thought the noodles were too flimsy to throw and wont go far, essentially rendering them useless unless you put them in a container, but now I'm seeing noodles actually fly clear to the other side. In many cases teams are scoring far more in noodle points than in anything else. I know my team was originally planing on to not even touch the noodles, but now I'm reconsidering seeing how many teams are scoring big on noodles. What do you guys think.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

There are several threads already running about throwing noodles. One thing that I noticed among the posts was that throwing a well-used noodle is not as easy as throwing a fresh one. If you do decide to throw noodles, here are some rules I'd follow:

1. Sort the noodles. Use the more tattered ones to put in RCs, and the firmer ones to throw
2. Wait until less than a minute is left in the match to throw. They mess up driving. While it may be advantageous to mess up the other alliance, the effect is diluted when figuring the value to your alliance because it is not a match but a points tournament. Unless you're very good (95%) at getting in the other field as opposed to yours, you're doing yourself a net disservice by throwing early. Waiting also reduces the amount of time the other alliance has to "process" your noodles.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Geetwo beat me to it, but I completely agree.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I would boil it down to do you want more eyes on the field or do you want more potential score.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Sorry, too subtle for me. Which is which, and why?

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

One thing i observed :

The "not so good" human players have a chance of taking away more points than they will give by throwing outside the field... (a foul takes away a lot of points) It might be worth it to start praticing shooting ;)

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

One thing that caught my attention: At one of the Week Zero events, the pool noodles seemed to be taped at each end and in the middle. This would greatly increase the potential for throwing them. We've spent a lot of time throwing noodles (both new and used) and have come to the conclusion that consistently throwing the noodles will be near impossible.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Yes, this change was made in the updates to eliminate "the noodle agreement", in which each alliance simply dumped its surplus noodles on its own side, scoring four for the other alliance. If you look closely, the tape is color-coded by alliance.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Aargh... I didn't read well-enough... I had it in my brain that the noodles would be different colors.... We'll have to tape our practice noodles and see what happens.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Some thoughts:

As MaGiC_PiKaChU claimed, throwing noodles and not having them land inside the field does NOT seem to be a foul. G23 states "ROBOTS may not cause TOTES, RECYCLING CONTAINERS, and/or LITTER to completely leave the FIELD." Robots. Not Human Players. There's nothing in the rules about HPs accidentally throwing outside of the field.

Also, even if you're not going to throw them, don't try and restrict other teams from throwing noodles. I can guarantee you that there's a certain technique to throwing noodles that can get noodles the proper distance 95% of the time, with most going exceptionally far.

The tape helps a little bit in keeping the noodle fly straighter, but it's not too much.

We're absolutely going to be throwing at least 3 noodles a match.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Since you repeated the 95% number, I'm inferring that you're directing this comment at my post. For the record, "rules I'd follow" is an indicator of advice, not an imposition of restriction (like I have that power, anyway). I also specified the conditions and reasons on which that advice was based. If the conditions don't apply to you, the advice may not either.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

In the Finals instead of having someone focused on trying to get those points you could have them doing the math on what array of stacks you need to beat the opposing side. In qualifications you just want the points though. You have two ports for feeder station, and three human players. Might as well have that third player doing something that actively contributes. An extra spotter for a task that involves precision at distances is always helpful.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Could someone possibly post a link to a video or a few of today's practice matches i'm having some trouble finding any.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I can see where there was some confusion. My post wasn't directed at yours, my apologies. I agree with your two rules, where you should definitely throw the less worn and torn noodles and if you are going to to throw them, make sure a good HP can do it. My 95% number was more of my personal success rate during tests.

I might as well comment on your first rule, anyways. I agree that if the opposing alliance is attempting to make a coopertition set/stack, you should hold off on throwing noodles. However, if you wait too long you're not going to be as successful. It's possible you could run out of time to throw them all, and if you're rushing to throw the noodles there's a greater chance (in my experience) that you'll mess up. What I'll probably do is ask the other alliance if they're planning to make the coopertition set/stack. If no, hurl away. If yes, tell them they have a minute after teleop starts before the noodles come flying.

My original comment was kind of more toward MrJohnston in that he thinks consistently throwing noodles will be close to impossible. It's a semi-common idea that I've been seeing on Chief Delphi where teams are claiming that they are going to be actively discouraging their alliance partners from throwing noodles. This isn't a good idea, in my opinion. In the Week 0 event I attended, I saw a pretty big difference in the abilities of the various Human Players. If your alliance has a good HP, it's a great idea to have them throw noodles. If they don't, I think you should hold off.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Accepted, and congratulations - I can only guess that you've got a finger-flip that spins the noodle fast enough to stabilize it.


Another good rule, especially if #2 doesn't apply to you. Risk management - don't put 40 still-likely points at unnecessary risk chasing 12-28 (assuming you're noodlling 3 to 7 RCs).

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Saw an interesting side effect of throwing noodles as a defensive mechanism to neutralize good robots as a tossed pool noodle got trapped in 987's robot and they couldn't put down a stack at all.
Obviously it's a long shot as a strategy but at least it's something.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...0050ae5cc17376

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I thought this was the coach's role. That said, if using one of the HPs as a coach or scorekeeper works better for your alliance, I see nothing in the rules to prevent this. It appears that HPs and Drivers are permitted the same sets of actions. Coaches are more restricted.

FWIW, I expect that finals-quality alliances will need three working HPs to get those 40 game pieces out from behind the alliance wall to where they can be scored.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I will go read the rules about this... maybe you're right :D

Our human player is pretty good but sometimes litter goes right or left if it's damaged... otherwise he can shoot it on the opposite alliance's wall

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

After watching a few of the first qualifying matches of 2015 I find throwing way too risky.

I just watched a match where a teams own litter prevented them from scoring.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

A bit of an update:

I was able to watch some of Week 1 in South Florida (it's the only one that I checked which is streamed on Youtube, which is the only one I can access at school) today. It seems that only 20% or so of the noodles actually make it the proper distance there. I did see one or two HPs who made almost every single noodle, which was nice. I can guarantee you that over the next few weeks the method of throwing will change quite a bit.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

While watching the Dallas LiveStream, I saw someone throw a noodle that landed near a robot from the other side that was approaching the step with a stack of yellow totes. I guess the Human Player didn't STUDY the rules and their implications.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I'm sure most of the people reading CD have at least studied the scoring rules well enough to have waited a few seconds!

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I don't think alot of teams train their human players at all and just let them do what they please. So to feel useful they just toss the pool noodles across the field.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

One other week 1 observation...Way too many penalties called for throwing Litter in the last 20 seconds of matches, negating many hard won points already scored...(when that 20 seconds left in the match horn sounds), Coaches will need to notify HP's (and pre-notify and remind all 3 HP's), HP's on your Alliance....To simply stop throwing the litter onto the field!

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

In our 2nd finals match the opposing alliance scored 44 litter points and won that match. Fortunately for us, Cy Young wasn't around for the 3rd finals match.

An anomaly? Maybe, but that kid could throw.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I think the GDC did a good job with the point values this year.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

Litter points being in both containers and the field! Don't forget that 558 was able to get litter into almost every single container that we got onto our side of the field! But throwing the rest of the litter all the way across proved to be the real game changer that match!

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I think whether or not you should throw litter depends entirely on the skill of your human player. At GSC, we averaged 23~ LP a game, and our final QA was ~52 iirc. We had more litter points than any other team there and finished seeded second. In Qualifying matches, we threw the litter usually with 60 seconds left. Our human player (aka noodle jesus) didn't have any problem getting 6+ noodles across to the other side in 40 seconds. In playoffs, we threw the noodles immediately because we knew that the noodles would get in the other alliance's way. In our second quarterfinal match, not only did our human player score all ten noodles by throwing them to the other side, giving us 40 points, he also inherently slowed the other side down, which gave us a huge advantage and allowed us to qualify for the semifinals.

After participating in a week 1 regional, I am convinced noodle throwing is a great strategy.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

This is going to be an extremely unpopular opinion, but my captain has implemented a no-noodle policy that we as strategists are supposed to ask our alliance partners to respect if possible during match planning. He would like to avoid the possibility of the noodles getting stuck underneath the other alliance's robots' wheels and preventing them from functioning properly (as mentioned earlier) or getting stuck whilst driving (a side effect that we noticed at Suffield Shakedown), even to the effect that we gain four points per piece that they do not manage to corral into the landfill zone.

There's also the point that a lot of times the human player put in charge of noodle throwing can't throw it as far as they think they can, and it ends up hurting our alliance by cluttering up our side of the field and giving us more obstacles to maneuver around. Less of an issue for us with our sick H-Drive, but an issue nonetheless. :cool:

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

At the Dallas regionals, all three of our robots were disabled in our second semi-finals match. We still managed to score 28 points from just throwing Noddles, and for the time being this kept our average from dropping too low. Also, the noodles tend to get in the way of your opponents robots, forcing them to take alternate routes to score, getting caught in their wheels, as well as making them drop entire stacks. So noodles both give you points and essentially take away points from the opposing alliance.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I absolutely agree that throwing noodles needs to be an ALLIANCE decision. If you can show that your HP can hit the other field a very HIGH % of the time then it can be worth it, but it also is risky both in scoring on the wrong side and impeding higher value stacking.

If you're alliance isn't productive elsewhere then throwing is a more viable strategy, but with a good alliance it probably isn't worth the risk.

In watching a half dozen regionals last week I saw only two HPs who could get 80% over to the other side. The rest looked to be mostly haphazard.

I think we're playing in an arena this week where the air conditioning will affect the noodle flight. It was a problem in 2013 with the frisbees. Supposed to be in the mid-70s so expect the AC will be on.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I think most people have been too harsh on noodles. At the Georgia Southern Classic, very many human players were able to get noodles onto their opponent's side of the field. Teams were able to get an extra 20+ points just from throwing noodles. Some teams with Noodle Jesus watching over them got even more. There weren't too many times robots struggled with noodles on the floor, but sometimes those were noodles thrown by their opposing alliance. I think noodles being useful to comes down to how you answer two questions:

• Are the noodles at your venue "good" (stiff enough to be thrown accurately)?
• Is your human player good at throwing "good" noodles?

If the answer to both are "Yes", I believe you should be throwing noodles. If the answer to the first question is "No", I don't think the noodles are worth being used for that competition. If the answer to the second question is "No", I suggest you train your human player more noodles that can be thrown accurately but aren't absurdly stiff.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

I concur. At our district event (Waterbury) last weekend, there was one human player that was consistently extremely impressive. Other than that, the noodles just kind of seemed to make a mess on the alliance's side of the field that was throwing them.

Re: Throwing Noodles, is it Worth it?
 

As a ref who got very used to pressing the "unprocessed litter" button at Hatboro, we had a few Noodle Apostles and at least one Noodle Jesus.