The cheesecake runaway
 

I am starting this thread to discuss how cheesecaking can affect the success of an alliance to an extreme level.
Hopper Division Team 2512 (Duluth East Daredevils) had an OPR of 32.5. This is relatively low, and it showed, as 2512 finished with 52 ranking.
Then their luck turned around, picked by the number one alliance of 2826, 987, 4265 picked them. All of a sudden 2512 gets subbed in for 4265. And with cheesecaked can-burglers from 987. These grabbers are not the fastest at worlds, but they are capable of out grabbing 1114 and many others.
After all this 2512 had a VASTLY improved OPR not just due to the can-burglers, they found the sweetspot and everything clicked. So I'm starting the discussion: As far as cheesecaking is concerned, what other teams need that extra little push from other teams for their bots to reach max potential? And even more importantly, what can be deduced about the first community due to cheesecaking?

Congrats to 2512, 987, 2826, 4265 from your friends at 876!

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Now that the championships are over, I definitely think that FIRST must implement rules about cheese-caking other robots. For example, The top seed alliance of the Curie Division (1114 Simbotics and 148 Robowranglers) picked two other teams (1923 and 900), and didn't even play with them in playoffs. They faced off with just the two robots while the mech team from 1114 and 148 worked on attaching ridiculously good burglars to 1923. By the time these modifications were finished, it was the finals of Curie Division and they brought out their third team to take the division finals. After this, they set about disassembling the entire drive-base and structure of team 900, to attach four of 1114's ridiculous harpoon guns so that they would be in the weight limit. Now while I have no problem with 1114 and 148 having great mech teams that can build this machinery, I think it is not in the spirit of FIRST to ask other teams to change their whole robot with something they prepared earlier to ensure their own victory. It does not embody gracious professionalism, does not enforce the idea that FIRST is "more than just robots", and does not encourage problem solving skills or strategy, its more like "We are a great team so lets just basicly build two robots that make the perfect alliance and win championships"

In short, I think that there should be some ruling that says, "The robot inspected on the first day must be the same robot as enters the field", with the job of deciding what the same robot is up to the judges. Obviously new parts and innovation must still be allowed, but not all of this crazy 4 harpoon gun tethers and stuff.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

This is because of the game design of Recycle Rush, really

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I agree with this, most years aren't like this, they happen every 4 years or so; i.e. 2011 and minibots.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Yeah, this year's game has many more aspects to help with.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

You raise some interesting points. I think it would be informative to hear about the "cheesecaking experience" from the point of view of one of the receiving teams.

My bet would be that the experience that teams like these received was more inspirational than the experience they would have had either 1) making minimal contributions and/or sitting out entirely during eliminations or 2) not getting picked at all due to limited capabilities.

I think it's also useful to frame this within the context of the teams "serving" the cheesecake - several of them are hall of fame teams who have been recognized for their outstanding programs and serve as role models in FIRST by embodying the "more than just robots" philosophy.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I can only applaud teams for their ability to work within the rules and come up with both effective and creative cheesecake recipes for Recycle Rush. 1114 and 148 had two of the best, and I wish we had been able to see the harpoon guns on the field.

That being said, I think and hope that in future seasons cheesecake will not be allowed to this extent. Teams should be chosen based on their ability and fit within an alliance...not literally the fit of a premade mechanism within their chassis. Seeing less capable teams chosen over more capable teams solely to operate a foreign subsystem disincentivizes striving for excellence for a large part of the FRC population, and instead encourages things like making flyers advertising how easy it is to commandeer their robot.

Again, I do not mean to slight any cheesecake givers or receivers, as they have acted within the rules the same way I would have (and did). But there needs to be some sort of limit. Having a game that didn't depend so much on a single sub-1 second function would certainly help.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I feel as the concept is okay when it involves modifying the other robots in the alliance to work better with one another in a way such as adding complimentary ball intakes in Aerial Assist for easy passing or a device to allow the scoring of coopertition totes. But when it reaches the point where the recipient is pushed into scrapping their entire robot that they worked on for the whole build season for the sake of improving the chance of victory for the alliance captain, then it becomes a real issue. In this case, victory is put ahead of the values of FIRST as cheesecaked members of an alliance effectively have to work around their "benefactors" rather than with them.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

You could very well say that playing the 2 v 3 match was also 148 and 1114's biggest flaw. They didn't qualify for the Einstein finals by missing out by 1.66 points in their average score. Which means if they had scored 5 more points in any of those 3 matches, we would have a different champion. If they made the decision to let their 3rd alliance member work on stacking from the human player station there would have been a different result. While I agree that FIRST must find a way to limit cheesecaking, cheesecaking does also present a unique element of strategy.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I have a feeling that we will never see a game that matches are decided within the first second ever again.

Everyone loves cheesecake, but when you can no longer love your bot because of cheesecaking, that's where I draw the line.

We all know it is a competitive atmosphere out there, even if it is "more than just robots". I want to win, you want to win, we all want to win, and some teams will go further then others. I am sure that if I found myself in the position, I would cheesecake the heck out of another bot (or my bot for that matter) if it meant a trip to Einstein.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Well I feel like in the long run this hurt 1114 and 148. You couldn't win recycle rush with just having two bots do everything on the alliance. It is about the alliance flow. 118, 1678, 1671, and 5012 won because they had three bots contribute a relatively "even" point distribution. When each bot only has to worry about getting two capped stacks of 6 or 5 it allows them to focus on the task, not feel rushed, and focus on being consistent.

While the level of cheesecake may or may not have been too much, in the end it was about building an alliance that had the best flow without cheesecake.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I'm torn. A major part of the FIRST culture has always been help each other out. Helping a team add a new component to a robot certainly feels like GP in action. learning directly from the approach of an elite team is also likely a great experience for those on the receiving end.

On the other hand, the logical conclusion of all this is to simply build a very light kit bot with plenty of mounting options, and provide lots of raw material for your patron team. While it is doubtful that a team would set out with this goal at the start of build season, I can definitely see how a team could look at their rankings at some point during qualifications and simply decide to "cut bait."

And, there's the question of who keeps the resulting robot? Is the harpoon contraption 1114's parts, or is it part of 900's robot now? This seems very different from lending a battery.

******EDIT*******
This isn't meant to single out 1114 or 900 in any way at all. Their's is simply the most famous example now.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Maybe a good compromise would be a weight limit for cheese cake parts, like 20 lbs(I randomly used 20, could be more or less depending on the game or actual analysis) of cheese cake, so it is still mostly the same robot with cheese cake added and not a completely new robot.

That said, I love the cheese caking this year (and not just because it is cheese related and my teams sole purpose is to find every cheese pun ever). It really raised the competitive level for teams. I would just like to see some actual rules in place for it, before it gets to a point where teams are essentially walking in with their own alliance partner, and randomly picking a team to drive it. I would be incredibly disappointed if FIRST got rid of it though, since it does have a positive impact.

(This is my personal opinion)

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

To clarify what 1114 did with 900, 900 built a kitbot chassis on Friday in order to have a light enough robot to be cheescaked, this obviously made them a viable pick despite their low ranking in the subdivision. This had more to do with 900 making a decision that paid off for them than 1114 and 148 asking them to do something they may not have planned on.

Also, the majority of the cheescaking that I saw happening this year was not very elaborate, most of them being ramp bots or adding a simple mechanism for canburgling. It was not until champs where I saw more elaborate cheesecake recipes, such as 1114's harpoons.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Which further emphasizes the point made by grstex regarding teams looking at their ranking and "cutting bait" as he puts it.

But as others have pointed out, a lot of the problems here stem from the nature of Recycle Rush. It's a game where 2 top-tier robots can score almost all of the totes by themselves and don't need a third robot, and where it is incredibly easy to bolt on incredibly important and impressive add ons to an otherwise average robot and take that robot from average to "the best" at something (either a canburglar or ramps for the feeder station, your choice).

In 2014 you couldn't bolt on a manipulator to handle the ball. In 2013 you couldn't bolt on a shooter. You could bolt on a 10-point hang device, but that wasn't as important as the canburglars this year. And the same can be said for 2012 with regards to shooters (not possible) vs. a "stinger" (possible, but not critical). The last time we've had something where it was relatively easy to bolt on an extra device was 2011 with minibots, another year that had diminishing returns in scoring and the top-tier teams could do all of the "worthwhile" scoring. And that was/is one of the biggest complaints for that year. Matches were decided before they started based on the minibots.

I am hoping that FIRST realizes this when designing games in the future and stays away from these problems.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

It did also allow teams to add things they did not have weight, which is pretty much what happened with all the ramps.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I think that cheesecaking to the excessive extent which was common throughout this year can be solved mostly through smart game design. Here are just a few factors off the top of my head which made recycle rush uniquely suited for cheesecaking:

• An incredibly cluttered field, which made it hard to effectively utilize three scoring robots without getting in each other's way
• No defense, which necessitated that a third partner contribute to the alliance through means other than their drivetrain, generally a crucial, and very integral, element of third partners.
• Three distinct, moderate/high difficulty autonomous tasks (20pt stack, cans 1/2, cans 3/4), all with extremely high reward, which were very hard or impossible for a single team to do more than one.
• The ease through which canburgling could be done through an "auxillary" mechanism, rather than something more integral to the design
• The transport configuration rules, and the extreme flexability they gave teams in these types of "auxillary" mechanisms. (see tethered ramps)
• The extreme strategic importance of a task which didn't immediately draw attention to itself, and was not initially focused on by a majority of teams.
• The fact that this importance varied to an extreme degree with the level of play, to the point where designing entirely around can grabbing was likely not a smart choice for a low resource team
• The "arms race" nature of the task, with continual dramatic redesigns being a requirement to remain competitive.
• The fact that canburgling was autonomous and very fast, giving the cheesecaking team complete control over a number of variables they likely would not have otherwise.

All of these can easily be designed out of future games. Not necessarily saying that they're all bad things (in fact, I quite like some of them), but all together, they created the perfect storm of cheesecake this season.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

You're all correct that the prevalence of cheesecake is not due to teams' being un-GP, but rather to the idiotically designed game they were forced to play. They did the best engineering they could with the restrictions they were given.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

The rules setup and scoring dynamics definitely need to be reevaluated for the future in terms of how all partners of various types can contribute to an alliance effectively and fairly at all levels. I'm going to try not to say more than that because my opinions are too biased to be relevant. I just want to clear 1114 and 148's names in all this.
We approached 1114 on Friday morning and asked if we could cheescake for them, not the other way around. Our main mechanism was suffering persistent unresolvable issues, and we knew based on our schedule that we'd be bottom ten and useless for elims. We also knew the biggest weakness of the 1114 148 alliance was canburgling, and that would be their priority for a 3rd robot, which, unfortunately, they wouldn't be able to snag the best of by their 2nd and 3rd picks. They needed cheesecake; we needed to change. So we decided on Thursday evening that we would offer up our drivetrain. When 1114 was hesitant because they could only work with something super light and tiny, we jumped on it. We were not at all pressured by them to do so; they thought we were nuts for wanting to do it. We were up Friday night cadding the new drivetrain, and raced all of Saturday to assemble it.

Our team took immense pride in the fact that we got so far out of proper analysis and sheer persistence. This was our decision; We were trying to play the hand we were dealt, and I apologize for how it came across. 1114 and 148 were nothing but professional, gracious, and AWESOME to work with (1114 has long been my favorite team in FRC).

Sorry for any typos or hasty wording; I'm on mobile and rushing to get this out because no blame should lie on the alliance captains for the "new" robot, because that was our team's initiative and decision.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I know a few teams that are "cheesecakers" and always go around and ask teams on their pick list if they would be willing to let them modify their robot for elims before alliance selections. And I would argue that it does require solving skills and strategy because you're literally working on the clock to make the third robot as useful as possible to the alliance. I would rather have a cheesecaked bot on the field that has a purpose than having one on the field that's just forced to sit in the corner and stay out of the way of their alliance partners.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

In 2014, 3634 was picked by 2067 and 175 at our second district event. That was the first time our team had ever been picked in the history of the team. We spent lunch working with students and mentors of both other teams to revamp our drive system (among other minor adjustments) and wound up making it to the semifinals after playing a role we'd never thought of before due to the suggestion of the alliance captain.

The students came away from that so inspired that we immediately went back to the shop and (in the out of bag time) remade all of the changes we had done at the event and even added a few more. We went to our third district soon after and became alliance captain using the new strategies that the previous alliance had given us.

Going from almost last in our first event to alliance captain in our third, I feel like this is a perfect example of how cheesecake can be inspiration to the recipient.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Just out of curiosity how much did those 4 harpoon launchers actually weigh? I'm really looking forward to a post by 1114 describing the engineering and strategic designs behind these.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Being Cheescaked was definitely a great experience.

I have no issue with it... obviously the ability to grab two RC's off wall in auto trumps most everything in Eliminations.

It can backfire though, our cheesecake arms were not fully working and remained fully extended in multiple matches and slow . In the ones they worked they were great. We lost by 2 QA in the SF. Very Frustrating. So many 6 point plays.. ugh!

In SD...then we fixed them (re-did all air lines) and used them in Elims..they were super fast and flawless.. still lost in QF.

Why I like it...

We would have been picked anyhow being in Top 20 of each regional, so being cheesecake for us ,was a great experience. It added to us a capability we could use. Watching the teams work during lunch was amazing and the transformation of the bot to loose weight in every way possible was very interesting.

It was not liked by everyone on our team actually half the team did not want the canburglar arms. I had to convince the team it was our best chance.

It builds teamwork between teams and when it works and makes a difference its cool.

We were almost cheesecaked last year too...they tried to add cheesy vision and we learned how to inbound the ball. They never could get the code to work in time.

Having cheesecake work is a great experience. I all for it. In fact next year we are going to be under weight so if cheesecaked we don't have to modify the rest.

Anything that is within the rules that adds to teamwork and innovation is good in my book.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I'm sorry, but you're wrong here. 1923 kids were involved in every single step of that burglar install. We were ecstatic to learn about the mechanisms 148 had to cheesecake us with, and their guidance was essential in making it successful. In fact, working alongside and learning from the greats like 148 and 1114 has motivated my kids more than anything in our 10-year history. They want to be on that level and now they got to see up-close how it's done.

We did not play in the earlier matches because we still needed to get it through inspection. The queue to inspect for elims was a little ridiculous (having to snake through the alliance pit was hard, too) and so it would not have been legal for us to play.

You might have been confused because 148 and 1923 both wear black. Our robot was constantly surrounded by 1923, with 148 over our shoulders helping make things happen. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Editing for another response (sorry, on mobile):
Emphasis mine. "Let"? The coaches and strategists for all three teams had lengthy discussion about HP loading for us. We normally use a tether ramp, but didn't want to make the mistake of tethering our ramp to 148's Robin if it would create a problem for their auton routine. My drive team was far less comfortable loading without a ramp. We tried it in some of our matches - it didn't work. We wasted totes 148 could have used for Robin.

In the end, we made a decision, as an alliance, not to HP load. Our job was: Burgle, get the cans in a good place, move the auton stack to the wall, and get out of the way. We all agreed that it would be the best role for us, and we executed as best we could.

We had a fantastic time getting to work with and learn from our partners - they're class act teams with amazing programs, and hopefully we'll be able to to capture a fraction of their magic to use from here on out.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Jared pretty much nailed it here.

I don't think anyone is blaming the teams in question, or saying the experience cannot be inspirational for the teams involved. The teams evaluated the situation they were put in, and each reacted in a fashion that best suited their chances.

We obviously do not want to take away the experience of working closely with your alliance partners and great teams on how to improve your robot. That is a core part of inspiration and growth for many teams. However, when the point is passed where the core functionality of a robot changes due to "cheesecake," we create a disincentive for teams to try and accomplish everything they can during build season. I find no fault with 900's decision to build a new drive base for cheesecaking, a decision that certainly took a lot of guts and that most teams probably would have shied away from. However, I'm upset that we were playing a game where a drivebase with weight and space to attach mechanisms became a more attractive pick than 50 other teams in their subdivision. I find fault with a game where the best thing for a third alliance member to do is use a device from another team and then get out of the way.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

So, in light of how much attention my post on cheesecake got, there are a few things i would like to clarify.
- I would like to retract the 'ridiculous' I put before talking about 1114's harpoons was not necessary and only came off as aggressive, and was not indended that way. "Impractical" was probably a better word, and if they were able to make them work on their own robot, congratulations.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

To me, it sounds a lot more like copying someone else's answers for an exam. I just couldn't throw away everything we'd worked on for months for the sake of winning.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

It's not for the sake of winning, it's for the sake of the alliance. I always say that when you get to the elimination rounds, it's no longer just about your team - it's about the success of the entire alliance. If you're not putting in your all to achieve your alliance's goals (which should be inspiring your students through accomplishment and success [aka winning]), then you're doing a disservice to the other teams on your alliance.

Each team should ask not what their alliance can do for them, but what they can do for their alliance.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

First of all congratulations on advancing to the Einstein Semifinals. The real question here is did Robin use all the totes from the human player station? If they did then I agree, but if there were some totes leftover that weren't utilized, would there have been any negatives from attempting to score any extra totes that Robin didn't use?

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I totally agree with the idea of regulating cheesecake; adding a gigantic mechanism (from what I heard, upwards of 70lbs) to a robot, regardless of that robot's previous weight, is extreme and should be disallowed. However, regulating the parts used for cheesecake is hard; mechanisms would be easier. If during partial inspection, a sticker with a team number was placed on every functional mechanism (defined by the inspectors, but generally things that have benefit to an alliance. For example, having a sensor or camera on the robot wouldn't count as a mechanism, but having an elevator pulley or ramp would). Then, the inspectors can see for eliminations which objects have a sticker with a different team number or no sticker at all. Inspectors would then be able to regulate the number of cheesecaked mechanisms and/or the weight of them. Additionally, they could also regulate the number of mechanisms that have been removed from the original robot (as they should/would be able to know how many stickers they gave).

Just an idea, and completely my own opinion. I would personally have a hard time taking apart my robot to the same extent as some others, but along with Alex, I do think it added another element to the game. Did it make Recycle Rush better? That's a debate for another day.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

They made the call before they were selected onto an alliance.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I am speaking from limited but enlightening experience about cheese caking when I say that a limit to the weight or size dimensions of the cheese would be a thoughtful idea. This year I have witnessed and read about two similar incidents concerning an alliance's ability to make it to the playoffs in a regional/district/division and actually win the whole shabang. 2383 (The Ningineers) came up with a "Noodle Net" that they put on team 5469 (Flare). The idea was creative and the purpose was to block or prevent "litter" from getting tangled in the drive trains of that alliance as well as to reduce the points scored for the litter. During the Bayou semifinals the alliance consisting of 2383, 179, and 5469 the net's tethering rope became tangled up in 2383's drive train, preventing them from scoring their maximum amount of points. Note: 5469 did not move the entire playoffs! So it became a 2vs3, and the cheese cake was effective in some ways but led to that alliance's demise.
I will only be able to restate the pros and cons of the
4 harpoon cheese cake idea. But it did hurt 148's alliance, regardless of the can burglaring properties it had, I feel like 1114 and 148 should have used their own automonous can burglars to retrieve the same amount of cans. I feel like if that had been accomplished than the third member of the alliance would have been able to contribute more toward the teams progression in the finals on Einstein, and potentially have won. So for all the ingenuis cheese cakers out their beware of the potential hurt it could bring your team or alliance.......

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

You should read about 900 and the robot build they did to work with 1114, 148 and 1923.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&highlight=900

Also another side note, 148 cannot be a fast canburgular. They are forced to stay in the staging zone because of Robin.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

That's a really good question. I believe (yesterday was a blur to be honest) in almost every match robin came within 1-1.5 stacks of using all the HP station bins. However another big reason that we did not try to human load is that Batman deposits it's stacks on the near scoring platform, behind which we parked. by the time we knew whether or not we could use some totes that robin wouldn't we we were fairly blocked in. The addition of Catwoman (148's can burglar) made us a bit wider about 32ish inches which made it very hard to maneuver behind those stacks and put a high risk of knocking over a stack. Therefore the strategic choice was made to not have us attempt stacks after a few attempts, especially since without our ramp, we can't guarantee the totes to land flat on the ground.

On a sidenote if anyone is interested I will write up a full account of the modification process that we underwent after alliance selections similarly to what Marshall wrote about team 900.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I would love one. I only got over to your pit for about 30 seconds because of what we were doing and for you guys it had to have been done insanely quick. I would love to know the details.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Although 148 is limited by their robin, the possibility for them to add modifications to their strategy is numerous.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

We kind of like our strategy the way it is.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I believe the intention of the harpoon mechanism was to keep the alliance in the finals from taking the cans and not use them on either side, the speed on those harpoons would have been insane and no one would have been able to take the cans, so even if they cant use them, neither can the other alliance and it becomes a stack off. Also 1114's canburgling mechanism was inconsistent at the speeds necessary to win the can wars on Einstein and this mechanism would have removed that inconsistency and atleast kept the other side from getting any of the cans.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I know 1114 and 148 And both are exemples of GP i can easy prove this citing 148 position after have they robot disable in the regional final this year or 1114 for the same great example after the eistein mess in 2012, legal cheasecake is not the problem because is legal, and if it is in the rules the teams need to use it for achieve their objectives, 4613 also build a canbuglar if was necessary, and i also saw 1114 and 148 building those cheasecakes during the entire competition and it is a achieve to be proud of.

but about the rule that aloud it and this years game that turn it necessary at this level... i disagre

About the experience in being cheasecaked, is problaly the same as being chose by a power house alliance. I hoped was me being cheasecaked by these guys :)



also i want to congratulate 1114 148 1923 and 900 for being curie champions!

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I would like to correct you on some points you made about our playoff strategy since it may have been misunderstood. 5469 was cheescaked to be a can grabber in playoffs and was extremely successful at doing so towards the end of our playoff run. We brought out the noodle blocker in Semis and only used it in Semis 2 & 3 after seeing the ineffectiveness of it, we removed it for semis 5.

We would never pick a team to be an immobile dud on the field. Telling a team to not move is not only extremely rude and kinda "bully-ish", but also not intelligent for strategy. We picked 5469 since they were light weight which is what we needed for the noodle blocker, and also showed some experience in the landfill. Lastly, we never got caught in the tether of the noodle blocker as we never ventured on that side of the field, we got caught in the tether of our ramp in semis 3 and then after replacing the rope with an identical rope, we got caught again in semis 5. Since then we have learned a lot and created a much more resilient tether and only had to replace it once at champs after a minor entanglement that we had quickly escaped.

Sorry if my message sounds harsh, I just don't want misunderstandings

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

When I was in high school, my team's strategy was to pick 1 element of the game and do it better than anyone else, and in that way we could be an attractive pick for the #1 alliance that could do everything else well but needed our complimentary capability.

Some years it worked better than others - especially when we picked the correct element of the game. Other years we struck out because we bit off more than we could chew, or because we picked the wrong strategy. Regardless, we always had unique robots that played the game.

If the current metagame continues, the best way to follow that strategy would be to let the #1 alliance "fill in the blank" with what they need, which means having a blank canvas for them to work.

In my humble opinion, a drive train should not be an attractive option as a 2nd or 3rd pick for elimination.
I don't blame the elite teams for this... it's a logical conclusion to competition. I don't think there are any rule fixes for this either; I think the solution is that the GDC needs to design games that critical elements cannot be achieved solely with a bolt-on solution, and in that way simple drive trains cannot be cheesecaked into championships.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

As you can probably tell, we had a lot of cheesecake debate in 4613 during the championships!

I see both sides of the debate. If it is legal and helps teams to win, they have a responsibility to use it, within the bounds of GP.

Also if teams learn from the experience of being cheesecaked, as it seems many did, then that's great too.

But in my view (clearly not that of all my team-mates, which is a fine thing), it becomes an issue when teams are selected as cheesecakeable alliance partners above great teams who have played well through the qualifiers. This takes opportunities to play in finals away from teams who have genuinely done their best to build a robot to play the game, and I don't think is "right". Like I say - this argument is against the rules allowing this process, NOT against those who used it to their advantage this year. 1114/148 did what they needed to to win, and good on them.

It was also impressive to see such things built in 3 days, and we were very interested in how they went if/when they made it to the field. Though I think allowing what appeared to be a weapon (albeit non-lethal) on the FRC field is a dangerous precedent to set.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I personally think FRC should get rid of or severely limit cheese-caking. Our team executed "cheese-caking" to a great benefit this year but I don't like the long term implications. Do we want teams to purposely bring bare drivetrains to competition so that they're more attractive picks? Do we want to essentially punish the teams that actually built something that can't as easily be hacked down to a "blank slate"?

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

That is not the real question. One of the major things to consider in this game is match flow. There is a lot of movement on the field with a lot of points at stake. The initial intent of picking 1923 was their potential (and willingness) to be cheesecaked while retaining their stacking ability. Robin is able to empty the player station but that means pushing Batman's tasks to a pace that mistakes can be more easily made. Four stacks is a much more comfortable pace for us and we got into a rhythm where we consistently did that in the playoffs. We wanted 1923 to grab the cans, release, then head back to the HP to stack the totes we didn't get to. However (like Libby had pointed out) stacking the totes from the HP was not as reliable for them without their ramp. Instead, we came to the agreement that they would spend more time positioning the cans then move the auton totes out of the way. This aided in match flow and unlocked more points for the alliance than a single uncapped 6 stack would earn us.

This will be a little off topic but speaking of match flow... 1923 seemed to be a master at it (or at least caught on insanely quick). During the process of removing the cans and moving the auton stack, they would spend a lot of time around the near scoring platform. They did an absolutely fantastic job of tip-toeing around the stacks. I remember a couple times yelling that we were coming with a stack and *poof* they would disappear. This is even more impressive when you consider that they were dealing with a brand new system on their robot.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I don't think any arbitrary limits need to be placed. I can't think of any other year (since 2007) that "cheesecake" would affect the outcome of matches and makeup of alliances to such an extreme.

The closest I can think of is the minibot race in 2011, but even then a 3rd alliance partner could run at least some interference on the opposing alliance (depending on how good their human players were).

In 2015 a lot of alliances just had no need for a 3rd robot in their strategy aside from "[Burgle cans/tether to ramps/scoot the auto totes] and then sit out of the way next to the wall", and this was caused by the non-interactive game design.

For those interested in the harpoon contraption (:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh....php?p=1476748

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Ha, that year was kind of unfortunate for us, cause that was one of the few years we had a really good solid robot so we actually had a solid chance. And then at one point we gave another team a minibot because they were panicking and scoring pretty low because they didn't have one and they ended up using said minibot to just beat us out and proceeded to win and go to worlds. We were happy for them and stuff, but kind of sad it ended up working out like that.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I'm not entirely sure that changing the game is going to change cheese caking on its own. Let's take 2013 for example. How hard would it be for a powerhouse to make a dialed in, fast Frisbee loader and shooter that can mount onto drivetrains compared to the awesome canburgler stuff we've seen. Heck with the current rules, couldn't a team give away an entire robot as cheesecake? Now that teams know it's possible to cheesecake to this degree, I can easily see it being used in future games to be ensure a reliable third bot.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Way to take to an extreme, why not bring an entire alliance of bots with you? And cheesecake your partners EVERY match...

In all actuality though, there is the root of the problem, so long as the other team had something to do with the design on the robot what's to stop a team from cheesecaking most (if not all) of a robot?

I find anything past minor cheesecaking repulsive, its like saying "Hey good job this season team 9999, but hey, umm, how about you change the functionality of your bot, throw all your strategy, engineering, and work-hours out the window, and go win this next match for us."

While it may be cool to get mechanisms from other teams (you can learn a lot) it takes away from the work with what you have aspect of matches that I love so much. A tweak here or there from other teams to improve existing mechanisms or to optimize a strategy with the addition of a pair of wheels on some grabbers, or a better gearbox is fine in my opinion, but, as has been stated before, some of this stuff can get really out of hand at times.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Definitely possible. Teams like 254, 1678, etc. already build multiple robots. If they just build one or two extra robots and bag them, any team could theoretically use them.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

The only problem is the amount of spare parts you can have, I don't know exact rules, maybe bagging extra robots could work as the rules are written.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

To add another perspective, I was a big "cheesecaker" back in 2013 and 2014 before it was even called that. Perhaps the teams I was on didn't do it to the same degree that some teams have this year, but I fondly remember fixing a lot of elex and pneumatic issues on other teams in order to get them working for qual or elim matches. Some of the most fun I've had as a student or a mentor was getting teams ready to run and contribute to the alliance in time for quarter finals or a critical qualification match.

Why did I enjoy it, and why was this a good thing? It taught me that what many people might call impossible can be accomplished, and gave me a huge amount of experience diagnosing system level problems. Ten mins till a match, and your compressor isn't working? No problem. Intake's illegal? We'll get it through inspection. Drive base acting funny? I'll see what I can do. Need an inbound or FCS blocker? Give me a lunch break and it'll get done.

This year people really took helping other teams to another level, and for the most part, I'm fine with it. As much as I like to pooh-pooh the value of inspiration, going deep in elims and working with world class teams really changes your perspective. It'll make you hungrier for future success and learning, which in my mind is why FIRST is the way it is. I guess I don't want what happened with 900 to happen to all third picks, but I think the logistic challenge of maneuvers like that will prevent it from happening often.

In any case, I can't see any attempt to regulate cheesecaking going very well.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I love CheeseCake - I think I like the citrus flavor best.

Cheesecaking has been part of FIRST for at least 12 years, but In every FRC competition I have been involved in it always seems that offense is what counts in the qualifiers, and defense is what ultimately decides eliminations. Now while in general a good offense is the best defense, this isn't always the case. This year was unusual, in that the only viable defense was grabbing the cans in auto. (Despite the catchy video, it wasn't "It's all about the totes.." and there was defense.) There was a secondary defense that almost never worked, and that was throwing pool noodles. In the case of the Poofs, that was the ultimate reason they didn't make to Einstein. The most sophisticated teams realized that in eliminations burgling was the key to success, and were prepared to make a super defense robot if they couldn't find one.

Our team only made it to Champs, because the Poofs and Circuits cheesecaked us at SVR. We came to champs as a pure can burglar and nothing else. We ultimately made to the Newton quarter finals as the fourth pick of the 6 seed, and were delighted to have got that far. The Robonauts and Citrus Circuits(the Circuits even brought us a spare set of arms) and both coached and helped tune our can grabbers during qualifiers. They wisely picked the BirdBrains (one of the best human side stackers) and Griffengears (because 118 could modify them as a pure pneumatic 4 can tethered grabber) I don't know if they ever got it working, but I would have loved to see it in action.

I don't think cheesecaking should be banned. I think a game design where defense and offense are more balanced would be better, but you have to have the bar set high enough to challenge the experienced teams, but low enough so the rookies with a KOP base can do something to aid their alliance. The game design committee has a darn hard job, and I think they get it right 99% of the time.

In the old days, I know of at least two occasions where a rookie team showed up at an event with an unassembled KOP and had a working robot by the end of qualifiers. Even at Davis this year one team showed up 40 lbs overweight, and I am proud to say the Apes of Wrath won the GP award for helping them to pass inspection. Instead of banning cheesecaking, we should encourage it.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I work in an industry where people will literally do anything to get ahead, when it goes too far rules get put into place (IE - Wolf of Wall Street when they are selling Pump and Dump Schemes, perfectly in the grey area of the law). Lets embrace STEM education the right way and push the right values through better rule guidance.

I didn't like the type of cheesecake at Worlds this year. 2011 style cheesecake, where robots shared Minibots? Awesome. I can't get enough of that. It didn't reconfigure the robot in the eyes of the community, it was just a neighbor helping a neighbor.

Throwing the robot that students built with mentors and teachers in their community and proudly showed off to sponsors and schools in the name of a last ditch effort to get picked? This is questionable ethics. Would I do it if I was in the situation? Sure, its a survival tactic, and as a mentor my students would be down in the dumps and it would be terrible to say no, that is just not in the spirit of mentoring. Should it be against the rules? Yes. Keep the Build Season Sacred.


Now this is starting to sound like the Financial World and Regulation. Do financial institutions like making lots of money? Yes. Should we be allowed to do it certain ways? No.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I don't think anything in the rules would have prevented bagging a whole alliance this year. Anybody know a rule that would break?

If you had time to get reinspected, you could even switch back and forth between two different robots in quals this year. Have three landfill bots in a qual? Just walk your chute bot through the inspection line.

Teams with resources to make two machines already have a huge advantage. Imagine the disparity between teams if the standard to be competitive on Einstein is making 3 robots and backups.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Perhaps I should have read this thread first, but I didn't. I read 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles before this one.

I am full square against Cheesecaking. Read my arguments in that other thread here.


Dr. Joe J.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

In an education environment goals and objectives are set for you: they're called standards (Common Core, State Standards, etc.). Teachers are required by law to teach these standards in public school. So, yes, someone copying an exam (designed to assess the ability of students to master those standards) is wrong, both ethically and educationally.

But, FIRST doesn't provide standards for us. FIRST doesn't set goals or objectives for us. We set those individually on each team. So assessing if our strategy is "wrong" is something that should be done individually and not declared by others outside our team organization.

There's nothing wrong with you declaring that you wouldn't "throw away everything...for the sake of winning" if it fits with the goals and objectives of your team.

BUT every team has different philosophies and goals. Every team has different strategies in order to fulfill those goals. And every team should be free to strategize to fulfill those goals, as long as it fits within the rules provided.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

This is exactly right. The extent of the cheesecaking this year was 100% a result of a poorly designed game. When two robots can cap 7 6-stacks by themselves the third robot is not useful. Additionally, I doubt there were many (or any) teams that were designed purely to burgle cans in less than 1 second, which is really all that some of these alliances needed. The other cheesecaking which took hold (ramps) were mostly used as a correction to a poorly designed field.

Basically, I believe the level cheescake we saw this year was much more of a result of a poorly designed game than some more insidious intent to 'win at any cost'. The reason we haven't seen this level in the past is that in most games it would hurt you to play a majority of the match with only 2/3 robots, where in this game it could easily be argued to be a benefit.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

This was definitely something my team was joking about during the season. And with the rules of being able to use two bags to bag your robot it could very well have been done with no rules being broken.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

First off, I tend to agree with DR. Joe on this one, but don't expect everyone to agree with me.

However, I think something needs to be changed with respect to "Cheesecaking" (thanks Corsetto for such a horrible word for this activity:)), "fix-it crews", etc.

For those of you not paying attention, this has been going on for years. It has manifested itself from fixing broken partners, helping a team pass inspection, and modifying teams to be more compatible for eliminations.

In many cases cheesecaking was stripping off an arm and putting additional weights (anvils, steel plate, bags of bolts, etc.) on a third partner in order to play defense.

This year, increasing a teams functionality with can grabbers was the most popular method of cheescaking. This is directly related to the game design.

Game design can definitely influence the type of modifications teams will make at an event.

To be clear, I am not an advocate of making rules to specifically disallow adding functionality to teams at events, but I am personally against selecting less functionally capable teams because they are better cooking pans for my cheesecake.

This is is a tough subject to address, unless the game just doesn't encourage it. This year's game definitely encouraged it.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I think I agree. I think it has to be addressed through game design. The game this year massively encouraged it. I think the games have to be designed such that they discourage it. To be clear, I don't think that is an easy thing to do but I think it has to be thought about.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Or in some cases, fixing your opponents after they eliminate you.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?p=620506

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I would like to say I totally agree with this. Last year we we were the third pick of the poofs. My team so excited that a team like that would pick us out of the 60 teams that remained. Though we did not get cheesecaked we did what was best for the alliance. We only played one match because Allsparks had issues. It made sense for us to sit out because the kiss pass between 469 and 2848 was much smoother and 2848 was a taller robot, so defense was easier. We were just happy to help when needed. So we took a lot for this experience and would do it again in a heart beat.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I'm going to digress a bit. Forgive me.

Mentors like Paul carry the knowledge and the history of this ever-evolving program. Important and relevant knowledge and history. This would make a wonderful conference topic at the Championship Event, presented by a distinguished and knowledgeable panel.

Jane

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

This has been an interesting read.

First, I will point out that minibots were specifically encouraged to be shared and teams earned Coopertition Points for sharing their minibots. So, I don't consider those as having been "cheesecake" ... more like "ice cream" for my "apple pie".

I believe that it is appropriate for an alliance captain to assemble the strongest alliance possible ... this is after all a competition. And I agree with Carolyn_Grace that each team may choose what measures they may take to fulfill their own objectives and goals.

As long as everything is done within the rules, I have no complaints. I agree with Paul Copioli that rules should not be implemented to discourage or inhibit teams from helping other teams increase their functionality.

I do think that "cheesecake" should be a gift which remains with the receiver, but that, too is between the teams involved.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I feel like this is a really enlightened stance on the subject.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Let me state that what was accomplished to 1923's and 900's robot in that amount of time was nothing short of amazing. Please don't think this was simply bolting a new mechanism on a robot, I was able to witness three teams come together to achieve something I would have thought impossible had I not witnessed it. The work required to design something that would function and (mostly) fit, then to get it mechanically integrated, then to get the controls in place in time for the matches on Curie is just nuts. They pulled it off.

That being said, I am curious on how robots are inspected mid-competition against rule compliance for cost of materials used if a part from another team is on their robot.

In the past, if I design a part for my team’s robot, my time is not charged to the cost of that part since my company is a partner of this team. If I needed a complicated part made by wire EDM and had to go to an outside machine shop, the cost of that part (which includes its labor) would have to be captured on our BOM. Even if that vendor machine shop did us a favor and did the work for free, we would have to capture the fair-market value of the part if they aren’t a team partner.

If one robotics team designs a part and has the on-site machine shop build it, wouldn’t the receiving team for that part be required to account for the engineering design time on the cost of that part in their BOM? How is donated time at events captured? How about design time that was “spent” prior to the event but for parts given to other teams at the event?

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I too would agree with some of the opposing arguments against Cheesecaking but that is a discussion for another day.

Regardless of those opinions it was hard not to walk through the Curie pits by where 148, 900, 1114, and 1923 were setup and not be blown away by the dedication and drive these teams had. As it has been mentioned before the 148 & 1114 pits were a non-stop Nascar pit crew doing everything they could to prepare for Saturday. I'm sure their work in the pits in St. Louis barely touches the surface of what they have been doing in the weeks leading up to St. Louis and reflects on how much their entire team gets it with mentors and students working side by side with each other and collaboratively among teams.

While this specific Curie alliance has been talked about a lot with their Cheesecake this weekend there were countless teams doing the same on Saturday morning and again it was an amazing sight to behold with teams working together to do what they could to have the highest average.

Its all in how the game was created that those four green buckets created a huge demand among alliances looking to make it far in the tournament and many alliances including the 148, 900, 1114, and 1923 alliance did so to the best of their ability while following the rules.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I am struggling to see how game design determines anything but the type of modification. Based on the incredible feat performed by team 900 and co, how long would it take them to build a great d-bot for any of the previous games? Why can't teams give out custom kitbot-ready gearboxes?

With increased availability and ability of COTS parts, it's become a harder problem to outlaw.

I always thought the rules were bound to have loopholes, but it was up to the teams themselves not to try and exploit them.

Unless FIRST tries to explicitly ban it again, there's a culture change, or the role of the third robot becomes trivial, I think "cheesecaking" could be here to stay.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

The cost to benefit ratio of any "cheesecake" for a game task that isn't "Do this or lose by default" (read: can race) is probably not good enough.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

This game might have been a perfect storm of conditions; cheesecaking doesn't have to be specifically outlawed to achieve the desired interaction (or lack there of).

If the game pieces, floor space and opportunity to score isn't as limited, a 3rd bot can contribute more than just a platter to hold cheesecake (decrease reward).

If the interaction between robot and game piece is non-trivial and requires more fabrication than a bolt on mechanism, cheesecaking becomes much more difficult (increase risk).

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Cheesecaking occurs when there is a gap between the necessary contribution of a third robot and the actual ability of the pool of possible third robots. The difference in this year's game is that each alliance needed a significant contribution from the third robot beyond having a basic drivetrain. I don't know if anyone sees that as "bad game design".

It's interesting to me that the World Champions in general never needed to rely on a cheesecaked robot (I believe that's true). They just had an incredible steal of a third robot (1671).

How I interpret comments such as "it's the games fault" is that the game is at fault for making a game where you need three good robots to succeed, and that making a "good" robot is an actual engineering challenge. Or that one such robot could be engineered within the witholding allowance.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

That "significant contribution", at least for some number of elimination alliances was:

• Absolutely required to not just lose in a match where all center cans would be taken by an opponent otherwise
• A small enough portion of the match that a vast majority of teams had better things to be working on to attempt to seed highly and contribute points in qualification rounds
• difficult enough to do on a competitive level that very few capable robots would be left for deep 3rd/4th picks
• Easily capable of being small enough, light enough, and autonomously operated (by necessity) to bolt onto an alliance partner's robot

Only the 4th point there is not a fault of the game design of Recycle Rush, in my opinion.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

It's the game's fault that it was even a viable strategy to play with two robots. Its also the game's fault that they needed a third robot with a very specific attribute (sub-0.5s can grabber) which could be relatively easily attached to another robot (as we saw).

You make a good point about the world champs... so its definitely not an instant win button that all teams are going to use from now on. I really think this game encouraged this type of strategy by its nature. The parts we've seen added in the past have been largely passive and defense oriented. I never saw many complaints in that area.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Some questions about "cheesecake":

Team A has a MECHANISM brought in with the intent of giving it to their alliance partner. What happens when another team asks if they can have it?

Team A begins to work with and "cheesecake" Team B early on (as was apparently the case with the teams being most frequently discussed here). What happens when Team B is selected by another team before Team A gets the chance to? Does the "cheesecake" remain with Team B?

What happens when there are multiple teams presenting themselves as "cheesecake pans"?

What happens when a weak team is allied with Team A early on and they ask "can you cheesecake us for this round?" Is it appropriate for Team A to say "we won't give you this MECHANISM, we're reserving this for our 3rd pick"?

When might this sort of thing start? Could Team A begin working with Team B during the build season and have Team B bring an "inferior" robot to compete (with the intention of being "hidden in the rankings") and then reveal the "cheesecaked" version after alliance selection?

Just some questions...

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Count me with Dr. Joe as being opposed to this level of cheesecaking. It's troubling to me that this sort of thing could encourage teams to build and/or strip down robots specifically to act as platforms for another team's mechanism. Somehow I don't think "Design and build for 6 weeks, then scrap it all to spend 24 hours integrating someone else's design" is quite what's intended for this program.

As has been pointed out here already, what outside of practicality is preventing a team from bagging an entire robot and then cheesecaking it onto another team's RoboRIO during Division elims? I don't think you can game design around that level of cheesecake. Yes, the receiving team's drivers wouldn't be as experienced, but you could mitigate that by picking the quickest learners and giving them practice time on your official bot before the alliance pairings. If Team [Famous Number] was bruiting about they had a practice robot to cheesecake onto a 2nd/3rd pick, I'm pretty sure after this season you'd have at least a handful of teams interested in the offer. Now that we know stripping down to a ultralight kitbot drivetrain is acceptable cheesecaking, I'm not sure what's preventing this last step.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

2512 did much better in quals at Duluth and Peoria, enough that they were top seeds and ended up finalists in both events.

One of the things they did was an adjustment to the robot to make it a more reliable six stacker which was capable of doing 2 six stacks with noodled totes. Prior to champs they were mostly making capped 5 stacks.

That seemed to have affected their auton reliability. They scored an average of 17.8 in quals in Duluth and 19.3 in Peoria. On Hopper, they averaged only 9.2.

Their coopertition was also significantly down compared to the regionals.

I think Wave (2826) knew that 2512 was better than the stats showed and saw it fit into a team strategy. Removing 2512's 45% effective 20 point auton and adding 987s can burglers left them with an extra can or two and an extra 2 six stacks.

Watch the matches and you can see them always play that very consistent role, after the can wars they pick up a green container and trundle to the drivers station 3 corner, build a six stack with a noodled container (42 points) and a second 6 stack (12 points) with the remaining totes (unless Wave needed more to finish their 3 6 stacks). That had them contributing a reliable 54 points to each match in finals and doing an excellent job of staying out of 987's way.

Meanwhile 2826 did their 28 point auton plus 3 42 point stacks for 164 points and 987 would make 2 to 3 six stacks from the landfill with typically unnoodled containers as containers were available for 70 to 100 points per match.

If everything had gone perfectly in auton and teleop, they could have had 7 capped 6 stacks, 4 (maybe 5) with noodles which would have taken them to 312 or 320.

They worked very effectively as a 3 robot team and that's why they are the only ones who managed 290.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

We had prepared 5012 in similar fashion as we had 5529, 5458 and 5027 in our three regionals (with 118's mechanism this time), but 1671 turned out to be so valuable beyond what we imagined that 5012 never made it on the field. That might have been different if the 148/1114/900 coalition had made finals.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I don't think cheesecake will be a long-term trend in most games. The last 3 years we've played on Einstein with 862, 1640 and now 1671 as the third member of our alliances. Other than putting a noodle blocker on the back of 862 I don't think we'd imagine cheesecaking any of these outstanding robots (that could have been first picks on some alliances.)

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Cheesecaking this year felt a lot like the modifications made to autonomous routines in 2014, such as reading hand gestures from a computer camera. It was not explicitly illegal, and allowed teams to take advantage of a lack of specificity in the rules to improve robot function. This year FIRST recognized the ingenuity behind those modifications, but banned them so that autonomous routines that had no human interaction would be implemented. If they really feel that cheesecaking is taking away from the spirit of the competition it will be addressed in the rules next year. Until then it seems wrong to call out teams that take full advantage of the rules and resources at their disposal to do everything in their power to win.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I think the majority opinion is not to criticize any particular person/team/etc for either cheese-caking, being cheese-caked, etc... but a concern about the next "arms race" where a team with sufficient resources could potentially bring their own alliance to a tournament by building complimentary mechanisms/robots and handing them to 1st/2nd picks.

If the rules allow it, teams would (and should) pursue it. Now in 12-14 weeks, you are working even harder... not just to make your own robot, but to design cheesecakes around stripped down robots.

A rule (or game design) that lessened the strategic benefit of cheese-caking, while leaving the option to help other teams out would likely be well received. One idea I floated on the post a while back regarding the Q/A banning all help, was to potentially allow unlimited cheese-caking through X time (Friday quals at a regional?), and only limited (2-5lbs?) changes after alliance selection. If a well meaning team wants to help another team overhaul their robot, they could and should... but it shouldn't provide an overwhelming strategic advantage to the giver. It should be able to be scouted, or perhaps posted at the inspection station... so the gift has made the team inherently more valuable to other alliances. To me, there is a distinct difference between cheesecaking a team to help them, and cheesecaking a team to help myself.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Also an enlightened viewpoint and I think maybe a reasonable suggestion. The timeframe is a good way to handle it.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

At Seneca (Mar Week 4 Event) there was a team 5640 (Pegasus) who needed help to improve their robot. We and 87 scraped up parts to make them a ramp. On Sunday they were not there just before their first match. So we were planning to go on the field with their robot and no one on there team. But they came on time just 2 mins before their match. If we were allowed to go on the field with someone elses robot then cheesecaking has to be allowed.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

How about:

The Withholding Allowance (or perhaps anything brought into the competition venue) is limited to Spare or Upgrade MECHANISMS/COMPONENTS for the team's (not alliance's) robot. MECHANISMS/COMPONTENTS brought for the specific intent of being applied to other team's robots are prohibited. Teams are encouraged to bring COTS items to help/upgrade ALL teams at the event. Modifications to any team's robot belong to that team.

Is that a reasonable place to start from?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

No. It goes back to the rule that lead to the thread where the cheesecake term came from, which was then reversed because FIRST was made aware of how it disallowed so many things that are good for FIRST.

At this point I've read this and the 900 champs thread, and all I've seen is this:

Team Cheesecake: "as a recipient of cheesecake I can tell you this was extremely inspirational for our team. Our kids loved being a part of this alliance"

Team lactose/gluten/fat free cake: "This made me feel icky regardless of the fact the team it happened to didn't feel icky. This wasn't the intent of FIRST. Also the other teams that could do things and didn't get drafted felt icky. This should be outlawed!"

Unless someone has a better argument than how seeing this makes you "feel", I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming that only good came of this.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

First off, the positives your listing are also teams talking about how they feel.

Secondly, the unfortunate reality is that when the source of inspiration comes from working closely with an elite team and/or deep runs in the eliminations, unfortunately that's a zero sum equation. For each team that was picked to cheesecake, a team was left off an elimination alliance. In many cases that team was a very capable team that had a competitive season, but was left off in favor of a bot that presented a better blank slate to add parts to. In other words, they were left off for a less capable team. It's pretty easy to see how being passed over for a less capable team could be disappointing. Disappointment can very well lead to a lack of inspiration.

Does the the benefit of the cheesecaking team outweigh the disappointment of the teams passed over in alliance selection? It's certainly not an easy call to make, but it's not one that should be written off as some trivial matter that can be summed up by air quotes and sarcastic titles.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I think the reasoning behind cheesecake is extremely simple.

If you want to win, you need those cans off the step, or you are virtually guaranteed a loss.

If you want those cans off the step, you need to be faster to them than your opponent.

If the available teams to your alliance during your draft are not capable of grabbing the cans faster than the opposing alliance, you will not win (assuming they have the necessary stacking power).

You now have two choices:

1. Go with a slower or no can grabber, resulting in a lack of crucial game pieces, in turn, a loss.

2. "Cheesecake" a team with a faster mechanism, ensuring your competitiveness.

This is a direct result of the game design, so I'm not sure what people were really expecting. If you wanted to win, and there were no teams with quick canburglars available or left in the draft, you either cheesecaked or lost. It's a chokehold that several teams saw from Kickoff, and we are now seeing the results.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Actually, I think people's interpretations of the Q&A went far beyond the intention. They might add a revised version of the rule with a blue box to state that an assembled gearbox or a wheel with holes in it from riveted tread is perfectly acceptable. The wording was off, but the intent was there.
Right now, it is legal to in effect bag a second robot and throw it on the field. Given how long manufacturing takes (particularly machining identical parts or sheet metal punching), this is not a tall order at all.
If a team gets cheesecaked, then obviously they were okay with it. They allowed their robot to be cheesecaked, and so they accepted it.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I thought the original issue that inspired "cheesecake*" was zero items could be shared between teams?

How about that rule about what constitutes a robot - R1, I believe... can that be modified to limit full-blown redesigns? Or perhaps a weight limit on shared parts?

I had a small rebuttal written up regarding the zero-sum game, but Sean beat me to it more elegantly.. Remember that FRC is 3,000 teams, and the opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the masses.

*Can we get a cheesecake smilie to go with the dead horse?

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I think Mr. Van's post is a reasonable start, but I think that it could be extended to allow more than just COTS parts.

While it might not have been directly specifically at me, the usage of the phrase "icky" and arguing that posts (like mine) are based on "feelings" (implying, not logical), are basically ad hominem comments.

We're all reading the same posts, and clearly there are stories of teams that have benefited, and I'm honestly happy for all involved. I don't think that in the short time between the Q/A clarification and champs, this could have evolved in a problematic way.

In fact, I'm not even arguing against your claim that "only good CAME of this". My argument is that I would not extend that to say that "only good could EVER COME of this". I do not want to see a bar set that the most competitive team is the one that can show up with 3 complementary robots, and bypass the alliance selection process by providing them to their selections. More clearly, up until now I worked under the assumption that you can make anything you want in the build season (twinkie robots, strategically building complimentary robots with a friend, etc), but this is tempered by the fact that once you got to a regional... there is no guarantee they will be on your alliance. Having a single team show up with all three robots and the ability to give them to anyone... after the alliance selection process, seems hard to explain to a spectator.

I don't seriously anticipate it occurring, but I also wouldn't want to encourage low resource teams to design around the ability to be cheese-caked. I'd rather continue to see them encouraged to come up with basic but effective mechanisms such as those shown in BuildBlitz / Ri3D that allow them to be effective 2nd picks and contribute to their alliance's success.

A bit redundant, but once again, this is all forward looking, not looking back. I am not suggesting ill-intent on any of the now-notable examples, but instead voicing concern of what it might mean for the meta-game in 2016.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

People keep bringing this up. After seeing it a few times, I feel like it needs an answer. What stops teams from doing this? The rules. The March 17th Team Update inserted the following into R17: "With permission from another Team, Teams may also have access to FABRICATED ITEMS that are part of that other Team’s WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT." The end of the rule reads "Items made at an Event do not count towards this weight limit."

This means that if a team would like to cheesecake, they have two options: sacrifice their own withholding allowance (which has a weight limit) or sacrifice their own time at the event. It keeps teams from sharing huge mechanisms, while still allowing teams to help each other out within reasonable extents. This is a great rule. Kudos GDC.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Bagged mechanisms don't count towards the withholding allowance. Thus bagging two robots would still be within the rules. Even if a team bagged two robots they would still be able to bring fabricated items which would count against their withholding allowance.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

You're ignoring the fact that this ruling was made after the end of build. Cheesecake was effectively limited to exactly those items. The question is what the ruling is going to be next year when a team bags cheesecake with their robot and then wants to put it on another robot. All the arguments in favor of cheesecake are still going to apply to shrinkwrapped cheesecake, so why would the gdc rule against it if we weren't discussing the implications now?

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Not sure if this would hold up. We used two bags for our robot this year at our first event with our robot in the first bag and in the second we had two of our spare upright tubes (2" square aluminum tube .063in wall 72" long) along with a few smaller miscellaneous items. All in all it weighed under 10lbs but we put it in the bag in case our witholding needed to be larger than its current 15lbs that we brought in.

As we left the event the inspectors saw it differently so we went back to one bag and used these parts as our witholding allowance since we didn't use much from event to event.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Pretty sure your inspectors were wrong. The withholding allowance rule says you have to bag all robot elements, including those used in alternate configurations of the robot. Admin section 5 also says you're allowed up to 2 bags in case you need to disassemble your robot. So I don't see a problem with two bags, and I don't see a problem with bagged robot elements. If we're nitpicking that the bagged parts aren't actually part of the robot because they're spares, that seems perverse and unnecessary.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

This comes up all too often. I didn't agree with it either but it came down to who's interpretation of the rule would be followed at which point we followed the instructions of the LRI and didn't go about it during the following events.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

Fair point. Now that you mention it, I'm not sure why teams are allowed to bag as much as they want on Stop Build Day. Would there be opposition to limiting this to 150 lb? 180? Can't imagine many teams bagged more than that.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I think part of the solution can come from the definition of COTS and what vendors provide.

Can I give an assembled gearbox to another team? If AndyMark sells it assembled with popular modifications, no problem.

Re: The cheesecake runaway
 

I expect that this whole situation will lead to new rules that won't be particularly popular. The game manual is full of rules that have similar origins. Many people blame this game for driving the extreme cheesecake, but teams will find uses for it in all future games.

At Championship, the extreme examples were made more feasible by: (1) the long delay between the end of qualification matches and alliance selection and (2) having a 4th bot on the alliance that could be kept off the field for modification. Item #1 could be addressed by having the final qualification matches, alliance selection, and playoff matches on the same day (not something I would favor). Item #2 could be could be addressed by going back to 3-team alliances with a backup bot list.

I like your suggestion of limiting hardware changes after qualification matches are complete.