Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

A lot has been said. Sorry for not participating in this thread during the day as it progressed. What follows is a long post. Sorry in advance. Skip to the RANT Section if you just want to see an old man yell, "get off my lawn"




I said horror show, I meant it.

I don't say anything about your kids or your team. In fact, while watching Einstein, I leaned over to my son and said, "As much as I think cheesecaking is bad for FIRST, those kids are going to have a story to tell that will be recounted at ever class reunion they have for the next 70 years."

That said, the story and it's implications ARE fantastically scary more on that below.

We don't have to make it as black and white as most people seem to think. FIRST is a great community. Given the nature of the community, I think it can be handled quite simply with a statement of principle and a rule:

STATEMENT (put in a blue box in the rules if you like):
RULE (named for Karthik perhaps?):
No serious FIRSTer should ever suggest that they didn't get to Einstein. This is settled law as far as I am concerned and even those who think having a 4th robot on an alliance is not a particularly good idea. Team 900 is now and forever will be a full member of the great alliance that came out of Curie and came within a 5 points (that's < 3 uncanned totes!) of making it to the Finals on Einstein.

That said, I don't know where you have been looking for 15+ years, Libby K, but there are a lot of folks in the FIRST community who might dispute statements revolving around amounts of work done in a day. They worked hard, I am sure. Good on them. Had they done no work at all in St. Louis, my views on the matter would be the same. How much work they did or didn't do have nothing to do with what is good for FIRST in the long term.

Now for the rant:

I think that FIRST holds a lot of the blame here.

Three years ago they allowed all manner of things to be strapped to robots as blockers for full court disk shooters. Last year, the game design almost forced this because it required two good robots (a.k.a. the #1 seed and the first draft pick) to not be able to win unless the last team drafted (a.k.a. the 24th best team at a tourney) did at least SOMETHING that qualified as an "assist". These two years got the cheesecake snowball rolling.

But THIS year, this year was something special. FIRST made a game where two good robots could effectively get max points if and only if they won a battle that was over in a literal blink of an eye... ...during Auton. FIRST designed a game where a half a second into the match, not only didn't the best alliances need a third robot, often having a 24th robot around was a liability - having them do something, anything, only cost them points -- it never helped them. Add to this that Alliances get a 4th robot at the World Championships (not FIRST's best idea imho) and you have a recipe for the Harpoon Bot. It was going to happen.

I think this is bad for FIRST. Not illegal. Not immoral. Just not want we want more of. FIRST should take steps to make it clear that this is not something it supports both in terms of rules and expectations.

Dr. Joe J.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

This is truly amazing. I've always been a fan of how 900 build their robots, and how they take the same challenge we do, and yet approach it with a radically different design approach. Last year, we faced 900 in the elims at NC, and only barely lost to their ingenious (yet annoying at the time -- kidding, you know we love you) strategy. This year, we somehow managed to snag them as the second round pick on the #1 alliance at NC and together won a regional. Their determination to fix a but midway through the Semis was amazing, and without them we could not have won the regional.

Seeing such an amazing turn of events on Saturday at Champs this year was incredible. Building a robot from scratch in only 7 hours is truly inspirational, and just from looking at the pits from afar it was clear that the students on 900 and 1114 combined are some of the most dedicated. I'm in awe of what was accomplished in such a short amount of time, and look forward to seeing the robot in action in the future (THOR and SCRIW tethered to Go Big?? Please??). I've long been a fan of 1114 and 900, and this incredible combination of teams to create a unique solution to a hard problem is amazing. I congratulate you on what you did, and can't wait to work with 900 again in the coming years as NC goes district for 2016.


----
Now, as a completely separate topic, I personally do not like that this year's game lent itself to this kind of tactic -- designing a robot from scratch in only a day just for Einstein. It's an amazing feat, but not one I feel FIRST should be going for. This is no fault of 900 or 1114 or any other team who "cheesecaked" another robot, merely a fault of a game where doing something like this could give your alliance such a leg up. We may well have done the same thing had we been in 900's shoes, but I'm not sure this is exactly what FIRST wants to promote in the coming years through their game design.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

FIRST gave us a game where they put all of the carrots of the game design into this kind of strategy, while the sticks preventing it would not have met the goals of FIRST as an organization. Anyone who decries the hard work of teams to succeed to the best of their total abilities (not just robot power, but people/willpower) are insane. If you didn't like how alliances came to be and how the robots were adjusted, the onus is not the teams' to bear. I think lessons were learned by the GDC on this front. I've made a couple points on how the game design encouraged this before, and I'll probably add to it and summarize it later this week. That seems pretty agreeable.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I think you and I agree with one another after all. I didn't think you meant anything bad earlier. It just came off one way to me, you know? It's all good though. I see your side more clearly now. At any rate, I think you're absolutely right about the game design. Games that can be won/lost in less than a second aren't nearly as fun as the ones that take the full time to play out.

And thank you for the kind words about my students. They definitely have a story to tell.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Awww... you guys are the great ones. We wouldn't have even been in St Louis if you hadn't thought to do something unconventional with your pick in NC. We were thrilled to be part of an alliance with you and The Gorillas. Both of you are amazing teams. We hope our oddball strategies are starting to get noticed. You can build unique designs and have them succeed.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Video?

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

[Note, this post is my opinion and not the opinion of 900-Zebracorns]
That is funny. I think that it is cool that FIRST has nothing in the rules preventing this. I thought that it presented a more unique challenge.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

First of all, congratulations! It was great to see a North Carolina team get recognition on the big stage, and hopefully is a sign of greater things to come from our region.

900 (and 1519) was a common name heard in our strategy sessions week 1, as we noticed the tendency for unconventional robots to win North Carolina. Your full court launcher from 2014 is what fueled us to go with our crazy conveyor belt design. You guys didn't dissapoint, and watching your sleek design swerve around was great.

Now as for the cheescaking, that was inspirational stuff. I was keeping my team updated throughout your whole journey (just ask Chase, he's still in our Facebook group), and we were cheering you on every single step. So no, it wasn't 900's robot that got them picked. It was their guts, determination, boldness, and tenacity that made them a part of that alliance. And I'm okay with that. This isn't just a robotics competition, it's a human one as well, and 900 did what they had to do to make it work.

Having done a robot rebuild in one day due to weight problems, we know somewhat how driven you have to be to do it. Its pretty cool.

In the future, I'd like a robot with the ability to manipulate game pieces to be more valuable that a light chassis, but this alliance was just playing the cards they were dealt. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

So I have a question about a hypothetical situation.

Using the situation that had happened with 900 asking 1114 to help cheesecake them. If the #2 alliance had picked 900 with their 2nd pick, what would the reaction be?

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I would have commended their bravery. That kind of move takes a lot of guts.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

What would the reaction be if the #1 alliance (hypothetical here not saying anyone would do this) then took their cheesecake back?

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I don't know if we'd let them at that point..... They would be our greatest threat, after all. ;) (joking, maybe).

Honestly, I think the number one alliance would have just let everything happen as things were, because it would have probably been too much effort for alliance number 2 to get the cheesecake working, as that they didn't know it as intimately as 1114.

Now, if the number two alliance brought in their own cheesecake material for us, then things would get interesting!

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

At the time of alliance picks, the "cheese cake" wasn't on the bot. We were just finishing up the drive train at the time.

We knew going into this that it there were absolutely no guarantees. We had discussed what would happen if someone else chose us (I believe the final conclusion was that we would accept and ask if they wanted just the drive train or us to reassemble our original bot).

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Ohh, but would you have given them a cookie too?

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

THIS IS AN AWESOME QUESTION!

I was going to ask something very similar sometime today when I got few minutes to spare.

Let's suppose 148 had prepared a Harpoon2.0 Bot prior to Championships and that 1114 was incompatible with 148 for some reason and let's suppose further that 900 had approached 148 rather than 1114. Recall that 148 was the #1 seed and 1114 was #2 (behind 148 by a grand total of 7 points -- had they simply tossed two more noodles over the step at some point during 10 qualification matches, their positions would have flipped).

In this situation you have to ask, What Would Karthik Do?

I think we all know this answer: He would advocate for drafting 900 as their second pick just to prevent 148 from getting access to Harpoon2.0 Bot.

What would 900 do then? If they accept, 148 almost certainly would not have allowed Harpoon2.0 Bot to exist at all (recall key bits of kit were designed and built by folks not on Team 900). If they refuse, then their season is over. It is tough ethical choice.

Either way, this really puts the lie to argument that many cheesecaking advocates make: that it is all done in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism. I think one of the features of the draft is that all teams are available for all drafters (with the exception of those who decide they would prefer to captain their own alliance) but in this case, 900 was really only available for one team, no other drafters allowed.

I don't like it. No sir. I don't like it one bit.

Dr. Joe J.

P.S. It has come to my attention that a lot of folks are giving Libby K and others who have said supportive things about Team 900 a hard time over the past few days.

I myself called Libby out for an innocent hyperbole she made about the amount of work Team 900 did. I was wrong to do so. This was a cheap shot and I should have been a better man. I publicly apologize and wish that I could take it back. Libby, I am sorry.

As to you other trolls... ...you need to look in the mirror a bit as well. If there is not space on CD for someone as awesome as Libby to express her thoughts then CD has fallen mightily. We are better than that. JJ

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

We did not start installing the Frog and Lily pad until after we picked them. They already made their new drive train at this point though. We both knew this was a possibility and were prepared if this did happen.

I haven't really said anthing in this thread, but I really have to say thank you to the Inspectors. They were nothing but Graciously professional towards our team (pre-alliance selections) and towards our alliance. They acted as a true FRC Inspection crew should, working with a team to become legal and to meet all of the FRC rules.

I also need to say thank you to Team 900, 148 and 1923. You guys were amazing to work with. It might be the most amazing part of my FRC career.

Also, Congrats to 118, 1678, 1671, and 5012. You guys put everything you had out on the field in SF6, and it was a crazy match. Props to your human player that noodled that can from 118's stack. At first I thought it was during the 20 second end game period, and that there should have been a penalty. However, after reviewing the video 1676 posted yesterday I could tell that we were wrong, and that it was just a perfectly timed noodling. The noodle that put you guys into the finals, an ultimately World Champions.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

But the intent was there from the time 900 approached 1114 correct? I don't know what was said between the teams so I could be wrong.

Again, I want to put out there that I am not insinuating that any team would have done any of the hypotheticals I'm stating. Just starting a discussion to see what people's thoughts on it would have been.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

As I said a little bit earlier, the mechanism was still 1114 and hadn't been handed to us. We knew it was a very long shot and so many things could go wrong. At NO point in time did 1114 make us any promises.

Had some other alliance chosen us, that alliance would have been offered two choices, a drive train which they could strap things on, or reassembling our original robot.

Regardless of what team chose us, we would have done our absolute best to do our most for that alliance. Part of the reason we didn't start disassembling our first robot until AFTER our last qualifying match was we didn't believe it would be fair to the teams we were competing with.


All of that said, I'm not sure 1114 would have been able to find another robot small and light enough to pull off adding the "crossbow". 1114 will have to answer to what their plans were if someone else chose us first.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Of course!
(For those who don't know, I gave 148 a giant cookie after they selected us.)

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I think this really is the key point. This level of cheesecaking breaks the whole concept of the draft, since you're not really drafting a robot, you're only drafting a slot to insert the second robot you've built yourself. If this becomes common and accepted, it's not even going to be possible to draft "900" out from under "1114", because "901" and "902" will be lined up with their own kitbots ready for the cheesecake. It's going to happen, because if you're down in the rankings and unlikely to get picked, there's almost no downside to tearing out your electronics halfway through Friday and wiring them onto a cheesecake platter. You still have your original robot that definitely wasn't getting picked, but suddenly you could be drafted by #1 or #2 so they can bolt their second robot on top of you.

I just don't think a game mechanic that encourages teams to teardown to a mini kitbot and wait for someone to pick them and hand them a better robot (some assembly required) is a good game mechanic.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

When I learned about the 4 harpoons Friday evening, my instinctual reaction was "we've over-indulged on cheesecake". On the surface it just seems like we may as well get rid of the bags, tags and deadlines - just make build season 4 months (1/3 of our life) long. For teams who regularly attend Champs, that is what FRC has turned into and it doesn't look to change any time soon. The features and tuning race which takes energy to keep up with really escalated this year.

A bit later, I then thought "haters gonna hate", because I got 'it'. Finally, why the Simbots have no problem picking a team who has limited capabilities overall and may even be ranked dead last at an event - it's an oxymoron of selfishness and selflessness was hard for me to understand at first.

Making those 4 structures, tuning them and getting them perfect in 3 days so as to stay within withholding was a monumental task that shows the focus, dedication and selflessness that the Simbots have. With those harpoons, they could guarantee the choke hold strategy if they made it to Finals. They could also single-handedly take a team who has had a rough week and make their day. Rather than becoming an 'expected' middle-of-the-pack Champs experience, a team can take the story of the road to Einstein back to their school/community and propel their program forward. That is what a great team can do for the rest of FRC over time. It's something only the elite few can do. It is something to aspire to.

I agree with you wholeheartedly here. Thursday night, and Friday noon-ish we were discretely approached by the Poofs about frame geometry, coding, available ports, etc. They were obviously looking for a compatible cheesecake partner. On Friday we started getting good with our own strategy, meaning we had two options: continue down our current path, or sandbag in order to attempt to be available for the Poofs. Sandbagging was tempting - 'they're perfect' was overheard by me and another mentor. Yet it would have been major disrespect to to rest of my build team and our Friday partners for us to not play our absolute best with the robot we had.

Such is the life of a specialist on the serpentine draft system.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I just want to say that what FRC-900 did was completely amazing and I mean that in the best possible way (my intent). It made me rack my brain, consult the rules, ask a bunch of questions, talk to the various alliance members, consume a bunch of inspector time, etc. I've never been as busy after the alliance pairings as I was on Curie this year ...... and I thought it was great. I want to say that everyone on FRC-900 that I interacted with was the model of gracious & professional. You guys had every right to get a bit frustrated with all of the pressure of pulling this off in the amount of time that you had and having a swarm of inspectors buzzing over your head. Congratulations to you for an amazing effort and especially for not becoming unglued under the pressure.

I hope I have the honor of working your division in the future.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Ed, believe me when I say that the honor was ours. Thank you for being an amazing person and working with us. It was an absolute pleasure.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

You know 1114 can totally do that just with their good scouting and picking a dark horse for their 2nd or (now) 3rd pick. I know cause they did that at GLR in 2007. (Their dark horse let them down for embarrassing reasons, but still.) I'm pretty sure getting picked by 1114 or any #1-8 division alliance is going to make a team's day. I'm also pretty sure that having a specialist robot that's working well passed over for a poorly working robot that can be more easily cheesecaked stings a bit. So I'm pretty sure cheesecaking is zero sum at best for overall inspiration.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

As I read through this entire thread and all the responses/comments within it, I must conclude in my opinion, in which this story is truly incredible. With myself being apart of team 2640, which is based only an hour or so away from 900, I have gotten the chance to collaborate with the Zebracorns before competition, and playing against them during the Quarterfinals at NC in 2014, and recently fighting it out in the Finals at the 2015 North Carolina Regional as well.

This story is truly significant by itself, but even more important for what is being introduced to FIRST in 2017. I'm sure as every FIRST participant knows by now, that there will be two Championships starting in 2017. For most teams, the most important part of Championship (next to winning ;) ) is the experience of getting to be around hundreds of teams and getting the opportunity to strategize and collaborate with teams from different countries, and different coasts.

With the new Championship setup approaching in 2017, these types of stories could be restricted, due to the designated locations for teams who qualify for championship. For example, just depending on what Championship 1114 gets placed in, 900 may not have the chance to collaborate with them again, and as we all are becoming aware of now, their collaboration this past week was a true beauty of engineering and teamwork.

I am extremely glad that a team so close to home (900) was able to experience the chance to play/collaborate/strategize with hundreds of different teams and was able to partner up with 148, 1114, 1923, in which they made a great run at Championship.

I applaud 900 and their teammates for the accomplishments they achieved. We look forward to seeing/collaborating with 900 in future events during the season and throughout the offseason!

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I know I'm dragging up an old post, but if you want to know more about our code for this year, we just started up a thread about all our code.


I can comment a bit about how things went from a programming side of things. On Thursday, one of our mentors who had been observing 1114 hands me a sheet of paper detailing about how their mechanism worked. At this point we were thinking that we were simply going to remove the superstructure from our robot, and mount whatever crazy contraption they had on our ~50 pound drive train. We quickly looked at the labview examples for doing pneumatics and solenoids, and began redoing our project, removing code for our arm and instead changing it to work with 4 "PWM" Solenoids, 4 Pneumatic solenoids, and 4 winches. Unfortunatly our details weren't exaclty right the first time around, but as our team began working more and more with 1114, we learned more about the design, and eventually learned that we needed to set up 4 solenoids controlled by a singlespike, 4 pneumatic solenoids, and 5 winches. By this time we were only halfway through, and then we learned that our swerve drive was just two heavy, and that 1114 had some java code ready to go for the tank drive KOP that we were buying. We decided that they had probably already tested their code and new more about it, so we ended it at that.

New problems arose the next day when we had to set up a driver station. As a LabVIEW team, I had never seen the Java Dashboard, and it took a lot for 1114 to explain to me what it was. I thougth they were talking about the default one for at least a half hour (sorry). Eventually we copied it out of the tools folder from one of their laptops and dropped it into (hopefully the correct place) onto one of ours. We had no idea if it was going to work though, so we eventually just used one of 1114's laptops. Apparently there was some problem with the version used in inspection, but I have no idea, as I went back to the stands to watch some matches.

I'm sad that we never got to see the robot on the field, but it was fun watching all the matches from down near the field. The experience of working with 1114 and all the rest was amazing, and I know what part of Canada to go to now if I ever want to leave the US. And thankfully I didn't have to do any more programming under pressure on the field (I was the guy at NC regional pushing code at the last second for Team 900, if you were there). Thank you so much 1114, 148, and 1923!

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

__________________________
Al, now can you please post a side by side pic of the Robot that Team 900 originally brought to ST Louis to compete with? (I am sincerely interested in asking about exactly what happened to the ORIGINAL ROBOT that Team 900 brought to the competition). Did they leave with 2 ROBOTS in their crate or just 1 ROBOT? ....Was it (their original upon arrival crated ROBOT), completely disassembled firstly (and the existing robot parts used to build the later NEW ROBOT), before building another from the ground up robot in 7 hrs.? (It looks in their video like a brand new kitbot chassis was used).

If not, then how is it possible that they did not exceed the (rules controlled), posted 1 ROBOT weight limits and Total BOM Cost limits? (IE: THE ROBOT must not weigh more than, or cost more than the listed rules limits).

Were the 2 combined/separate ROBOTS more than 125 lbs. or $4,000.00 in total costs? Inquiring minds just wish to know.

Looking forward to reading that Team 900 whitepaper, and learning more about the safety decision(s) & inspection(s) thought process used to deem legal that particular set of mechanisms, not that I actually thought others were any safer really (as is, THE FASTER & FASTER the can burglaring COMPETITION PROCESS became in my mind, AND IN REAL PRACTICE, a CONSTANTLY more unsafe set of circumstances for the involved parties at the direct sidelines of the field every match existed Re: Everyone nearby AS THE COMPETITETION HEATED UP was more than seriously at risk, though we were rather lucky a few times on Hopper field during the playoffs of our Division it could have had other more extreme & dangerous safety results...

(Extremely nervous head ref's and others were the resultant factor)...They knew the dangers involved, and they were quite high. (A Hockey Goalie type mask w/ a hard hat and a Bomb Squad type padded suit for each, rather than just safety glasses was more advisable railside for Ref's, Scorers, FTA's and all others, including all others looking on closely as the only ones truly safe were drivers directly behind the glass, and those sitting in the nosebleed sections of the upper levels of the arena).

Some of the very fastest hooks for grabbing cans BECAME LOOSE shattered/jagged (and non-tethered, very sharp projectiles launched far and wide and often recovered later far away from the field of play & missing heads along the way).

I personally did not see how it got to where it did (I later handed that shattered pc. personally back to our head ref and actually understood then why he was so danged nervous)...Personally, I was too busy setting that scoring switch down gently & quickly on the floor, and heading for cover behind & under the corner of the FTA table myself...Glad I did now, given where it was finally recovered, as I was definitely standing in the direct line of the projected flight path. (The "it" I speak of, weighed about 2~3 pounds, spiked and dangerously shattered jagged 1/2" sched. 40 pvc, a Team 987 type can burglaring cheesecake hook element, that worked famously....and also failed quite dangerously too, all at the same time...time after time).

The game design brought that element of high cheesecaking (and it was only allowed after a rules change, and a Q&A mind changing failure in my opinion).....Frank's ORIGINAL Q&A ANSWER, should never have been changed in my personal opinion as it elevated the dangers involved in the game to alliance wide dangers, from occasional single robot dangers to the participants, officials, and the spectators. (Am personally just glad noone was injured yet...I also know the dangers are not quite yet over either, as other events are to follow soon enough).

Just a personal (up close), opinion is all. The 2015 Shelf Can Wars (and the ensuing high stacking, were fun to watch, but if allowed to continue...and it will soon enough, then a robotwars type fully enclosed arena of play (along w/ a netted top should also be necessary at high levels of competition since you cannot win the war, without battling and winning the highly contested "shelf can wars in 2015 FIRST FRC Recycle rush").

Cheesecaking in 2015 snatches the best, and ramps up the competition for all. ALL PUNS INTENDED.
_________________
Addition:
Al's partial quote:

The robot built/rebuilt by Team 900 contained parts of their robot that was initially inspected at the 2015 Championship and was found to be legal to compete under the Robot and Tournament rules.


Thank you for the explaination AL (sry it was there later in the thread & before my posting, but I was quoting so had not read that far as of yet)...Now can we please see the side by side PICS? (Inquiring minds just want to see the 2 very different ROBOTS side by side!)

Hmmm, seems to me NASCAR has it more right than we do sometimes, just a thought. When you go to the backup car, YOU GO TO THE REAR OF THE FIELD. While you can do so, there are penalties to suffer, but, you can still compete. You still are required to "Run what you Brung" so to speak. While the 2015 FIRST version of Cheesecake can be and was no doubt highly inspiring for a few teams affected, I imagine it was highly mortifying for many mid-stream teams overlooked during the picks. It happened at Regionals, just as much as during the Champs.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

While I'm sure there is a huge market for shirts that say

What Would Karthik Do?

I'd like to say that FRC is "The varsity Sport for the Mind (TM)" Lots of people think the "mind" part is over after build, but teams have proven year after year after year the "mind" part isn't over until the buzzer sounds at the last minute.

There was a post earlier this year about how the top teams would have a special advantage at the Saturday alliance selection. This was one of those cases where two top teams used their brains (and CAD) and lots of elbow grease to make things happen on Saturday.

It also re-enforces the reminder that you may think your top roboteers have wrenches in hands, but the roboteers on scouting and alliance planning are keys to the second 6 weeks of the season.

Good story Team 900!

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

_________________

Our team was faced w/ the same possibillities earlier in the season at the Las Vegas Regional...I am not a part of the process of Alliance picking on our team and actually was working for FIRST NV at the time (so had no team input), but had a discussion in total hindsight after the event was completed, so the opinion expressed was just my opinion of what I would have suggested, if I were involved in the picking process, for future team reference only.

The situation:

Team 148 and Team 987 were of course on a mission to both prove a point concerning the Dallas Decision. And of course on a mission to capture another title and set of blue banners like any great 2 teams should. They 148 and 987 were seeded #1 & #2...Our team was seeded #3. They started cheesecaking the #41 seeded team early on, and it was duly noted by one of our newer drive team members, and he didn't like the situation personally very much...It was explained to him that it was well within the rules of the game as a game strategic legal method. (In a "Hate the game, not the players!" type of way).

Asked what I would have suggested they do (as far as hindsight, after #1 seeded 148, picked #2 seeded 987), I responded that I would have certainly picked the same as they did on their first choice, then on second choice w/ only moments to go, picked their fully cheesecaked #2 pick. Thereby leaving them to make the tough choice of risking asking for their sweet cheesecake back (which I don't think would happen by either highly respected team), and thereby give them little time to cheesecake another...(though I know they would have), along w/ much fewer legal materials actually onsight to actually do so (though I'm sure they still would have had plenty of materials avail. to do so also), and much less of that even more valuable time avail. to complete the new cheesecaking mission. (Hey, what's good for the Goose, is Great for the Gander! And that Gander LOVES CHEESECAKE TOO!)

I'm glad they didn't do so, and actually picked another team (as all 6 of the eventual Regional Alliance members qualified eventually for Champs by either major awards earned, or by just playing in the finals of the playoffs of that Regional)...But, as a game strategist and very highly competitive by nature...I'll use every fully legal tactic and that rulebook, to win the game...And...You should too! IF DEEMED LEGAL like eventually this year).

But it wasn't how the season actually started off (I had earlier pointed that out once it was done when I thought by the posted rules it wasn't legal to do so in Week #1, and the Q&A original answer verified that, then minds were changed by the eventual uproar, and the Q&A answer was rethought)...That is the real dilemma, and the OP's actual original question elsewhere & pointing to this thread...Should it be legal?

I would have LEGALLY stolen & eaten their sweet cheesecake...And then smiled big, & told them their extremely hard work baking it, was very highly appreciated, and it tastes Soo Darned GOOD TOO! Thank You's, With Smiles All Around.
________________
I was just hoping someone was actually selling slices of cheesecake at champs this year...I would have gladly purchased more than a few slices myself.

One thing I'd still like to know though, is in the very same Division (Hopper)...I saw most tethered ramps had their Team # license plates fully and proudly displayed...and others...well, they had no license plates at all...And in the Division Playoffs no less.

When I pointed out 1 that had ZERO TEAM NUMBER DISPLAYED...A ref responded...You will have to discuss that w/ the inspectors I guess (who were located in a different building BTW)... That is definitely BIG TIME WRONG in my opinion. It is either legal on the field of play, or IT ISN'T. (The rules are Black writing on White Paper or background)....No grey (gray), appears in the rulebook to me. And it should not to you. (Though there are Blue Boxes).

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

It would be appreciated if you could take your opinions to the thread about people opinions on this topic. This thread was made by 900 to show people what they made with their alliance partners at Championships this year.


Thank you

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

If you search the posts by many 1678 mentors, you'll find that we complained about this year's game design consistently. We didn't like any of the implications of this year's game (including the bonus of taking the 3rd robot off the field to score the 4 point movement in auto.) We were upfront about our particular strategy and were among the first to come out with it at CVR. There were no surprises from us at Champs. (And then ironically, we never used a cheesecaked robot in the eliminations.)

But I am a big fan of last year's game, at least in concept (and you can find my posts on that as well). It forced the better teams to work with the newer or struggling teams to achieve an ALLIANCE goal, not just the goal of a single team. I've suggested tweaks to last year's overall game approach that could make it a model for teams to pass knowledge among themselves. Right now the incentive is to work alone in secret, not cooperatively, until we get to competitions. We can make FRC more cooperative which would reduce the incentive to cheesecake.

We've added items to our alliance mates in each of the last 3 years. In 2013, we had an FCS at CVR that had to face cheesecaked pool noodle blockers. We developed a successful counter strategy that we used again at Champs. Without the ability to add those blockers, the games would have been decided by FCS machines as soon as they got to the HP station. Thank God for cheesecake to make it competitive.

In 2014, we worked with teams to improve their ability to pass. This often meant removing their shooting mechanism. Again the teams could become much more involved given that there was a single game piece. We also made several rookie teams competitive at Champs by helping them build intakes with our extra parts that they used in all of their matches other than the ones they played with us.

When we select teams, we have two pick lists for two different roles on our alliances. In 2014 in particular, we could not have 2 shooters or 2 midfielders, even if they were the first and second best at their roles. We had to focus on what roles fit our alliance. I know that means that we are passing over some worthy robots that are particularly good at their targeted tasks, but those tasks don't fit into our alliance structure. You can't ask us to rethink our alliance strategy to fit your robot's characteristics unless it's going to improve our expectations about our alliance's performance.

The GDC can make some big changes that encourage inter-team development, which I won't repeat here. We can make all of us better with just a few thoughtful changes.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Actually, this isn't true. We didn't start working with 5012 until after alliance selection. All 7 other alliances had the chance to choose them. They were great, and should have been picked much earlier. :)

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Just a thought, but maybe the "all three robots" in the zone for the auto points was to encourage teams to help other teams write a basic auto code to move into that zone?

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

If so, they clearly didn't playtest their game at all, because 4 points per match is not worth any programmer's time to spend on other teams' robots.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

But if all three teams also push a tote, then its 4 for the robot set and 8 for the tote set.

12 points/match for writing autonomous modes that drive straight forward for all your partners could be huge, especially at earlier events.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

We tried REALLY hard to convince teams of this in Palmetto. Zero takers as I recall... maybe one or two but mostly teams didn't want to drive forward for some easy points. We didn't force easy code on them... we did ask though.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

But that involves assuring the complete cooperation of your alliance, which is always next to impossible. Much more efficient to just do everything yourself, especially in qualification matches, when you have little time to liaise with your partners.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I'm not Al, but I was part of the group that inspected them immediately prior to Einstein, so I think I can shed some light on these questions.

First, there is no rule against building mechanisms or combining mechanisms while at a competition - and a robot is, after all, just a collection of mechanisms.

Q&A 429 states:
Per this Q&A, their reinspection only included the elements present on the "harpoon bot" - any elements previously on their robot that were left in their pit were not included for weight purposes.

As for cost,

Given the wording (emphasis above mine), I think we can take the cost aspect and treat it the same as the weight - elements not included in the robot inspection were not included in the BOM.

I can't speak to the total cost of everything - I never saw the original BOM, just the final BOM before Einstein. For weight, however, the final robot was just about 120lbs - there was no way that plus whatever they had previously was under 120.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

This was my first year getting to know FRC and seeing what it was all about so my understanding of past years may be a bit foggy. I've talked with countless teams at several events this year and have heard stories from all sides. I can understand where you're coming from with a distaste for teams being told to sit on the sideline. I remember one team in particular I worked with struggled early on. It was heartbreaking to see how down the team was about being told to stay out of the way during qualification rounds. It was also very gratifying to see the difference in their faces as we fixed issues they were having and had them climbing the charts and being a larger part of their team's success.

But, that's apples to oranges. None of the teams in this thread feel pushed aside. In fact, it's strange to me to suggest a can burglar staying out of the way the rest of the match isn't an integral part of the team. The consensus agrees the most important part of this year's strategy was the can race. If we agree this is true, the most important part of a team's success is the robot grabbing the cans. Even if they're idle the rest of the match, they play the most important role on the team. How is this fundamentally different than a robot with the sole purpose to go disrupt the other team's strong robot? The amount of time being active doesn't change the importance of a robot nor that team's role in decision making. Why are we acting as if it does?

I think we're losing something in all of this debate. FRC isn't about robots. You can gather the purpose behind FIRST from Dean's promos. It's about inspiring the next generation to find a higher purpose than idolizing shooting a ball through a net. Too many of us forget there's more to being an engineer than putting together an amazing machine. The soft skills some of these kids are showing are just as incredible as the machines they put together. Are we really preparing them for the real world if we penalize using soft skills to collaborate? We're quick to credit 1114 for designing half the robot. We're slow to recognize 900 for putting together a base that could accept that robot and stepping out of an engineer's comfort zone to work with peers. We're ignoring the team was able to successfully network with their peers, their competition, and staff to come together towards a common goal. Isn't developing those skills a key component to what FIRST is about?

One of the teams I worked with this past weekend was a second pick at their regional. If you look at the three teams, it's not difficult to see which robots were handling the event. Their robot wasn't a strong robot at the competition. But, that's not all there is to the event. They worked with their alliance to develop a strategy that won. At worlds, they weren't frustrated about that experience. They were proud of their banner and one of the more solid teams I worked with. When obstacles came into their path, they were telling their mentor how they were going to move forward. They maintained relationships with the teams from their regional and used these relationships to help get through their current obstacle. With this, they spread their network to include other teams all while showing poise that left me in awe. Their networking skills helped them be selected to elimination rounds at worlds. They're leaving multiple events with new friends and new resources they can use to build their knowledge and excitement. Isn't that at the core of what FIRST is all about?

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Reading back to the ramps thread....
______________________________________

Al Skierkiewicz
Broadcast Eng/Chief Robot Inspector
AKA: Big Al WFFA 2005
FRC #0111 (WildStang)
Team Role: Engineer Join Date: Jun 2001
Rookie Year: 1996
Location: Wheeling, IL
Posts: 10,327


Re: Ramps

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess this is really an issue that revolves around the one rule that is absent this season and that is the sizing rule. In an indirect way, it also involves what we inspect as ROBOT. This season, there is no size restriction other than Transport Configuration. We have to inspect everything but it must fit inside the Transport Configuration at some point. (Which by the way is the configuration that all robots must be in when moving from pit to field and back.) If your robot is an unlimited size, it still needs to be one and only one, ROBOT. Teams that choose to have a separate part of the robot that is either passive or active, must still show that there is only one robot (See R1 below) on the field for each team. While others are trying to point to a specific rule, we must consider that the manual is something that needs to be taken as a whole. Some sections speak to robot size, some to position, some to starting position but overall everyone of them speak about THE ROBOT. As a small sample...

R1 A Team must submit their ROBOT for Inspection. The ROBOT must be built by the FRC Team to perform specific tasks when competing in RECYCLE RUSH. The ROBOT must include all of the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game – power, communications, control, and movement. The ROBOT implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play RECYCLE RUSH (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD, or a ROBOT designed to play a different game does not satisfy this definition).

or

R3 The ROBOT must satisfy the following size constraints:
A. during a MATCH, the ROBOT height may not exceed 78 in.
B. the ROBOT must be able to be arranged into a TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION with dimensions which do not exceed 28
in. wide, 42 in. long, and 78 in. tall.

Please note that these use the singular rather than "a" showing a clear intention that each team build and use just one robot. I believe that tethers, whether containing power or simply passive ropes, satisfies the one robot of unlimited size.
__________________
Good Luck All. Learn something new, everyday!
Al
WB9UVJ
www.wildstang.org
________________________

I don't have issues or an issue with what happened in the end (as I knew when the GDC re-evaluated that Q&A answer and made the rules changes they did that is was bound to happen that many would end up competing w/ much that were not what they actually originally designed and built during build season, but what others actually designed later, but am still attempting to understand how we go from building THE ROBOT (and ENTERING ONLY 1 ROBOT in competition)...to competing with a completely different robot on Einstein Field in less than 3 days and still be in compliance w/ said rules as listed above and not violate either the weight or max. cost issues. (Unless THE ROBOT entered was completely disassembled into the COTS condition pre-assembly...It was still a robot (and the new ROBOT is also a robot), albeit maybe not a working robot at the time. Whatever mass is left assembled, should have counted toward total weight in my opinion is all).

Theoretically then, each match could be (if reinspected between every match of course), played with a completely different robot by each team...Soon, the pit spaces will need to each be enlarged to accomodate a whole hardware store of COTS parts & raw materials each.

And Each Team, will also need a place to park their personal machine shop trailer next to their pit also. We'll look like NASCAR soon enough!


___________

BTW...Congrat's to ALL the participants of a great Championships...Especially to the WINNERS / FINALISTS! And all the Award winners too.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

If the GDC wants to encourage such cooperation, they need to make the incentive strong enough. Getting 3 teams to cooperate for the same number of points that a single human player can score with one noodle is not a strong incentive. The incentives in the 2014 game were more in line with what's needed. But most importantly, the message from the GDC that the game will require interrobot actions needs to come in September so the teams can work together PRIOR to build season.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I'm the lady from NI! I was so glad to be able to help your team out. Pro-tip: All of the CSA's (orange hats) have flash drives with the software on them. And if they don't, spare parts sometimes has them as well!

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

Thank you again! 900 has had a busy year with NI and everyone there has been great to work with. I hope we can keep up the collaboration and can help with future beta testing if we ever need to.

Re: 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles
 

I personally thought this was a brilliant albeit risky strategy based on the situation. I really liked how jokingly one of the students on 1114 told me it was a T-Shirt cannon they were building in that pit despite how obvious it was that they were building a high speed can burglar with tools going at warp speed :)

I am happy to see North Carolina teams compete on Einstein since it is such a rare occurrence. I have never seen such a crazy tactic in 13 years of FRC. NC sent a record 9 teams to Championships this year so I am ecstatic that one of them was team 900! This is a classic example of thinking outside of the box and using real engineering tools to complete a challenge like many of us practicing engineers on this forum find every day at work. Just like 900, you come up with a solution nobody knew existed or that nobody would dare try. Crazy ideas really do make the best solutions.

Thanks to team 900, our own team 3506 YETI had an amazing season because they shared a strategy with us that worked again and again.

Congratulations to ALL of the division winners 148, 1114, 1923, and 900!

-Robbie