Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Dear CD,

During match 164 of MSC while playing effective defense on two highly rated Michigan teams we tipped over team 107 when it was playing in a high CG position receiving a red card . Please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IDr...ature=youtu.be at 64 seconds.

During regular FiM District play we focused primarily on offense capturing the #3 captain spot at Southfield, MI and was selected by 3604 to be part of the winning alliance. At Livonia, we were captains of an alliance until we became the first pick of a higher alliance.

At MSC we found ourselves switching between a primarily offensive role to one of defense depending on our alliance partners and opponents.

There are a number of significant concerns with the red card. One concern is it appears that has FRC given a "free pass" on defense being played on high CG robots.

If you watch the video, and I was six feet from the robot as the field coach, the robot tipped over before our driver had any means to respond. As a result, in the future the only advise I can provide to my driver and all FRC drivers is to not play any defense on high CG robots because the threat of a red card is too great).

The red card dropped us significantly in the rankings and most likely impacted our possible pick as an alliance member on one of the 16 alliances at MSC (another thread). As a corporate sponsored team qualifying for the World Championship at MSC can result in our registration fee being fully paid by our sponsor. If we had lost another game at MSC, the red card would have effectively cost FRC3548 $5000. Should red cards received by playing defense on high CG robots in this game have that much impact to any one team on any one call by one referee!

Is this a good time to introduce video replay on teams receiving red cards?

Is this a good time to let referees know the potential cost of a red card to a team?

One possible solution is receive an automatic yellow card with replay to determine if it is appropriate to receive a red card (more than one referee gets to make the $5000 call).

Your thoughts on this thorny issue? Will this be discussed on RoboZone soon?

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

I'm going to go on record as saying a few things.

1) Search for "tipping". This topic has come up already this season. I'll save you the trouble and post a few links.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=tipping

2) You may notice that one of the threads involves replay. Please, please, please, do NOT ignite that discussion again this quickly--it can get rather heated, and is being worked on for offseasons. (You can start the 2Champs discussion in about 2 weeks, though.)

3) Assuming that the refs don't know the cost of a red card is not a good assumption to make. Trust me. A LOT of refs either are on teams or have been on teams. They know. It's not easy to bring out a red card, unless you do something that's a yellow and you already have one.

A red card can be assigned to strategies aimed at tipping, if it incapacitates a robot. That's in general a yellow card, though.




And there is one other thing I need to say:

5 weeks ago, in one of those linked threads, the discussion was NOT on whether the high CG robots were getting a free pass. It was whether the robots that tip them--on legal hits--were getting a free pass! With the combined discussion, I'm starting to wonder why we had so many refs sign up this year (that's sarcasm: we had to "aggressively recruit" a fair number of 'em out my way).

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

We had a very similar thing happen to us in the Colorado quarterfinals. Our alliance earned 2 yellow cards by tipping over a high CG robot. I don't want this to get heated, so if you want to see more about it I'd recommend the thread regarding tipping.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Its a tough question this year because some robots are very prone to tipping over. This year, twice we've been in elimination matches where our opponents tipped. On one hand, I know if we took the same contact they did, our robot wouldn't tip. And I have no doubt we will receive aggressive t-bones and other types of hits every chance the defender can lay them on us. On the other hand, an action on our alliance's part may have knocked our opponent out of the match completely and you don't want to win that way. Ultimately it is a judgement call by the referee and its probably the hardest call they have to make this year. I wouldn't want to be in the ref's shoes.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

I try not to judge these things from a distance, but a couple of observations. The head ref was intently watching the interaction virtually the whole time you were in your courtyard. It happened right in front of your driver station. The head ref had his mind made up by the end of the match. He didn't feel the need to consult anybody before making his decision.

It was bumper to bumper contact and more of a push than a ram. Not something that I would think that would normally be a red card. The head ref clearly thinks differently, He saw the whole interaction. He obviously was there and I wasn't. He has the black and yellow shirt. The best course action would have been for one of the drivers graciously to ask for his reasons. I don't think a video replay would have helped your case.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Videos like this upset me a bit, especially when I think back to a robot I saw in 2013 that was like 16" wide x 44" long x 50" tall (or something silly like that) that would tip over CONSTANTLY with even the slightest nudge.
Back then, no one ever called fouls on robots that tipped it (and half the time they tipped themselves anyways) because it was obvious that it was the fault of the team for building a tip-prone robot. I wonder had that robot been built this year how many teams defending (or just brushing by it in passing) would have been red or yellow carded.

IMO, FIRST aught to make teams bear some responsibility for making sure their robots can withstand the rigors of NORMAL match play, including being defended via normal bumper-to-bumper contact. Like it or not, it's part of the game.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

What about tall robots that look too heavy but aren't? What about a robot who's CG is 10" off the ground but is full height?

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Ah. You would be talking about my robot in 2013 (326). I'm not going do defend our design choices, because we good reason why we did this. I will say though that the robot you are speaking of was only tipped 3 times in 50+ matches. I believe only once was there a foul called as the intent was to flip.

Now in 2010 we had built a robot with a high CG with 3 wheels that was tipped much more often via normal bumper-to-bumper contact, and 9/10 times no foul was charged.

It's a ref call as much as anything in sports.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

I think that this is just part of the potential consequences you have to face when playing defense. If you choose to play defense you have to understand that the foul system is against you, and that playing good, legal defense especially this year is really difficult and risky.

And being a team on the other side the of the being tipped scenario. I can tell you that being tipped is one of the most annoying things that can happen to you in a match. While no harm is usually done to your robot, there isn't any easy fix. Unlike a broken manipulator bit, if your opponents tip you, you basically have to wait out the rest of the match, and can't do anything about the problem, later, which is infuriating.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Okay so i've kind of avoided these discussions about tipping, but like there is something that everyone who is talking about this is missing, and I feel like I have to bring this up.

Like this to me is the same as people complaining about tech fouls in 2014. Tipping fouls are super necessary in this game. In 2014 there needed to be a aggressively penalizing ball possession since the opponents literally couldn't score if you did that. Yet people whined and complained about the fouls and "wanted the foul penalty to be reduced" without spending two seconds to think about the problem in its entirety.

Also tipping fouls have nothing to do with who is playing defense on who.

This year it's really hard to win with only 2 robots mobile at the end of the match (you lose at least a 30 point swing). Refs need to be calling these tips aggressively, since it can completely ruin an alliances chances for winning. Lets be honest no robot is "designed to be tippy" and it's not like these tips are common so robots are "purposefully" trying to be tipped to win the match.

Anyone who is complaining about tipping cards as too agressive this year to me is just looking at this whole issue from a hugely biased perspective. These people are just blatantly ignorant of the inherent game design challenges that just need to be addressed by referees.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

I wonder how GDC would go about coming up with more definite rules for tipping. Right now it is obvious just by looking at the different of calls being made at events that the sketchy "Strategys aimed at" definition really does not fit the bill for calls that make or break event success for many teams.

I like the suggestion that robots have to pass some sort of tipping test where the robot has to be able to be tipped to a certain angle and doesn't fall over. This would at least make any call clear where the tip resulted from a t-bone.

Currently we are having the referees judge intent. There has to be a better way.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

I think you are oversimplifying. FIRST specifically addresses strategies aimed at damaging a robot. Nothing in the rule book indicates what should happen when two robots engaged in offensive/defensive interactions result in one robot accidentally tipping. What do you do when a defensive robot drives up onto another robots bumpers behind a sally door or drawbridge and ends up tipped?

Seems to me penalizing the offensive robot for tipping seems harsh. Especially considering the call essentially ends their season and the thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars that team invested. FIRST has specifically said they designed this game to impair visibility. To what end? To penalize teams for accidents? Expecting a driver to prevent tipping an aggressive defender from 40 feet away behind two sets of defences borders on the ridiculous.

In 2014 the foul points were harsh. When an alliance essentially can rack up over 200 points because of a stupid human player is ridiculous when the average match scores without penalties were roughly half that. Penalties should be aimed to teach and direct students behaviour to correct it, not to disqualify teams for accidents or errors.

The other issue is fairness in applying the rules. If tipping is penalized with a red card, then every tip should be penalized the same.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

I don't think this is a fair comparison to 2014 ball possession penalties.

In 2014, just like in every year, there were enforcement problems of ambiguous rules. Of course there were people who were upset with this or that call, but individual calls were not the real problem in many people's minds. The larger problem in 2014 was that a single tech foul was worth more points than the average robot was contributing in the whole match, and the ambiguous wording of some rules made it far too easy to get these ridiculously large fouls. There were solutions to some of these problems that could have been addressed by the GDC, but the GDC chose not to implement them.

This year, the tipping rule as it is written is nearly perfect in my opinion, and most people don't seem to be advocating rewriting this rule. Some people just seem to have issues with inconsistent enforcement, just like in every other year.

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Speaking about design, what if a robot that was designed to flip itself back over gets tipped over by another robot? do they still get the red card? or is that team who made that design choice penalized because they can't be incapacitated? What if they decide to stay upside down, is that a G11 because they want the other alliance to get that red card?

Re: Is FRC giving high CG robots a free pass on defense?
 

Which a "strategy" is pretty ambiguous sure. But I think the referees have to call it that way to preserve the season of the other side of the glass which you currently are ignoring. No alliance is "entitled" to a win.

You seem to be specifically sighting the case where your specific team was given a red card, I won't comment on that. A tip is a tip. A tip with no call is virtually a lost match. It doesn't matter how you got tipped. Defender? Scorer? Breacher? You are still equally screwed when the time comes to capture and you are instantly down 30 points. You are blindsighted to the other side of the argument completely.

This is just an inherent game design flaw. No rule change can fix this. There was only one ball, thus these rules had to exist at these point values. Just like tipping robots has to be called aggressively to not screw over teams.

Again not every tip is the same, nor is every call perfect.

I don't think anyone purposefully decides to design their robot to fall over and then flip themselves upright. It's a pretty non-existent scenario