[FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Posted on the FRC Blog, 5/13/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...by-the-numbers

Sorry Frank, I never did get the chance to buy you that corndog.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I took the liberty of creating a bar graph of the Weekly Quality Survey 9from the survey Excel sheet that was in the post).

http://imgur.com/kDRQseO

Edited spreadsheet is attached

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Are we going to see another "themed" game? I am not sure I like this...:ahh:

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I was one of the bigger whiners about the game theme pre-kickoff, and I was happy with how it turned out.

I look forward to more well integrated themes.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I would guess we will. I hope if they do though, they stick to using themes that excite people and still feel like a competition. This year worked great because it gave the feel of a medieval tournament. It still felt very competitive and I feel added to the game fairly well. A theme like recycling though sort of takes away from the competitive aspect and doesn't really pump anyone up. I'm not sure how many themes they could use that fit with robotics but hopefully they find another that can work as good as Stronghold.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Personally I would have liked stronghold better without the theme.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Care to elaborate? Just throwing opinions on message boards without any substance is useless.

I, for one, think the game helped to contribute a lot to FIRST, including making viewership for an outsider seem a bit more entertaining. The theme helped to get team members engulfed into the game, and while the 'Renaissance Fair' flair that some people had at competitions may have been off-putting to some, it just shows they were inspired.

The Disney Imagineers helped to hit this game out of the park.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Ditto!

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I was skeptical, and then I wasn't. Theme may or may not have made the game better, but if Disney had anything to do with the game design, then let's keep them forever.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I disagree.

Most of the people I showed the game to thought the medieval theme was too childish. The times where we got the best response during demos of our robot we just explained it as a Dodgeball robot.

Our team went with the theme quite a bit. In fact our lead mentor spent over 10 weeks straight hand making chain mail. But, I think the best first games are the ones more like a sport. It's just easier for some outsiders to relate.

Also I don't see how making a costume instantly shows someone is inspired.

Think of this game without the decals without the castle tops and without the interestingly named defenses. I think it would still be just as fun and less off putting to the average high school student.

I will end this saying I did love the game the concept was cool and I liked the game pieces. What I did not like was the imo childish theme.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

My gut says it might not be the same organization every year, so we'll see how the integration changes from game to game!

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I hope you didn't lie to too many people.

Inspiration- the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

The game would be confusing without the theme. The theme tied it all together.

As for your 'average high school student' comment... I find 2 key issues.

1) Not every 'average high school student' connects to sports
2) This program is full of students I would say stray from the 'average' high school student in A LOT of ways.

While I like sports games too, FIRST has done A LOT of sports themed games. Its cool to stray from the norm. I think a majority of the people in the program took the theme well.

Besides, its better than Recycling.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I had quite a different experience. I explained the game as a tower-defense game to most people and they seemed quite excited by it. This especially appealed to high schoolers who have experience playing tower-defense games but might not have been interested in robotics. At the end of the day, appealing to high schoolers is kinda the point. The theme made the game easier to explain and more interesting to watch for outsiders. I also liked the medieval fanfare because it added a bit of flavor and excitement to the events (also felt pretty sweet carrying a division standard onto the field :D ). I'm not sure how long they'll be able to come up with unique, well-integrated themes (perhaps a 4-year theme cycle?) I also think that one of the reasons that FIRST Stronghold is one of the most beloved FRC games in recent history is that it had such a strong driving vision behind it. You might say that that Stronghold would have been better with the exact same game, without the theme, but I highly doubt the current game design would have been reached without the theme.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

A themed game does not have to be good or bad. As a matter of fact, what makes or breaks a game probably ISN'T the theme, but the theme can enhance the game.

Themed games:
2008 (NASCAR/Mario Kart)
2009 (Moon base)
2010 (Soccer)
2011 (FIRST Logo)
2012 (Basketball)
2015 (Waste management)
2016 (Medieval)

Pre-2008, there really wasn't much of a theme to the games, per se. They were... the games. 2013 and 2014 are left off as well, for a similar reason.

So, with that being said...
2009 and 2015 consistently make "bad game" lists. 2009's primary issue seems to have been the floor and the trailers resulting in scrums; 2015 was essentially 3v0 + 3v0, with "extra" game elements. 2011 is often included on those lists due to the minibots (a rather failed attempt to integrate FTC with FRC to some extent, which happened to decide many matches and tournaments).

On the other side of the coin, 2012 is generally regarded as a good game (though not top-flight necessarily--that depends on how many other good games whoever is ranking it has seen) with the one negative being the coopertition points that year; some teams tell horror stories about being stood up on that bridge. 2008 is "OK"--nothing fancy, nothing too terrible (other than the dreaded lane violation penalty); 2010 is in the same boat (with the main complaints being, as I recall, the ties and the possession limitations). And 2016 is one of the few games that was greeted with "We get to play this? COOL!" rather than "WTF, GDC?", and maintained a generally very high level of liking through the season (minor hiccups aside).

Where does that leave themed games? Done right, the theme enhances the game and makes it more popular. Done wrong, the theme can detract from the game. If a game element is done poorly, the themed game can give all themed games a bad name...


I'm thinking that next year's game will have a hard time passing Stronghold, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

It depends, while the teaser video and the reveal video was a bit childish, the game itself beniefited a lot by "destroying defenses" and "capturing the tower". Many people easily understood this and thought it was cool
Come on now.... just because it shoots balls dosen't make it dodgeball.... i mean this game was nothing like dodgeball at all... if your just describing it shooting balls, than why not a basketball bot (i think that would be more appropriate in fact :P)
While this is true to an extent, games like this (that don't directly relate to a sport) still grab attention... at times even more than if it was a basketball oriented game etc. Most people (that aren't into robots) would rather watch nba than watch this... but with cool games like stronghold, they get interested
Also I don't see how making a costume instantly shows someone is inspired.
Nope... this is something along the lines of what I say when talking to partners: "okay you guys destroy the rock wall and the cheval de frise, and shoot 3 or 4 boulders, with that we should get a breach and captured tower, we'll even try to scale."
This is what it might be like without names and decals: "okay you guys go over the bump and the teeter totter, remember it takes 2 "going overs" to get the points. Than shoot 3 or 4 foam balls into the hole. With that we should get the points for going over the obstacles, and the points for putting 8 balls in the holes. We will even try to attach to the bar and climb" .... not nearly as interesting to talk about, OR to explain to other people what the game is "this game is about goving over teeter totters and bumps, and shotting balls into holes"...

While some things like the kickoff and teaser video might have been childish.... I don't think anything else was seen as being childish

Just putting my opinion on this out there. :)

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Its very dependent on who you are showing the robot off to. Since we have been out since week 2 we have had quite a bit of demo time. At certain demos we explain it different ways. I'll give 3 example of demos. The first demo we did was at the Google HQ in NYC there we went in depth about the game explained it as tower defense and talked quite a bit about autonomy. Our second demo was at an elementary school Dodgeball fundraiser supporting autism awareness. There we simply said it shot Dodgeballs for the most part. When kids seemed interested we went more in depth talking about different obstacles and castles but usually they were happy enough with us saying it shot Dodgeballs and us explaining how it did it. The third demo was more informal and was at the school play which we sell snacks at. There were quite a bit of kids in our school who were turned off by the medieval aspect and didn't really understand the idea of Castle defense in fact they really just wanted to play catch with it. We gained a member that day.

But again I'm just one voice among many thousands. Based on the crazy lack of complaints they did well this year.

So what's next year's theme space or wild west?

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Well if you explain it this way, it makes sense :P :D. It does make me wonder though, how people can be turned off by the concept of a game being a capture the tower or etc :D, but no I get it now.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

My 2 second game explanation was also "it shoots dodge balls into a tower" because it takes much too long to explain the theme at those types of events.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I agree. I think the big difference between 2015 and 2016 is that this year the theme helped the game make sense. The very different tasks of shooting, driving over obstacles, and climbing are all tied together by the theme. The theme makes the game make sense as opposed to 2015 where they could have called the game Stack Attack and it would have made just as much sense.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Except that in 2003, Stack Attack made a lot MORE sense--see (opponent's) stack, ATTACK!!!! (Yep, that was the game name that year.)

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I know it was the 2003 name, but I can never think of another name to use as an example because it is so darn catchy.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Tote Tumble
Stack Attack II: Revenge of the Stacks

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I am so tired of hearing the "make it like sports, everyone loves sports, everyone understands sports, we'll attract more kids with sports..." refrain.

EVERYONE does NOT like sports. EVERYONE does NOT understand or get inspired by sports. I, and most of my friends (adults and teens), and most of the kids on our team throughout the years, do NOT like/understand/get excited about sports. Especially team sports like basketball, football and hockey. (Personally, I like individual sports like swimming, gymnastics, and equestrian pursuits, but that's just me.) And we (especially the kids in high school) are constantly told (directly or indirectly, by friends, family, school faculty and staff, and the media) that there is "something wrong with you" if you don't love sports, either as a participant or a spectator. Too much sports-relatedness runs the risk of alienating the kids who might be just wanting to get away from that pressure and find SOMETHING to do that is NOT sports-related.

And, in my experience being a mentor for the past 6 years, the kids who have gotten the most out of the team, and been actually interested in math/engineering/tech and designing/building/programming/driving the robot, were not any more inclined to try or stick with the team when (or because) the game was "sports-related."

In fact, our experience has been that if you attract the kids who will only be interested because of a sports-based theme or game, they soon lose interest when they find out that they actually have to think, do engineering-type work, build and program a robot. Sure, there are kids who like sports AND have the skills and interests to do well on the team, but those kids tend to stick around even when it's NOT a sports-related game.

About the only 'draw' I see for a sports-themed game would be with the general public, and maybe sponsors. But I really don't think that you're going to attract HS kids, who will put in the time and work necessary to really benefit, and stick with the team for more than one season, by having a sport-themed game. And you may, in fact, drive away kids who don't care for sports, and are tired of being constantly urged to go out for a sport, to attend sports activities, and to care about spectator sports.

So while I do like the catchphrases "the varsity sport for the mind" and "the only sport where every kid can turn pro," I don't think we should go overboard with the sports-mania and require that every FRC game be 'sports-related. Personally, one of the things I LOVED most about Stronghold was that it was NOT sports-related, yet was still competitive, fun to strategize, design for, build for, and play, and had a theme that made sense and was likely to attract kids with a bent for doing what we do.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Completley agree with the rest of what you said. Just want to point out, that sometimes a non sport themed game will be way more interesting than a sport themed game for audiences as well. Castle capturing and defense destruction is more interesting than throwing balls into goals and going over hurdles.... :P

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

WILD WEST FIRST PLZ MAKE IT HAPPEN

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Would the shootout be the endgame or autonomous?

I'm imagining a 2015 style split-second race :P

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

Yes.

Automode: Shoot at one of X targets (let's call it 9, but only 3 are active). Each robot gets one SHOT (not "ammo"--just for fun, the limit during the match is 6). Score a hit in an active target, one opposing robot is disabled from "hit" until 5 seconds into teleop. Trick is, you don't know which target goes to which robot. :p (Hitting an inactive target would be worth points, but fewer...)


Endgame: Try to get under cover, because all targets are active, with varying random "hinderances" (something like .5 second lag for 5 seconds, or disable for 2 seconds) applied to FMS-determined robots on the other alliance. Oh, and no reloading. Robots are also trying to get home...

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I can already hear Tom Nader saying " Good Shootin' ". Oh wait, he has said that as game announcer for most FRC games in recent memory. Yet another reason for FIRST to make it happen :D

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Oh god... Let the Chaos Ensue :D

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The FMS would never survive.

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But how do the scouters know if a robot was disabled due to a hit or actual issues?

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

A bright multi colored led must be placed on the bot in a visible position (just like the RSL light), and it flashes red when it is hit.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

I'm thinking George RR Martin and the folks raking in cash at HBO might disagree.

Re: [FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers
 

This was just my 2nd year being involved with FIRST. Last year as a spectator, this year as a marketing Mentor and Drive coach. I have a lot of family that watched last year and got bored. This year I had people form all over logging into thebluealliance to watch matches as it was much more watchable. I regards to the "sports" thing....I coached a lot of football as my kids grew up. When my oldest quit varsity football to join Robotics I asked to be involved with the coaching aspect. Even if you don't like traditional sports you have to admit that this year there was a lot of strategy that was similar to sports like football. I specifically coached my drive team to treat a defensive bot like a linebacker, take the hit to them don't let them dictate where and when you get hit. Control the field.... So, sports theme or no, there is correlation between those strategies when it come to the actual game play. Alll in all, have loved being involved with This organization and plan to continue even though my son graduates this year.