Petition to change rules!!
 

Update: read my post at the bottom for more info, im out!


Now, I doubt that negative scores will happen, but this scoring system is getting rediculously complex. Can't it be simpler and easyer to understand?

My sugestion - very easy


The number of boxes in the stack* with the most boxes in it is multiplied by the TOTAL number of boxes in the scoring zone. PERIOD, NO MATER WHAT!


*Definition of stack

dictionary.com "An orderly pile, especially one arranged in layers."

Legalese
"A group of boxes supported by 1 and only 1 box, or any non-box item. Each box can only directly support 1other box.

Any stack not fitting this description is not elegible for the high stack.THATS IT; The boxes in it are just regular boxes!!!



High points (pun intended;)) in this plan

• VERY SIMPLE!!!
• NO [insert colorful ajective(s)] SHU'S!!!
• a box is a box is a box
• tallest stack possable = good!!
• why shouldnt I get points if my bot is holding a stack?
• Why should I raise my oponents score if my bot cant steal a stack in time?
• it doesnt take a palm pilot to figure out!!!

ps. this exact same message will be posted in all negative point threads, and in its own poll thread in the rules forum. any updates/replies should be posted in poll thread, so please make sticky. goto the poll thread and lets make it a petitition!!!!

pps. sorry bout the speling, gammer, too many !'s and bouts of RAGE; its 3:45AM!!

-Matt Stearn
CUL8R


edit: minor cleanup

edit: spelling

edit: added SHU comment

edit: I made an error in my calculation that made everything before my idea void. So, i deleted it and replaced it. Also, toned down some rhetoric, and removed referances to neagative points.
i spent 10 minutes checking those things, think how hard it will be to do it on the fly durring the game!

edit: minor rewording, but nothing changed

edit: capitilization, spelling, punctuaion

Plus, it's a nightmare for spectators. I tried to explain the game to my mother...

Impossible.

from all the speculation on scoring. this game is not simplier than last year at all. when i first saw the game i thought cool... simple scoring. but as soon as I saw that big stick measuring a stack i knew things would get complicated. i say no SHU, no virtual stack. spectators will get a headache trying to figure out whats going on.

the stack should be simply that. count the layers of it and thats how high it is. multiply by the ones on the ground not in that stack. sooooo easy. but now weve got negative scoring, new measurement units invented, etc. which will make for heated arguments, in which everyone will have a rule book in front of them. if youve ever argued with a first person you know they get extremely technical with rules.

2001 rules were confusing enough, 2002 rules were great, 2003 rules are going downhill fast.

lets try to keep it simple FIRST. To save everyone headaches (or is exedrin a new sponsor, lol)

I still don't see whats so complicated. It's now tallest pile in your scone that your robot isn't touching. The stack is measured in shu's or how tall those things are right side up. Take that and multiply it by the rest of the blocks in your scoring zone. Stay at the top of the hill and you get 25 points at the end.

not any more. read TU3 and your thread

That's where I was reading it from. What am I missing??

redbeard0531 & Ricksta121:
Keep your "improvements" or ideal changes in hand for the Team Forum or for any post season event that you might be organizing, but for now you're going to have to deal with what FIRST decides. If they want to allow for negative points, fine. If they unintentionally made people think that there was a possibility of getting negative points, fine. You're not the people making up the rules for the 2003 FRC, and you're going to have to deal with the rules just like the rest of us. So what's the point in complaining so much? If you think that a petition (wether it be on the CD Forums or emailed directly to FIRST) will make FIRST change their mind, you're gravely mistaken. No matter what FIRST decides there will be people who are upset. They won't be gaining anything by changing the rules based on the remonstrations of some FIRSTers, they'd just be in the same boat as they are now. Give the complaining a rest, and put your emotion into something more fruitful (i.e. strategizing/designing/prototyping/building a robot to compete in the game that FIRST is putting on). Remember what Dean said about fairness? Think about how lucky you are to even be a part of this competition/family, and not live in some undeveloped nation without drinking water (for example).

-Bill Gold

But you couldn't be more wrong.

FIRST does listen to those who complain, very much so. Infact, last year many teams broke the tape measure rule. So many that FIRST simply threw out the rule, but they didn't just throw it out in the build period, they actualy threw it out at the regionals! After the build period. And they do gain something by changin this rule. Dean said we are "competing" with sports. And if we are to compete with them we MUST change this rule to be more spectator friendly(note that dean stressed the "spectator friendly" stuff alot). So, maybe you, as well as FIRST, should rethink things.

Also, I do not believe this to be intentful. I believe that the wording that allows for negative points was a mistake, and once noticed will most likely be rectified.

Normally, I would agree with you, but FIRST very obviously knew that the changes changed the entire scoring system. Why else would they put a disclaimer on there saying "This bullet is worth reading several times as there are some subtle and very interesting results and consequences?"

As for the whole petition thing: grow up. Life's not fair nor is it within your control. Deal with it. Personally, I think these rules simplify things and make life a whole lot easier. Regardless, I'll back FIRST in anything they choose to do. If you don't like the rules FIRST made, go build a Battle Bot. After all, rules don't get much simpler than "last robot standing wins".

I think everyone should just chill because I'm sure FIRST is already in the process of fixing the negative point wording :)

anyone remember Dean's speach on fairness? If you can't understand the game, it's not fair to you, big deal. If the spectator's can't from your explination.. big deal..

The only time in which a score will be reduced is when the highest bin is held by an opponent in the alliances zone. The majority of matches will probably end in a fight for king of the hill. It is not to a robot's advantage to be off the hill and reducing the bin score of their opponent when they could be on the hill.

The petition, and no disrespect to the poster or poster's team, is a, to put it bluntly, stupid idea. The rule's don't need to be changed and won't be changed.


Need to explain the game to your mother?

A height of a stack of bins in your teams zone times the number of bins minus the stack. Almost every match will end this way. If they ask: Why didn't that add up? then explain an opponent's robot holding a bin above the stack reduces the multiplier.

That's just about the extent of it. No worries, No petition needed.

think about who you are upset about
 

I think it was a perfectly fair thing for FIRST to do... People are just upset because they fear others are going to play the game to intentionally give negative points to others. That could happen to all situation... No matter what FIRST decide, some people will find some way to make the worst out of it. Teams could potentially do a lot of things to ruin the fun of the game... But I don't see anyone complain about those other things.

There's no reason to be upset about FIRST when all you are worrying about is others playing dirty and giving you a negative score. It's ok to be upset, just make sure you know what exactly you are upset about, and don't complain to the wrong person that have nothing to do with the things you fear: the dark side of human nature.

The whole point of the game is still to make sure you get as many points as possible, as well as your opponent... Otherwise you are just not playing the game right. If you choose to give your opponents negative points... Then I am afraid you got nothing out of the program, and you are just wasting everyone's time and resources participating in a program you got nothing worth while out of. The choice is your's.

I will have to agree with Bill and rbayer, simply because I know FIRST is really really busy once kickoff started, and they all their energy are spent in dealing with the kit of parts, and making sure the competitions happen they way they intend to. They will listen to teams all right, just when they setup a time specifically for talking to teams at team forum. During build period... I am pretty sure the FIRST staff ignor most complain people have that's not threatening the ideal of the competition.

im in agreeance with that. the rules are out of control. number of boxesi n stack * number of boxes in floor. bonus for on ramp. i hope first reads all of this.

john scans
team 1019

According to the rules, if an opponent's robot is holding a box on your side it counts as part of the stack. if this is the case, could you touch the robot and negate the whole stack and the negetive points?:confused:

add an option that says, "No, keep the rules the same. FIRST wont change the rules and nobody will get negative points."



petitions wont work during the season. FIRST has better things to be worrying about. if you dont like something, bring it up at the post season team forums. otherwise if you dont like how the rules are now, you are out of luck

They did this intentionally, they wanted to see how teams would use tactics, and strategy to win when they needed to, and lose when they needed to. Basically, don't expect bots to just go out there and make negitive points all the time. You would need to be very unsportsmanly to do that, and would pretty much be digging yourself a grave (points-wise).

whoa whoa whoa
 

read the first line, it says I feel that neg points are very unlikely!

unfortunately i cant edit the options.

lemme just give the reasons that I posted this, as I think that it isnt clear

i saw a bunch of ppl complaining, but noone offering a better way.

i thought i with1 box on the floor, you would get neg poins. i was wrong it is actualy 0. I see that as wrong because there is no differace between 1 box and 0 boxes.

about the "I for 1 like negatives": that is my trying to be funny;). I posted at like 3:45AM

I really liked the original game!

I do kinda blame us all for the confusion. We kept asking stupid questions about situations that are unlikely / a bad stratigy. What if a bot make a pyramid, what if a bot is holding a stack, etc. Mabey this was just to mess with us. It was posted on a friday so they can spend all weekend laughing at how geeks will ruin a good weekend to surf the forums, debate semantics over something they were gonna change. common guys this is ment to be fun im gonna change my vote, cuz i know first will do the rite thing.

sorry bout the controversy this wasnt what i intended. I just wasnt thinking this morning

this is enough
 

read this post

they obviously want their to be negative points, it makes other parts of stack counting easier (like pyramid stacks)

my question is WHY WOULD YOU EVEN WANT TO GIVE SOMEONE A NEGATIVE SCORE???? think, your qualifing points, the points that advance you through the competition, the good happy points everyone wants, is your alliance score plus two times the opponent's score.... you get 45 points, and give the other team, lets say -20 points, you get 45 + (-40) to get a QP of 5

thats bad, no one wants 5 QPs, and you could give your self much worse if you give them a lower score... you want their score to be as close to yours as possible without them winning...

to quote dlavery, any team who gives their opponent's a negative score will get attacked with cheese so they never do it again...

there is NOTHING else to be said about this topic, go build a robot or something

Deal with it. Do something useful with your time (like build a robot!) rather than complaining that this isn't "fair". If FIRST wants to change things, they will. If not, then they won't. Either way, we are going to have to deal with whatever they throw at us! :yikes:

- Katie

Well said Katie. The amount of energy expended on CD to complain about the rules could be better spent doing productive things. The toughest thing about gracious professionalism is accepting adversity. It is easy to be graciously professional when circumstances are ideal. However, when circumstances are not ideal, that is when gracious professionalism is really tested and it is up to the individual to respect the rules and not complain but rather accept them and be professional about it. FIRST is similar to real life in that nothing is perfect and you have to deal with the circumstances as they arise and make the best of it!

You're exactly right Katie.

Gope:
FIRST didn't throw out the tape measure rule. There was no tape measure rule. There was an "entanglement" rule, which was extremely difficult to police/interpret because a normal tape measure (if deployed properly and timely) can run absolutely no risk of entanglement. It's a point of view issue. Just like the issue of bumpers in the 2000 competition. So, in escence, FIRST did not change any rules last year after the first week of Regionals. I personally was under the assumtion that any loose wire was an "entanglement risk," but in hindsight I see that tape measure / mouse 'bot advocates had a decent arguement.

My feelings are similar to David's. Petitions like this won't work during the season, just save it until the Team Forum. If you still don't like the rules, you're s.o.l. for a few months.

That is until the finals. A win of 5 to -5 is still a win, in the finals. Maybe those negative point robots won't be at the top of the board when finals start, but they might be when finals are over.

This totally reminds me of team 25's robot in 2000.

Again it comes down to whether you design a robot for the finals or for elimination rounds. Take last year for example, grab all three goals to shut the other guy out you win. A number of bots went for the center goal for various reasons. We at S.P.A.M. elected to get to that goal first before anyone else could, hence the incrediblely fast drivetrain that even the cameras had trouble following at 12 ft per second. This in conjunction with handing the goal off to our alliance mate and then fighting for the other one gave us a high success rate. Sure, we weren't in the top in terms of rank but in the end we were in the finals. So to those pursuing the negative point strategy, it is a valid strategy and you just might win that way. Actually, make it go on a sort of lift/elevator so you can constantly change the multipliers. That way you can just park in the other alliance's scoring zone and adjust the score as necessary or how you feel like it!

oh joy so in the finals I'm going to see crane bot versus crane bot and whoever reaches the highest wins!!!(Me yawns and decides if that is the way they wanna play it paint a big red bulls-eye on the back of your robot cuse your a dead man) DQ=0> -x

I totally agree, the people out there that say I can't figure out why anyone would want a low score or a negative score must never have played in a match where your opponents think they have to prove something, that they can totally dominate the match even if it means they also get low or no points. It happened to us twice last year where the match-up was bad and our opponents took all the goals and we couldn't get any and the score was 0. Should it happen..... NO will it happen..... probably some teams won't play the same 'game' as others.

SC15 says that the elimination rounds are scored exactly like the qualifying rounds and that points are accumulated throughout the elims. A robot that is designed to deny points to the extent that a negative score is achieved will likely not make it to the finals nor will they be picked by a team that does.

Why thank you for quoting me. Thats a first here. No one knows why you would want a negative score. But here goes why. The primary reason S.P.A.M. got picked to be someones alliance partner was because we demonstrated time and time again that very few teams could consistently deliver results with a combination of high speed and high traction to essentially dominate on the field. The key is consistency. If this/these team(s) can consistently show that you can give your opponents a negative score, I would seriously consider you as an alliance partner in the finals as a potential strategy. This demostration of a team's ability to consistently to perform a task often is a part of the criteria for pucking. While we at S.P.A.M. have never had the chance to pick our alliance partners as we have not ever seeded high enough, but we know why we're picked. And our ability to perform consistently was it.

um... elementary math here...(generates random score)

red blue
-1 -15

Red wins as -1 is greater than -15. Your combined score just has to be greater than the other alliances, no one says it has to be positive numbers only (although you would wan it to be).

Why you NEVER want to give your opponents a negative score: it destroys your score as well.

Example: It's the finals, and Alliance 1 is in Red and Alliance 2 is Blue. At the end of the match, Red has 10 points, but also managed to hold a bin up in the Blue scoring zone, giving them a net score of -15. Here's the catch: Blue gets -15 points, but Red gets -20 (10 - 30), meaning that Blue wins even though they actually lost.

There is NO reason to give your opponent a negative score, except possibly as a personal vendetta--it hurts you twice as much as it hurts them.

I must agree there but it is a thought. Taking your example (keep in mind all three robots of an alliance must appear on the field for a match)
Match 1: Red 60 Blue 15
Match 2: Red -20 Blue -15

Guess what? Red 40, Blue 0! Red wins the elimination round! As long as you win the first match of eliminations by a long shot, the second one all you have to do is win legally or lose by a little!

All I can say in this type of thread is this- sometimes the most open mind is the one which can admit it's closed.

if your team is making a plan to give opponents a negative score, you are wasting your time, effort, and money.

There is **NO** advantage to intentionally giving out a negative score. Don't even bother challanging that.

Elimination rounds follow the same point system as qualifications

Round 1:
Red: 30 -- Winner
Blue: -15

Red EP: 0
Blue EP: 0

Round 2
Red: 30 -- Winner
Blue: -50

Red EP: -70
Blue EP: -50

Guess what? Blue advances.

The only way you will have a positive [QP, EP] score is when your base score is more than double the absolute value of your opponents negative. But regardless of your score, your [QP, EP] will be significantly reduced as opposed to winning by 1 or 2 bins.

My thought, go ahead and build with the intention of giving negative scores to opponents. That's one less team to worry about for the finals

OK very good but now here is why your wrong. Team A has say a stack of 2 on its side, along with 2 containers on the floor, with 30 seconds left to go. They have a score of 4 Team B has a stack of 3 containers with 3 on the floor giving them a score of 9. Both teams have one bot on the top of the hill. Team B wins, UNLESS the remaining bot from Team A can go over and do its lift thing to the tune of 9 SHU's.

Team A then takes the win with a score of 43 to 7. That is how a team uses negative points in the finals to win.

I am not going to say this should happen, or will happen. I am only saying the posibility of it is out there. Anyone that says you CAN'T use negative points to win needs to take a look around.

Umm.. 43 to 7? I'm not seeing any negative numbers here. Giving a team fewer points could be a good thing, as long as you make it fewer by as little as possible. There is NO reason to make another team's score negative. None. Heck, you're better off just knocking over their stack and pushing everything outside the scoring zone. At least that way you don't loose QPs/EPs.

As for scenarios: we could sit here all day and throw scores around. The truth of the matter is that this game is far simpler than it was before update #3. If you want to flame me for the previous sentence, don't waste thread space. Send me a PM and I'll explain. And explain. And then explain some more.

Heres a nice analogy

At work, if your boss gives you a part to draw in CAD, and you do not like some of the dimensions, you cant petition or beg to change them to something easier. You have to deal with it.

still
 

first makes the decisions....PERIOD !
BUT...
the scoring is too complicated, not complicated enough to be not understood....but......certainly it does not do what Dean said it would...make it easier.......LAST YEAR WAS EASIER THAN THIS YEAR !...and how is the crowd supposed to know whats going on ? i dont think they will have the announcer explain SHU's to them.....

Re: still
 

at least your team wasn't around for the wonderful scoring of the 2001 game

Hey DJ how would you like them to keep the scoring the way it is now but to ADD the time multiplier scoring they did in 2001? Wouldn't everyone just love that? :P

Whats is the matter with all you people? If you can build robots than you should be ABLE TO MULTIPLY....

I dont see what the big deal is???

Somebody please explain?

Thats what i was wondering. I was being sarcastic in the earlier post to DJ. I like the rules the way they are.

(Yawns) you know, the rules.......if you can get inside their minds....its all twisted and dark. They always throw us at least one curve ball.

Re: Re: still
 

Hahahaha ... I've been thinking that when reading all of these "change to rules" posts ... 2001 scoring ... ::shudder:: :D

- Katie

that game was definately twisted. I think the only good think out of that year were the friends I made on other teams, especially 179. ;) :cool: