Oh geez, please don't make this debate become philosophical now too.

The argument is that teams practicing this collusion intend to look out for their own self-interest at the expense of all the other teams. This is unfair to the teams who have worked hard designing and building their robot, their designing ability, and their strategizing ability.

Certainly all "cooperation and compromise" is not bad. But collusive activities that work at the expense of other, perhaps more qualified, individuals, IS bad.

My team hasn't even played and we are against it.


Gracious Professionalism - It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not or even if you understand it. The practice of aggreements has devided FIRST and has put a black mark on the entire competition. All teams should be gracious and professional and agree not to make these pre-match agreements, just because there's such a bad stink about it.

Our team is gracious and professional, and I personally don't feel the need to sign a petition. I don't know about the rest of my team.

I wouldn't do something just because there's a big stink about it.

I agree. What is the old saying: "United we stand, divided we fall".

If we all agree not to use pre-match agreements, we can get on with our goals of expanding FIRST, helping new teams, and having great competitions.

The problem we are having is that the points reward teams for "colluding" but colluding spoils the game. Therefore we need to agree not to do it. (We also need to get FIRST to change the point system, so it doesn't reward colluding.)

By doing so, we are establishing agreements on the fundamental nature of how the game is played. Without those agreements, we have chaos. To repeat from an earlier post, what would happen if tennis players were allowed to agree to split their first 2 sets evenly with each player winning a set by 6 games to 0 to save their energy, and then playing hard the last set. That would be unfair to the other competitors who were playing their hearts out for all their sets. Any players making such agreements would be kicked out of the tournament. Making agreements with your opponents is not acceptable in a competition which is what Stack Attack is, a 2-on-2 competition.

Please sign the petition at

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=19301

I have a story about the first match I ever witnessed involving a robot. Last year our robot fell over backwards on its first match. Oddly enough the other team thinking that they have won this thing tried inflating their score so they deployed a mouse to the other side. It didn't work very well and we won by a fluke. I think that first has a weird scoring system that allows this stuff to go on. If the reverted back to a regular scoring system where a team would would get their own points and not the losers this wouldn't happen.

I did not mean to imply that all "cooperation and agreements"
are "BAD" .........

But that was a shining example of 4 conspirators out to screw
Everyone else......"in their own self-interest"

And NO! I am NOT Calling or Em plying ANYONE is a "Nazi"

Remember, I was talking "THE BIG PICTURE" not just FIRST,
But the VALUES we Teach the Leaders of Tomorrow!

AS for USA/Iraq...... this has parallels to this thread too,

Geo.

P.S. My son is deployed (Medic, ARMY) and I do feel that we have
been using diplomatic channels

Re: On the subject of Stacking
 

Yeah, and you forgot to mention one of your opponents was completely dead, and the other had a malfunctioning arm. That stack was hardly the reason you won that match.

Stacking Bots in the Finals???
 

Originally posted by Gary Stearns
You need to go back and watch the NASA archive of Annapolis.

Alliance 7 came from behind to win their second Quarterfinal match by having a stack of 3 bins and 23 additional bins in their scoring zone. Final score 69 - 68. STACKS COUNT!!!
Alliance 7 came from behind again to win their second Semi-Final match by having a stack of 4 bins and 14 additional bins in their scoring zone. Final score 81 - 45. STACKS COUNT!!!
In the second match of the finals, Alliance 7 failed to get a stack made and lost the championship. If just one stack of 2 bins was made they would have come from behind in all three elimination matches to win the championship. (Do the math.) STACKS COUNT!!!

We have video of Dean jumping out of his chair after the Quarter and Semi final matches to check the thrilling ending of each of those come from behind victories. Bottom line is STACKS COUNT AT ALL TIMES!!!

Cooperation is in the "Spirit of FIRST"
 

I don't know what the fuss is all about, some teams have found that there is a strategy within the game that others have failed to recognize. The problem or flaw isn't with the team who has been wise enough to discover it, it's a flaw within the game and/or the rules. Don't blame teams that found it.

Four teams working "Together" to gain high qualifying points, I believe is fair more "gracious" than four teams smashing and beating containers and each others robots to bits.

Don't be upset with the teams who have exposed this opportunity to score, you should be singing there praises for sharing the strategy with you.

Doesn't anyone remember the "Coopertition" Game a few years ago?

I don't think anyone of these teams prearranged who would win only that they would "leave your stacks alone" if "you leave our stacks alone" nothing wrong with that.....

Re: Cooperation is in the "Spirit of FIRST"
 

Sorry Don- You can rationalize on this all you want but it is just wrong. The game this year is NOT coopertition or otherwise we would all have the same color domes on our robots.

Strategic maybe- ethical-no. And FIRST has said as much.

WC

We ARE complaining and didn't lose to a rookie team.

In fact losing to a good team fairly is no big deal. Hey- we lost to you, fairly I hope. We aren't complaining about that and your alliance deserved to move on. No problem there.

I think the people who are complaining are the ones who respect the rules and SPIRIT of the game. It is distasteful to be associated with this sort of behavior.

There are some sore losers out there, but I don't see them in this forum complaining. I DO see people concerned that the FIRST game, like many other things in our society, is being corrupted by a few individuals who think they are cleverly avoiding the rules. They don't want to see FIRST go the way of corporate america these days.

Quite frankly, if winning the trophy by this sort of deceit is that important to them I think we should make a special award for it and present it at the awards ceremony so all can see who the real "clever" teams are.

I bet they wouldn't get much respect from many in the FIRST community

Fixing the game is simply wrong. It offends. It degrades the spirit of FIRST. It shouldn't be tolerated.

WC
(PS- congrats on a great competition. Isn't is great to know your hard work paid off?)

Re: Cooperation is in the "Spirit of FIRST"
 

That was where I was leaning.

My daughter, captain of the team, just arrived home. She and I hadn't talked about this issue, and now I've learned that our team decided not to sign the petition, which is exactly what I said about myself today on this forum.

Angela did remember similar agreements last year.

Our team doesn't feel the need to blacklist the teams who choose to participate in gentleman agreements, and we'll be making our own decision about whether or not to participate in gentleman's agreements.

And our decision will also NOT be based on a mentor outside of our team threatening that if we follow that strategy we'll lose their company's funding.

Ok, Ok, enough already
 

After reading page after page of this stuff I must say I have been quite shocked at the uproar this has caused. As a coach on a FIRST team, I feel I must point out some things:

Gracious Professionalism & "the spirit of FIRST"-
Regardless of where you stand on the issue of "agreements", I believe that we could all agree that the following do not express a sense of GP or the spirit of FIRST:

Threats of physical violence,
Suggestions that some teams may deserve help while others do not ,
Forming "blacklists" (or speaking of revenge),
Suggesting that teams who have not broken any rules be removed from the competition,
Comparing students at a robotics competition to current or former international military/political events,
Suggestions that teams who have not broken any rules are not worthy of playing with in the elimination rounds.

PLEASE. If FIRST is not entirely about winning (or maxing QPs, or trophies, etc.) then lets act like it.

-Mr. Van
Coach, Team 599
RoboDox

This is turning into a very heated debate.

Let's put it down a notch, please...

My thoughts: "fixing matches" is not something I would personally do.

However, the strategy of this years game is as follows:Both alliance's stacks standing up = higher points for everyone. My team quickly learned that you only knock down enemy stacks if they knock down yours.

However, my team never even considered (I was the student coach) rigging a match with any pacts or agreements with other teams.

With all seriousness, people need to stop flipping out in this thread: it is getting out of control.

You are right Ben- I've said my piece. I'll back off and get ready for Rutgers ; )

WC