Pacific Northwest Regional
 

Does anyone have footage of friday's matches for the Pacific Northwest regionals?

233 was the best team there, the pink team from florida. They made "under the table" deals with almost all of their opponents and made a deal.:( They agreed to not knock over each others stacks to get more QP's.:(

My team, 949, had the highest score of the day for a while, with like 258 QP's. We took out 6 rows of boxes on top of the ramp with one sweep. :D We did this with our 8 ft wide arms. We only left one stack 3 high left on the ramp. We didn't make any deals with our opponents either. But we don't have autonomous, and that hurts our chances.

But then 233 made a deal with the other teams in their next match, and made an 8 high stack with human players. The other team let it stand, and team 233 got around 360 QP's. I personally think this is kind of cheap to make deals with opponents before matches. 233 made deals all day, and because of that, they are seeded #1. Don't get me wrong, 233 has a great bot, probably the best one at the pacific NW regional, but making deals is cheap.

Team 190 from massachussettes, the crab bot, was really good too. And I don't think they made deals. They can make it to the top of the ramp in 4.6 sec, and take out 4-5 rows of boxes.

Well, thats my take on the day at the pacific northwest. No one can stack, and there is a lot of deals going on now. Tomorrow should be interesting. The best teams are from florida, and massacussettes, go figure. The only teams from the east coast that are at the pacific northwest teams are beating all the NW teams. It almost seems kind of cheap that experienced teams from the east coast come and beat on the teams in the NW that are more newly formed.

In regards to that last statement, NASA has been actively encouraging veteran teams to attend rookie regionals to balance them out a bit. I know that at one point, NASA even offered 190 funding if we went to Seattle (although that offer was later withdrawn). This isn't a case of sandbagging.

NASA funding
 

That's cool that NASA encourages it. It is actually kind of good to have some teams that are good teams to come to our regional. (I am from bellevue and my house is about 40 min drive to the regional).

190 is definately a team to look up to with their awesome autonomous performance during matches, and technology with x and y axis gyros and i'm not exactly sure how it works, but it is kind of a positioning sensor. The side to side "crab" motion is also cool and unique.

But it just seems almost unfair for teams that this is their first regional of 2003, when other teams have already attended 1, 2, or even 3 regionals before this one. Especially since some of those teams have been in the final rounds, and a few have even won previous regionals, and are going for multiple regional victories.

But the vetran teams that have been around longer have more sponsers + money to pay for airfare. So hopefully my team will be able to do this next year.

By the way, 190, you guys have an awesome bot! 949, likes your bot a lot. And we play against you guys 2 times tomorrow, so we will enjoy the matches, there should be some good action! Look for team 949 with the big 8 ft wide arms going up against the "crab-ram" team of 190.

[In one match however, we (949) are against 190 AND 233 (the pink machine) hopefully we don't get wiped out too bad...]

As for the HECo/McKinley team, we traveled to Seattle after the Silicon Valley Regional. We decided to go to the Seattle regional to show the students a different state. We went to the Southern California Regional last year. Although we qualified for the Nationals, we are not going because it will be too expensive to travel to Texas from Hawaii. We try to make the best of our initial air fare leveraging another regional before we return.

If we were a rookie team, I would love to see how we fair against other more experienced teams. Also, I know that we have learned much from them. The competition forces everyone to innovate and everyone gains at the end.

I am also interested in seeing pictures/videos of the matches. Being from Hawaii always creates logistical problems with travel. This year we have 6 teams from Hawaii. Hopefully, we will have a regional of our own someday. This will definitely save us money. I would think that FIRST teams would not mind visiting the islands.

A rookie team won at Chatsworth practice competition before shipping off the robot. *chuckle* They "balanced" the vets.

At the new Phoenix regional, 28 of the 37 teams were veterans.

Last year Team 190 attended Virginia and Southern Cali regionals as opposed to ones closer to home. We do this for a couple reasons.

- We always select one regional that is during spring break, typically the first week in March. Usually the majority of students attending competitions are college or HS seniors, which means they have that week off. It's that many less classes we miss.

- We like to spread the name of WPI. Our college is a wonderful and huge supporter of FIRST. Through both funding for the team and scholarship money to FIRST students on all teams, they are awesome. We like to go to new and different places to promote WPI and reach and audience that may not otherwise here of our school. At these 'far' competitions, we usually have a table with WPI materials manned by team members to talk about WPI (hope you visited!)

- It's fun to play against/with new and different teams. As opposed to simply going to NH and UTC, and playing against much of the same field of robots, we enjoy broadening our horizons and playing with different teams.

- Sometimes the costs are not much more at all then renting buses and vans for the days and hotels (or not) closer to home.

So look for us hopefully someplace new next year as well (maybe AZ, MI, IL, who knows!)... plus at some more off-season comps besides the many around here... can wait to see what fun gets stirred up then!

See y'all at nationals. Go Archimedes :)

One of our guys at 948 (Newport HS) taped the matches we were in, and I think he got the final round, too.

Definitely, there was a lot of box pushing and stack knocking, but not a lot of building. We tried a strategy of stealing stacks, except it didn't hold up too well when going down the ramp even with the tilted dolly.

There were some deals going on, but after we told some judges who were interviewing us that 233 tried to make a deal, the pit admin called all the team mentors up to have a nice chat about no collusion. Then I caught wind of that International (492) thing, where they planned to shove us out of the arena during a quarterfinal match. We were warned, but unfortunately, it worked and we got shut down, no one did anything about it. Eventually, they went on to the finals.

Just my $0.02.

The winners of the regional were team 233, 368, and 753.

You guys made a great alliance! It's too bad 368 isn't going to nats.

Cheapness of Deals
 

Making deals with the alliance partners and opponents is not cheap. Its actually quite smart, because winning is not everthing, your score is. No one cares if you win 5-2 because you get almost no Qp's. Allowing stacks to stand does not affect any part of the match other than the total score, both alliances have a good chance of winning, the stacks merely make the total points higher. (you can win by one box and actually add 8 to your score so it looks inflated). Allowing the stacks to stand is advantagious to both alliances, its better to lose with 150 Qp's then to win with 20........This was not meant to be a war of attrition, but a cooperative event that allows all to succeed. If you think that using the strategy that is almost implied in the rules is cheap then you need to rethink your strategy. I really enjoyed the regional and i congratulate the rookie teams that performed amazingly. I wish you all luck in the future, if you ever need any help, look for team 233.

Pit Crew Chief
Team 233

I would also like to point out that in the highest and second highest matches of the regional for us, both teams really wanted to take down our stack and we defended it for the whole, while our ally got their act together.....so not all high scores are because of dealing. First is about winning by giving yourself more, not by taking away from others.

Hey Tyler 178
 

Hey Tyler I feel the need to say something in regards to your last statment. You say that it is unbalancing for the old teams to compete at new regionals. We (1158) were a rookie team there. Before the under the table deals we were ranked number 1, then pink took it (they probably would have eventually anyways). Going in to the finals we were ranked #4. After #2 (Bull dogs and #3 (Gompi [no clue to actual spelling sorry]) teamed up, we were the number 3 alliance. We beat the #6 alliance and the #2 alliance to make it to the Finals. One of our partners (955) was competing for only thier 2nd year. And with the first place alliance I think it was only 957s second year. So don't say that the new teams can't compete with the Veterans.

As to your other statement about 233 making deals. I agree that they shouldn't be allowed but they are. We were offered 2 such deals during the competition one from 233. I politely declined the offer and nothing else was said.

Re: Cheapness of Deals
 

THIS is what FIRST is all about? I never thought I'd hear an alliance partner say such a thing. Incredible!

How about using this quote for your Chairman's submission?

After our alliance last year I thought you guys were better than that.

WC

Re: Re: Cheapness of Deals
 

:( IMO that's how things got ugly.

I didn't find anything wrong with Jrmc's post.

He has a different opinion than you and trying to shame him and punish him doesn't set a good example.

You do your thing, he's doing his thing, and a consequence may be his not being in an alliance in the future with you, or he feeling comfortable working with you.

On the other hand, both sides could just agree to disagree, and continue to get along.

Hey you guys, I'm one of team 233's drivers and I do understand the split over collusion versus none and I see a lot of valid points all around.
We sorta ended up going for it some. A lot of the time we just had this basic statement which I thought was pretty good based upon all I had read on all the many rather vigorous forum debates on the subject before any of our regionals. We always go to all the teams in our match before each match(basic check to see what's going on, how they're doing etc) and when we did we usually just told them that as long as our stacks were not hit we had no reason to attack theirs. A major reason for this statment was teams who seemed to recklessly destory all stackes, even if they were winning badly. If they attacked our stacks we defended them(which we almost always had to) and if they didn't we could do other things but either way because of our excelent defense(which I would attribute mostly to the driving of our base driver chris aks "Ash") we could always come out with a high score(though in the case of one match we defended against two bots at once for most of the match where and still got hundres of points). I would also like to say that in the few matches we had a real agreement with the other teams, either by accident or because of a change in the opinion of the other teams, the stacks went down or we still had to defend. Anyway, that's a bit of a layout for what we did. Beyond that I loved it when the other teams went at us hard. Anyway, if you have any specific points about what we did you'd like to object to or discuss go ahead, if you just want to say collusion is evil then that's allready been said.
Thanks,
Josh

That's the conclusion we came to and how we played.

*chuckle*

STACK ATTACK? what don't you read the name of the game? attacking stacks is the purpose of this game....

Also if you noticed in the kickoff the game is 2 vs 2 not 4 v 0....that was 2001 it is time to move on from diabolical dynamics.
What you are doing is not in the spirit of FIRST and is just awful. I am happy you are not in our division at nationals. What you are doing is circumventing the rules and it is appauling.

....what kind of example is it to circumvent the rules and find ways to beat the system? This is just setting an example for the next Enron or Worldcom. The reason there is not a rule against it is because FIRST never imagined this would happen.

Sugarcoat it however you like to make yourself feel like you are doing the right thing, but when it comes right down to it you should know you got to the top of seattle by cheating plain and simple.

Ahhh...maybe that's a difference of opinion we have too. Even if it's called stack attack, we didn't feel the need to attack the stacks - unless the "need" came up.

like I said sugar coat it however you want to....

If you were there, you would think differently.
Your statement is completely off-base.

No one can take away from 233's accomplishments in Seattle. They consistently played the game smartly and quickly rose to the top. Their robot was one of the most impressive there, and was given the Motorola Quality award, arguably the most prestigious (technical) award FIRST gives out.

From my unique perspective in Seattle, it did not appear 233 made any agreements. They simply made sure their opponents knew what most smart teams already know: Knocking over a stack is pointless, if you are winning. By showing this, they let the other teams know that they would not play defense, unless they NEEDED too. Is this really collusion? Or is Rocco-bot simply teaching rookies how to play the game?

Rocco-bot showed other teams they didn't have to attack stacks unless they absolutely needed to. If the other teams decided they needed to, Rocco-bot was there to (most of the time) out drive, out maneuver, and our muscle them to protect the stack.

I dont believe this is the same as saying:
"Even if your losing, don't attack our stacks, because we'll attack yours, and everyone will score low."

What is collusion?
Where is the line drawn?



FIRST cannot, and will not issue a statement on collusion. They are not taking a stance on it either way. This has been made clear, time and time again by official FIRST representatives.

It's part of the game people. Deal with it in your own ways.

I'm not going to get into the entire philosophy again, but I will say this to comment on thost last two comments. FIRST specifically said that it woud leave this issue up to the teams(was discussed else where) and before you say we won by cheating you should talk to the people who were there. Collusion aside we were there with you at UCF I'd play you in Houston :)

thanks,
Josh

Are you the type of person who enjoys winning matches 25-0?

Why would you take points away from yourself?

Teams are posting, in my opinion, valid justifications for their actions. If you don't like it, don't play that way. But don't come in here and complain about the way other teams are playing.

I saw what i needed to when they were at UCF....they defend 1 stack 1 time.....the rest was prearranged...no I wasn't at Seattle true, but frankly I've seen 233 do this before so it is nothing new....there are a bunch of teams who said you got to the #1 seed by making "deals" just look in the start of this thread. I've said my peace and I'm done with this topic.

Do whatever you like, but do not come to 312 with an offer of this nature.

What I would like to know is if team 233 was told by first not do continue doing what they were doing, as someone already said?

Well we were with 233 twice and neither time we fixed the match. the first time we got like 268 total points or something. Then we had 233 again and we got a raw score of 233 and i think thats still the highest in the nation . either way 233 was a great group and the only thing i can say is they know how to play the game now. they won every thing in the pacific northwest regional because they did what they needed to do to stay on top.

good luck at nationals 233!

FIRST has no official position on collusion.
They have not, and will not issue any statements concerning collusion.

I'm sorry 312...
 

I hope you realise where I'm coming from. I am the base driver for team 233. I was driving at UCF. I did only defend one stack. We did arrange a match at UCF. During the finals I almost passed out I was so nervous. I was overwhelmed.

Then I flew to Seattle.

I knew what to look for. I had already done this. I wasn't overwhelmed anymore (talk to your drivers, they will know what I'm saying). I could pay attention to the GAME instead of the driving. And halfway through the first day, I realised what I should do. Defend the stack. Yes, I know its called Stack Attack. Yes, you can win by knocking over stacks.

But you can also win by not knocking them over.

Do you think the brains behind the game are so shallow as make the only strategy of the game the title of the game? There is a depth to these games...

Also, I thought that the 2001 games were supposed to embody the spirit of FIRST more completly than any of the other games. I thought that cooperation and teamwork was the real reason behind FIRST, not mindless destruction (a.k.a. BattleBots).

I defended my stacks. When I was the only robot moving on the field, I pushed boxes to the opponents scoring zone, not away. I didn't subscribe to the wanton destruction some alliances thought was needed to win. In fact, thats why we won the Seattle regional... because instead of destroying, I protected. It worked during qualifying, and it worked during the finals.

I hope you can realise the game can be played differently.

233's mentor specifically came up to my team and said "If you leave our stacks up we will leave yours up". This sounds like a deal to me. However, I can see both sides of this issue.

The way the points are given out in this game, and the way that points are emphasised over wins and losses, it is beneficial to get more points. Since the ranking is based solely on point average, it doesn't matter if you win all of your matches.

Personally, I would prefer a system based on wins and losses, where you don't have to worry about points, but only the rules of the game, and dominating other bots. But, this game was not designed that way.

If you can find a way to "manipulate" (maybe a bad word choice) the rules, to come out on top, so be it. That may, or may not be an intention of the design of the game. But point system may be the fairest way to decide rankings of teams. Even if it is not the most fair way, there may not be a perfectly fair way.

It is hard to argue with results though, and the way the averages worked out, almost all of the bots ended up in the top 8, and I would say that 233 was if not the best, one of the best teams there. Even if they were ranked number one by agreements, they deserved 1st place, since they had one of the best bots.

The debate on this topic may never be settled, but we should move on and enjoy the great experience teams had to compete.

*Team 233, nothing against you guys. You had a great bot and great strategy. I realized some people didn't agree with your strategy, but you guys deserved the win at Seattle. You had a great autonomous, and bot, and truly knew what it meant to play this year's game. Good luck at nats.*

Thanks all of you, good things have been said, I hope we've all had our say, and thanks Ash I think you said some good stuff. From what I saw in our team and every other team there(everyone talking and dancing even the robots :) I think we all had a great time in seattle and I hope we all have a fantastic time at houston, it's going to be amazing.

Josh

368 again
 

well we are bcak to the argument about collusions / agreements


there were many more teams out there that tried those collusions not only 233.

many teams failed

one match at the seattle, no robots except one (which later died-technical difficulties?) moved

233 was able to accomplish it,...so..ill congragulate them again


dont get me wrong....368 was against it form the start, and when a mentor from a different team (other then 233) asked us, we refused.

as a operator of 368, i did not want to have agreements because i belived it would not be fair

but it is not against first policy, and it happens in real life(first reflects the real world rite?)

if they believe it was okay,

if the other team agrees to it also, there should be no problem

team 233 753 and us, were teamed up in the finals, and i must say that 233;s robot was awesome..(the judgese agreed, they got a award for their robot "robustness")

they could (without agreements) defend stacks better then any other robot ive seen.

^ive said that on a different post, and i have to say it again

no stacks they were defending in the finals came down.

i also have a question to the other teams that are complaining about this...

233 is not the only one who did this yet i only see 233's name here

would u have complained this much if they had NOT taken firsT?

O_o?

please think about that before u post any more hate mail towards 233

i was/am proud to be part of their alliance.