Bringing Rules Back
 

Here is an interesting question I would love to propose to everyone on the board. Of all the rules that have been changed in the past, which one would you like to see return to FIRST this year?

I actually was thinking about a fun little rule that got changed after the 97 season, which I really wish FIRST would recall to the rule books. After Torroid Terror, FIRST disallowed the use of "projectiles" or objects that basically came free from your robot with purpose. Some of the cooler designs in the past of FIRST were from objects that were released from robots. For example, in 1994, there was a team who attempted to block the opposing team from scoring by releasing a wall that attached to the opposing teams goal. Also I believe it was 1997 where Plymouth North High School (Mr. B if you and your crew are watching, come back to FIRST guys!!!) dropped "landmines" on the field to try to hinder the movement of opposing robots. Landmines were always a fun thing to try to develop during the course of the year, and I dont see why they couldn't return in some form without having to be tethered!

What do you think?

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Hmmm that rule sounds like an awsome idea, however it should only alow a robot to drop things, I can just see some kind of projectile hitting the scoring table. But a rule I would like to see is aloowing us to use metal on our wheels again or just a radification of last years rule so we dont have to worry so much about fasteners.

Time multiplier
 

I don't want to cause any trouble, but how about bring back the time multiplier from 2001?

The faster your alliance turn off both robot, the higher the multiplier goes. ;-) Of course, once both robots are off you can't turn them back on again.

Consider the impact on the 2000 game:

Robots would try to score balls really fast, and get up the climbing bar as fast as possible. Robots with their bots hanging on the center bar and off in the middle of the match will leave the goals wide open. That is, unless your robot climb up the center bar and extend a long arm to block the goal ;-).

Could be a challenging rule to add to a 2 vs 2 game, as long as there are multiple objective in the game. There need to be at least 3 objectives, such as the 2 goals and the center bar for the 2000 game, so that no alliance can dominate all the objectives easily and shut off.

Re: Time multiplier
 

i would like to see the time multiplier again to it brought a competitve edge that you had to do everything right alot faster.

Re: Time multiplier
 

only one question. If one alliance shuts down, does the other alliance still keep going? (does the match end once one alliance shuts down i mean)

and as far as the projectiles rule Andy mentioned, I think it would be good to allow projectiles again. It could make for some really fun robot designs.

Heck, maybe they could allow use of the EDU kits in your robot, it would be the 2002 teathered mini bots, without the teathers hehe.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Actually Ken, I am agreeing with you on this one. I think that having a stop button multiplier would add tremendous depth to the strategy of the game. Even if it wasn't a multiplier, but instead you get like X points for stopping 15 seconds early. Or here is a kicker...how about an autonomous button. Say for instance, in addition to the 15 second Auto period at the beginning of a round, you hit a button and you close out the final 15 seconds of the round in autonomous mode for X extra points.

Whew...on second thought, I think it would give me more of a headache during the build period....too much work. Dave Lavery, please ignore this post if you have just read it. ;)

Good Luck All,
Andy Grady

Re: Time multiplier
 

The other alliance still keep going until they decide to shut themselves off too. That's the challenging part right there. You risk letting the other alliance dominate the field if your alliance shut yourself off.

Re: Time multiplier
 

I would love to see the time multiplier brought back. I did have add an exciting aspect to the game. You try to work so hard to get done within a certain time.



and on a side note, Id like to see it come back because ever since that year (2001) I have tried and told people to hit the red stop button to finish the game. I think i even stopped it 2 or 3 times during my last years of driving on accident only to realize that wasnt part of the game anymore.. :yikes:

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

To be honest, I know I was talking with George Wallace about something I think would be awesome... if you choose when autonomous runs. Like, you wouldn't have to have an autonomous if you really didn't want to, but if you ran it the last 30 seconds of your match (for example) it would be a certain multiplier. But... once you start it, you can stop it, but only the time it's in autonomous from start of autonomous till the end will count as a multiplier. It would make it so that multipliers wouldn't be every match, because if it's a close match your obviously not going to go into autonomous... yet it'll also make teams want to really work on making the robot self-sufficient and capable in autonomous against a robot controlled by a human, which would mean we'd see a really interesting use of sensors on robots. I personally think you would find some VERY creative designs using sensors to make them work if they had to work against a human controlled bot.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I would be greatly in favor of TWO OUT OF THREE in the elimination rounds.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I second that motion.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Too late!!! (or should I say "just wait"? :rolleyes: ) Heh heh heh...

- dave

---------------------------------

4 days to go!!!

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Ooooh just wonderful.....*sighs*

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Yes the best 2 out of 3 is needed because one of the major problems last year well i saw it as a problem but i mean you really only had to win one match last year to go on and they could be so one sided

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I like the idea of time multipliers coming back if for no other reason than the speed of the matches. They could count on matches ending somewhat quicker and allow more matches to take place.

I think that the old rules about being able to detach parts could be useful if they were put into a new game. In the past games they may have had their reasons for prohibiting this and only allowing tethers. However, I think it would be awesome if they had a game where they allowed you to detach parts of your robot. And even more devious - what if somehow they allowed you to have two separate parts of your robot in motion using the edurobot RC to control the second part? I could see some teams coming up with some truly amazing designs! (Not that they wouldn't anyway!)

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I deffinatly agree with 2 out of three for the finals.......more matchs ...more fun.......Hey Grady you forgot lifting the 98 no flipping rule... :) Just kidding everyone :D ........I Also agree with leaving objects on the feild in the intent of scoreing .....(only scoreing)......it proved to be pretty cool in 97 like Andy said earlyer.....

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

6 long years Dave......6 very long, painful years!

We got our revenge though...its too bad that we did it when we actually grew to like you guys! Of course, you wont be getting my vote to re-instate the allowance of tipping mechanisms! :D

Good Luck!
-Andy Grady

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I bow down to your greatness Andy.....and give you that sweet revenge...

Its true with want Andy's saying ....even though things that happen in the past made for a great rivalry...Today the alliances off the feild proved to be the best rivalry yet.....See you guys in March ( next pit over that is.) :)

Dave Ferreira

121 Mentor / Ambassador

casual fans would be lost!
 

All I say to many of the ideas posed for bringing back this or that rule is this: The CASUAL FAN is the standard we should judge everything by.

While WE all love this or that complex strategy, such things generally are huge confusion factors for the casual fan.

Bottom line: if it confuses my mom, it is bad for FIRST.

That says it all in my book.

Joe J.

Re: casual fans would be lost!
 

Joe and I have been agreeing on this issue for the past 5 years on this forum, and I gotta agree with him again. If (and when) FIRST gives us a game that EVERYONE can understand, then everything will fall into place. More teams will want to join, peers who are not on the team will understand the program better, television will become interested in FIRST again, sponsors will be easier to get, cancer will be cured, the Israelis and Palestineians will live in harmony, and we will have world peace.

Well, a guy can dream, can't he?

Andy B.

Re: casual fans would be lost!
 

And if you play the Kick-Off backwards, durring Dean Kamen's speech he says, "Complexity is dead. Long live inflatable clowns." I understood the first thing, but the clowns? :p

As for the multiplyer, I think that the time one would be bad to bring back, but instead do something that FLL does. Make it so that if a team fails to do a task, or does something wrong, they take away a multiplyer point. In FLL it was a ball in the middle of the field. If the robot had to be brought manualy back to the start point, they would remove one multiplyer ball. There were three at the start.

Re: casual fans would be lost!
 

Can we just have the 2000 game back? Scoring was quite simple, put balls in your team's bin, and do a pullup, or at least try to get on the ramp. But it had just enough complexity to keep your head spinning strategy-wise.

Fun to watch, Fun to play. If FIRST can top 2000 for me, I'll be impressed.
Tyson

Re: casual fans would be lost!
 

While I have rarely found the need to disagree with Dr. Joe, on this point I disagree. Think of it this way. If your mother had never seen a football game before, would she understand it?

These games will never be so simple that someone can pick them up on the first viewing and still remain competitively stimulating to the teams. It is too much to ask. Unless you want to go full "BattleBots". I don't.

Re: casual fans would be lost!
 

1998 -
Ball on rails = good. (1, 2, or 3 points)
Ball in center = VERY good. (2x multiplier)
All balls are colored, the color with the most balls scored is winning.

2000 -
Yellow balls in goal = good. (1 point)
Black balls in goal = very good. (5 points)
Robots on ramp = very good. (5 points)
robots hanging = GREAT. (10 points)
Troughs are color coded. Team with the most balls in their trough is winning.

I would argue that both of these games were simple, fun to play, and easily understandable to the casual viewer (and yes... to my Mom). They also yielded a wide variety of robots, and contained plenty of good design challenges.


It HAS been done before, and it CAN be done again.


Don't get me wrong, I know it isn't easy, and I know the game design process itself must be quite the undertaking. I just wish I had been a little older during 1998 and 2000.

Imagine playing the 2000 game this year. 15 seconds of autonomous mode, newer more "modern" robot technology.
Sounds like a blast to me.

John

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I'd just like to comment on some things about what made the 2000 game so great...

• More or less once you scored, you got your points. There were some clever teams that were able to remove balls, but overall, it was easy to see one pile bigger than the other
• There were enough playing fields objects that one team couldn't control them all. They were also well spread out.
• The end of the game scoring zones were somewhat wide and worth enough points to make it worthwhile, but not enough to make it dominate the point tally. Sometimes the final position points caused a victory. Sometimes it didn't.

Those three things made it a model game for FIRST.

$.02,

Matt

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Here's the general rule of thumb: If you can't see it, it's confusing. Like multipliers, bonuses, and other objects from other games. Frankly, it's that that's confusing. You must be able to see the game and the scoring system.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Just get rid of the "double your opponets score" and I will be happy. A team that totally controled the match last year and cleared their opponets score zone, could get a lower score then a team that didn't move but had a few boxes in their score zone. I know it adds strategy, but it seems kinda stupid.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

While I agree that it's great for everyone to understand the game easily and at the same time agree that it's not necessary for Mom to understand it (football was given as an example), I feel like there's no link between our viewing audience's ability to understand and the complexity of the game for us. Put more simply, how easy it is to understand doesn't have to effect the ingeniuity of our robots. As long as the game challenges us to come up with something new and exciting, it can be easier or harder to understand as far as I'm concerned.

As a separate argument: If the game is easier to understand, we're more likely to attract he public's eye and bring more people into FIRST. I'm not saying we need to have our own prime time special or that it would be a good thing for that to happen. I'm saying it would be good to get more people interested - that's the infectious purpose of FIRST.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I think that your QP should only be the points your teams earn. Losers of a match get no QP. But that might be against the message FIRST is trying to send.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

How hard was last years game to figure out. Number of bins in scoring zone * highest stack + robots on ramp at the end of game = score. The spectators don't really care about the QP points just who wins. The QP aspect brings in the strategy parts that the teams had to worry about. Football has 1 point 2 points 3 points and 6 points that can be earned at any part of the game. Making 10 yards as long as there is no penalty brings a 1st down. However refs can call back for multiple infractions that are judgemental. Very subjective. Airobics, sync swimming and skating don't even seem to have rules, just judges. These things do not stop people from watching the above on mass. Last years game was fairly simple to understand BUT as with all other games , had its complexities. Enough ranting!

I would like to see best 2 of 3 in elim rounds. Let the games begin!!!!!! :yikes:

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I think this is a great aspect of the game. Not only does it help to promote "Gratious Professionalism" it also gives you a little taste of the real world. In the real world you may have to partner with a company or team that you may not necessarely always like, or have the opportunity to be with one of the best teams.

This adds a great aspect to the game because you aren't going to have nearly as many of those boring blowouts that get really old...

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

What happens when a team gets stuck with teams who have non-functioning robots? You could have the best robot ever and have zero points for the entire competition just because of your partners.

The 2x your opponent score does make it tougher to strategize, but I think in the end it is a good thing. Even with a not so good robot, you could totally destroy the opponent last year just by plowing all the boxes into the neutral zone. The opponent could do the same. Then all you're left with is a really low scoring, boring match, basically like the second match of an elimination round. Things like this arent good for viewers more than complexity of the game, imho.

Cory

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I want a lighter robot.

When did FIRST go to 130 pounds?

I would like to see....a 90 pound limit. I started in 1999. Coopertition, so we were already at 130.

Things I have really liked in past games

4 v 0
time multipliers
autonomous
3 foot balls

Things I have disliked in past games
1 v 1 v 1 (technically before my time but I have seen video)
balls that don't stay round
tape measures in the game ('nuff said)
Any game where floor balls are not as important as balls behind the glass

It seems odd to go back to teaching *before* kick off....

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

I dont think tape measures were the problem, necessarily, but rather the fact that FIRST specifically said NO tape measures in the beginning of the season, then when they saw them on robots, they started allowing them. I didnt like this because we spent weeks trying to come up with a non entangling tether, and ended up going through three mechanisms, then we show up at regionals and there are tape measures everywhere. Kinda makes you wonder why you even spent the time when people slapped tape measures on in an hour or two.

$.02

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Well, that's mostly due to them clarifying the rules by a few at one regional, aka VCU. There they set a standard for what they were looking for, and then the rest followed. A few chose the rules. We also designed ours not to be entangling, I mean it's 2 inches as a cube, but we were disqualified because people used the "no goals on teather" rule to disqualify people in the last few seconds.

Re: casual fans would be lost!
 

On the other hand, say that she did take the time to understand it. She'd figure out the main points over the course of the game. Over the course of a season, she'd begin to figure out the penalties and some of the strategy.

Then, she watches again the next season, and it's exactly the same game.

That's the biggest difference between FIRST and any other sport. And because of that, FIRST games need to be simpler because there is no continuity. In fact, some people would argue that the game isn't the same even from regional to regional (compare 2002 pre-VCU and post VCU).

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

FIRST switched to a 130 lbs weight limit in 1998. In 1997 the weight limit was 120 lbs. The switch to 130 lbs was because of the switch to the 12 volt motorcycle battery which weighed just over 10 lbs.

Matt

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

To be honest, I think that FIRST could easily scale the field and the robots by 70-80% (in size). Since weight scales like the length cubed and keeping in mind that that pumps, batteries, Victors, etc. do not scale at all, I think it would be reasonable to then reduce the weight of the robots to something like 50-70% of the current value (65-90lbs).

I don't think that much would be lost. In fact, if we keep the same motors, batteries, and electronics, it could be even more exciting because the power to weight ratio has gone up which could mean more energetic matches.

Joe J.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

Because of this rule, the casual spectator can be totally confused by what's going on.

[Example]Why is the red alliance putting bins in the blue zone? I thought that scored points for the blue alliance? Did I misunderstand the scoring rules?[/Example]

They've gone from:
Winner's QP = 3x (Loser's score)

to:

Winner's QP = 2x (Loser's score) + Winner's score

Hopefully they will at least go to:
Winner's QP = Loser's score + Winner's score

this year.

Re: Bringing Rules Back
 

If they do that, there is no incentive to keep the score close. The better alliance will blowout the other one and score just as many points as if they gave themselves half+1 and the other team half-1. There needs to be a 2x, 3x, 4x, whatever multiplier if you want to keep teams from destroying each other, unless there are enough points for both alliances to score well.