On Game Design
 

Over the past couple of years, I haved made some observations on the direction FIRST seems to be headed. FIRST has changed the overall direction of some of the rules and the game design in this time span. In some ways these changes have been positive but I've started to believe that there were some unintended consequences that were derived from these changes.

First of all, we've seen that overall the games have gotten more complicated over the past few years (last year with the stacking, this year with the hanging). By complicated and complex, I mean that it requires a complicated or complex robot to successfully compete in the game. This was done with the stated intention of giving more of a challenge to veteran teams but still allowing a "easy" component to the game for rookie teams. While I do find it a bit condescending to leave an "easier" component for the rookie teams, the bigger problem is the fact that it divides the competition into several levels of play. In some ways it's saying that if you're rookie or choose one objective that you aren't eligibile to actually compete.

One of the other major issues that I've seern is tied into the idea of more complicated games. Over the past several years, FIRST has dramatically loosened the parts requirements. This had made it much easier for more complicated robots to be built. Because it's easier to build complicated robots, FIRST has had to make the game more challenging to keep up. While I do appreciate some of the well designed systems that teams have come up with, I think that it helps to further divide teams between those who are able to compete and those who are not.

Because of this added complexity, some teams spend their off-seasons designing two-speed drive trains and other components. While I saluate teams that are able to successfully create a year-round program, it shouldn't be a requirement to be competitive. FIRST knows that many sponsors are not interested in year-round programs and has attempted to address the issue; by making it easy to design systems that can be used on the robot outside of the build period (specifically, I look at various drive trains), FIRST is not helping reduce the reliance on year-round programs.

My proposed solution to these problems is fairly simple. For one, make the complexity of the game less. It's not a problem to raise the bar but don't make it too high for most teams to compete. However, simply making the complexity of the game less would not be enough as it would just allow teams to dominate. The real key is to also drastically restrict the allowable parts. I would highly suggest dropping the allowable spending amount to below $1000 (I think somewhere between $500 and $750 would be a good point). This has many benefits. For one, it does not stop anyone from building a complex robot; it merely makes it harder and would require more ingenious solutions. It would also require more tradeoffs to be made if one complex component were desired by a team. It also drops the required amount of fundraising a team has to do as it wouldn't be possible to spend as much money on the robot.

As for reducing the complexity of the game, I would make several other suggestions to FIRST. For one, keep the methods of scoring to two ways that require specific mechanisms to accomplish it (i.e. moving your robot to a certain area of the field wouldn't count as a method). For games that did this well, I'd look at 2002 and 2000. This makes it reasonable to either make a specialized robot or a generic robot. The key is to also keep the difficulty of the two methods not too divergent or one method will be ignored. The other key is to keep the methods of scoring somewhat similiar in point values (2004 and 2000 did this very well; 2003 did not).

I do not know if it's desired by FIRST for everyone to compete on an equal footing (which, while truly impossible, we can at least attempt to approach it), but I would say it should be. The key to doing this is to make the games such that even a rookie can successfully do any of the tasks. The corollary to this is restricting the parts availability rules such that teams have to engineer from scratch every year to add everything they want to (this means that teams can't carry over designs year-after-year as easily and instead have to tailor their design to each year's game).

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

Matt-

Good ideas, but as always people will find ways around them. Currently you could have $100,000 worth of machining on your robot as long as it was donated by a sponsor. This would only keep the price of raw materials under $750-$1000

Also, given as FIRST implicity states that the program isn't about the competition, it's about inspiring students, I don't think they will be taking many steps to "level the playing field" beyond what they've done now.

Cory

Re: On Game Design
 

Matt I'd have to debate you on several of your assertions.

First, on the point that the game has become more complex. On the contrary I would say that the requirements have changed such that any robot with a working drive train can score points. Look at '97 (placing inner tubes up on a high goal), '98 (placing balls up on high bars), '00 (placing balls in a high trough AND hanging. If you couldn't do any of these things, your contribution to the score was ZERO! At least with the last 2 games a rookie team can get their robot moving and contribute some points - they can have the goal of building a mechanism to take it a notch further but it allows every team to compete and get some satisfaction.

Second, on loosening the parts requirements I would disagree it allows more complicated robots to be made. I would contend that it allows more teams to make complicated robots. This is very much tied to the allowable cost amount - I think having a larger amount helps the rookie teams and small teams much more than the highly funded big teams since they are usually much more engineering and manufacturing resource limited. Consider if you had to design and build your own winch versus going out and buying one, or how much additional complexity it would require if you had to work around sloppy bearings versus precision ones. And as a veteran if I've already designed a lift or arm before I can crank one out alot faster, regardless of what part limits are in the game.

I sometimes refer to this as the "SECOND" competition, because it takes your entire first year (and then some) to figure out all the lessons you need to be competitive. Are teams quitting after their rookie year because they didn't win the championship? No, they become veterans who do better each year. I loved the game this year. We chose not to build a 2x ball handler this year because of resource limitations, but there were enough aspects of the game where we could focus our efforts and be very competitive.

Re: On Game Design
 

In 2000, robots that were on the ramp, but not hanging, also received points. A robot that moved was capable of scoring points.

Re: On Game Design
 

Matt-

I agree with some of your observations, but I don't think the solution is to give the game an easy element. I think thats what they tried in 2003, and the free market gave us a whole bunch of talented "boxes-on-wheels" and few stackers. In my opinion, when you have experienced teams building not much more than a drivetrain, its gonna be a boring slugfest.

Everyone loves the 2000 game. It was (and still is) my favorite. It did not have an easy element (yes I know I am ignoring simply sitting on the ramp, but there were few boxes on wheels tha did just that). 2004-style herding is easier than 2000-style hanging or 2000-style ball-bin-scoring.

I though this years game came close to 2000 in terms of the entertainment factor. Sure, there were a lot of teams who bit off more than they could chew (we did, the 2X ball grabber is on the "wall of shame" in our shop), but I would say that that penalized the experienced teams (who wanted to do it all) more than the less-experienced teams (who wanted to be great at one or two things).

Drive systems are going to evolve regardless of the game, in my opinion. If a team focuses too much on a specific drive system, it might hurt them when they see in January that the new game makes parts of their idea obselete (for example how important was it this year to have a multi-speed drive as compared to a platform climber?)

Ken

Re: On Game Design
 

My issue with the games isn't that individual components are getting more complex (if anything, the more recent games have one part that's easier than they were in the past). The problem I have is that there seems to be a part of the game which is much harder. The veteran teams (and, unfortunately, I wouldn't include all teams that have been around for a number of years as veteran teams as many don't reach the level of sophisication of other teams) usually have no problems accomplishing these tasks. It's the non-veteran teams who usually aren't able to complete them. You simply aren't able to win by just having a moving robot (or at least you can't with any level of competition). We shouldn't be encouraging rookies to just build a robot that moves. We shouldn't make the tasks so hard that rookies fail. We should instead aim at the level where it's not accomplishing the task that's the differentiator but how well the task is accomplished.

You're right by saying that veterans will always have an advantage over rookies. That's completely true. However, we can work to lower the some of the advantage that the veterans have over rookies.

As for the parts rules, I don't think it will take additional complexity if you have to make more of the things yourselves. Instead, I think teams won't try to build as complicated robots. If I'm not able to use precision bearings where I'd like to, I'll have to design something that doesn't require precision bearings (i.e. a simpler device that doesn't require such small tolerances). Or, I'll have to save money somewhere else by reducing the complexity there so that I can use precision bearings where I want to. By reducing the price limit it requires teams to make more trade-offs over expensive parts so that there will be less expensive parts overall. Less expensive parts generally means less complexity.

I should say that my suggestions by no means will be a silver bullet. They aren't going to fix everything but I think they would be a step in the right direction.

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

I don't think there should be an "easy" element of the game. Perhaps my original post wasn't clear enough in that regard. I think that there shouldn't be one easy element and one hard element. I think there should be two medium difficulty elements. I don't like the easy and hard element mix because it tends to differentiate teams into those who can compete and those who cannot. Or, worse, you end up in a position like 2003 where you pick one element to design against (stacking) and find out that you can't actually score points that way (reliably) and you're basically done competiting for the year at that point.

I agree that drive systems will advance but there's no reason to make it easier. And there's also no reason to allow someone to easily build a very powerful drive train with additional robot elements. Allow a team to choice either a powerful drive train or additional manipulators.

I single out drive systems because there seems to be a lot of emphasis on them, particularly in the off-season. I also think that it's harder to get students involved when the robots get more complex (although it's not impossible but the more complex the robot, generally the harder it is to get students involved).

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

This is a little OT, but I feel relevent to the quote...

I believe you're seeing veterans improve their drive trains in the offseason because it's the one thing you can standardize. Most teams run fine with the same drive train every year. By standardizing on mechnisms it gives teams more time to concentrate on the new changes in the game.
You would think that this put veteran teams to a distinct advantage, and in some ways it does. However, FIRST responded pretty well to this by providing a basic drivetrain in the kit of parts.

Right now my team is in the process of standardizing a drivetrain. For three reasons: we found one we like, and we just don't have the people power to re-engineer every mechanism each season. The final reason is because FIRST has raised the bar and requires synergy between teams (mostly drivetrain and control systems) that just can't happen in 6 weeks. Our autonomous was poor the last two years because we haven't put offseason time into it. By standardzining on a drivetrain and complimenting it with a control system we will have a more competitve autonomous mode.

Re: On Game Design
 

To expand in another direction from Ken, from my vantage point I saw the rookies this year do much better overall than in the previous few years (not to offend any rookies that did well in the past). By making the big points scoreable with mechanisms, nearly all of the rookie and 2nd year teams that created a "box on wheels" robot a year ago or the teams that have never built a robot before, attempted and in many cases succeeded at getting their mechanism(s) to work. Heck, there was a rookie in the runner-up alliance in Atlanta. The teams this year stepped up to the challenges placed in front of them, much the way the young teams did back in the late 90's when ChiefDelphi boards were in it's infancy, and design sharing was just getting started. Since life isn't fair and neither is FIRST, I believe the game this year sufficiently challenged the veterans and the young teams alike, and is one of my favorites along with '99. The only way for the young teams to be able to strive towards the harder tasks is to start experimenting early, and continue to innovate new ways to solve the same technical problems. Many of the challenges this year were solved with very simple mechanisms and that is one of the key lessons for any team to learn.

Keep the challenges coming, as long as the game points fit into a reasonable scheme.

Steve

Re: On Game Design
 

I don't see the game as too complex.

This comes from being with a team that is in its second year and could complete all task each of the last two years. This has let us be in the division finals each of the last two years. Fairly good for how untechnically advanced our robots have been. We've used sprocket and chain drive and have not done a lot in the off season.

Hopefully we might consider doing more this summer because a new drive system would be nice, but a very simplistic one has worked great. Our biggest asset is that we try to live by KISS. The only machined parts our the hub for our tires. Our most complex part we've purchased is taking the impeller from a shop vac. With strategy and a fairly robust design you can do well. You may not be able to do all the task well (we only made stacks twice last year, and barely herded any ball this year), but you can compete.

I like the rules how they are now. It's not going to be completely fair but it won't stop people from competing. And if you are only in it to compete and win you've got to realize you can't always but just take advantage of the learning experience.

As to FIRST becoming a year-round program. It is. So much needs to be done before that 6 weeks unless you are just crazy. You can do it in six weeks and be successful but I wouldn't reccomend it. Get fundraising, and paperwork done early. Our team spends a lot of time in the community during the off season.

FIRST is definitely like a sport. I played three sports in high school. I concentrated on basketball during basketball season but that doesn't stop me from shooting around during the rest of the year. Some just take it farther and play tournaments and spend a lot of time praticing their skills. You can be competitive just playing during the season, but those that put in the time all year will have an advantage.

I don't think changing the game to two intemediate task or letting people spend less is going to change anything. IMHO.

Re: On Game Design
 

The complexity of the games doesn't hurt the rookies at all. Even though it does seem that the games are more complex, it also seems that the easier component of the game can beat out the harder one. For this year's game as an example - hearding balls and capping could easily beat out hanging robots. Hearding isn't that hard and capping takes a little more work but isn't as hard as hanging. I did see a lot of rookies do well using these methods. As for last year's game - though stacking was hard to do, it was almost irrelevent. I still remember the match in Chicago when 16 was making a stack. I think they spent a good 30 seconds on that. The second that top box was put on, there was a robot charging at it to knock it down. While rookies didn't have the good drivetrains that were necessary last year, they were still able to give the veterans a run for their money. I don't see the design of the games inhibiting the new teams ability to compete. I think every rookie has a good shot at winning as long as they can do one thing and do it well.
Eric

Re: On Game Design
 

I think this is exactly one of the points Matt is making- it does put veteran teams at an advantage, even over other veteran teams that do not standardize. The advantage is exactly as you say- you spend much less time creating what is arguably the most important aspect of your robot. In most cases I like to think virtually all the design that goes into a robot should be done within the 6 week limit, not the 8 months between competition and the next build season. Otherwise, you may as well fabricate your base and drive train, and simply plug in your motors and electronics as soon as you get the kit. Slap on a goal/bar/ball grabber and you have 5 weeks of practice time.

FIRST relies on our gracious professionalism to ensure we don't do that sort of thing. The 6 week limit is there for a reason, and I feel to work on any part of a robot outside of competition or that period defeats the purpose of having a set time limit. I think that's why in last year's game we didn't see too much stacking- it was a new thing no one has seen before, so no pre-proven or optimized mechanisms were around. Adds to the challenge aspect of the FIRST experience.
That's exactly the purpose of the 6 weeks- it's a challenge.

Re: On Game Design
 

What!??!?!?!? Thats probably our entire budget that we would spend on metal let alone the whole entire robot. And that money is what usually amounts to us build a robot that looks pretty professionally done. It would probably make a lot of teams life's harder.

Re: On Game Design
 

The idea isn't supposed to make lives easier. It's supposed to make everything more balanced. It means that you have to make more tradeoffs on design (which is a key factor in real life engineering).

And while you may think that it's impossible to build a robot for that price, that number is far higher than the amount we were allowed to spend at Small Parts back in 1998 and 1999 (and probably years prior to that). And yes, you had to purchase almost all your materials from Small Parts (including aluminum, etc.; there was a small list of things you could purchase outside of Small Parts).

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

Don't forget the Human element. The great thing about this year was that a human was the one making the points. Our robot had massive problems (which were finally fixed LAST NIGHT) with the drive train and was never able to run the entire UCF regional. However, the team was able to recruit a high scoring human shooter, and made what little points we started with, and the points our alliance partners generously let us have. With some luck, a good shooter, and no robot, we finished in 21st out of 41 teams. Surprisingly, if our goal was capped, the enemy alliance goal is capped, our alliance hangs one robot, and the enemy alliance hangs a robot...the game comes down to whichever team scored the most 5 point balls. Rookie teams have just as good of chance recruiting a human player as any other highschool.

Re: On Game Design
 

O.K. I'm ready to chime in. I am going to address one aspect of Matt's original post: Additional parts restriction and money restriction. Many of you that know me or have had this conversation with me already know where I am going, but here I go again.

At first glance, one would think that restricting additional parts would level the playing field. On the contray, the more restriction placed on the additional parts; the more advantage the "big money" teams have. The ThunderChickens are one of those "big money" teams. If the restriction went to $700, or even $500 our machine would look the same. Why? We can make everything we currently buy. We buy a $25 gear today and I could have it made on a wire EDM for free (cost of the steel ~$2) by our sponsor. We currently chose not to do this, but we could. With no restriction, the small team could buy the same $25 gear. If the restriction existed, the small team would have to pay anywhere between $50 to $250 to have it made if they could find a place at all. The tighter the restriction, the more advantage my team has.

Another huge downfall of the restriction is the need for us to get T.V. exposure. What? How does the additional part restrictions have anything to do with T.V. exposure? The robots have to look good if we want to be on T.V. If they look like something we built in our garage, then we will have a harder time getting exposure. Look at the moster trucks .. beautiful artwork and design that gets destroyed at each competition ... the looks do nothing for the function but it is important for the exposure. Same goes for NASCAR or Drag Racing, or Formula 1. Looks matter and restriction on parts will kill any chance we have of getting real T.V. exposure.

Either way, we will play with whatever rules we are given because the ThunderChickens will be inspired either way.

-Paul

Re: On Game Design
 

yes but a team who gives their human player 18 extra chances to shoot 5 pt balls because they catch them all (good robot 93! :) ) has a better chance of getting more points

Re: On Game Design
 

I'll respectfully disagree. I understand your argument- you're saying you can manufacture parts just as easily as you buy them. However, I'm on a team with limited funds, and helped produce one of the many robots this season that came in at or under $1200.

I do believe Matt's point though, was this-

If other teams are capable of producing equally, if not more capable robots for much less money, why do teams have to spend the full $3000? Personally, I like the robots that look like they came out of a garage better than the polished up show robots. Maybe as Matt's info says, I've "been in FIRST too long", but I like seeing the ins and outs of a robot's systems. A machine will look good if it's well built, and throwing more money at a machine won't make it any better. What makes a machine great is it's fundadmental design and inherent functionality, not how much money is spent on it. To expand on that idea further, FIRST is about inspiring kids about science and technology, and what better way to get kids thinking than by presenting a problem. I'd rather students think of a creative and innovative method of coping with a mechanical issue with given resources, rather than say "well, we could always just buy this." My team has always been on a limited budget, so we're forced to find creative ways around what otherwise would end up as an expense, and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for that experience.

As far as TV exposure, I'd almost fear that for FIRST at this point. FIRST is no monster truck rally, or racing event, or sports game, and shares none of the values each of them entail. The only way robotics will become interesting to TV audiences is if they become all out battlebots. I think FIRST is trying to change America on a culteral level by planting the seeds of gracious professionalism in the youth of the nation, and hope it grows and flowers once those students grow up and become the leaders of the future.

Personally, I'd rather not see FIRST sacrifice it's roots of inspiration to pander to the TV crowd, even if the intentions are to inspire the TV crowd. I feel too much of what FIRST means would be lost in the process.

Re: On Game Design
 

I think we just need to find the right channel. How can golf, billiards or specifically curling be on television? Essentially because there's an audience to watch those programs on those channels. What FIRST needs is a channel (I.E: Tech TV) that has viewers that would want to watch a robotics competition, then some advertisers to air commercials during the time (Delphi, Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Autodesk, etc.).

If we could have a television network broadcast the final matches from Einstein we would be golden.

Re: On Game Design
 

Marc P.,

What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?

As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.

We will just agree to disagree about your comment on battlebots. The reason Comedy Central pulled the plug is that it was not interesting enough to capture the audiences' attention for 3 years in a row (same old, same old). We need to get the average Joe T.V. watcher to keep the channel on our competition for 10 minutes. If we can do that, then he will get interested and that will start an explosion of reaching more and more students outside of the current FIRST community. The key to those 10 minutes is flair. We need more flair.

As to your point about finding creative ways to solve problems. I agree with you, but I argue that even if the limits were opened up all the way (this year was very close) you can't just go out and buy any old component off the shelf. There is one MAJOR limiting factor we must deal with that rules almost every decision we make ... 130lb maximum. That limit forces us to make a lot more creative decisions than chsing between EDM gears vs. bought gears. I really don't like re-inventing the wheel, so just let me buy my gears (and bearings and sprockets, etc.)

I know, let's play a fun (and maybe enlightening for all) game. Let's think of a restriction we would like to put on the game to level the playing field and see how it affects different teams. Since I don't like any restriction, I won't go first.

-Paul

P.S. - I have been wating for this debate to resurface for a while now, because there are many long time FIRSTers that disagree on this subject.

Re: On Game Design
 

I think that the kit allows for everyone....rookie or not....to be able to build some sort of a robot to compete. Simply use the 4x2 alluminum to build your base.....stick the drill motors on....do the electronics...and there you've got a robot that can decently compete in the game.

Re: On Game Design
 

To spend or not to spend? Those that can do and those that can't don't. Has this impacted FIRST to this point? I must admit that I am a relative rookie in FIRST but I have seen a lot of teams and matches in my 3 short years. As a mentor and announcer I have seen from 2 sides (I'm not sure how many sides there are) the pros and cons of money. When building there never seems to be enough. When I look at some teams I am jealous. When some teams look at us they are jealous (not cause I'm on the team). We are a mid finance team. I think of what could we do if we had more cash. Then I think, probably wish I had more cash.

Inspiration comes on different levels and in different forms. This year I was inspired to do more fund raising because we wanted to increase the awareness of our team. We were inspired by winning the West Michigan Regional last year. We were inspired by Wildstang. We were inspired by FIRST !!! I don't believe in fixing something that's not broke. I like to see teams with lots of money building a nice machine. I like to see rookie teams glow as their robot leaves the starting block and pushes home their first ball. I love to see a team with no robot at Championship work with other teams to build a basic bot to compete. I love to see students open their eyes and see a whole new world.

Would I change anything ? Yes, but that is not to be discussed here. I would also like to see a game a bit more exciting than this year. Not that it didn't end up good it's just that it took all Friday to get there. I would like to continue seeing more technology developed. As you know this also takes money. If teams can find sponsers and have the money then let them spend. We already have limits. Don't change them just monitor how teams are beating the system and make them accountable. That is a big order I know and how do you accomplish it, I'm not sure but if FIRST wants some suggestions I would love to help.

I don't believe in superteams, I believe in small teams stretching to accomplish great feats. Many small subgroups have a better chance of solving a problem than one large group. If I have offended any one I appologize but I am not pointing any fingers. These are just my thoughts and ideas.

Paul - Throwing money at a problem does not always work. Take the New York Rangers, Please.

Re: On Game Design
 

I have to totally agree with Paul on the point above. I remember looking at robots back when I got into FIRST in 1999 and saw teams with custom aluminum sprockets and gears that weren't even legal to buy, but perfectly legal to make from stock. Huge sizes, light weight you name it. That is, however, only if you have the resources available to your team. So if you were a rookie without those resources, you got the gears and sprockets from small parts (At a not so cheap rate BTW) if were a veteren team with good resources, you got the same $300 or so dollars from small parts PLUS nearly unlimited gears and sprockets in almost any material you wanted. So where does the money limit get you? It will usually hurt the lower funded teams that can't get these parts any other way but by purchasing them. Look at some of the past robots and you will see that putting the cost limitation on FIRST or restricting the suppliers for parts will have little or no effect on a resourceful veteren team.

In fact it seems kind of against the real world way of doing things to say to the students, "hey we need this sprocket that you can buy off the shelf for $19 but instead we are going to make the exact same thing for $70??"

Re: On Game Design
 

The game and the rules should not limit my or anyone else's creativity in the design of complex systems or any other aspect of building a robot or the strategy of how to play the game.

Re: On Game Design
 

The point is, FIRST looks to inspire people... the game is ... whatever.. We can either choose to accept it as a challenge and do something about it or .... ,. Frankly, It is my first year, I don't know too much of the game except for stack attack and FIRST frenzy. From what I see, it just looks like these are moderate level games, and the success level(building a working robot) is huge in rookie and veteran teams.

However, its not only the game. There is recognition for lots of other stuff like animation, websites, helping other teams etc. If for some reason your robots are not that good, try doing other stuff. Maybe that would make you feel better. FIRST is a huge world ;)

Re: On Game Design
 

I apologize, I should have posted this before (I was at work, swamped with customers, couldn't think right :ahh: )

I disagree with your example of the gear- if you can get your sponsor to manufacture it rather than purchasing it. Section 5.3.2.2 of The Robot part of the manual states:
So, unless the machine shop where you would fabricate the part is indeed the team's work space, or a team member made the part, you would technically have to include the labor costs at fair market value in your total, even if it is donated.


Again, I apologize for not thinking clearly. What I meant is, jobs must be performed within a budget. Say you sign a contract with a client to develop a widget that performs X, Y, and Z functions, for $3,500. By the time your budget is run through, you can only perform X and Y functions. Unless you can renegotiate the contract for more money, you're stuck with what you have- you can't throw any more money at it. Meanwhile, a competing firm, can create a widget that performs X, Y, and Z funtions for $1,200. In the future, who would the client be more likely to go with? I agree with you- you have to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost, so why wouldn't the same apply to robotics? All I'm saying is if some teams can do similar functions for less money, why is the budget so high?

I do completely agree with this. However, I think no matter how exciting FIRST gets, we'll have trouble reaching the crowd where American Idol gets more votes than the US presidential election, on networks where shows like The Swan are becoming more commonplace. I think FIRST is already addressing the problem at the social level, by influencing the youth, which may prove a more useful way of changing our culture than trying to get people more interested in robotics, learning, and inspiration than sports, crude humor, and corporate sit-coms.

Again, I agree.. I've been waiting for a good debate to jump in on :cool:

Re: On Game Design
 

"The game isn't fair. It was never supposed to be fair."

Dean Kamen, kickoff 2003

Re: On Game Design
 

Here's a serious question that perhaps some have not thought about_:

What percent of your team's budget is put into building the robot?

I would say that most typical small-medium teams are running budgets of 20-30k aren't limited by the costs on building the robot. The $5,000 for the first competition and $4,000 for a second regional, plus all of the buses or airplane tickets hotel arrangements... this isn't cheap stuff. This is prohibitive.

Money doesn't help you build a better robot... or even level the field. Great engineers will do more with less.

The real quality difference isn't the cost, it's the machining setup. If you or a local sponsor has access to CNC equipment, you've got a huge advantage to the small team using hand drills in a janitor's closet. This is a fact of life, and nothing can change this. Team 461 has CNC's set up at their high school... which has been a huge advantage. Lots of money, lots of top notch engineers and high school students, large facilities, and off season programs are making FIRST teams more competitive. Each teams needs to decide for themselves how much they want to invest in being competive, and how much they want to invest in engineering inspiration. They are only mildly intertwined.

As to regards to this years game, I don't think that picking up a ball and placing it on the goal was an extraordinatorly difficult task. However, hanging was trickier for one reason... so I'll go a little off topic.

It would be a very different game this year if the bar was 8 or 9 feet off the ground instead of 10. Because of the robot's 5 foot height limit, you couldn't have a two link arm fold in on itself once and be tall enough to reach over the 10 foot bar to hang. Hanging required an arm to either two revolute joints, or a revolute and prismatic joint. This makes arms much more complicated in terms of finding kinematic solutions for object placement by the drivers, and requires an additional motor to provide this function. You could get around this requirement by being able to climb the 6" steps, but often still, many teams still required an additional link on their robot due to the angle of approach and additional length required.

Anyway, those are some thoughts. Thanks to everyone for bringing up this interesting topic.

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

I know there are some teams with a lot of money. But I don't see them setting around thinking, "hmmm...I could build this for 1,200 or 3,500 and it will have the same functionality. I think I'll spend the 3,500." People try to build the best robot for the cheapest price. It is human nature, especially around us engineering types.

I don't see having a the limit at 3,500 as causing bad robot design. I want example of teams spending 3,500 for things they could do for 1,200. And if they did for some reason I don't think I would really care. If they found an easier way and kept under the limits and it worked for them it is okay by me.

Money is really good at finding its way into places. You've heard of campaign finance reform. Well in FIRST the limit is kind of like your hard money. But all the organization that become part of your team and help with machining are like soft money. You will always have people with more resources in FIRST. Hence, FIRST isn't meant to be fair.

These ideas are meant to even the playing field. I don't see them making that happen. There will always be the have and have-nots. There will be teams with lots of resources and teams with little resources. The best way I've seen if your serious about making a level playing field would be to limit teams to one regional. This seems to give an advantage to teams with the resources to attend two regionals and to team in the proximity of multiple regionals, primarily the East and Mid-East regions.

Re: On Game Design
 

Although your intentions seem good, I don't think the way you want to go about 'enforcing' it is the right way. If you prohibit teams from spending money on the robot (the current limit is good), many complex robot systems might not be able to be added. Personally, I think its cool when a robot does something really complicated - and, yes, it does inspire me. So, I say, don't overregulate.

On the issue of rookie team competition, no way can anyone say that rookie teams have a huge disadvantage. And, a big obstacle is just a bigger motivation to do even better. There are always some rookie teams at the top of the rankings (if you want to measure success that way). FIRST's methods for desiging the game are great, and I've only seen their games get better every year!

Re: On Game Design
 

Totally true...people talk about all these tens of thousands of dollars people will spend on their robot....that might be nice and all...but it's definetly not necessary. Our team this year had the extra equiptment on the robot valued a little over 1000.... 500 being for donated machining of plates for our transmission. Besides those costs....almost no more money went into the robot. But, we were still able to be very competative...and take 7'th place at our regional.

Ellaborate systems are not needed to make a winning robot. Sure, they may be nice....but once they break down your in a very tight spot. We use simple...but effective solutions, that we know will work match after match after match. In the end, what matters is consistency.

Re: On Game Design
 

While there are many teams there are a few teams that can build anything they want to out of raw materials, they are in the minority and will almost always be so. However, that doesn't remove the fact that it's a legitimate point that they can build any part that they would want to buy. That said, I don't think that the small number of teams that this refers to should be what the decisions are based around.

In fact, it may not be possible for a team to always build all the components that they want. I remember specifics instances in 1998 and 1999 where we built our base out of steel, not because of strength issues, but merely because of cost issues (this was when the cost limit was around $500). When that becomes the case, the cost issues can become quite a limiting factor. (I realize that for a single gear this isn't a large issue but it does add up over time).

As for robots not looking good enough for television, as long as I've been involved with FIRST, there have always been good looking robots (and that includes times when the price limit was much lower). In my opinion, the winning robots have begun to look worse rather than better the past few years (but this is just my personal opinion). In fact, by including more ways to score in the game, it makes it less likely that FIRST will ever get television coverage (which may or may not be a good thing).

While I normally don't like to include more rules and I'm not even sure if this would ever be a good idea, but perhaps FIRST needs to look into a way of recording the costs of machining time? If FIRST is supposed to approximate real-world engineering in any way, this would seem to be an important part of the program. That said, I don't think any simple system would work nor am I proposing any. It's simply a thought.

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

I've been reading the posts regarding spending limits and I see 2 separate arguments. The first is about the cost placed on the teams to buy their parts from their sources. The second is the cost to sponsors for use of machining facilities.

In one scenario, if the cost allowed per robot and materials rules remains around where it is now, many parts can be bought from suppliers by the teams. These parts bought by teams are then charged to the cost allowed per robot and assuming they are within the materials limits, don't cost the sponsor any more additional money. Sponsors don't lose any machine time in creation of those parts and can more easily help with other aspects of the robot.

In the second scenario, if the materials rules and cost rules tighten, and assuming Section 5.3.2.2 still is the same, then teams will be limited by their outside selection and will be forced into custom designing parts that can be readily available off the shelf. Now the teams are responsible for buying the raw material and convincing one of their sponsors to place a decent amount of money into allowing the team to access and use their shop. The cost is now placed on the sponsors has increased significantly (in most cases) because the sponsor is now also paying for additional time on machines, employees to help the teams, and is not making any money with those machines while robot parts are created. Plus that sponsor will be asked to help with the things it has provided in years past!

Going back to the way it was is a huge advantage to the well funded teams. Plus there are many areas of this and other countries where manufacturing capabilities are very limited. All sponsors (large and small) are better off having the teams have access to COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) Parts than to custom design and manufacture everything. I have no problem with reasonable material or cost limitations, and as Paul said, we are always limited by that nagging 130 lb weight thing.

We want to have this competition attract sponsoring companies to build corporate-school relations. The only way to do that is to make the sponsor's time and money worthwhile.

Steve

Re: On Game Design
 

Matt, I just read all of the posts that you've written on this topic. I understand the points that you are trying to make, however, I disagree with your FIRST pillisophy. I'll admit that I haven't been involved in FIRST for as long as you have. We're from different eras.

From your posts, What I am seeing is that you would like to have a game that is like the following:
You're in a 24' x 48' arena. 2 blue robots against 2 red robots. There are 30 soccer balls across the field edges. There are two 5' wide, 4' tall stationary octagon-shaped PVC goals, designated blue and red. Each ball is worth 5 points when you get it inside the goal. Most points wins.

This is a straightforward game, the rules are simple, and everyone has the same objective. Get the balls off the floor, put them in the goal. The tasks aren't trivial, but they're not difficult. The machine with the most consistent ball gatherer and unloader should win every time. You don't run the risk of picking the wrong "key of the game."

Personally, I find that boring.

And here's why:

Strategy.

After I saw the game released this year, I knew that there would be no robot that could do EVERYTHING consistently. One or two teams came somewhat close.

Everything:
Grab the goal
Climb the 6" steps
Knock off the 10 point ball
Hang from the bar
Fully secure the big ball from the floor, small goal, and big goal.
Pick balls off the floor
Capture the balls falling from the drop chute.

I personally would rather see teams make their engineering choices on their game strategy as opposed to the costs of components on their machine. You won't be able to control the dollars spent unless you limit FIRST to a single distributor and have a mile of bookkeeping. To be honest, the $3,500 limit appears to be more of a gesture than a true check. I think that the dollar limit really just ensures teams aren't using immense amounts of titanium. Limiting machines down to a much lower dollar amount just won't make the impact that you're looking to see, because the amount of money that teams typically spend on their robots only makes up between 10% and 20% of teams' budgets as it is.

Money is not what limits teams' success. Experience does. It always will.

I can tell from this comment that you don't like the idea of hanging, it's very 0 or 1. Hanging or not hanging. 50 points or 0 points.

I'm not so sure that I'm a fan of this either... especially in 2003's game where being on the ramp was the deciding factor on if you won the match or not in 95% of the cases. However, the points were balanced this year. 50 points was appropriate. 75 would have been too many. It should be noted that many competitive alliances had robots that did not hang, and they were very successful.

I do not think this year was complicated. There were no complex math formulas. You could read the points on the field. 5 points for the purple balls in the goals, you double the ball values if you cap the goal they're in, you get 50 points for hanging on the bar. For anyone attending a competition, this was easy to explain.

I think that restricting the "everything" list to one or two things will really limit the objective of this program - inspiration. Seeing robots twice as capable as your own with the same restrictions is awe-inspiring. I think FIRST wants to see more students with their tongues wagging over something incredible.

Loosing to incredible machines is okay in my book.

I think that rookies usually fail when they try to bite off more than they can chew. Hanging was a tough task, and many rookies who tried to do this via climbing up the steps had two seriously challenging things to do. This was perhaps the wrong choice for many rookies.

But I bet they learned a lot.

And I bet they'll be back next year.

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

I think I haven't come across clearly enough about my philosophy of how the game should be designed. I honestly thought the points for this year's game were well balanced. However, I do believe that there were still too many ways to score and that the difficulty in the various tasks was too great. I don't like the idea of extremely hard tasks (hanging this year after climbing steps) nor do I like the idea of easy tasks (ball herding). I don't think hanging is bad in and off itself (I have no problems with scoring a lot of points via one method as long as it's not out of balance with other scoring methods).

While I originally (meaning last year when I first started thinking about this) thought that one method to score was optimal, when talking to Aidan Browne at the Championship this year I realized that it wasn't a good idea. I think that there should be two main methods of scoring that have balanced difficulty and balanced points (think the balls and hanging from 2000 or the balls and goals from 2002). Two methods of scoring gives plenty of opportunity for strategy while not making the game too complicated.

As for the idea that most teams don't spend a significant amount of their budget on their robot, I highly beg to differ. Most young teams do not have large financial support. I've been on several of them. Many teams have a budget under $10,000 a year. These are the teams that I think are under a significant disadvantage under the current system that could be rectified. The best way I can think of to make it more fair for these teams is to lower the cost limit.

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

I don't accept that herding small balls was easy. Without capping, your HP needed to make 10 shots to offset a hanging robot. Many teams thought they could accomplish this by simply pushing the balls around, but had trouble with it. The only ball machines that I saw make an impact were the catchers or gatherers. I would describe both of these as intermediate tasks

There really were only two ways to score this year since the 2x ball meant nothing without the small balls. There were many tasks (hang, cap, herd, mobile goal manipulation, defense, etc.), which I feel made it more likely that both teams in an alliance would have to contribute for a win, rather than having the "dominant" team in an alliance take over the match. I'll also point out that the 2002 game had three ways to score (robot position, goal position, balls in goal). What it didn't have was very much strategic variety - control the goals and you probably win. I disliked that game, the combination of the "mouse bots" and the fact that a match could be effectively over in the first 10 seconds made it a complete disaster in my book.


I hear what you are saying, but the logical conclusion of limiting the build budget is that a very small number of teams (as you pointed out previously) will have a huge advantage. Don't discount the psychological impact of knowing that you simply can not compete with the elite few because they can make parts that you can afford to buy but are not allowed to.

P.J.

Re: On Game Design
 

Terming it as "easy" wasn't really my wording. From what I was told by Aidan Brown, FIRST thought that herding balls would be something "easy" that rookie teams could accomplish. I agree that it wasn't nearly as easy as it appears at first. That said, there were a number of teams that made a difference with balls that didn't catch or gather them explicitly (there were some on the Newton Field at least).

When I say two was to score I don't mean literally two ways to score (I realize that's rather unclear). What I mean is that there are two "major" ways to score. Putting your robot in a certain position in 2002 I wouldn't qualify as a major way to score as it's a general assumption that your robot needs to be able to move to score. There were definite problems with the 2002 game, I'm just trying to highlight some of the things that went right with it (in my opinion).

While with so many ways to score this year, you'd think that both teams in an alliance would have to compete, it didn't appear that way to me. At least from watching the Championship finals, it seemed that one team of the alliance would immediately go and hang and the other alliance member would then proceed to attempt to herd small balls, cap with the big ball, and then go hang. That doesn't seem like a fair dividing of resources so I wouldn't say that a more complex game helps make all the teams participate.

Unfortunately, I think we're already at a point where there are teams that don't feel they can compete with the elite few because they can't afford to purchase the parts or design a complex system that purchased parts would allow. I think there's a wider gulf between teams because of the ability to purchase such parts than there would be otherwise. There would be a more natural gradation as opposed to a huge step between the contending teams and the non-contending teams.

Matt

Re: On Game Design
 

I think our team is one of those gradiation. Once we got our robot actually moving it was actually quite competitive for such a simple ball hearder design. We could beat teams that hung just because of our one design. That design had to be one of the easiest designs to build. Also, you are doubting the creativity of some of these teams. I saw robots which clearly didn't have the resources that other teams had but still appeared competitive. I remeber seeing one robot almost entirely built out of wood. They said it worked perfectly and could heard five balls and cap a goal.
That was mainly due to the fact the way the balls and field were set up. My one advisor made the point that the balls were nearly impossible to push in there since they would squish up the lip of the opening and not go in.

Re: On Game Design
 

Simple solutions can work wonders. True...those methods of ball collection were great...but there were some simple things that you could do to make your robot herd the balls. This year...we used some 1x1.5 alluminum tubing....and made a bumper that rode on the ground in front of out robot. The balls would hit it....and it would create backspin on them..keeping them with the robot. It worked wonders, and allowed us to herd very well without a complex mechanism.

Sometime I think people really need to remember the difference between theory and reality. Complex mechanisms may work great....but sometimes a bar of alluminum is all you need. :)