can there be agressive play?
 

yea like pushing or raming? :confused:

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

You can probably go to the FIRST website and search for the rules of the previous game.
But for defense purposes pushing or pinning robots are permitted but only for a few seconds. Say, for instance, to keep a robot away from capping a goal or getting to the bar. But if a ref feels that the robot's action was unsafe or too aggressive, it will be disabled for the rest of the match.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

Not purposely, but FIRST doesn't tell you to build a hearty robot for nothing...

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

In addition to this, usually FIRST referees will make a signal which shows that you have been pushing too long.. If they also think you're coming from high speeds at another end of the field to hit the opposing robot, they will either warn you or disqualify you.

In the case that you go at a high speed from one end to another and slow down EXTREMELY before you play defense by pushing the robot, well that's completely legal.

As long as you keep your eyes on the field and on what the referee may be signaling, and not intentionally try to ruin another robot, you're good to go! :)

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

That's not always the case.
Observe.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

When you building your robot I think you should make it to take some hits. Now, I don't agree with flagrant, needless ramming, but there should be some pushing and shoving. It makes the matches more fun to watch! There does need to be a defined line where to stop "friendly contact" and "needless contact".

-Kyle

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

Yes, certainly there can, but you just have to make sure you don't cross the line between strategic and malicious. Blocking is fine. Pinning is fine (though there are rules that both teams and refs have to follow about this, so know them well), slowing down an opponent or getting them stuck on something is fine. Pushing is fine as long as it isn't into something out of bounds. If a robot happens to not be robust and ceases to function under this contact, too bad for the robot. Remember that if two robots hit each other, they both take the same amount of punishment; the modifier is how much of this either robot can take.

Bottom line though: your answer will be in the rules next year, and not in the opinion of a ChiefDelphi poster. What one poster might think is legal, another might (perhaps wrongly) think is malicious. Imagine that poster built the robot you just wrecked. Or worse still, imagine that poster was a referee...


I don't understand. Are you suggesting the tipping of your robot in that match was illegal?

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

Koko Ed

At what time remaining in the match was the event we are supposed to be looking at?

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

No, I was just saying that there are times there are agressive play in FIRST. We had a built in weakness in our robot (too top heavy) and it got tipped over easily and other teams at the championship took advatage of it and slammed us often. It was fair. If you don't like getting tipped don't build a robot that tips.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

At 1:29 left in the match 662 raced across the platform and threw us off the platform to the floor.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

the rules always say that this isnt a game where you try to destroy your opponate, which is true. but no matter what the challenge is there will be ramming, pinning and blocking.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

You can be aggressive, but not destructive. That is how it has been in the past, and likely will be in the future.

As always, read the new rules.

Wetzel

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

This is one of, if not the hardest line for FIRST to define. Even so, it is also difficult to have enforced in the exact same manner every match because of the different referees at each regional. For example, in my team's past year, (which consider a bit of a controvesial one) we had different decisions made against us. Here is a example of the blurry line. [just as a note to readers- please do not start discussion on this case... the topic has been beaten to a pulp already.] No call was made against us or our opponents. However at IRI, our drivers were attempting to prevent a robot from hanging, and accidentally closed the arm grippers on our opponent and then released them- while it was accidental, it could also have been viewed as dangerous and threatening to our opponents. In that match, we were disqualified. The referees view it as too aggressive for fair play.
In the end, you just have to keep a respect for your opponents and their robots- they worked hard to construct them as well.

_Alex

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

i feel that, within reason, yes, agressive play should be allowed. i define reason on a similar plane as FIRST, blocking/pushing/and otherwise forcing your opponent should only be allowed for a few seconds at a time before penalties should be enforced. For obvious reasons, full speed ramming (like what happened in Koko Ed's video) is dangerous, not gracious or professional in any way, and should not be allowed.

But whether you run your robot into a concrete pillar in st. louis while programming *on accident!*, or anticipate getting hit around a bit by the competition, a steel frame is always a safe choice :)

...by the way, we did more damage to that pillar (a few small chunks flew off :ahh: ) than we did to our robot (nothing)

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

In my three years in FIRST and the competitions I have attended I preferred the "physical" challenges over the "cerbral" ones. The 2002 rug game was fairly boring particualrly in the playoffs. One robot would race to the goals and just hold them in their zone while the other allaince would pull with utter fultility to move them and fail miserably more often than not. Total snoozefest.
The Stack Attack game was pretty fun with it's King-of-the-Hill element even if the main goal of the competiton inadvertant bred it's mutant illigitimant child (cue dramitic music) COLLUSION (is it just me or is that word veing used wrong in that context?) !!!!
Last years competiton was a brilliant mix of the physical (king of the hill battle for the bar) and the cerebral (so many strategies could be used to win and an incredible array of many different kinds of robots of all kinds of shapes and sizes). The most exciting moment I remember from last year happened in the playoffs at Buckeye (I think it was a semi-final match) when team 378 the Circut Stompers had latched onto the bar but had not pulled up yet becasue team 279 and their amazing clamshell bot was tryign to get on the bar. 378 tried blocking them but 279 latched on and 378 tried to sit on them but 279 would not be denied and pulled themselves up and took 378 off of the bar abd down to the floor. The place went nuts.
I know there are alot of old schoolers who fret that FIRST is turing into The Robotics Competition That Cannot Be Mentioned but truth be told y'all need to get off of your high horses. This aint some country club bred proper gentlemans game where we have to have absolute silence when the robot are doing their manuvers. There's loud music and even louder cheering. This is as high octanane enegry as any sporting event out there. A little contact never hurt anyone (and truth be told it's kinda fun even if you're the one getting slammed).
It's not like were going to turn into The Robotics Competition That Cannot Be Mentioned part II. But if you want the general public to get on board guess what? They like the rough stuff (and please don't say "well we don't need them" because we do. If you want to change the culture sometimes you need to change a little yourself). Which do you prefer? Last years multifacited game (that included rough play) or the four team alliance cure for insomnia from 2000? We can still be rough and smart because FIRST isn't just innovative it's imaginative.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

Defense wins Championships.

I can not put it any better then that. Rough play is inevitable when you get into the playoffs. It also is very exciting, as long as the other robots dont get torn apart or the field(although i tore the field in half at B.E., thats another story). If the game gets slow again, i think we may lose more students and prospective teams. The past two years have been incredibly exciting and non stop action until the very end.

In my own experiences this year, we went through NJ, Annapolis, Nationals, and PARC playing an offensive minded game. Never made it past the quarterfinals. Then in the next four offseasons I changed my strategy to playing defense and hanging only if necessary. We won 3 of the 4 and got 2nd in the other. I also have watched 494 vs 469 in the final matches over and over on SOAP and this only supports my theory.

However, I knew the extent of how to play defense (changes for every years rules). You need to be able to shove and push around, but not RAM with intent to harm or Batter repetitively. Ramming should be ok in some situations though. When you have little time left to block an opponent, i personally think almost anything can go (just no intent to harm). Say a robot is pulling itself up on the other side of the field, you have to go full speed to prevent them from getting up, and instead of slowing down and possibly letting them latch on, you have to get them out of the way. I know this is not a very well liked strategy, but if its win or lose, then you have to.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

A really really good post. I love your message about FIRSTers getting off their horses (not anyone in particular at least =P). The development in technology through the years leads to more and more challenges for the teams to accomplish. At the same time, the people who are not involved with FIRST may not realise the extra effort it takes to adapt to these new technologies (IR for example). In order for FIRST to continue its growth, a balance needs to be achieved between entertainment and technological challenge. The raucous cheering in Atlanta this April proved to me that FIRST just might have been on to something with raising the bar =P

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

If you expect to go onto the field with a robot that tips over easily or can be pushed around and you don't think other teams will take advantage of it think again. I don't think that there are any teams that would intentionally damage a robot, but the robots are very powerful and are easy to do damage with. This past season we had a very strong pushing bot and it got us in trouble with the refs a few times. We flipped somewhere around 8 bots during the season. We weren't trying to do it on purpose, but the robots with exposed wheels would just climb right up our frame and flip over. The ref told us we needed to calm it down a little and we tried our best to keep from tipping other robots. You feel bad when your team destroys or damages another teams bot. If our team damaged another teams robot I would expect my team to go help with repairs. Its part of gracious professionalism. You have to help out other teams and build those lasting friendships with them. The thing is, you never know when they might choose you as an alliance partner.
-Aaron

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

We had a match with team 67 and got tangled up with them and got judo thrown the the floor. They came over to our pits and apologized. We were in the next match with them and scored our highest point total of the year.
One thing that is very unique about FIRST compared to other sporting events is that getting along with other is of paramount importance because you actually have to work with otehr teams. So if you go around burning bridges you will find yourself in need of the burn cream yourself.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

It's important to remember the rules with regards to aggressive play, rather then specific extreme cases, especially when conveying information to rookies.

Rules like R10, R17, G06, G27, G31, G32 come to mind, although there are probably others.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

As the coach for 662 I must say that it was never our intention to tip over your robot. Since our robot was basically a one trick pony ( we could hang and thats about it ), our strategy was to hang and stop other robots from hanging. So we were just trying to stop you from gaining access to the platform. As you said your robot tipped over easily and our driver was a little to aggressive.

To add something new to the discussion, during regional competition at the Colorado Regional, in one match we had an opponent slam into wall in front of our driver hard enough to move the wall. You could feel the carpet move beneath you feet. This happened during autonomous mode and since our robot had 15 inch wheels, our opponent just sort of ran under one side of our robot and upset our autonomous mode. I assume that if it had been a direct hit, our robot would been severely damaged.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

I would say that blocking, tipping, hitting, and expoliting design flaws are legal (as long as it isn't too malicious or does intention damage) but pinning or "hanging up" a robot is not cool. Pinning is illegitimate and should be banned. If your only effective strategdy is to pin a 'bot against a wall, well, you have some huge flaws in your game/bot.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

I remember in 2002 at Buckeye this one team used the mobile goal to pin another robot against the side of the filed. Teh ref gave them the 10 count and they let go. The goal was still pinning the robot on the side and they went about their business.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

If I remember the usual rules correctly, a certain amount of what may be termed 'aggressive play' is permitted, as long as the intent is to prevent the other robot from scoring or to enable your robot to score points. This does include pinning, but only for a limited number of seconds. Pushing an opposing robot to keep it from scoring points is, likewise permitted. Wanton destruction of another robot is not permitted, which includes beating up on a robot when it's down. Pushing a downed robot out of your way so you could score points is something that could be subject to a referee's judgment.

Re: can there be agressive play?
 

The debate now is not really whether or not aggressive play is allowed but rather how much will be tolerated. It really isn't that important due to the fact that as long as you aren't deliberately breaking the rules or hurting another robot your team will not get any penalties. The refs do not throw penalties just to do it, they try not to but sometimes they are forced to by extremely aggressive play. Just go out there and play hard and always keep gracious professionalism in mind and you will be fine.

-Aaron