Gracious Professionalism
 

Our team gets a lot of comments about Gracious Professionalism. It seems most people define the concept this way:

Gracious Professionalisms Behavior that would be approved by your kindergarten teacher while building a block tower with little Jamie.

Our robot is mainly drive system but also has a wedge to move around other robots. It can move around almost every robot in the competition by pushing it, or wedging and dragging it. Several people have refused to believe this is legal despite FIRST's approval.

This year's competition had contact for a reason, because it is a legitimate strategy. It's not unfair or any easier to build a bruiser robot. It is a very effective strategy as seen by that fact that our team won the Canadian Regional.

Most people's argument is that while it may not break any rules, it is not very gracious. Well, look at the phrase Gracious Professionalism. It doesn't say you have to be Gracious! Gracious is an adjective, modifying the noun Professionalism. You have to Graciously Professional. It is NOT the spirit of Graciousness and Professionalism!

This year, that subject was the origin of several arguments and problems, dividing a lot of people.

In my opinion, FIRST shouldn't have allowed that kind of strategy, cause it's against everything FIRST taught us untill today. But since they said it's legal, it's legal.

Now some teams made robots that drag opponents around, and it's not against any rule, but it is against many speeches I heard in my three years of FIRST.

It's not those teams fault, they are not guilty at all.

I think that the problem that most teams are having is the drastic change from last year to this year as far as strategy and game play go. Last year there was little to no interaction because it wasn't how the game was played. The 2000 and '99 years that I was involved in, however, were heavily based on contact because it was a physicaly challenging 2 vs. 2 game design. Emphasis was given in the beginning on robust designs, and people had to know that contact was going to happen.

I am a firm believer that there is nothing as far as playing hard on the field that goes against gracious professionalism. Frankly, no one likes losing a match, and the physical robots do come out on top a lot, so envy often leads to complaining about these designs. This isn't the point though. If a teams builds and efficient, aggressive robot and goes out to play hard that's fine. The important part is that the team carries themselves professionally on and off the field. Ruthlessly attacking broken robots or robots that are not a threat is not the purpose, and then there is a problem. Also, being a respectable team off the fiels, whether a team wins or loses is key. If teams are being respectful and just playing as hard as they can, I think that everyone should just have fun, be proud of the outcome of the matches and we should all remember the real reasons to be doing programs like FIRST.

I have no problem with this strategery, but i do believe it is easier to build that kind of robot.

We played 3 elim matches with you (639 was the candian 2nd place alliance captain, not 629 as your website news says ;) ). I had no idea you guys were a bully bot... no complaints from any of my alliance members about you pushing them around or playing rough. My team must have been one of those few you can't push around, because we never failed to move our goal into scoring position.

FIRST clearly said to build a robust robot because contact was expected. That said, I love a good ball bot much more then a good goal bot, they are just funner to watch. I wish balls counted for more this year, my team built a strong 2 goal handler because thats how you win this year- you HAVE to bully.

My thoughts,
Greg

I direct you to the back of your FIRST-SME cards.
"
The FIRST-SME Partnership is dedicated to inspiring students to pursue careers in science and engineering through participation in the annual FIRST Robotics Competition.

<center>
FIRST Code of Ethics
"Gracious Professionalism"
+ Respect
+ Courtesy
+ Good Sportmanship
+ Best Behavior at All Times



www.first-sme.org
</center>


Wetzel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Future research librarian

I think what a lot of people forget is that a lot of these teams weren't around in 2000 or before, they haven't seen what fights their were over the ramp in 2000, and to which robust designs were challenged. Even the teams in their second year only played in 2001 so having any contact is a complete change. I would personally like to see more contact than I saw this year, there are still many teams that I feel would benefit and learn many things from a higher contact game, such as the amount of contact in 2000. Only after you see your electronics ripped to pieces or your battery laying in the middle of the field do many teams learn what robust really is. I applaud any team who created a defensive robot (and those of you that say its so much easier to build must realize that 70-80% of these bots aren't such complex engineering marvels as they like to think they are). I see nothing wrong with being as defensive as you wish, and if I team suffers from poor design they will learn something from the experience. At least your team took time to learn how to play the game and picked a strategy, something many teams neglected to do, and again I applaud you.

Ashley

Gracious Professionalism has more accurately been referred to as "acting in a way that your grandmother would be proud of." (if she were watching) I extend that to my grandmother who at 95 is still very alert and active. Could you defend your design to her? If your robot is only designed to interact with other robots and neither the field pieces nor a human player is it defendable under this definition? This is a hard question to ask and an even harder one to answer.
Good Luck All

if all it can do is interact with other robots, why didn't you just join BattleBots. I mean, it isn't as expensive, and you can make money! FIRST competitions are show the "finesse" of robots, not their brute strength, although lots oftorque isnt bad

To play the devil's advocate for a little bit, couldn't the "finesse" be it's power? Gracious professionalism was defined as
+ Respect
+ Courtesy
+ Good Sportmanship
+ Best Behavior at All Times

Respect - is it really disrespectful to control other bots? If you feel the best strategy is to control other bots, thats your strategy, and others should respect it as long as you respect their strategies - or, their robot design. What I mean is basically it's one thing to aim to destroy another bot (battlebots), but it's another thing to aim to control other bots. If your methods of control are not designed to destroy or harm the other bot, you are showing respect towards the other team - both their bot and their strategy - and they should do the same.

Courtesy - the game has certain rules. The game was designed this year to be a contact sport. Dean specifically said that during Kickoff. Again, you must show courtesy towards others - any methods that are designed to harm the other robot don't do this. However, is pushing such a harmful strategy? If your robot gets harmed by being pushed, did the pusher show 'dis-courtesy' towards you, or did your team ignore a key element of your game? Gracious profesionalism is designed to facilitate the advancement of engineering. However, if you failed to incorporate a key concept of the game into your engineering, couldn't it be argued that by being pushed, you were taught that you forgot to include several important parts. Needless to say, next year, you won't make that mistake (if the game has the same amount of pushing). And so, didn't you learn an important engineering lesson - or put another way, didn't you learn what gracious profesionalism is out to teach? At SBPLI, there were several robots that took the pushing possibility very seriously. As soon as they got the goals in their endzone, they shot pnumatic cylindars down, lifting their robot up onto steel plates, and making them immovable. When I first saw this, I was impressed by the creativity these teams showed in their engineering. By considering a key concept of the game, they advanced their engineering to a superior level. Isn't that what gracious profesionalism is set out to do in the first place - advance the pursuit of engineering?

As for Good Sportsmanship and Behavior, that isn't necesarily limited to the robot. If it turns out that someone's robot IS harmed by your tactics, what if you sent your team engineer to fix them up for their next match? They would have learned to make their robot more robust next year, AND they would have been fixed for their next match. Isn't that what gracious profesionalism is out to do?

Summing everything up, I'm trying to say that you can still follow Gracious Professionalism using offensive tactics. There is a huge difference between putting a large piece of steel sharpened to a point that could pierce any robot, and making a robot designed to push other guys around. In no way am I supporting the hood-ornament idea. What I'm saying is that the mission of FIRST is to inspire and recognize science and technology. Which team should be recognized more - which team completed the mission of FIRST: one that completely ignored an important aspect of the game, or a team that considered it and incorporated it into their design? Like or not, robustness was a key element this year - Dean said so at Kick-Off. As such, it shouldn't have been ignored completely, and testing robustness should be a respected strategy. Of course, if your team fails the test, it is only right that the other team help you and fix what they did destroy. After all, they did destroy, and thats not part of the fun.

But, Dan, to argue technical terms, controlling another alliance's robot or robots is not a strategy to have yourself achieve victory. That is a strategy to render the other alliance unable to achieve victory, which is definitely not the same thing

I'm pretty sure most are aware of this, but stopping another person from winning is not the same as winning.

While it is a strategy to get yourself the victory, and to come up with 'counter-counterstrategies' to further yourselves toward that end, it is not a victory strategy to just stop others from winning.

It's no more different in thought than if you and I were in a game of soccer, and I would continually have a teammate drag you away from the goal so that I could have an easy shot.

However, the FIRST group has more experience in dealing with these matters than I. Their decision has their own reasons, and I'm not going to argue about it.

I have to disagree with you here. Controlling the other robots is a perfectly 'moral' strategy - just like controlling the goals. Going back to your sentence:

"But, Dan, to argue technical terms, controlling another alliance's robot or robots is not a strategy to have yourself achieve victory. That is a strategy to render the other alliance unable to achieve victory, which is definitely not the same thing "

What if you replaced 'robots' with 'goals'

But, Dan, to argue technical terms, controlling another alliance's goal or goals is not a strategy to have yourself achieve victory. That is a strategy to render the other alliance unable to achieve victory, which is definitely not the same thing.

What if you built a robot that is capable of completely controlling the goals. How is that different from controlling the other robots? Either way, the other alliance team doesn't accomplish what they wanted to accomplish because you are preventing them from doing that. Your post doesn't really explain why controlling robots is so 'immoral', while controlling other elements is.

Going to your soccer analogy, me being dragged around by your teammate would be against the rules - and you would recieve the appropriate consequences for that, much like if you purposely harmed another robot. What this is actually like is your team mate blocking me and not letting me reach the ball. There is nothing wrong with that. To actually achieve my goal - that is, reach the soccer ball - in training, my coach should have put us through some drills to learn how to get around this behavior - how to accomplish my mission even though you are trying to block me.

Stratego
 

You have to use your robot to the best of its strategic ability, and for some, including my team, that means that you move everything on the field where you want it. To maximize our score and the other alliance's, we frequently repositioned other robots into their own bot zone while maintaining control of a goal. Almost anyone that was at Rutgers and isn't blind can tell you what we do. Once, a driver was spoken too about being overly aggressive, but just once. He was a Freshman, by the way, and the excitement got to him. In my book, gracious professionalism is apologizing to a team after accidently getting a hook tangled in their pneumatic lines that were exposed. Granted, the Buffalo Dance (ask a Boy Scout) wasn't too tactful at times, but you have to be allowed to celebrate. Anyway, if you have the power to move stuff, move it. You shouldn't be penalized for using your robot to the best of its abilities.

whimper...

didnt we have a thread just like this? Deja vu...:eek:

The debate is somewhat futile, the teams that did make those kinds of bots have little to apoligize for, since morals are hazy, at best, and their right, they are allowed to by the rules.


whether this is right or wrong is debatable, check the robot-lifter post by tinyfarnsworth for my side of the issue. I may not agree with it, but hey, its just a game, and their call, as far as what is right goes.

Defense is not Unsportsman Like
 

Let me start out by saying that our team has one Sportsmanship/Gracious Proffesionalism awards the past 2 years, and we are more proud of these then any number one ranking our championship we could ever attain. Our team attempts to hold this priority over all others.

In the 2000 year, our robot was intended to go under the bar, pick up balls, run them to the troughs, hang, etc. Being 30 pounds over weight, we lost the hanging and balling mechanisms, and soon realized that our robot drew to much current to drive in our high gear, and we were stuck at some few feet per second. Our new strategy became to pull teams off the bar, and push teams off the ramp. We won every single match at nationls with this defensive strategy. Yes, we were trying to stop our opponents from winning, but in a legal and legitimate manor. Some robots are faster, some are stronger, some are more durable. All of these features should be considered when building robots. It's all part of the game. It's unfortunate that robots get thrown around and broken, but rebuilding your robot in 10 minutes between every match is half the fun of the competition!!!!

I have not read all the posts here, but this is my 2 cents on the topic.

Replacing the word robots with goals completely changes the context of the message. The goals are not animate, nor are they controlled by any team or teams directly. They are manipulated by teams through various measures.

As to your counter-soccer analogy, you miss the point entirely. Were I to block you in soccer, I would stay in front of you. The same goes for the robot, albeit it's very hard to do. Wedging under a robot and pulling it around against it's own power is not blocking, it's moving. That is more akin to my analogy then to yours.

I never said controlling other robot was 'immoral,' I said it was not a victory strategy. To say that it is immoral would be saying that it's not right to move another robot against it's own power. I never said that, not did I ever say it. It's a little risky to the carpet, however, when you're moving it one way when its wheels are going another.

As for your analogy, one thing I've learned from being on Debate is that analogies always get ripped apart, and arguing them just wastes time. It all depends on how you percieve it. Lets just stay away from analagies - their meaning depends on your side of the debate (and since in a debate, you have two different sides, well, you get the point - they get nowhere). It gets more done to debate the central theme, so lets just stick at that.

Does it really? Both are movable field elements. Both have to be moved to score points. Both are worth the same amount of points. You get penalized if you damage any of them. What it comes down to is that both are elements of the game. You said the goals are manipulated by teams. Why are they manipulated? To score points and earn you the victory. In the same way, robots are there to score points. Why should you be able to manipulate goals, but not robots - both of which are just game elements there to score points?

I'm also on debate, Dan, and a proper analogy never gets ripped apart, it's just attempted to be misinterpreted. All too common, however, are improper analogies. Sorry if you don't like my analogy.

Why are they different? Let's count the reasons

1. The goal is not the property of any team or team member. They are the property of the event coordinators.

2. Goals are not an active component; they are passive.

And the big one...
3. A goal cannot be damaged by simply moving it, as it is designed to move in all directions. This is not true with all robots.

This doesn't really matter by itself - see my response to number 3...

But that doesn't change their ultimate purpose - their ultimate purpose is to gain points. Same thing with other robots.

Going back to my origional point, the purpose of FIRST is to advance the field of engineering, to recognize science and technology - Gracious Professionalism is designed to facilitate that. If you didn't design your robot with the idea that it can be pushed - if you designed your robot hoping that a key element of this year's game wouldn't be applied to it - should you be able to achieve victory over someone who DID incorporate that part of the game into their robot? Each year, teams learn lessons about different aspects of engineering - that is the purpose of FIRST. If you didn't design your robot to be able to withstand being pushed, well you learned something for next year. Of course, if your robot is actually damaged, Gracious Profesionalism states that the team that damaged you work with you to repair it.

Oh, I'm not talking from a personal standpoint. We've been pushed around and we weren't damaged. Dean said you should prepare to have your robot pushed at Kickoff. I'm merely stating my views.

And as to your comments, they have almost nothing to do what I've said. The purpose of FIRST is to educate, but not by loss. It's designed to make people think creatively within the constraints.

And as to your second rebuttal, it does change them by a great deal. I'll try to avoid analogies this time, even though they make things clearer.

The goal, designed to be moved in all directions, is not anyone's concern. Under normal circumstances, the goals aren't broken. Extreme cases can occur, and penalties will be suffered for damages.

This is not the same with robots. By forcing a robot to do something it's not supposed to, it becomes very likely that something will break. Fixing a robot does not erase the fact that you broke the robot to achieve victory. Accidents happen, but your strategy is with intent. Think about it.

The question that is really the issue here is "Is a Graciously Professional strategy to hinder your opponent from scoring points instead of simply scoring more for yourself?"

I would have to say, that simply trying to hinder your opponent is a reasonable strategy in this game.

You can't really compare this to any other sports. For example doing this in hockey, and having no defense would be ridiculous. Meanwhile in other sports such as cycling, hindering your opponents will get you kicked-out.

I admit simply trying to score as many points for your team, does have a certain noble, gentlemanly, can't-we-all-just-get-along, children-singing-it's-a-small-world, I-love-you-you-love-me, communist feeling to it. This was present at the competition last year, but not quite as strongly this year.

One more question.. this has been bugging me since last year. What is the opposite of gracious professionalisim?

ungracious professionalisim
nongracious professionalisim
ungracious unprofessionalisim
nongracious unprofessionalisim
gracious unprofessionalisim

what one is it? or none of the above,

One of our teammates said the opposite of gracious professionalism is malicious unprofessionalism...I guess it means acting with unrefined manners and an intent to cause damage, physical or mental. What do you think, Wolfe?

To the opponents of wedging, lifting, bot moving, kidnapping strategies...

Would you really want to win against a team who was intentionally not playing at the top of their game in the interest of preserving your brand of GP? Would you really want to deny an opponent the full use of their carefully designed and -legal- game strategy?

Under this year's rules the robots are game pieces that can be used to score points - for any team with the will and ability to score them. The rules explicitly allow kidnapping strategies. Although it seems that many teams ignored this contingency, it is within the set of constraints under which the game is played; the set of constraints under which our robots were designed.

There's nothing ungracious or unprofessional about playing by the rules. It is neither gracious or professional to play with an arm tied behind your back because your opponent didn't consider every strategy the rules allow.

-Joel

The IRS.


-dave

I think that teams that proposly "bug" you and push you around is just part of the game. It makes it more exciting. If there wasn't any it would be like last year. A really boring competition. You need to have those kinds of teams out there or it would be as fun.

well...
 

Hi everybody!

I saw Team #610's robot in Canada (I was that green guy with cowpants that bugged you about your robot lifter...)

I wasn't sure if FIRST would allow the robot handler all the way through the competition, just because I thought it could very easily happen that robots that get caught by your mechanism get injured. Well, I saw that FIRST was fine with it, and I understand both sides of viewpoints that people showed in this thread, and I kind of agree with both of them...

Re: well...
 

Actually, to our suprise, the refs at the competition actually sort of encouraged us to use the wedge!

IMHO gracious professionalism means doing the right thing at the right time, all of the time. If your strategy is to move the goal, and someone else's robot is attached and gets moved along with the goal, fine. But to repeadely attack another robot by rammiing it to try and move or dislodge when it has not and will not be moved is clearly not gracious professionalism. Similarly, if your strategy is to gather balls, and a goal or another robot is blocking your path, push it out of the way. But to dash across the field to ram another robot to prevent it from scoring balls is not gracious professionalism. Physical blocking, preventing a robot or goal from scoring, is also a great strategy. Just don't do it by incapacitating the competition. Prove your engineering , design, and construction using strength and manueverability. Having said this, it is always good engineering practice to design for the ramming, pushing, and pulling that may "accidently" occur. Because our strategy is "two-goal anchor", we've seen our share of bumps and bruises. We have the battle scars to show. As our friends at 312 Heatwave will attest, there is nothing better to watch that a good-ol tug-of-war. Our team is ready to play - bring it on -- 343 MIM.

This gracious professionalism stuff is getting real
old. The idea is to win.. without cheating. Thats it.
Not everyone was meant to build a robot just like not
everyone is good at sports and not everyone is good at
math. Things should try and be kept fair, but its a
game guys. NOTHING can be kept ultimately fair. Say
Hockey... some guys are bigger.. they hit people...
thats their strength. Some guys are quick, thats their
advantage, its what they do. So every robot has their
advantage, which is fine. Let em use it. Robots
should be fair play, they're not coffee tables,
they're not made of glass. They're (probably) made of
metal or aluminum. That's not exactly a weak material.
If it gets hurts, the team should have done a better
job at protecting it and countering that stragety. I
mean, stick an RC out in the open in a robotics
competition, and you have to EXPECT it to get broken,
or stick an unreinforced arm out and not expect it to
be bent, thats just plain dumb. The only time people
complain about things is when its something they can't
beat, and then they look for technacalities that they
can use to their advantage. If everyone just followed
the rules and prepared for all (or most) of the
possible situations then it would be fine.

You don't want to be wedged up, be low to the ground.
You don't wanna be lifted up? Don't leave an exposed
surface grippable. Don't want to be pushed? Use strong
motors and good traction tread on ur wheels. Don't
want to lose? Then do your best and play the game as
it was intended, don't play it like a court case with
lawyers.


---I say use the wedge and use it proudly. If people complain that much about it, then it must mean that it is ahead of its time. When a good counter-stragety is formed, then people will stop talking about it because it will be beaten... :D