Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

Our mecanum drive got out of control at LA, I think after switching from closed to open loop, and when we went to block 968, it rammed them several times at high speed (we go about 14 fps) even when we tried to pull away. Neither of us had bumpers. It looked so deliberate that I thought we were going to get a yellow card, but we just got a warning.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

o yeah. i was in the pits and didn't really see wat happened there in the finals.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

Watching from the sidelines at FLR, I noticed a huge difference in the chaos on the field. That rack would NOT stop moving for any team. Everyone was franticly pounding into it or pounding someone else into it.

As far as I remember, there were two yellow cards there, but I can def be wrong on that.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

1567 and 250 got one each.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

414 got yellow carded for "excessive violence."

If the rules were enforced more evenly from the beginning, there should've been many more yellow flags.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

i agree completly.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

From 2002 to now (my years in FIRST) here is how I would rate them violence wise.
1.Stack Attack(2003) - What started out as focusing on building stacks instead became a basic vicious game of King of the Hill. Just ask the Martians at Buckey that year (the first and only time I've ever seen a robot get knocked into the air by another robot).
2. Aim High(2006) - FIRST institutes the use of bumpers and team decide to use it as a lisence to ram shooters that get free in the open. The only where a field element (the ramp) was used to take out the otehr teams willingly.
3. FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar (2004)- Another game with a king of the Hill element. Becasue some teams (like 67) could get on the bar without going on the platform it wasn't quite as physical as Stack Attack.
4.Triple Play (2005) - The robot were prone to tipping and got tipped over alot. A bigger danger was to the human players. The only game with a massive penalty to discourage insane agressiveness (which some teams still did).
5. Rack n' Roll (2007) - There's alot of pushing and shoving but the Rack seems to be a bigger danger to the robot than the other robots.
6. Zone Zeal(2002) - The most violent thing I saw happen is when Truck Town Thunder pulled an oppnent over in a tug of war.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

Which Triple Play are we talking about? I saw two very different versions of that game get played. In Manchester it was all about defense, but in Atlanta we got to watch 6 robots play tic-tac-toe.

I think it's funny how the game that was all about pushing was the least violent one. :confused:

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

I didn't see much pushing at all in Zone Zeal. It was strickly a tug of war over who controled the goals. It's was a game of keep away.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

There is a huge difference in Regionals and the Nationals.

Nationals are about big scores. Regionals are about staying alive.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

It's not just regionals in general. I have the most experience with the Manchester Regional and the Chesapeake Regional, so I can't really compare to anything else. However, every game I have seen played at Manchester is a defensive game, because that is the way that Manchester is. In 2005, our robot was tipped 3+ times at Manchester but was not tipped at all at Nationals or Chesapeake. Chesapeake is likely to have a far less defensive style of play.

From the play at nationals I would say that 2005 was not a very defensive game. I found 2006 to be much more defensive everywhere I saw it played.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

So does the addition of bumpers cause teams to be more agressive?
Would Stack Attack have been played differently if the robots had bumpers?
Would any of the games?

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

The Milwaukee regional had some interesting calls on this subject. They penalized teams for overly rough play fairly consistently, but they also made some strange related calls. During one match, another team's bot managed to penetrate ours beneath the bumper and up through the base, shearing the wiring on one of our IR encoders. When the judges saw this they not only docked points from the other team for out of bumper contact, but also took points from us for having exposed wires.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

We recieved a yellow card for a hit, and then some bad luck. We had a marginal hit on one robot, and the head ref was standing there and gave us a warning. While he was talking to us, another opponent's robot flipped itself on the rack, but he didn't see that. He assumed it was us again, and gave us the yellow card.

We were the only one at the Milwaukee Regional to get a yellow card.

Re: Rough Play in Rack N Roll
 

The Los Angeles Regional had some interesting calls...

Teams who were consistently aggressive were either never given a yellow card or warned over and over again with no consequence. On the other hand teams who were victims of circumstance (wrong place at the wrong time kind of stuff) were warned, penalized, DQed or yellow carded.