Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Now that the last official game of Overdrive has been played I want to hear what people think about the game.
I think that overdrive was very exciting. Every time a team hurdled the crowd would go crazy. The fast pace of the game made it exciting to watch without ever having a dull moment. The high amount of points that could be scored in hybrid modes gave teams that may not look so good in tele-op a chance to compete. Although Overdrive seemed to be dominated by hurdlers, speed bots had to play a crucial roll in a winning alliance because there were only two track balls. We saw many methods of pick-up, herding and hurdling.(as my teams scout) I found it very fun to analyze the different techniques teams used to accomplish the various tasks in the game. The race style of game called for the teams to design many interesting drive trains. Even though the game was, again, primarily skid steered bots. Pick-up seemed to be the aspect of the game that could make or break a hurdling robot, many teams underestimated the importance of pick-up and for most it was what separated them from the elite. The drivers came into play a lot in Overdrive, many teams had a lot of success due to the skill of their drivers.
Overall I think Overdrive was a great game that made teams work hard and come out with amazing machines. The game itself started slow but in the later weeks to the finals the game became very exciting and the quality of game play rose. The people at FIRST(as always) did an awesome job coming up with a game.

What are your Thoughts?

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overdrive was very bland when played in qualifications but it came to life during the elims. Then it was so electric it could light up Atlanta for weeks!
Too dominated by penalties though.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

The fact that there was really only one objective in the game was a large turnoff to me. However, this simple game really did help non-FIRST spectators understand and enjoy the event.

Overdrive wasn't as good as 07, 06, or 04.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Only one objective? I can count four completely different ways to score in Overdrive, as compared to '07 (one and a half), '06 (two and a half) or '05 (three and a half) [I consider climbing a ramp or simply driving your robot to a certain location at the end of the game as halves]. The variation in robot design is far greater than last year's game, and I would argue the drive trains/manipulators used in OD are the most elegant across the board, as compared to past years' designs.

The pits seemed to be a much friendlier place - a horde of workers fixing a broken robot was not nearly as commonplace as it has been in the past. People could walk around, check out different designs, and ask questions without fear of getting in the way or impeding progress. I think this was due largely to the monodirectional and mostly offensive-minded flow of the game. While defense did play a large part in the game (moreso than most people realize), the damage inflicted was not nearly as destructive as in the past.

One thing I think could be improved was the Hybrid mode. While the concept was cool (controlling the robot with a TV remote), the physical size of the game and arena made it so the majority of spectators missed out on that feature. Also, depending on the robot's orientation, sometimes the lap counters interfered with the IR receiver. I understand that's all part of the game challenge and there are ways around it, but when trying to make the non-teleoperated period rookie-friendly, there's no need to throw in extra difficulties.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I liked overdrive,

It separated the field from a bot that was just there and didn't fulfill it's job compared to one which was really great. The "unsatisfactory" robots did not win. And if you look at teams that had success, 27, 1114, 217, and countless others, they had good robots.

Defense was less of a factor and it really depended on how good was your robot.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I'm not sure if it's fair to draw comparisons between FIRST Frenzy and the games of the 3v3 era, given the differences in structure; that said, this season as a whole ranks #2 on my personal list of favorite 3v3 seasons behind Aim High and ahead of Triple Play and Rack 'N' Roll.

Good:
-The kit was more or less sound. There is nothing more frustrating than finding out that key elements of the kit of parts that we're relying on are subpar. (The 6V Fisher-Price motors of 2005 and the BaneBots gearboxes of 2007 come to mind.) Not directly related to the game, mind you, but robust robots make for better matches. (Granted, the IR board gave up on a lot of teams, but you had options between Kevin Watson's code and some other resources on the internet.)
-The overall objective of the game was crystal-clear. Make laps, throw a huge ball over the overpass. Good luck explaining any other game in that much space.
-Robots had something to do the entire match. When robots don't have anything to do, they hit. This year, they could at least score points by getting around the track. Yes, you could still hit and play defense in this game, but you had to be more intelligent about it. I like that.
-There were no huge team updates over the season, and only minimal YMTCs here on CD. That's a sign of a good game. Edit: Aim High still holds the ultimate record--there are zero YMTCs in the subforum from that season.
-There was a tremendous incentive to have a good hybrid routine. Entire matches could be decided in those opening seconds. It underscored the importance of good programming (especially to those of us that lacked it).
-The game was capable of sorting out the best from the good and the good from the rest. There was no "Who?!" this season on Einstein for me--the teams that made it there all had great accomplishments across the entire season.

Bad:
-The absence of an exact copy of the field ball for the better part of the season was frustrating.
-Some events had issues with the overpass sagging, which would then catch some robots designed to interact with an overpass within tolerance. Since you're passing underneath the overpass dozens of times over a regional, that's an issue.
-I'm still not sold on the photo-finish for robot movement but not ball movement. I imagine that many off-seasons will have their way with that rule. On the up side, that's probably the only irritating rule of the season for me--compare that with the many grumbles about various parts of last season's manual.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Well, I think he meant that there was only one major objective. To get/do something with with the balls. When in 04 you could...get the balls, pass the balls into the HP, then the HP would shoot them into one of the goals, you could play with the movable goal, you could hang, you could play defense...man was that game cool.

I didn't like it for the same reason. Qualifications were very boring, for the most part. Elims got "exciting" but I was never really out of my sit being thrilled by it. 4 out of 10.


To spin on Billfred's favorite list...I wasn't really that high on some of the recent games. Aim High was most exciting in my mind (probably biased but still). I gave that a 9 of 10. Then 07 with a 5 out of 10. Then 05 and 08 with a 4 out of 10.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I saw plenty of matches where robots were carried to the top of the ranking this year.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Defense was definately a factor this year... not so much a straight pushing match like last year but there were many teams that incoprorated completely defensive strategies.... Keeping the trackballs away from the good hurdling robots and blocking them from making their way around the track was a huge componet of this years game... And yes pushing was also very evident this year to from my observations..

I never once saw a robot politely bump another and then wait for 6 seconds in order to pass LOL :D ..

I thought this years game was very fun for hurdling teams because every match was a battle not only to hurdle but also to aquire and to maneuver around the track. 6 robots + 4 track balls = very full track...

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Aim High: "Robot basketball."

Overdrive was, however, much easier to explain than Triple Play.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Just like every season, there are invariably some teams that work into an alliance captain slot with a decent (if unspectacular) robot that had a lot of luck in qualifying. Almost invariably, those teams are weeded out by the time all is said and done.

Sincerely,

3-0 with the TechTigers in '07, 0-3 against the TechTigers in '07.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

The worst thing that happened with our team is that we didn't know that the trackball would have no "give." Because of that, we threw away several good ideas.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I'm going to try to take a high level approach to this:

Things gone right:
1. Hybrid was worth the correct amount of points to make it important
2. It was nice to see the "balancing" of offense and defense. Last year was a very heavy defensive game. The year prior, and excellent shooter could somewhat negate a strong defense.
3. Drivetrains. It was nice to see speed as a part of the game. It taught me some things about efficient drive trains that I didn't know before - primarily because in the past you could gear a trans low enough and the fine points didn't matter because of the amount of power (like battery life....).
4. The weight of the ball. This pushed the systems to the limits. Many of the higher end bots were dieing in 2-3 minutes due to battery power.

Deltas, or things that could be improved for next year:
1. It was extremely difficult to replicate field conditions to test hybrid remotes. We had a remote that would work from over 50 feet away every single time in practice and in the pits, but out on the field we missed signals from less that 10 feet away.

2. Simple game, very complex rules set, and very difficult for referees to call. I'm not sure how it could have been improved, but the demand on the referees to fairly call matches was unfair to them, and resulted in many penalty-decided matches (and non-calls that also decided matches).

3. Lack of tasks that were not complimentary. Last year had a very well seperated couple tasks. I would even look forward to tasks that require small detachable robots, etc. It's time to de-homogonize the robot designs a bit. This year the goals complemented eachother (speed + hurdling). Perhaps this could have been made more interesting by having a 200 lb weight that had to be carried to gain lap points, but they were equal to the hurdle points if carried. Opposed goals (like the ramps and score) lead to more widely varied robot goals, and more interesting design solutions.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

to me, overdrive wasnt all that bad. better than 07 and 05

but the best years in a top three form

1=2006
2=2003
3=2004

these years had mutiple ways of scoring and a VERY exciting form of gameplay, always with some kind of struggle involved that made teams scream even more for their robot

what the games need is some form of struggle in them or something that robots have to fight over

in 06= you had to stop the opposing alliance from gaining balls or scoring

in 03= that ramp was soooooo hard to fight over, people would go crazy as the time ticked by and their robot was pushing to get on

in 04= robots who could hang on the bar always fought of who would get on. it was always a struggle to seee who would get up on it. so exciting to see that

again, this is just my opinion haha. =D

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

In Overdrive the better alliance almost always won. Obviously the better alliance will win most of the time in any game, but we defintitely didn't see as many upsets in overdrive as we usually do.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overall, it was an entertaining, fast-paced, enjoyable game. But, IMHO, there were still some issue:

• As one who likes a good blend of offense and defense, I thought this game had great potential for both...in the beginning. However, as defensive-minded teams became more innovative and developed creative defensive stratagies, high-powered offense-minded lobbyists definitely got their way as rule "clarifications" as the season went on were definitely skewed towards the offense.
• Penalties decided way too many matches.
• During a brainstorming session in January, I recall someone (I think it was me...) saying, "Catapulting a giant 10-pound ball 7-10 feet into the air from one end of the field to the other and having it land wherever can't be safe--FIRST will never allow that!"...Well, we know for next year that FIRST has reset the bar on limits.
• Qualification match pairings will not be completely impartial until the list of compeditors is randomized BEFORE entering the list into the algorithm.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

This game turned out much better than I thought it would at kickoff. Parts of my perception may be because my daughter's team had a better robot than in the past 3 years, and that I've already spent more time reffing than I did last year and we're not to the off-seasons yet.

Overdrive didn't have the "something special never done before" aspect that we've had for the prior 3 years:

• Triple Play was the first time we were 3v3, and had a unique shape that no one had ever worked with before. (I still have a certain affinity for that game, even though I had little to do with the team or robot build; perhaps because I enjoyed strategizing from the stands where the next tetra should go.)
• Aim High - we were encouraged to fling objects about!
• Rack-n-Roll - climbing up on your partner to score the bonus.

I wasn't keen on the "drive by remote" part of hybrid this year. Especially since it didn't work so well. The good part about hybrid was that all robots on the team could do something, and do it pretty much simultaneously, without conflicting with their teammate's efforts. Triple Play you had to decide who was going to go for the vision tetra, if anyone. Aim High sometimes two bots from the same team would fire balls into the same place, resulting in them scattering rather than scoring. Rack-n-Roll had very few multiple keepers scored, sometimes because the robots interfered with each other. Yes, we had a few robot collisions that stopped one of the teammates from crossing a line or getting a ball. But pretty much teams could all get going to score at least one or two lines. Also the points given for hybrid were well-balanced with the rest of the game. In Triple Play and Rack-n-Roll the auto points weren't enough; in Aim High if you won auto you pretty much had won the game.

Penalties were severe and easy to earn this year - I should know, I called enough of 'em. Still, I really enjoyed reffing this game. Maybe because you had to pay attention so closely, and it made even a less-than-stellar match to view exciting for a referee.

I was also pleased to see how many variations there were in robots. After kickoff, the general sentiment was that we'd have a bunch of grippers on elevators. I was glad to see shooters, flingers, arms, elevators, suckers - and lots of variety of end effectors too.

My personal rank for the last for years is

1. Triple Play
2. Overdrive
3. Rack-n-Roll
4. Aim High

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I didn't like it. I feel that rules were too far open to interpretation by referees, that too many matches were decided by penalties, and that the game was boring to design for, to coach and to play.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I wasn't really a fan of this year's game. The concept of it was very cool, but the penalties ruined it for a lot of teams. I guess in a year where you get points for just driving, there has to be penalties assessed, but when is FIRST ever going to get the penalty values correct? You get 2 points for making a lap, yet a 10 point penalty for messing up while trying to complete that lap. It seems like regardless of the point values in each year's games, the penalties are always 10 points. I don't like that. There were a ton of matches decided by penalties and, to me, that's a sign of a flawed game.

Was the penalties section on the rankings in the pits ever there before this year's game? I don't really remember it.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Being a rookie team we found overdrive an easy game to be played and we had so much fun working on the robot. although i think the hardest part was working on our scissor lift to knock the ball off the overpass. we also had a very....interesting first try at our autonomous mode when we played our first match. we learned alot from this game and hope that the game next year is a bit more challenging.

TEAM 2495

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

FIRST got the values right. The reason why the penalty was so high was to eliminate almost all reasons to get the penalty on purpose which was related to hurdling.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Personally Me and a couple teamates disliked Overdrive. We hated it at first but as mentioned above the game really did come alive in the finals. I remember people saying they disliked rach and roll because there was too much focus on the centre of the feild. I do agree with that but for me its what made it intense. Without the powerful drives and the pushing the game seemed a little bit to dependant on design which is great for lots of teams, however are design didnt turn out the was it was initialy planned.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I'll always be a big fan of Aim High. That being said, I enjoyed Overdrive.

It was easy to explain to people. If they wanted to know what the robot did we'd explain, "Nascar, but with robots and giant balls." It took a lot longer to explain rack and roll, and I always got the feeling that they didn't quiet get it.

It was exciting. Last year the ramps at the end decided a lot, and the game was a bit predictable. This year teams could be neck and neck the whole way, and knocking off a ball at the last second meant a lot.

I might be a bit biased as this was a very good year for my team. :eyeroll:

Personally, I'd put Overdrive above Rack and Roll, but below Aim High.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Honestly, I found the game to be just okay...I really loved Rack N Roll because of how much offensive strategy and defensive strategy that had to be planned out from match to match...Overdrive seemed too predictable on strategy and the most you could have done with defense is take the opponents ball off the overpass and/or pin the ball. ..I don't know, as high tense everyone gets to see a trackball get put up or pushed off last minute, I miss the intensity of trying to get your entire alliance up the ramps on that last second without tipping over because you're going too fast or bumping into a tube...(for example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPdRd9q7vj8 Match 2 where 1636 fell over but 555 pushed them out of the way and got up right at the last second and took the finals to a third match starting at about 9:31)
Although I do like that the game this year was a lot easier to explain and to understand (compared to explaining what is Rack N' Roll to someone non-FIRST) but the enforcement on the rules and the amount of penalties given I defiantly did not like especially how impeding was not really enforced consistently.
Hybrid mode was pretty cool but it felt like the Human Player got a promotion but got a downgrade...it all depended if the team was able to get a good program, a good remote, and a good angle from the transmitter to the receiver, or even a strong enough signal...if it didn't work out, the Human Player wasn't necessary...then even if it did work out, the human player becomes worthless still...I like Triple Play, Aim High, and Rack N' Roll because the human player worked with the drivers of their team and their alliance (i.e. "we're ready load a tetra.....throw a ball into our hopper...get a tube in front of our bot....etc."....).

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overall, I liked overdrive. It was one of the most intense games I have witnessed (I know my rookie year says 2007, but I have watched a competition since 2001.) I agree that it came alive in the elimination rounds.

The sheer impressiveness of seeing the trackballs flying also made the game a great spectator game. The surface simplicity of the rules was also good. I loved the lack of "blindly crashing into things" defense. I hate seeing a box on wheels do nothing but screw up a well thought out machine. This game gave teams that could only move something to do, and in some cases, enough motivation to make lapping in an innovative way a robot's primary function

I may be the only person here who doesn't think that G22 penalties killed the game. Sure, it would have been better without them, but when it comes down to it, FIRST isn't about who wins the match. It is about being inspired to go into the field of engineering. I am much more inspired by seeing something I helped build accomplish something than by seeing a bigger score next to our name than our opponents.

I think this game's strongest point was the diversity of robots. Lapbots, Herders, Launchers, Arms, and everything in between were all viable. 1114, 217, and 148 were all completely differant, and yet they all contributed to the "dream alliance." However, I agree that hurdlers were a bit too viable. This is kind of a throwback to 2005, where there were multiple ways to score, but tetra capping was the clearly dominant one.

In 2009, I'd like to see an endgame task like 2004, where it is different than the bulk of teleoperated mode, and yet can be built into it (hook onto capping arm) and involves more than just driving to spot X, and competing with other robots to get there. Ball capping was just a bit too similar to the rest of the game.

I think the robocoach was an okay idea, but I preferred human players.

However, I think the biggest weakness of the game was the static-ness of strategy, once you got down to the field. There was no real equivalent to on-the-spot decisions from past games, like quickly calculating if removing a spoiler or placing another ringer would be better.


Overall though, the GDC gave us another gem, in the sense that they gave us a game that worked. I am in awe, every year, that the game is completely different, and yet it is still competitive, challenging, fun to watch, not completely impossible to understand, and overall, makes FIRST fun to participate in. Thank you GDC!!!

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I think this is exactly wrong. The penalty is to offset the points from a hurdle and a lap, which is 10 points. If the penalty was only two points, robots could flagrantly run backwards to get a ball to score 10 points.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I wasn't talking scoring objectives, i was moreso pointing towards building objectives. For instance, in 2005, you could build a robot that could place tetras... that was about it. In 2006 you could build a robot that could shoot or dump. (2 objectives). In 2007, there were ramp bots and tube bots (2 objectives). This year, technically there was hurdlers and lap bots, but in the end, a hurdler could easily become a lap bot if need be. Every robot was capable of doing 4 or 5 laps and the top could do 8-12. That isn't much of a difference.

In 2007, the thing I liked was that you could go one of two completely different approaches. The objectives were completely unrelated. 2006, dumping and shooting were pretty related, in 2005, there really was only one objective. This year, the only real decision having to be made was how to hurdle rather than something like, should we lift or should we score tubes.

I agree that it was nice to see a game where there was a large variety of robot scoring mechanisms, but in the end, it got a little repetitive.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

The game was too simple... I think first could have come up with a better game than they did. It was a good game for rookies.. to easy for veterans.:yikes:

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

:] overdrive was boring but kind exciting. The whole game was just left turns and hurdling or herding the ball. The most exciting part was the ball hurdling, boy the crowd went crazy.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

FIRST did an excelent job with overdrive. They delivered a fast paced game that gave everyteam a chance to shine. The highschoring task during teleopp was a task which gave every team a reasonable task to engineer for. As much as i loved aimhigh, getting that camera to work right, and actualy shoot balls efficiantly was tough. It seemed professionaly engineered robots dominated the field doubly. Rack nd roll also seemed biased to super robots. While one "lesser bot" could spoil a big line, thos "promade" bots just wrecked house.

This year robots came in many forms, and i think the comparitive level of super bots this year was much lower, and closer to the average student engineered and built bot. The penalties i believe added a strong aspect to the game because even if you were overpowered in a match the skill of the driver came into play, and often decided matches. Im glad FIRST penalized bots interfereing with hurtles. A hurtle is a beautiful thing. The true grace of what was engineered was allowed to shine.

just.. get ready for the 2009 game.

FIRST SQUARE DANCE

thats my call.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

But the ball has to cross the opponent's finish line to score again.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Good:
-Scoring distribution (between autonomous, teleoperated, and 'end game') was pretty good this year. In 06, the winner of autonomous got a huge advantage. Last year, matches could be won with decent defense and two ramped robots, but autonomous was hardly worth anything.
-BETTER match randomization. Still needs work, but its a step in the right direction.

Bad:
-Bring back human players!
-It would be nice to allow for a little more robot-robot contact. Calls seemed to be more lenient at the Championship, but during regionals the contact calls were unnecessarily strict. Having a game where teams can't touch each other for fear of a penalty is no fun to drive in or watch. Why do you think people like football?! ; ) Encourage teams to build better, stronger robots by allowing them to face a bit of abuse on the field.

Neutral:
-Blind spots.. these were annoying at first but eventually were just a bit of an added challenge. And some teams got pretty good at using them strategically, knocking balls into the oppositions blind spot to make them harder to acquire.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I personally thought that the game was going to be extremely boring at kickoff. I still think it is boring... but not so much. The elims did bring some fun into the game, but to watch the quals wasn't very exciting. I did like how teams were able to score with just a working drive train so rookies and other weaker teams could spend their time working on a solid drive system instead of trying to do that and a manipulator, thus spreading their resources thin. The Hybrid scoring was nice, however i felt that the bonus points wern't very appealing to teams. Basically if you didnt get the cap, many times we would just be like "oh-well we still got 8 pts for it." There really wasn't any incentive to cap at the end, and i've found crowds really love those last second dashes to get bonus pts (like ramps).

I honestly like 2005 the best (granted i haven't seen any before then) and i'm probabily biased but I loved the tetras. There was also a sence of anticipation after each match because the score couldn't be scored during the match very well. so there was some excitement once the scores came out. With the real-time scoring, save penalties, everyone already knows who won.

Ranking since my first year 2005 i'd have to say:
1. Triple Play
2. Rack & Roll
3. Aim High
4. Overdrive

from what i've heard 2004 was a sweet game and i would love to see that game come back.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Compared to the other years' games Overdrive is BEST I MEAN BEST I like the fast robots going round the track like Racecars, but it's no fun if u lose by penlaties

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I wasn't suggesting to make the penalty only worth 2 points. I guess from a speed bot's perspective, it's basically taking away 5 laps, which for even the fastest teams means probably around half of your tele-operated laps meant nothing.

Penalties were too harsh this year.

One thing I liked about this year - no speed limit. I think we should keep that for future year's games, or at least up it from the usual 12 ft/s. That's going to seem exceptionally slow if FIRST brings that back.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Commenting only on the autonomous mode (hybrid).

This year was the best. I have been with FIRST since 2003 when the first autonomous came out. This year was the most challenging and fun to take on than any in the past. But also rookie teams could score in autonomous by just driving forward. So any team could be part of autonomous mode and the more advanced teams were very challenged by it. I say to FIRST bring it on more especially with more power of the new processor.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

At the beginning of the season, I thought the game had promise and I was excited; then a few weeks in I realized how boring the matches were going to be, as you were going to have a limited number of nearly identical robot designs. I did like the downplayed role of bash-em-to-bits defense, and the advent of "smarter" defense.

Here's just a whole bunch of random ideas for improving the game. Some are more feasible (and better) than others, but I'm just throwing them all on the wall to see what sticks. Or if you prefer Dean's lingo, it's time to kiss some frogs.

• A "golden trackball" type of thing which could have been scoreable (only as a hurdle) by either alliance.
• More diversity of playing field objects, a la FIRST Frenzy. Add in some mobile goals, or 20" balls. With three robots per alliance, the possibilities of "specialized" robots would be even cooler than it was back in 2004.
• What if the entire overpass was a teeter-totter (with about 10 degrees of motion), and if you had more trackballs over your homestretch at the end of the match (thus causing it to tip towards you), you can get a multiplier bonus.
• A launching ramp for Dukes of Hazzard style driving. :eek: Or even just speed bumps.
• A Red/Blue target light at each trackball position, which would light up as the color of trackball there at the start of the match for CMUcam autonomous navigation.
• Modification of G22 to only count FULLY crossing the lane markers in the clockwise direction as a penalty.
• Elimination round matches are to be played in the opposite direction (CW) than qualification matches (CCW).
• A variable-length autonomous mode. At the very minimum, it starts as ten seconds. But for every five/ten seconds extra you leave your robot in autonomous, the point value of all maneuvers completed autonomously double. (Of course, this will only work if the real-time lane marker sensors had been working...)
• A REAL HUMAN PLAYER POSITION.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Either of these would be a really interesting game element. Or even both: a 6-inch high ramp on the left hand lane and a 3-inch speed bump on the right. Woo hoo!

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

This year I went to 4 regionals and 1 championship.

One of the biggest complaints I was hearing all year was bad reffing. I didn't see so much bad reffing, as inadequate reffing. There were far too many things going on at once to try and call every penalty.

I saw blatant out of bumper zone contact never called because the refs were too busy trying to see if a bot would G22.

In another situation, a robot parked sideways in front of us and "pinned" us against a finish line. We backed up to get around the bot and incurred a G22 from a ref. From this ref's POV, we had simply gone over the line (he couldn't see the other robot in front of us). The ref that would have called impeding on the robot in front of us was busy watching another potential G22 occurring in another part of the field. Situations like this plagued every regional I was at.

There was simply way too much going on at one time in this game for the refs to deal with. If the refs are going to be required to look for so many things, some sort of instant replay MUST be included.

Now to the game itself.

Hybrid mode is an awesome idea with great potential. However, I was dissatisfied with the communication to the robots (IR). In later years, it would be nice if the hybrid commands were sent directly to the robot via the OI->RC system so that we didn't have to deal with bazooka remotes and IR diode arrays.

I didn't like the fact that all the goals in this game were based off of a similar task. Last year there were 2 completely unrelated tasks, which lent a little more to the alliance strategy. This year every alliance was clear. 2 great hurdlers, 1 defender favorably with ball knocking or some hurdling capability.

Also, I should ask how many devoted lap bots you saw in the finals. None-ish? This is because the 2 points awarded for a single lap is completely drowned out by hurdling. All bots that would have otherwise been lapping were playing defense on the hurdlers. Even 148, a bot designed to make laps reverted to defense(impressive I might add).

The point is, these laps made little difference to the actual score of the match since the bots hurdling simultaneously make laps. If FIRST is going to make other objectives count, they need to put more value on these objectives and make them specialized and unique from the main objective.

Also, the field was far too constricted this year. This would be a much faster game if robots had more room to pass and move around. I believe speed and constant movement were 2 of the goals FIRST was aiming for this year, so in retrospect, a larger field would have been better.

Bumping to pass????L-O-L. nough said.

What I liked about 2007 was that every robot on an alliance could accomplish the main task. Unfortunately, since this year had only 2 game pieces per alliance, one robot had to sit out. What I did not like about 2007 was that having such a central scoring structure led to huge pushing matches just to score a couple ringers in the finals. So in that aspect, FIRST did a good job this year, separating the scoring zones for each alliance.

Endgame was very exciting, even more so than last year in some cases. This clincher play excitement really made some of the matches for me.

What I would like to see in 2009:

Less penalty potential

Hybrid (with a bit stronger comm link)

Enough game pieces so every robot can have at least one

Separated scoring zones (This does not mean completely separated robots. I love defense.)

A strong secondary goal that has no relation to the primary goal

Endgame excitement!

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

The concept of hybrid mode was a cool idea. Unfortunately, some IR boards did not work at the regionals... there were probably better ways (as in besides infrared) for the robocoach to communicate with the robot.

For the human player:
Perhaps the human player could actually go onto the field and play like a robot! In the case of this year, the human player would run around the track and move the trackballs themselves. With disabling the robots as a safety measure, of course.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

This would never happen. Its a robotics competition first and people would get injured like crazy. Imagine a robot playing defense on a human player.
End result: Not pretty!

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

My first reaction to that was that blood has got to be bad on the electronics. My second thought was to give the human player a sawzall. My final thought was that a sawzall has got to be bad for the electronics.
/joke

When this season started, I was throughly disapointed by the game. Until build season started that is. And wrapping it all up, with our driver wracking up $1500 in damages to the robot..(Snapping 3 carbon fiber claws) I have to say that it was a awesome year.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

"Teams got lot of speeding tickets":)

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Thou art a rookie. Wait until next year. Or review matches from previous years.

2003. HP went out onto the field to make like a robot. Robots were disabled. Then in auto mode, the robots could aim for the human bins.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Human players don't actually have to be on the field :ahh:

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

No human player would ever step onto the field without the robots disabled. The key phrase: DISABLE THE ROBOTS.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

The game was pretty boring to watch for most of the competition. However, once it got to the point where alliances were putting up huge points, that's when it got more interesting. That's what's going to make IRI interesting :D

The balance between hybrid, teleop, and end game was pretty good. No section was worth more or less than it should be. (I'm looking at you, autonomous of 2006 and end game of 2003 and 2007).

I wasn't a huge fan of the loss of the human player, though.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Han Solo said, "droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose." Han Solo never played FIRST.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

This years game was challenging in some ways that people didn't think of before hand (like us).

1. Penalties were a key factor in a lot of matches (cost us at least half of ours if not more).

2. It was crowded. While we did assume this was going to happen, when all of those robots and balls were moving around, things were prone to jamming up, a lot.

3. A design that worked in the shop didn't necessarily work on the field. We found this out when it took to long for our bot to hurdle. We just stuck with placing the ball and knocking them down.

4. Strategy was key to bringing down the top alliances. If you didn't communicate early on and get your stategy straight, you were in trouble. We never got our stategy down (we kept trying to suit our partners needs first), and while our scouts did a great job on paper, they couldn't remember the robots without the sheet in front of them.

This year was a big learning experience, and next year we can only do better since we finished in dead last.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

It was a very good game all around. From the time kick off was to the competition, I learned to love the game for what it was. There was a lot of great robots out there and this competition made it easiest for even rookies to come out and even have a chance at doing good. The only thing I had a problem with was some discrepencies(spelling) with the rules about letting robots play to their full potential. But the season is over(until off-seasons) and it was a great time. Nothing can be done about the problems we had and I hope everyone had a great time at competitions.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

We happened to go to 3 of the more "competitive" regionals. Midwest, West Michigan, and Great Lakes regionals. At those regionals the game play was generally very good. Part of this was due to the Kettering Rookie Regional. This let the rookies work their bugs out so they could be big help at the regionals. I did not watch much video from other regionals, but judging from the scores of some regionals, I could see where it could be really boring.

That being said I really liked this years game. When played well it was extremely exciting to watch and was easy for others to follow. One of our mentors had a great suggestion for the IRI. Hopefully they will take us up on it as it will make the matches really exciting.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

To be honest, when I first saw the game at kickoff I didn't really like it that much. But now that the season is finished and I have time to look back I think that Overdrive turned out to be a great game. There was the perfect balance of robot interaction and independent scoring which is one of the features I really liked. All in all, another great season.

-Sam

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I thought Overdrive was... entertaining... seeing how I like NASCAR :rolleyes: Like all other games, Overdrive had several objectives as people has said already. However, it seemed that a robot could be built to either hurdle the ball or drive around the track; and most of the robots went for the hurdle. Any robot could hurd the ball and kick it under. What disapointed me most, mainly in Atlanta, is most alliances from all divisions in eliminations, being comprised of three hurdling robots.

"Defense" - I saw a few alliances where two would go around and score the ball while one played "defense". I say "defense" because they did stall or stop the opposing alliance. I thought this game's focus was NO defense what so ever - the robots going around the track (ya know, like NASCAR... no one just STOPS on the track and plays defense for their team).

Lap Bots - Not being biased here (since we had a lap bot) but lap bots DID make a great asset to an alliance (like 2016 in Atlanta for Newton). I was thoughly surprised to see so many 3 hurdling robots all over. Sure the main point or w/e was to get the ball over, but there was also another goal just to zip around that track as many times as possible and aid the alliance with points. Face it... 2 balls per alliance and 3 robots... it aint gonna work out.

Autonomous/Hybrid - One of the best parts in my mind. Given the hybrid, teams could somewhat control what the robot was going to do and where it was going to go. Even teams with JUST and autonomous mode did a great job at getting across the lines.

Penalties - I felt that some penalties were called too much and some not enough. I was never a fan of the line penalty from the start. It's really hard to see across the field to see how cloes your robot is to that line. And if you were going around the field and something got in your way, you couldn't continue unless you backed up, sometimes over the line, to continue playing the game. And back to the defense comment... watching down links and being at regionals and Championships, I saw times where a team was playing "defense"... again, that wasn't supposed to be there.


It may seem that I'm complaining about certain teams doing or not doing one thing, and I kind of am. However, Overdrive's purpose was to be offensive and fast paced for all 6 robots on that field. As the game was played, that didn't seem to be the case and defense came back. I was really excited when I saw the kickoff video to hear it would be RoboNASCAR year... it kind of lived up to my expectations because it was mainly fast paced and exciting... just some small things occured that brought it down as a game. If I was to overall rate Overdrive... I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

The Game Design Committee thought otherwise.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Imagine wookies on the playing field :ahh:

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overdrive had a learning curve for everyone who was open to it and even those who were not. The learning curve is still there. The off seasons will reveal even more, I think.

That's the great thing about these games in that they continue to reveal their potential when played. The GDC rocks.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overdrive was a good challenge and fun to watch, but it wasn't as good as some of the past games. I think one of the reasons for this is the fact that there are only four game pieces (even though they are pretty big ones). The way the game was set up, the two bots that sat out without a ball were mostly confined to running laps, which isn't very exciting from a spectator's point of view.

In past games there were tons of game pieces, meaning that all robots could be doing something at the same time on the field (more action!). And if they didn't/couldn't handle the game pieces, they were at least able to play some amusing defense (more than in overdrive).

Overall I think that overdrive just didn't have as much robot/game piece and robot/robot interaction as it could have... but it was still fun.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

This being my rookie year I can't compare OD to previous First Events. However this organization is so much fun to be a part of and compete in. I learned so many useful things that will help me later on in life during the build season and the competitions.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I didn't personally feel that it was as exciting as the last two years, but Overdrive was definitely a lot of fun to watch when played well.

No matter what the game is, there will always be an elegance and efficiency of the top robots that puts my jaw to the floor.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I loved Overdrive. Last year being my team's rookie year, I don't have much to compare, but I enjoyed this year's objective and I thought that a lot of teams came up with some great designs. It was a lot easier to explain than Rack-n-Roll, but I did not like how many matches were determined by penalties. Overdrive was fast-paced and exciting. I also enjoyed seeing so many teams participating in the hybrid period. Last year I did not see many robots trying autonomous, so this was particularly fun.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overdrive was fun, but not on par with what I've come to expect. My biggest problem was the lack of interaction between robots, especially within an alliance. In other years, an alliance with a good combination of robots (robots that worked together well) could beat a team with "better" robots. This year, it seems to be more of an "every man (or robot) for himself", you score as much as you can, and hope your alliance partners do the same. The fact that there were only two balls for three robots seemed like an artificial solution to this.

Also, name one thing where direction of traffic requirements were a good idea. The answer is not bumper cars.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

First of all, Im going on the record of saying I didn't like Overdrive after Kickoff. When we realized we could shoot this ball I started liking it. Speed and powerful launchers make for a very exciting game. Overall, I have to say, I liked Overdrive.

Plusses:
1. This was an exciting game.
2. Simple to explain.
3. Hybrid Mode - The amount of points able to be scored actually meant something this year. 07 the points were too low to really mean anything. The points for navigating the field were a real boon to teams without many programming resources.
4. Focus on scoring - Coming from a team that had an arm sheared off during a quarter finals match last year I was quite thankful that the focus of this years game was on driving and scoring not on preventing your opponents from scoring.

Deltas:
1. Bumpers - This is going to be the most controversial comment. I dont like bumpers. They meant that teams could play bumper cars. How many ramming calls were there this year? We were moving faster than ever and running into each other harder than ever. I know there was a lot of damage done to some machines this year. Im not saying that they were a bad idea, just that their use needs to be rethought. Too many teams thought, "Oh they have bumpers, I wont break anything." That is dangerous
2. Penalties - This seems to be a pretty common feeling, the G22 penalty was too high. 5 points would have been reasonable. Either that or cut down on how many were called. Only call when the whole robot, or the majority, breaks the plane. The fact was, half the time you cant see your robot on the other end of the field anyway. Also, interfering with a hurdler, great idea, poorly done. If a team is sitting right at the corner with their arm up and they get hit its a call. Great, so a team stops there and as we come around we get a penalty. Add into that, the refs were too busy calling G22s.


Overall, this year ranks up there. My top 3 would be:

1. 06 Aim High
2. 04 First Frenzy
3. 08 Over Drive

Aim High was one of the most exciting games I ever saw. First Frenzy had so much going on, and I know I will never forget seeing 85 traversing the bar. And Over Drive, 2337 made this year for me.

This games ranking 6.6/10

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I think think the suheer simplicity of Overdrive made it extremely attractive for recruiting and sponsor demonstrations, because it is very easy to explain to the high schoolers and the the sponsors how difficult it is to play basketball NASCARstyle. As soon as they see the ball, they can see that designing the robot is not too simple or "lame" as some people see it.

As for the game itself, I think it was great and very invigoratingly enervating.:yikes:

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I generally really liked Overdrve. This is my rookie year so i can only compare it to a couple of videos i saw from last years but i believe that Overdrive's greatest advantage, for drivers viewers and everyone- is that there was always movement of the robots, and that made it really exiting. i believe that the fact that a robot made points of "driving straight and turning left" was what made the game so exiting to watch.

As people already said- the worst thing was the penalties.

All in all it was a great game.