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Lunacy Review
Now that this year is officially over and 67, 111, and 971 have been crowned world champions, what did people think of this years game and also what do you hope to see different in future years. How would you compare it to other games in the past? Here are my personal thoughts, but only my 2nd year involved so I dont have that much to base it on:
Likes Great quick action, and one big score could swing the match Fun, penalty free action that allowed some big but non harmful robot hits All goals could move so there was never an easy target but there were 3, thus matches never played out the same every time Super cells allowed for some last second action, and became an important part of strategy Defense was just as important as offense Scoring happened throughout the match and there was always something going on Dislikes The floor/wheels really lessened drive train creativity Auto mode ended up fairly boring, and there was no incentive to score Too much human player involvement, I think that humans should not be allowed to score points in future games, maybe humans should have been allowed to only score moon rocks in auto mode and then super cells? Teams seemed to have lots of similar designs, I felt as if last year every design was fairly unique and different. I feel as part of this problem comes from teams not being allowed to expand outside of starting dimensions. I hope next years game will allow that. There seemed to be a bigger luck factor in this game, but dont really have a solution besides maybe playing on carpet... But then I could see some robots getting demolished in the teleop period... So what are your likes and dislikes??? And congrats to all teams on a great season. Overall I had much more fun this year than last. |
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i think that this year more than any game since 2003 the game has been hated from the start. everyone has said that it was boring. anyone who watched the matches in Atlanta this year i think will argue against this. when no one can score in a match no matter what the game it is never fun, but when the big teams played this year in Atlanta this game was very exciting.
i think this is one of the best games ever because of how important driving and strategy were every match. also the GDC did a great job making it so all the elements of the game allowed for good game play. this specifically refers to the use of the slippery floor. if not for this it would have allowed for a 71 from 02 like team to arise this year and that kind of thing while amazing makes competition boring. because of the slippery floor every team was even going into the competition going into build drive train wise. everyone would have the same traction and it made the game manipulator focused while making the driving of the drive train more important than ever before. i think that this year was more exciting than last year because in essence last year was basically team picks up ball they hurdle it then they pick up then they hurdle it. this year teams are running empty cells picking up balls and trying to catch up to trailers to score trying to score super cells last second dumps. this year had so many elements of excitement but a lot of people were convinced it was boring and didn't bother looking. one thing i didn't like about this year was that it was not a difficult mechanical challenge. you had to pick up these balls and score them on trailers that were lower than the bot and you couldn't go outside initial dimensions. it made things pretty restricted and it made making a mechanically difficult to make system pointless. |
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I think strategy was hugely important in qualifiers because defnse was required when you didn't have 3 scoring robots. However, when you have 3 scoring robots for eliminations, strategy was score score score, because who can play defense on 3 scoring robots. I liked that the GDC made autonomous a challenge for those teams returning, to score, however, kept it simple, considering any rookie trying for traction control would already be up to their heads in programming. The autonomous mode also required some strategy to be productive and their were many succesful ones. I feel that the moving targets added to drivers requiring pratice and skill, another reason why 3 (maybe more) of the Michign teams were in Einstein finals. I know of 217, 68, and 67 all having a multitude of practice because of this, please correct me if I'm wrong.
EDIT: I'm probably thinking a lot more, however, I'm too tired to remeber because of the Atlant insomnia. |
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In my opinion this was the second best game in the history of FIRST only to Aim High, at first I was skeptic of the game but once we really got into it I realized how great it was, it was such a great game because of all the strategy that went into it and how quickly one dump or supercell could change the outcome of the game. I could not have asked for a better game to go out on as a senior and my kudos to the GDC on this one, they hit the nail right on the head. Oh and by the way there were four teams representing the mitten in the final match. Da Bears 247 was also from Michigan. Daa Truck Town Chickens were a completely Michigan alliance.
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I liked some things about this game, and some that didn't.
I liked how much strategy was involved in this game, more so than previous years. I liked how you could NOT win easily with just one good robot, and two mediocre robots. It is quite a change, where last year one super efficent, fast, effective robot destroyed the competition. I liked how a rookie team made it to Einstein. I didn't like how limiting this game was programming wise and design wise. All the robots did the same thing in Autonomous, and all the robots were fridges on wheels. As a programmer, I was hoping for a really big programming challenge with the new control system. I didn't like that you played all weekend on a worn down field, and you got to Einstein's pristine, perfect surface. The very first matches were pretty sloppy, and got marginally better throughout the finals. I didn't like that Mark Leon made all of Archimedes lose the game :P... Oh crap, I lost. |
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Honestly I loved every part of this game. Lunacy is eaisly my second favorite game right next to Aim High (GDC good luck topping that one). For the first time there was a game that every team from top to bottom could compete in (as long as there was a working robot on the field).
Strategy was more important than the quality of robots on your alliance and when done right it could defeat powerhouse teams. Unlike in previous games I looked forward to working with a team that was a simple box that could drive on the field because with strategy, my team could make it compete. Who doesn't like full speed rams and 2 minute pins? |
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It was better than Overdrive but it certainly wasn't a FIRST Frenzy by any shot of the imagination.
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One thing I noticed was that a lot of the great teams had pretty much the same design. Some sort of input, a hopper and then a dumper. There wasn't a lot of change in design or autonomous since there was really no reason to score.
Having human players was nice since it got more students involved on the field, but then the strategy focused less on robots and more on humans. That's kinda nice if it was in the real world with human robot interaction except you just spent 6 weeks on a robot and then you only use your human player... Doesn't make a lot of sense to me... |
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I can say without a doubt that this is the best FRC game I've ever played, but that's misleading as it's my only year in FRC :D
Anyhow, this game was amazing. Likes: The rule prohibiting robots from having manipulators extending past the bumpers. Not that I disliked the ability for robots to do so in other years, but stuff like this and the limited wheels made teams have to think hard about their designs. Also how hard would it be to just have a sheet of Plexiglas fold down over your goal? Allowing pinning and ramming was a brilliant GDC move. In an already extremely strategy oriented game, being able to not have to count to 5 and let off a robot helped teams be able to outplay other robots that had the technical edge. I guess the robot version of "brain before brawn"? Dislikes: The field was too small. I realize part of this is to fit in a high school gym (though honestly i prefer the larger-than-life feel of a stadium but I digress), and part of this is to make nowhere to hide, but it seems like there were a lot of mechanisms that did not get to see the light of day simply because a robot was always a second or two away ready to mess you up. In particular, 1986 had an extremely innovative, oddball robot that achieved a 33 and a half foot empty cell delivery. I always have a soft spot for a truly unique robot that does something better than everyone else even if it's easily messed up, and I'm glad they got to go to Atlanta so more teams could have a look. Quote:
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Human players could put up some biiiig points without even requiring a good robot. I don't like this, the game should favor good robots.
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the thing is that the better performing bots won in the match no matter how good the human players. that is what made the game work out.
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Also the best teams tended to be the ones like 217 and 111 who rather than use their human players ablity to shoot just had them fill hoppers up for the robot to score.
Still, I do agree human players where too involved in the game. |
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I was not really a big fan of Lunacy. Of the four games I've personally witnessed I would rank them, from highest to lowest:
2007 2008 2009 2006 Likes: Trailers- Having to score on a moving target was pretty cool, and made for more energetic matches, generally. Different Surface- I think changing it up is always a good thing, though I would have found an uneven surface to be even cooler. Easy to Do, Hard to Do Well- I think this needs to be the mantra for the GDC when it comes to the primary scoring device. It should be easy to score and participate, but hard to do it well. Most teams could score, even if it was only the first 7 balls or a couple more, but not many teams could deliver game changing dumps like 67, 148, 0r 1625. Dislikes: No secondary scoring method- This especially applies to the end game. I just think having the end game being different from the rest of the scoring period seems somehow more impressive. Climbing the ramps at the end of 2006 or 2007 was always a high tension moment as you never knew who would fall off or just barely make it. The super cells tended to just come out of nowhere and didn't really build as much tension, except maybe when a bot would deliver them. G14- I don't think much needs to be said. I personally think this is the worst rule I've seen in my four years of FIRST. No one should ever be punished for doing well. Each robot and team should be given the chance to perform to the best of it's abilities, with no arbitrary limitations. I think it's ten times worse then the G22 last year, despite having less of an effect. Flat Field- Flat fields seem more boring. Stairs, ramps, platforms, and bridges all really add to a game and make it more interesting. HP scoring- I've always thought of the human player as someone who helps the robot score somehow, such as by loading them up. I'd prefer not to see the human player be able to directly score, except in rare circumstances. Overly protective bumper rules- Am I the only one who felt this way? Isn't it up to the teams to make a robot that can handle the the contact you get with these robots? What was so bad about the pre-bumper era? Were robots being destroyed left and right? Confusing rules at first- Many of the rules seemed very confusing at first, like the not extending beyond the box. For example, they continued to refer to the "starting box" if I remember correctly, which initially led me to believe that you could extend outside of said starting box. How many people review the rules before the game is released? I'd suggest always running the game past a diverse group of people, maybe even people not even involved in FIRST, and see if they can understand the rules. |
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My favorite part about this year's game was the absence of questionable referee calls. It was great how matches with penalties were somewhat rare, as opposed to last year where penalties played a role in almost every match.
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At Archimedes, one of the color commentators called autonomous "a programmer's dream". But unfortunately, this year, there was no inspiration to code.
Our robot picked up two regional wins this year with code that does nothing but mapping buttons to motors and has an autonomous that moves forward. Hopefully next year, scoring in autonomous will be an important part of strategy to the extent of Aim High. Otherwise, I though Lunacy was an amazing game and would love to see more open-ended games in the future. |
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In every other year I've seen since 2001 an elite robot could win matches all by itself, or with minimal help from alliance partners. This year having sub par alliance partners was the kiss of death. Particularly your third partner in the eliminations. If your third partner couldn't contribute and not get loaded up with 30 balls in their trailer, it doesn't matter if you have the best robot in FIRST. You're still going to lose. Human players for an alliance could easily score 70 points alone. The best robots could only average 15-19 balls per match. When the humans can score nearly as much, or outright outscore the very best robots, something is not right. |
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i completely agree that this year more than any other year before it did not allow for dominance of one bot in a match like 1114 last year. the point i was making was in regard to the human players. i was saying that the matches were decided by the bots and not the human players and that in matches with good bots that robots scored the majority of the points and decided the game.
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There are several reasons why Lunacy was not a fun and exciting game to watch and play.
Dislikes -The surface & wheels did not allow teams to be creative & unique. Almost every team had the exact same drive trains. with the exception of those w/ swerve ect.. which didnt really give an advantage in this years game. Everyone was pushed around. -Human Players were too involved for my taste. They should not have been allowed to throw into goals during auto. Rather only to load a robot. In some of the very close matches the balls the human players scored at the beginning of the match were often the difference. Dean always talks about how he doesn't like the fact that people make a bunch of money/succeed for throwing or bouncing a ball, why have it play such a part in one of his games? -Having a partner who cant play the game hurts you. I feel it should be neutral. If your partner didn't show up for a match it was usually a death sentence if you were playing against three descent bots. In past years if a partner didn't show up it wouldn't hurt your alliance nearly as much. A dead trailer cost an alliance at least 26 points in auto. (13 the PS usually starts with) -End game was boring. The only time I regularly saw a robot deliver the super cell to the trailer was when I watched 217. They had a great end game strategy. I started w/ first in 06 and since then every game had an exciting end game whether it be flying down the field last minute to get on a ramp (06,07) or placing a ball on top of an overpass. All were done by the robots not the human players like this year where they often shot the super cells. -G14 I hope this is the only year for that. -I was on Archimedes doing field reset on thursday and the camera man asked me what the game was so he would know what to film, he thought the point of the game was for the robots to evade the HP throwing balls in to their trailer. -Bumper rules severely limited teams ability to design their robots to play this game. -Defense, their needs to be a time limit a team can pin and then let their victim go. Their is a place for defense, but it can't be disable a robot for the entire match, and then not be able to get out of it because there is no traction. -Good scoring bots could not carry an alliance this year. Having bad alliance partners killed you in quals. Where as in previous years bots could cary an alliance in quals so the bots who could score would seed high. Likes -GDC took away questionable referee calls that plagued the 2008 season. *Next years game will be one the most exciting ever, because it follows Luncay. FIRST went from polar opposites, a fast paced game (Over Drive) to an extremely slow paced game in 2009 |
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The strategy aspect and the unpredictability factor made this game interesting to follow but the action was slow and the field cluttered with traffic jams and there was far too much going on to often follow. The game rates a C- and out of my seven years of FIRST I place it fith out of seven games.
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The list. 2004 (the robots were so athletic and amazing. Most Ohhhh/ahhh moments a FIRST game had.The game was so diverse) 2006(best game to watch) 2008(I thought it was a rather fun game to watch really. Especially when it's played well) 2003(this game was better than it got credit for it's only sin was giving way to many points for the top platform) 2007(not a bad game really but brutality at the championship showed it's flaws and the endgame was frustrating and trumped all the hard work good teams did and they could do nothing to stop it) 2009( great at strategy but boring to watch) 2005(very vanilla to be honest) 2002(bleh) |
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In my 9 years...
Best 2006 - Aim High 2007 - Rack N Roll 2009 - Lunacy 2008 - Overdrive 2003 - Stack Attack 2005 - Triple Play 2004 - FIRST Frenzy 2002 - Zone Zeal Worst All in all I liked Lunacy a lot. I loved the changeup of not driving on carpet (though I think it is only fun when it is just that - a one year changeup). I loved the simple game dynamic of driving with a goal stuck to you. I loved the way the supercell brought excitement to the endgame (something that 2008 and 2005 really lacked). I LOVED the lack of robot penalties. I did NOT like the fact that many of the build rules, taken together, made for very limited room for innovation. Too many robots looked the same (and if you limit your query to the subset of robots who were "elite" this season, there were basically only 3 or 4 winning designs out there). I also did not like how we chose a game piece that was almost impossible to find after kickoff (especially in the northeast). The game itself was much more fun to play than to watch. Robots moved slowly, huge scrums were the norm, and there wasn't a lot of "wow" factor. |
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I personally loved the game except for the human player aspect. IMHO, if they had let you put as many balls as you could fit in your robot, and then scattered the rest accross the field it would have become incredibly robot focused, i think that would have been a better way to go. Maybe you could allow the human player to shoot super cells, but i would have been fine without human players except for as super cell administrators.
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I started the season really liking Lunacy:
Likes: -The field floor removed the advantages that most veteran teams had with regards to drivetrains. No more 8-motor, 8-wheel drives that had been refined for a decade. It was also much safer to test because you didn't have to worry about a high-torque robot spinning out of control and injuring someone. Robots could be restrained with a single person to test drive. -The inability of dominant robots to really dominate. It required a team effort, which made alliance selection and scouting a much bigger aspect of the game. However, after watching 1.5 regionals and the championship, I ended up strongly disliking it. Dislikes: -It's boring. This isn't so much a field or robot slowness complaint (I liked the low-friction surface so much I hope FIRST uses an only slightly-gripper version in all future games), but a crowding complaint. With all the trailers on field, it was near-impossible for a game to run really smoothly without bunching up. I never got the hang of being able to tell at a glance which trailer was attached to which robot. There was no flow at all. -Much too heavy reliance on human players. I had the same complaint for the 2004 game. -Game task was too difficult to automate well. Much like 2007, there were very few robots (in fact, I never saw one on Newton) that could score reliably in autonomous. -It was hard to tell if a team had super cells ready to go. It would have been cool to have a weight-activated sensor on the empty cell hook that lit up a light above that human player. You could maybe only aim that light at the crowd so the drivers would still have to pay attention. |
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I've said this before (okay, I say it after EVERY YEAR), and I'll say it again: ever since the games went to 3 against 3, the games have been nearly impossible for casual observers to follow. I also always propose this to the IRI powers that be: is it possible to run an hour of unofficial matches sometime during the IRI weekend as 2 vs. 2 just to see if it makes the game easier to follow? I still don't know if that's the cure, but I really would love to give it a try. |
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"If you have an opinion on something, it often says more about you than it does that thing."
I'm learning a lot about a number of people just from reading this thread. ;) -John |
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I really think this game would be been amazing on the typical carpet and not the new material. That's pretty much the only gripe I have with this years game.
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It should be noted that the reason we did 2v2 is we only had 16 teams and a ton of technical difficulties, but I was happy with the outcome. That being said, I believe the reason FIRST has gone 3v3 is the sheer number of robots competing. By putting six robots on the field instead of four, the playing time increases by 50%. At an event like IRI with 72 teams, each robot may play 3 or 4 times total in a 2v2 format. For some teams, LNHS is a long way to go to play three matches. Since it seems en vogue to do so: 2006 Best 2009 2008 2005 2007 Worst |
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Many of these observations have already been made, but here's my $(1/50):
Likes - Regolith meant EVERYone had to design a drive train, not just grab one off the shelf. - Trailers: Now that you've got a bin full of balls, you have to FIND where to put them! - Few penalties! Great all-around action (even if some call that "boring") - Supercells mean you could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (or the other way around, if you score in the wrong trailer! :ahh: ) Dislikes - Regolith also meant a major static problem, at least in the early regionals until the GDC identified the problem and the solution(s). (Unfortunately, 811 was in a first week regional :( ) - Why couldn't the trailer flags been pink OR green (or, heavens, red or blue)? The "pink on top means red" made it hard for the casual observer to figure out who's trailer was whose. Yes, I know, the goal was to make the robots figure it out, but ... - ... there was scant opportunity for autonomous mode. The uberteams obviously could get robo-targeting working, but most everyone else didn't. - Okay, I'll say it: Too much emphasis on human players throughout the game. - Weak partners, or a single breakdown, could doom an alliance. (Compare this to 2006 when we won even with one dead and one tipped partner.) And my eight year ranking, from best to worst: 2004 - FIRST Frenzy 2007 - Rack n Roll 2006 - Aim High 2009 - Lunacy 2008 - OverDrive 2005 - Triple Play 2002 - Zone Zeal 2003 - Stack Attack |
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In the end, I think that Lunacy suffered from the same issue as several other game challenges in that the field was simply too crowded.
This made the game hard to watch from a spectator standpoint, and also made it hard for action to stay flowing, especially with sharp manuvering being difficult for many teams this year. I think Lunacy would have benefitted from a wider field. Maybe that isn't logistically possible, but I think it would have greatly improved the audience experience. Teams would have been able to keep moving better and defensive strategies would have needed to work harder for results. |
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What about going back to pre-2000 and use two fields - reset one while a match is played on the other one. The big thing I would change from the pre-2000 days is to not wait until the most recent match is scored before starting the subsequent match. I think you can get down to a 4 minute turnaround this way. Example: Field A: Play match 1 (2:15) Field B: Announce teams in match 2 (1:00) Field B: Play match 2 (2:15) Field A: Announce score from match 1 (0:15) Field A: Announce teams in match 3 (1:00) Field A: Play match 3 (2:15) Field B: Announce score from match 2 (0:15) Field B: Announce teams in match 4 etc. Between the announcements and the match play, the field not in use should be able to be scored, reset, and ready to play while the other field is the center of the show. In the pre-2000 days they would score the current match before going on to the next one, which I believe adds at least one minute to the cycle time. Anyway, that's just a single idea - I'm sure other better ideas are out there. Also - I'm glad to hear you got to try 2v2. |
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I'd like to see 2v2v2 itd make it interesting
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For those of you who say that auton didn't make a big difference I couldn't disagree with you more. Some teams had to think more outside of the box, I am not a programmer but I know that we would not have had much success without the amazing auton that we did have. We had over ten autons this year and the most common one was to start in one corner and turn and go to load up right away, when we did this we put 17 moon rocks into our trailer, thats 34 points that we usually had the oppurtunity to dump rather fast, had we tried to load like this during human mode there is no doubt we would have been pinned there or dumped on, however we also had a "hook" auton so that we could avoid other robots when we went to load up or we also had the option to get an empty cell during autonand head to one of the corners to drop it offf. The best example I can give of this is Midwest, we were the only alliance to top 1625,111, and 1675 in just one match but we did this by having them set up their robots first so we could decide where we wanted to put ours (think 06) strictly for auton. We believe that matches were often won and lost during auton.
My rankings for years I saw in person: 2006 (Mostly spectator, best game ever because it was like a sport) 2009 (If you truely understood the strategy it was amazing) 2008 (tons of offense made this one fun) 2007 (Hard game to play mixed with a bad match algorithm and low scoring) |
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I think this game was absolutely amazing. Such a pleasure coming off of Overdrive. I think that this game embodied the meaning of FIRST's creativity in that it gave teams so many different ways to be successful. Defense, Offense, and Bonus were all viable strategies to construct a robot around.
Oh and THANK YOU GDC for giving us a game to play defense in! |
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Perhaps a different take on some points?
1. We have a student who's a soccer player, and hasn't really gotten into technical stuff much at all the previous three years. He got really excited about this game, and learned how to read complicated mechanical drawings, and learned how to fabricate stuff by building a trailer. 2. The limited traction appeared to us to level the playing field enough that we were confident that we could do OK by just using the kit drive parts, and putting most of our design creativity into making a great ball handling mechanism. We didn't even have to put nuts on our axle bolts, or worry about having very little chain wrap on the transmission sprockets. And no problems with tread wearing out! 3. The highly protective bumpers and no expansion rules let us get away with building a relatively flimsy robot up top, as well as trying some "new" technology, desiging and building a stout wood chassis. 4. The double/triple score rule encouraged us to build a robot that could score so well that we could win matches without needing supercells. 5. Although there seemed to be only a few very effective design concepts, as usual there was a wide variety in robot designs, especially at the newer regionals. 6. Having only one way to score (balls in trailers) allowed us to put all our design efforts into one mechanism, unlike 2007 where we split into two design/build groups, neither of which had enough resources do to their job well enough. 7. Batteries lasted a long time. edit: one more--my mom (74 yrs old) said watching the AZ regional was the most excitement she's seen in a long time! |
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I really enjoyed the concept of robots chasing each other and trying to score on the opponents goal on their backs. As I posted elsewhere- consider if this game was played on last year's oval track at high speed in one direction. That would be thrilling.
But I think the whole idea of the slippery surface was unnecessary and kind of silly. Overall watching the rounds where our team wasn't involved were kind of slow and sometimes degenerated into pileups that did nothing. Lunacy gave the impression of a refrigerator square dance. Lunacy the first game where having an auto mode got you nothing but not having one got you killed. Very few teams got a winning advantage from having a good auto mode (and yes- I did see a few that scored points in auto) Overall personal assessment: Strategy Challenge- C Design Limitations and Kit parts- D- Excitement- C- Refereeing- B+ (happily surprised!!) Rule Changes for this Game-D (no more leveling rules to handicap good performance) I look forward to seeing how FIRST improves with next year's game. WC :cool: |
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Overall personal assessment: Strategy Challenge- C Design Limitations and Kit parts- C- Excitement- C Refereeing- A Rule Changes for this Game-D |
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I need to write this down for future seasons. When there appears to be something stupid wrong with a game (HPs outscoring robots, unreliable loading, autonomous that accomplishes nothing) I shouldn't complain about it. I should see it as a challenge to exploit! Building a robot that aims to outscore humans, or coming up with an ingenious autoload system in autonomous, these are clever little exploitations of the restrictions. Very helpful ones at that. |
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It sounds to me like Chris gets it
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It was not just Thunderchickens and Wildstang that used auton to their advantage.
HOT and Truck Town also would prefer to load up our robots in auton. Even 971 was attempting to get to the human player station to get additional balls. The placement of the robots on the field at the start was not by accident. Our alliance knew that 217 and 68 would be very dangerous if they both started with 20 balls, then trapped 971 in the middle of the field for a 40 ball dump into their trailer (ala the Einstien SF2). Although both 67 and 111 would prefer to load in auton, I was confident that we could get balls off the floor quickly and disrupt 68 and 217 if we both attempted to block them from loading. Worst case in my mind was that we all loaded in auton, then it would come down to who could pin and dump better. In F1 67 stopped 68, but 217 avoided 111 and both loaded in auton. In F2 67 kinda stopped 68 and loaded, while both 217 and 111 loaded. We had many auton modes (12) that could be run anytime, but we never had to use them b/c very few teams tried to stop us from loading +6 balls into our robot before the clock started. I think it gave us a strategic advatage and pushed our scoring average from ~17 balls/match to +23 balls/match. I was surprised by how many teams only tried to avoid getting scored on in auton, even at the championships. |
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Likes:
The floor/wheels: It allowed teams to be effective with a simple drive system. But it also allowed teams to experiment. I know that our team as able to pull off something that we most likely couldn't have on carpet. With this floor, it allowed teams to be successful with low torque drive systems. Even to the point of having just one CIM powering the entire drive. It also allowed teams to try holonomic, and really helped me learn some physics. ex: Static/Dynamic Friction The trailers: Moving goals created a nice challenge for every team. Programming: A good traction control system was something unique and relatively cool. Cons: Human players starting with balls: I would have preferred to have the moon rocks start on the game field. Then some robots could have specialized in refueling of human players. Bumper Rules: Rules should be crystal clear before kickoff. Field problems: We had a few matches where our robot would disconnect/crash/or otherwise stop responding for reasons that we couldn't figure out. On the field we wouldn't respond, once we got back to the pit and tethered. We would have full responsiveness. Nothing changed except the field. Overall I liked the game, however I think that HP influence was too great. |
Re: Lunacy Review
Ok, I'll bite.
Pluses +Different drive surface, showed students that some challenges are radically different + Trailers, robot to robot interaction is something we all wanted, here it was + Lots of game pieces, one of my complaints about 2008 was the lack of game pieces for teams to use + Uniquely shaped game piece, for all its flaws the balls were pretty unique and it made people think of new ways of handling them +Scoring/reffing was easy, a ball that had orange on it was worth 2 points regardless of whether it was scored while the planets were in alignment or if it was a full moon and penalties were pretty clear cut. Deltas ^ Bumpers, I strongly disagree with bumpers, build a robot capable of withstanding a beating or expect it to be broken ^ Game pieces, flimsy and hard to find, plus some of us struggled to tell moon rocks and empty cells apart ^ Flooring, yeah it was cool, it was fun, lets not do it again. It was messy, it was expensive, and it was just generally a pain. Also, I cant imagine staring at it all day was very much fun ^ Single supplier for wheels, I love AndyMark to death but I cannot STAND to have to buy parts from one supplier, just a pet peeve of mine. ^ Inspections, not sure if this was a Michigan only problem or not but I know that a team could pass inspection at an event and then, without changes, not pass inspection at the next. ^ Player Stations, do I need to explain this? They shorted, they fried, they were just generally not fun. New technology, surely this will get fixed ^ Pile Ups, I didnt like it last year and I still dont like it, I cant understand why people like watching robots get piled up. More times than I can count I saw some team get pinned then the pinning team get pinned. Sooner or later 5 robots were pinned in a corner none of them getting out. I dont like this. ^ G14, Im not explaining this, find some of my other posts on this topic or PM me if you really dont understand why I disagree with it. Overall I was a pleased with the game, Im not generally a fan of refrigerator games (2006/2009 etc) but this one managed to ALMOST hold my attention. Notice the almost, I hated watching this game. Building for it was fun though. Ranking the games I have competed in (2004-Present) 1. 2004 - Hanging was fun 2. 2008 - Fast paced 3. 2006 - My first game for shooting things 4. 2007 - Ramps were fun but it was way too heavy defense 5. 2009 - See above 6. 2005 - Just didn't like the game |
Re: Lunacy Review
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We passed inspection fine in Midwest, then had to add more structural backing to our bumpers at Wisconsin. |
Re: Lunacy Review
I really disliked several things about Lunacy.
-G14. Need I say more. Please let this be only this year. I can understand the idea behind it, but it really doesn't seem logical to penalize people for doing well. -The surface/wheels. Though it made sense to the theme, it still made the game annoyingly slow and created less variety among the bots. Overdrive had lots of variety, but this year was meh. -If even one bot was pinned, you could stick a fork in your alliance, becasue your match is over. You lost. I watched all of the Newton division (except finals), the Curie finals, and Einstein, and it seemed that once a bot was pinned, their alliance probably lost. -Too much human player involvement. I know this echoes pretty much every other post, but still...If a human player outscores a robot, then they have too much influence on the game. I can't really find much good to say about Lunacy. My personal preference of games since my beginning of FRC.... 2008 2007 2009 |
Re: Lunacy Review
Okay at this point I'm becoming a Lunacy apologist.
I'm not a fan of G14, but FIRST didn't just suddenly start punishing extreme wins. Look at the Ranking Points system in general. It really sucks to be absolutely blown away by a team. I don't agree that the rule should be implemented, but I can see the point of it. Quote:
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We (the Regional Lead Inspectors) try very hard to make the inspections uniform from event to event. I know I hate the "but it passed at xxxxx" discussion as much as anyone. However, sometimes things slip by, especially if your first inspection was done by a new inspector, or if you didn't get inspected until Friday morning, etc. I always see little things on Saturday during the re-weigh that should not have passed. At that point, I try to point them out in case the team is going to another event, but unless it is something that gives a competitive advantage or is a safety issue, it's hard to ask the team to go change it before the elims. Back to the topic of the thread: my biggest complaint about this year was the fact that the only thing that identified the alliance color was the trailer bumpers. I watched a lot of matches this year, both at regionals and Atlanta, and for all of them I was at field level. It was just about impossible to keep track of the colors unless you were right at the edge of the field. I don't know how the people sitting in the outpost stations did it. I really don't want to go back to the flags for various reasons, including the tendancy for them to go shooting off in various directions. However, I do wish the grey pipe in the center of the trailer had been painted with the alliance color. Also, as others have noted, with the robots and trailers there was a lot of equipment on the field, and it tended to all get bunched together. It was a lot like watching grade school soccer, where you can tell where the ball is because all the kids are in one pack around it. That's how a lot of the matches I watched seemed. Everyone was all in one big clump somewhere on the field. As a mentor for a rookie team with essentially no funding this year, I loved the field surface. It was nice for once to know that they would be at least able to drive as well as everyone else without having to spend time and money we did not have trying to come up with some super-duper drivetrain. And the simple drivetrain meant that they got the robot done in time for the programmers to actually have some time with the new control system. |
Re: Lunacy Review
Likes:
- Different game surface switched things up a bit - Less penalties. After last year, this was a huge breath of fresh air - Game pieces looked interesting - Lots of game pieces (I think its more exciting than just a few big ones) Dislikes: - Different game surface was expensive to purchase - The field was very cluttered - Hard to tell who was winning - Human players mattered a bit too much - Completely rule-specified robot::floor interaction made it less likely for students to learn quite as much about designing drive systems (to be fair, you could go through the same analysis, but it was hard to justify doing so) - Game piece was not readily available outside the US - Long-term pinning stunk - G14 struck me as a really weird and unnecessary rule I have a hard time forming an opinion on the excitement factor for Lunacy. While it was great to see 1114/217/67/111/2056/68/etc. running around with a full load trying to catch an opponent, it was also really boring to see those same robots pinned in the corner or stuck in a traffic jam. My rankings of games I was on a team for: 2006 (best) 2007 2008 2005 (I have a love/hate relationship with this one. As a rookie, I was mostly a spectator, and it was pretty dull and repetitive to watch; however, I would love to have been a drive coach for it) 2009 (worst) |
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So I say to the GDC: Kudos for <G14>, thank you for the challenge, thank you for sticking with it in the face of severe backlash, and thanks for not doing it again next year. (I expect CAGE Match will do away with <G14> - not for any philosophical reasons, but simply to make the event more streamlined and accessible.) |
Re: Lunacy Review
I have said it before and I will say it again. When a robot can't function for whatever reason, a human should be allowed to score so that the team doesn't become disenchanted. I also believe that any game where the human player can swing the score or make a fateful last ditch attempt and score makes for an exciting game. I didn't like 2003 for that reason, humans had no effect even though they tried like mad.
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I'm missing the logic. Because people hated it it couldn't possibly be a penalty? It's a good rule because people hated it? And you are certainly correct that it pushed people out of their comfort zones. FIRST isn't all about the robots, but what happens on the field is still a competition. Being worried about doing too well in a competition is absolutely ridiculous. All teams should always put their %100 into a match, and shouldn't be penalized for doing so. Being penalized for having a good robot is out of my comfort zone. |
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I think FIRST tries to make rules people dislike so that you learn to deal with them. <G14> is a strategic element of the game, regardless of whether or not people think that they deserve a "penalty free win", so you have to play around it (or just not care about it; G14 has never impacted a match I've played when it was active) |
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One of the best suggestions I've heard came from one of our mentors: HPs should have had unrestricted scoring during autonomous, but then during TeleOp, could only pass balls through the airlock. |
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Best game ever - 1999 Some human player interaction, but it was callenging and it had an excellent end game. Worst game ever - 2001 To anyone complaining about this game being boring, look up 2001 - Copertition FIRST (I feel old) |
Re: Lunacy Review
Likes
-A lot more strategy within an alliance. (You had to decide who would be playing defense, scoring, delivering empty cells, etc.) -Less Penalties!!! -A lot more game pieces, allowed everyone to have a chance to use them. -Targets in games were always moving so it was more of a challenge to score -3 targets for each alliance -Different surface made it more interesting -Had more of a theme to it -More interesting to scout -Drivers needed a lot more skill Dislikes -Human Player could change the outcome of the game way too much! -The surface was expensive to buy and annoying to set up every meeting. -Sometimes very boring to watch when all robots were pinned in a corner. -G14 was horrible -Game pieces were really annoying to find. -There weren’t many unique ideas for robot manipulator. A lot of robots looked the same -Inspections were always different. We were fine with our motors and everything until Atlanta. (Keep inspections constant) -If a robot was missing or dead, it almost always ended in that alliance losing due to the open trailer -The scoring during the game was almost always inaccurate. There were times when it said we were lost by almost 20 at the end of the game and then when the final score came out we won, and vice versa |
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Re: Lunacy Review
The game had several good things going for it this year:
The new surface made veterans re-think their drive systems and in our case we built something we never otherwise would have and now have opened some doors for where we might go in the future. The decrease in power needed to drive also had us focus on different types of mechanisms than we usually build because we had far more motor to run them. The opponent controlled goal was novel and showed us the way to add some variation to the game that made for more excitement. The human player scoring was something I liked because it made it so that there was nowhere on the field to hide and you had to be mobile at all times. Lack of penalties are always good, as they say in sports, the refs could "let us play." The supercell was a good "big ending" bonus and the weight of it was appropriate to scoring verses some other years. The game piece was great because it was different than any other type of ball we used in the past and the plentiful quantity of them was great as well. My main complaint is the game didn't pass the parent/grandparent/person off the street test, meaning it was too hard to follow if you weren't a FIRSTer already. If we want to grow and get noticed we need to be able to quickly explain the game and who is leading should be easier to tell. Red and blue bumpers should have been banned to make telling alliances apart better. If the field was bigger I think it would have allowed more movement making the game more exciting, but I doubt this works in all venues. My other complaint is we were forced to play the game the GDC's way. I like being able to creatively solve the problem/game, but the last couple years our choices have been limited more and more so you see fewer why didn't I think of that robots and most of the game breaking stratagies are thought out in game design and removed through rules. |
Re: Lunacy Review
Even though this my second year of competition, I have to say that this is by far my best year.
A lot of people said the things I liked this year, but here's a couple I wanted to say: A lot of people complained about how the HP had too much of an effect on the game's outcome therefore veteran teams with superbly built bots had to compete with rookie teams that had an "ok" robot that could just drive around while they used their HP to score. I thought that this was good because then rookie teams could compete on par with teams that have been doing this for a long time. Another thing I noticed was about how rebuilding a practice field because of the flooring was costly and that's why the field should just be carpet. True it does cost money, but isnt the whole purpose of FIRST to inspire engineering and to tackle any challenges caused by the game? Basically, I enjoyed this year's game because it wasn't just a game. It had real life applications such as robots and humans interacting to get a job done. It simulated what it would be like driving on the moon as well as celelbrated how far we've come/advances we've made since then.. but that's just my opinion. theres prolly a whole list of real life applications that this year's game had. and maybe too in previous years. |
Re: Lunacy Review
i like the fact that FIRST tried to level out the playing field with this game though. in our rookie season the game was overdrive, in that game it seemed like you needed to have some sort of idea of the scale of FIRST. Plus we had no real building mentors >.<
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