Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

The best I have are some videos without sound of the matches our robot was in taken by a mentor, and they focus mainly on our robot's actions. I DVR'ed the Friday matches, but the quality was pretty bad and I didn't bother converting it to a digital format (since I already had my team's videos).

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

I know i'm a little late to congratulate teams 1551, 217, and 174. No matter what anyone says about the complex scoring strategies it wasn't that for this winning alliance. They earned it! They gave it their all with great robots and awesome teams and we could all see that! And congratulations to team 340 for the Chairman's Award!

Good luck with the rest of your season! :)

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

This is late, but I would like to extend my thanks to our alliance partners.
188: thanks for choosing us. We love competing alongside you, and one of these times we'll win it all! Your robot was really solid, and had quite the shot. I could tell you spent quite a bit of time refining your kicker design so you could have controlled shots from any zone. Well done!
191: It was great working with you as well. You really held your own on defense. It's unfortunate you had mechanical difficulties, but seeing your successful hang from the tower was impressive. I'm sure you will get things fixed up and will be a strong contender at your next regional.
And now for our worthy competitors: your victory was well deserved. I was especially impressed by 217's strategy. Kicking the three balls from the defensive zone and then moving over to offense was incredibly effective. Even though kicking the balls in from a distance may be more glamorous, you consistently pushed them in (often two at a time!) which worked really well. Not to mention that your beefy drive train was hard to defend!
We had a great time at this competition and learned a lot. I unfortunately didn't take to time to understand the ranking system, so we were ranked pretty low by the end of the qualification matches. I don't think we'll be playing defense during qualifications at our next regional :)

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

We can only hope that someone had the foresight to record the TV broadcast with their DVR.
I usually ask my ex to record it but I completely forgot because I had otehr things on my mind.

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

It's starting to look like you wrote some of my scripts.:rolleyes:

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

Ya, Steve, it was great when you couldn't pronounce some of the words the judges gave you. Pricelss.

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

I have doctor's handwriting.
If I would have written it you would not have been able to speak at all...

....which means I would have gotten the job immediately.:p

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

Hehe, "ubiquitous", that was just plain mean.

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

LOL. Two years ago, 1551 was almost snowed out of the second and third day, and Bausch & Lomb (have I mentioned I love Bausch & Lomb?) sprung for a last-minute hotel because our superintendent was not going to let us return -- and then we went on to the semifinals, which was sweet.

We got *feet* of snow.

I have already contacted the YNN network to see if I can get a copy of the entire broadcast. I'm not sure what they'd charge me for it, but I wantwantWANT it!

See my most recent post in the "A novel strategy" thread for my thoughts on this.

Askflh oowern weong woirg! (Said the judges, as interpreted by Steve...)

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

We came to the competition to play hard and, hopefully, to win. By match 70, we had an excellent shot at getting ourselves a spot in the top 8 teams and guaranteeing that we’d advance to the elimination rounds. We believed that, with good alliance picks, we’d have a real chance at winning the regional (in fact, ours was the ONLY alliance to win a match against the winning alliance during the elimination rounds).

Once match 70 began and two of our alliance’s three robots were inoperative, our best chance of getting a lot of seeding points and staying in the top 8 was to do exactly what we did. I don’t like it, and I doubt that anyone else on our team much liked it either, but that’s how the rules are this year. I’d love to see them changed.

If we had been seeded down in the 20’s or 30’s, it would have been pretty pointless to park our robot in front of our goal. Our best shot at that point would have been to play as hard as we could and hope that one of the top 8 teams would notice how well our robot worked.

We weren’t just trying to win a match. We were trying to win the entire competition, and we came very close indeed. If you still believe that’s a violation of the spirit of FIRST, then we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

The YNN folks broadcast it on the cable channel - surely they have the whole thing....

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

I'll put my 2 cents in on the scoring system. The scenario that played out here, played out at other regionals too - and with the same hullabaloo. The scenario was extensively discussed on CD prior to the beginning of the competition season. The GD committee had plenty of time to change the rules if they thought the rules needed changing - but they obviously did not.

In a purposeful 6 v 0 match there is absolutely no violation of GP or Coopertition - it is in fact the ultimate coopertition in that if no one accidentaly commits a penalty - everyone maxes out their score. What could be more cooperative than everyone working together for a max score? The point is to get into the elimination rounds during seeding and that particular strategy raises everyone's boats virtually evenly. It is no different than scoring on your own goals or stopping scoring on an opponents to reduce the chance of an "overkill" penalty as happened last year.

In the case of the second match where two robots failed - one right in front of the goal - I'd call the decision to not allow points to be scored for the losing team - each one counting for 2x the score for what will be an almost certain loss - the proper defensive move given the rules of the game. Games have different modes - offensive, defensive and cooperative. This was a defensive call and IMHO a good one. Give the teams different game rules and the strategy would have been very different. But the game rules this year worked for that particular scenario.

If two robots are disabled on one team due to mechanical failure do we expect the other team to disable two of their robots to be "graciously professional"? Hardly. I don't understand why you would believe that using a well documented scoring rule that remained unchanged during build season (the GD crew had plenty of time to change it if they believed it was unfair or not GP, or to add a rule that using it in the way it was used would entail a penalty) is somehow not graciously professional.

As your opponent my goal is to score more seeding points than you do in the seeding rounds and to beat you by winning in the elimination rounds. That is exactly what was done. If the game design committee does not want such things to happen in the future then they should design a game that doesn't allow such a thing to happen. IF not then we should assume that they left that scoring opportunity in there on purpose for reasons known only to them.

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

To all the teams who enjoyed the action at FLR last weekend cone back in October to Webster Thomas for the Ruckus to play this game again the right way (as in the way we played it Saturday afternoon all day long) for the 2010 Rah Cha Cha Ruckus.
Not only is it great competition but a who lotta fun at a reasonable price.
Keep your calendar open for late October to come on down!

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

We didn't "quit" we used our intelligence. One of our students said it best... we weren't playing to win each match, we were playing to win the Regional. If we had played 3v1, we probably could have stopped you guys from scoring so many points either by stealing balls or by playing defense... so that would have hurt your rank score as well. What we did (while I have to say I don't like that there is a system where this is the best strategy), was allow you guys to score the maximum amount of points by having access to all of the balls and not trying to lower your score, which in effect boosts our rank score. Yes it is horrible for spectators, but FIRST designed the tournament structure this way, and we are going to play to win the event. Our robot was less than stellar in a few matches, your robot was working perfectly nearly the entire event. Our chances of being picked were probably fairly low, so we played to be able to pick.

Granted as I said in my other post, our data showed that the majority of the teams in the top 8 actually played to win their matches, so maybe the system isn't so broken. What the system does allow is for teams to "game the ranking system" at least in week 1. And we have spent years developing a strategy team that designs a robot to core strategies and looks for ways to win the events. It is unfortunate that this year ways to win the event include just sitting there and not starving your opponents of balls, but I'm sorry, that's how the tournament rules are written. I don't think it's un-GP to play to how the rules are written, if thats the case, we need to talk to FIRST about not writing un-GP rules. People complained about this "loophole" from the beginning and FIRST had 7 weeks to "fix it" before it played out that way, but they didn't. I do think its a terrible game for spectators because of that, but unfortunately, FIRST designed it, we are just going to play it. I am really hoping that teams stop playing defense so these strategies become less and less advantageous. But as long as there are robots out there to play defense in the qualifiers, we are going to have a tough time saying no to playing strategies that boost our ranks in that fashion.

And I will be honest, our alliance partners for our first 3v0 match (sort of 4v0), as well as the 6v0 match both thanked us, and said it was a lot of fun and that it helped their ranks (something their kids were excited to see). So while bizzare for the spectators, the teams had fun. Calling 1511 un-GP for playing a game that FIRST designed is kind of hurtful, our kids and student coach worked & thought really hard to get to 5th seed, and that was their goal. They weren't trying to "exploit" the system, they were "thinking outside the box" and playing to win the event, not the matches. I for one am very proud of them for understanding the rules and the ranking system enough to get themselves to 5th place even with a robot that wasn't functioning the way we intended. Play smarter... not harder...

But Pat, your kids should be proud either way, their robot and drive team performed amazingly and was on everyone's radar from the beginning, to see you guys in the number one seed couldn't have made us more proud. Weird ranking system or not, they played to win, and there is no reason for their number one seed and regional win to be tainted... it was pure blood sweat and tears, and rest assured, everyone at FLR or anyone that watched your matches knows it.

I for one am hoping that everyone just lets everyone play the game how they want and stops calling other teams un-GP for playing in particular ways. Its not like teams are running out and tipping other teams or pinning and disabling, or ripping out wires or disconnecting batteries. The game is what it is, and MY grandmother would be proud of kids using their brains to play an intelligent game, exciting or not. Maybe its not the best or most exciting show, but its up to FIRST to design the excitement, its up to us to compete... and for some teams competing is in every match, for others competing is for the event. In my mind the best FIRST games are where those two go hand in hand, but in this game they don't always.

Re: 2010 Finger Lakes Regional
 

Congrats to all the teams this year. It was a great experience inspecting your robots and hearing some of your stories from this past year.

Major congrats to team 3157 for winning Rookie All Star. Its been amazing working with all of you during this past season.