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-   -   Team update 16 (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84091)

Ryan Dognaux 10-03-2010 09:41

Re: Team update 16
 
Better late than never.

As a team that competed during week 1, the penalties were making the game way less fun than it should have been. This update should take care of all of that and hopefully we'll start to see a lot more ball passing and ball controlling strategies taking place.

Daniel_LaFleur 10-03-2010 10:01

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman (Post 935079)
Yet they have retained the loser gets winner's score feature of the rules, and therefore retained the incentive to "lose bigger". Trying to comeback after going down big does not serve the loser, as the loser doesn't get loser's points.

Really?

We came back from a 5-1 deficit to win 7-6 (on a single penalty on our opponents --- BAE Qual53). This comeback scored seeding more points for us than would be possible had we assisited our opponents.

Giving up is just plain foolish, and teaching to do so is worse regardless of the scoring system.

martin417 10-03-2010 10:31

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux (Post 935103)
Better late than never.

As a team that competed during week 1, the penalties were making the game way less fun than it should have been. This update should take care of all of that and hopefully we'll start to see a lot more ball passing and ball controlling strategies taking place.

I was surprised at the <G46> penalties, not because the penalties were called, but because teams did not design their bot to prevent it. How hard is it to design a bot that doesn't allow a 3" penetration? Did teams not do testing prior to ship? The rule existed from the beginning. I hate to put blame on teams, but that was an easy thing to fix.

Before I get flamed, I am not talking about getting forced over a ball on a hump, or something un-avoidable. But if the ball can get under your bot just driving around, you need to make a change. You should have tested for this possibility. The rules were clear.

Travis Hoffman 10-03-2010 10:36

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 935114)
Really?

We came back from a 5-1 deficit to win 7-6 (on a single penalty on our opponents --- BAE Qual53). This comeback scored seeding more points for us than would be possible had we assisited our opponents.

Giving up is just plain foolish, and teaching to do so is worse regardless of the scoring system.

Given that there have been around 8 billion posts highlighting just how much the coopertition model differs from the traditional rah rah win good lose bad sports model, there is a good chance that your definition of "giving up" does not apply to the FIRST model.

I wonder what percentage of similar deficits across all of Week 1 matches resulted in comeback wins....

You do raise a good point that penalties play a factor - although now with U16, perhaps not so much - in determining winner/loser. They are definitely another thing which would tend to increase the deficit threshold at which a team might choose to "go for the loss". But due to the rules, that threshold is still there, as teams will still consider the strategy.

Teams were presented with this conflict between winning outright and maximizing seeding scores - both supposedly *good* things to pursue - when it was built into certain game situations via the rules. Originally, the rules heavily disfavored winning outright in some circumstances. The GDC has done a good job of addressing some of the most notable situations and restoring balance with Update 16, but they have NOT tipped the scales entirely toward winning outright as the preferred outcome under ALL situations. Some still remain viable. If FIRST persists in keeping such choices in place, that's their decision (and not necessarily a bad one), but if they do, I cannot fault any team for pursuing either option if they feel they are doing what's BEST for them.

JesseK 10-03-2010 11:05

Re: Team update 16
 
Yet another improvement could be to assign penalties to an alliance to determine the winner, yet assign penalties to the specific violating team for determining all "penalized score" attributes of the seeding/coopertition scores.

This small tweak would further set apart those teams who've field-tested their bots and those who are playing catch up at the event. It also alleviates the stress to most teams from the syndrome that's often seen in qualifications where a single alliance member independently decides on its own to do some off the wall action that causes multiple penalties or a yellow card.

Ryan Dognaux 10-03-2010 11:54

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by martin417 (Post 935126)
I was surprised at the <G46> penalties, not because the penalties were called, but because teams did not design their bot to prevent it. How hard is it to design a bot that doesn't allow a 3" penetration? Did teams not do testing prior to ship? The rule existed from the beginning. I hate to put blame on teams, but that was an easy thing to fix.

Before I get flamed, I am not talking about getting forced over a ball on a hump, or something un-avoidable. But if the ball can get under your bot just driving around, you need to make a change. You should have tested for this possibility. The rules were clear.

Martin - No doubt about it, the rules were clear as day.

I think what teams failed to expect was just how easy it is to get a ball under your frame. There are a lot of things usually going on to factor in - other robots, the field elements, the driver station lack-of-view. I can easily see how a team could not even see a ball that it ran over depending upon where they're at on the field.

Balls near the bumps were often an issue as teams would come over them and land on top of a ball. The inclines near the goals were bad spots too; as teams tried pushing balls in they would often drive over them.

The rules were clear, but I'm glad that they've changed them a bit. It should make for higher scores and an all around better competition with a reduced focus on avoiding penalties and an increased focus on scoring points.

jspatz1 10-03-2010 12:09

Re: Team update 16
 
It could be argued that for most robots, driving over the ball was not really an incursion violation anyway. If you think of the bottom of the robot in the same terms as the top of the robot, the ball could pass under the bottom without actually penetrating the frame volume by 3", just as it can roll across the top without doing so. The rule is not that the ball cannot come into a verticle projection of the frame perimeter, it is that it cannot incure a concave area of the robot by more than 3". This update is certainly welcome to clarify the intent of the rule. We may have had many penalties called in week 1 that should not have been.

JHSmentor 10-03-2010 12:11

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Madison (Post 934675)
Remind me again why anyone, my team included, is stupid enough to keep going to week 1 events?

ETA: It's a good change, but the timing is obviously frustrating.

I'll second that - I just wish we even had the option of skipping a week 1 regional.

wouldn't it be nice if they mixed things up from year to year - or just move Portland to week 2 or 3. :)

Teammax 10-03-2010 12:16

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by martin417 (Post 935126)
I was surprised at the <G46> penalties, not because the penalties were called, but because teams did not design their bot to prevent it. How hard is it to design a bot that doesn't allow a 3" penetration? Did teams not do testing prior to ship? The rule existed from the beginning. I hate to put blame on teams, but that was an easy thing to fix.

Before I get flamed, I am not talking about getting forced over a ball on a hump, or something un-avoidable. But if the ball can get under your bot just driving around, you need to make a change. You should have tested for this possibility. The rules were clear.

I think designing a robot to go over the bumps and one that will not allow balls to roll under it is very challenging. I am sure there are effective designs but just having a round object with a surface that grips makes it hard to stop. If the center of the ball can get under a robot then it is very easy to drive over that ball and trap it under neath. You cannot have a solid 'skirt' the rides low to the ground because it effects your ability to go over the bumps.

I am sure that teams have effectively designed there robot to avoid this (I hope we did!!) but I think it is more of a challenge then we thought it would be.

ks_mumupsi 10-03-2010 12:33

Re: Team update 16
 
bah... now i cant have fun with my strategy team :P

great update, only wish was that it should have been pre-week 1 as others said.

im looking forward to going ot nyc and seeing how this affects rankings now.

gluck out there.

ChuckDickerson 10-03-2010 12:35

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux (Post 935166)
Martin - No doubt about it, the rules were clear as day.

I think what teams failed to expect was just how easy it is to get a ball under your frame. There are a lot of things usually going on to factor in - other robots, the field elements, the driver station lack-of-view. I can easily see how a team could not even see a ball that it ran over depending upon where they're at on the field.

Balls near the bumps were often an issue as teams would come over them and land on top of a ball. The inclines near the goals were bad spots too; as teams tried pushing balls in they would often drive over them.

The rules were clear, but I'm glad that they've changed them a bit. It should make for higher scores and an all around better competition with a reduced focus on avoiding penalties and an increased focus on scoring points.

Really? Teams that designed to be able to drive over the bumps never thought that they might also drive over a ball? Really? I thought most teams would have considered that early on during the design process. We sure did. That was one of the factors that steered us away from going over the bumps from the beginning. That and the higher likelihood of getting flipped over. We DESIGNED to minimize the likelihood of penalties from the beginning rather than leaving it as an after thought for the drivers to deal with on the field. We basically equated going over the bumps to a high likelihood of getting penalties and/or flipped over. We are only going through the tunnels instead for those reasons.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic with the new changes in Update 16. I think it will elevate the game play for all. I am especially happy to see the new rule that you don’t get any seeding points until you field a robot that has passed inspection. Being one of the inspectors in Bayou having to watch 2920 not pass inspection but be ranked in the top 8 all day Friday and Saturday was painful to watch. This is the first time that I can ever remember that FIRST has, as of Update 16, not just let you put your human player out there and you still get the points.

Daniel_LaFleur 10-03-2010 12:40

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by DeepWater (Post 935187)
This is the first time that I can ever remember that FIRST has, as of Update 16, not just let you put your human player out there and you still get the points.

As long as you are inspected, you can still do this :rolleyes:

JesseK 10-03-2010 12:43

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by DeepWater (Post 935187)
Really? Teams that designed to be able to drive over the bumps never thought that they might also drive over a ball? Really? I thought most teams would have considered that early on during the design process. We sure did. That was one of the factors that steered us away from going over the bumps from the beginning. That and the higher likelihood of getting flipped over. We DESIGNED to minimize the likelihood of penalties from the beginning rather than leaving it as an after thought for the drivers to deal with on the field. We basically equated going over the bumps to a high likelihood of getting penalties and/or flipped over. We are only going through the tunnels instead for those reasons.

Even with an army of brainstorming sessions, going over a bump onto a ball resulting in a penalty never even crossed our minds. We're not geniuses, but we do consider ourselves to be "smart". It's simply impossible to play out every possible scenario beforehand, thus designing to be adaptable was higher on our priority list than designing to be perfect. I'm sure there were many other teams in the same boat. Even so, we only ever got one 3" incursion penalty and it was because we went head-to-head with another robot and they pushed their possessed ball under our robot.

carbuff2228 10-03-2010 12:50

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by jamie_1930 (Post 934870)
This is a blessing for which we thank the GDC and can finally say forget 6v0!

i totally agree it gives me our team scouting lead and strategist a chance to actually talk strategy and actually an incentive to win a match thank you so much gdc no more 6v0

Martinez 10-03-2010 13:20

Re: Team update 16
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Teammax (Post 935177)
I think designing a robot to go over the bumps and one that will not allow balls to roll under it is very challenging. I am sure there are effective designs but just having a round object with a surface that grips makes it hard to stop. If the center of the ball can get under a robot then it is very easy to drive over that ball and trap it under neath. You cannot have a solid 'skirt' the rides low to the ground because it effects your ability to go over the bumps.

I am sure that teams have effectively designed there robot to avoid this (I hope we did!!) but I think it is more of a challenge then we thought it would be.

Agreed. Along with posessing a ball well enough to drive that ball up the ramp into the goal I would see as the major design challanges of this year's game, even above that of hanging, once a cost analysis is undertaken. Balls are everywhere in this game, especially in places you don't expect (or can't see due to field objects) and its really easy for an opposing robot to shove it underneath your frame.


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