Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Ahh, thanks for the heads up on the team number. I had forgotten (although I shouldn't have because we played a match with them...)

This is what I was trying to get at, but:

hmm, I didn't think about this being out of the range but it seems like it would be above the outlet.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Dick,

You're horribly overreacting to a incredibly small sample size of data, and what is effectively an incredibly small problem. We have one robot who "broke" the game for all of six matches when paired with a team who's been to Einstein four of the past five years and had already won a regional event the weekend before.

Should we have handicapped 1114 in 2008 because they had often already scored more points alone in autonomous than the opposing alliance would the whole game?
Should we have added rules to eliminate 71's strategy in 2002?

Of course not. I appreciate that you were only a rookie last year, and don't really have any frame of reference for other years of FIRST competitions. But teams like 469 absolutely dominating a match or regional isn't something new, but rather a feat of engineering, strategy, and design.
But there simply isn't a perfect strategy to any game, and the best teams will come up with ways of countering it with or without rules changes. 71 lost matches in 2002 and got beat at IRI in 2001. 1114 lost matches in 2008. 469 already has lost matches in qualifications.

I think you'll be surprised at how the game evolves as the competition continues.

But, the bottom line is, you're flat out wrong about it being the correct decision change the rules. There's no other way to put it.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

I agree with Sean. I looked at the entire match history and 469 lost 4 (including 3 shutouts) and had a scoreless tie. Heck, we even beat them once and from what my students tell me, our robot stunk on Friday. The role that 217 played was substantial. In fact, our role was to get 217 free to operate without interference. I'm not sure 217 completely knew what they were getting when they picked them, certainly not a robot that was going to produce 20+ point matches and jam the ball return! We certainly had no idea.

I can't wait to get to Troy in 2 weeks -- except we've got a lot of work to do between now and then. And seeing how creative these teams have been already, I wouldn't be surprised if something totally different happens then.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

More to the point, there are actually plenty of teams with qualification match W/L records and scores higher than 469's.

They're brutally good when paired with other brutally good robots, certainly. But that will be true of all really good robots.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Actually, according to <G31> it is not illegal to remove the ball when it is on the ball return ... it's just illegal to contact the ball return (emphisis mine). Therefore you can knock the ball off of the ball return before it gets to 469 ;)

469 thought out of the box, and should be commended for that (not outlawed). Now we need to think out of the box to defeat them.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

The main constraint is that the ball return is a minimum of 84 inches in the air, and extending higher than 90 inches is a penalty.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Actually the constraint is 60 inches on that side of the field while not in FINALE CONFIGURATION.

Our discussion was about creating a jet of air to deflect the soccerball to prevent it from entering 469s ball director. This means shooting a jet of air 24" (84"-60") strong enough to move a soccerball. Not sure if it's feasible, but it would be interesting to test out.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

This is my final post in this thread.
Those of you horrified by my suggesting the rule change of allowing bots to expand at either tower are also over-reacting when you say this would ruin the loopers design superiority. Wrong, it would just LESSEN their ability to totally dominate. My goal in suggesting the rule change, is to reduce the chances of loopers having total domination of matches. Even with this rule change, they probably would still totally dominate some matches, but the chances for this happening would be greatly reduced.
Time to focus on neutralizing loopers as best we can. See Ya!
-Dick Ledford

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

I definitely understand what you are saying. I think it is correct to say that 469 has 'exploited' the rules (completely within the rules, and I congratulate them on it!) to produce a bot that is nearly unstoppable. I think this is a fantastic feat of engineering and design, as well as legal analysis.

HOWEVER, it does seem to make the games uncompetitive. I was looking through their playoff scores, and saw them winning by 20+ points in multiple matches! The rules are set up in a way that defending them becomes nearly impossible within the rules, thus I think it wouldn't be terrible for the rules to make defense a little more permissible.

Moves like that are NOT unprecedented in sports. In fact, much more draconian and (in my opinion) foolish moves have been made in other sports/competitions to get rid of a dominating team.

I can think of 2 off the top of my head: The recent Audi R8 Diesel Spec B car (i think?!) where they basically cut out special rules for the diesel in order to make it pit more often.

The other more egregious example is the early '90s IMSA rules against Steve Millen's Nissan 300zx TT, which almost specifically made the engine illegal because it was dominating.

In this case, I think a simple rule change to permit some kind of defense would be a good idea, and would be in the interest of competition.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

We're sticking to a ghetto rookie solution..Keepin' it simple s2#$d! Our bot has two pieces of 3/4" plywood, coming down from the frame wide enough to keep the ball from coming under our bot. Yeah...no ducted fan, nothing complex, just ole' fashioned Texan engineerin'. Git er done!:eek:

See y'all in Big D Thursday!

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

So, you looked at a sample size of 2 matches out of 18 that 469 played and out of more than 1500 played total this season and determined a fatal flaw in the game that must be changed? Give me a break.

Both of those wins of 20 or more points were with the same partners against the same opponents, no less. And one of their partners had already won a regional the weekend before and has been to Einstein four of the past five years (winning the Championship twice). And you're really suggesting that this is a large enough "problem" to change the rules? Honestly?

Common sense and basic statistical skills seem to have escaped you.

Beyond that, nowhere does it say you can't defend these robots. There isn't a rule say you have to let 469 run all over you. There just isn't a rule that allows you to expand on your opponent's tower (and Dick is suggesting). There's been no time for the game to evolve since 469's "unveiling," and you're already calling for them to be shut down. Let the brilliant strategic and engineering minds in FIRST do their jobs. There are teams more than capable of adapting without rule changes directly inserted to hamper the ability of teams like 469.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Way to take what I wrote way out of context, and way to make assumptions. I saw videos for quite a few matches so far. I understand their alliance was a strong one. However, I also noticed their general scoreboard: http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/team/469

They have multiple matches (particularly later in the schedule) where they absolutely dominated. 20-3, and 15-0 in a FINALS game is pretty absurd to me, I've only been watching these games for ~7 years, but that seems pretty uncharacteristic.

Therefore, there is 1 of 2 things wrong: 1- The teams that made the playoffs (that weren't on 469's alliance) were all scrubs that shouldn't have been there, or 2- the 469 team has a huge advantage.

I'm not looking to 'shut them down', just give other teams a reasonable opportunity to counter this. The current situation is like having a rule in football that disallows touching the running back when he has the ball. His position becomes nearly unstoppable. That is what is happening here, just about all reasonable and effective attempts to counter this are against the rules.

Now, I think a rule change would be what is best for competition, however I'm not sure that FIRST should do it.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Once again, you're still examining a sample size that is miniscule in the scope of 2010 matches and small in the scope of 469's matches. You're dismissing the four times that 469 was shutout in qualifications, the multiple matches where they did not enter the tunnel, and the fact there were six matches where 469 did not win.

You're also ignoring the fact that there has been virtually no time for other teams to react to this strategy. Heck, that was the original intent of this thread, developing mechanisms that currently fit within the rules in order to defend against bots like 469.

You're tossing out the fact that 469 isn't the only team to attempt redirecting the balls as they fall off of the return chute. Yes, 469 is clearly the best at it (the rest have been met with marginal results at best), but that's just an indication of the quality of their engineering, not a flaw with the game.

And what about 1114? They beat their opponents 15-3 in the finals in Pittsburgh. Or 67, who was winning elimination matches by 14-0 and 15-2 margins. Or 217 and 2960, who increased 469's average score from 3.75 goals/match in qualifications to 18.67 goals/match in the eliminations?
Should we produce rules to produce "reasonable opportunities to counter" them?

Did you likewise complain about 1114 in 2008? They were winning finals matches with scores like 136-34. Should we have added rules that made it legal to possess the opponent's balls in 2008 instead of just your own because one team was able to win matches in dominant fashions?

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

So you're saying:
469 = Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl
Maybe we should all agree not to pick them :D

But seriously, their highest score in the Quals was 13-0 which is not unheard in this game.

Re: Team 39 building 469 stopper solution (Available in Las Vegas)
 

Excuse me for saying this but we did have a dominant alliance at the regional. A majority of the robots at the event did not have successful autonomous, including several in the finals, our alliance had 2 robots with reliable autonomous. At the start of teleop period in the finals we had 7-8 balls in our zone because of our alliance's autonomous modes. We also had a defensive robot that prevented the other alliance from removing balls from our zone. We took control over a majority of the balls and maintained control. If maintaining control of the majority of the balls isn't a sound strategy I don't know what is. In my opinion we had the most powerful alliance at the event.