Re: Robot Diversity
 

Pink(233) has been there many times but has never won on Einstein

Re: Robot Diversity
 

I did not mean fill up as in take all 12 spots, simply to take the majority.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

If you heard a couple members of my team from the Boston Regional, you might not say bumpers aren't needed. For the better part of the competition, I was one of the drivers. In one match, our robot was blocked as we were trying to go through the underpass. I couldn't get through, and at one point, someone started suggesting, "Kick them!", or something like that. I ignored that suggestion, both because I didn't like the idea for many reasons, and because it would have been a completely useless thing to do. However, if we did not have bumpers, and someone else was in control of our robot, our kicker could have dished out some serious damage to the other robot.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

Ocassionally this is a matter of perception. I remember walking into FRC in 2006 and seeing massive diversity, as my understanding was limited and my horizons defined by what I saw at competition. When you have never seen a roller claw or swerve drive before, the competition can easily look incredibly diverse, even from a distance.

I personally don't remember a major amount of robot diversity after 2007, but I think it was more that I became used to the FRC norm.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

Not necessarily. Last year, 67, 111, 177, and 217 were very familiar with Einstein, but 68, 121, 222, 247, 971, 1218, 1507, and 2753 were not.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

This is a little off topic, but personally I really liked the bumper requirements for this year. They did make the game a little less entertaining (no tie-dye bumpers or bumpers with little monkeys on them) but from an onlooker's perspective I think it made it easier to see the scope of the game. The little flags are really hard to pick out when you're trying to scout an alliance, and the bumpers make my job a lot easier. Especially if teams follow the recommendation of at least 2" tall team numbers on every side.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

The GDC has a lot of tough jobs, and deciding how to value the different means of scoring is one of them. If teams decide that the points earned aren't worth the cost (time, weight, risk, opportunity, etc.) then they won't do it and design diversity will suffer.

I don't know if the GDC has a goal in mind, but the end game usually seems to be worth 20% to 30% of the match total. With Breakaway, it seems that they anticipated low scoring matches when they assigned only two points for hanging. We built a hanger, but it really stunk. We determined that we were better off trying to kick goals in the last 20 seconds and we took it off. Had it been worth more points, we would have tried to make it work.

The diversity of the designs is affected by the risk/reward equation.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

Well your focus on scoring goals helped you guys win at Traverse City and State Competition :D Hanging points determined a number of matches for the alliances that could not outscore their opponents. For instance in State Competition because Team 67 (HOT) hanged it caused them to manage a tie the first round of the finals. In the 3rd round of the finals if they had a more reliable hanging mechanism they could have tied again to extend the game even further. If the team can't dominate the other alliance with scores for whatever reason then the extra hanging points helps.

Just my 2 cents on the value of arm as a robot design.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

In my opinion, this game allows for rookie teams, less experienced teams, and less endowed teams to excel easily. This game levels the playing field a bit allowing all to play. However, I do agree that parts of it limit the amount of creativity that can go into the game.
This is why I will always love the 2003 game Raising the bar.
It allowed for these aforementioned teams to do simple things such as play defense and herd balls while at the same time presenting the 2 other very complex issues (handling a ginormous ball/ climbing steps and hanging from a 10 foot tall bar) that allowed for very creative designs.

Since the game with the tetrahedrals, there has only been 1 game piece to deal with. (Tetrahedral, ball, tube, ball, ball, ball). There have been multiple ways to use these items and various other driving challenges but none really that drove people to think like they did in Raising the Bar.
That is just my opinion. And well... I like robots

Re: Robot Diversity
 

it seems to me that people who are wanting more "diversity" want less teamwork... they say that previous years there was more to do so yay more diversity, but from my admittedly limited experience with FIRST this year's game does the most to make the word Alliance mean something... you can't just go off on your own and yknow do 100000 laps in autonomous and win if your your alliance no matter what, just kinda doin your own thing... last year, same deal, each bot basically had no reason to interact with their alliance mates etc... this year you HAVE to work together and alliance selections span the entirety of the rankings as bots specialize into offense, midfield, and defense... basically yes there might be less "diversity" but I think it's better this way because even a "god bot" like 469 is useless without good teammates to help them, whereas in past years out of the box designs could easily win entire years by themselves.

Summary: Mayhaps less diversity, but definitely more teamwork among alliance mates, I think this is a good direction to go with the games by the GDC.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

Totally agree with the above poster. Even though this is my rookie year, from offseason competitions I can definitely say the amount of teamwork in Lunacy is nothing compared to Breakaway. From my time on the field in Lunacy, the only level of teamwork I remember is "pin that guy while we dump balls in his trailer". I absolutely love how this year it takes all 3 robots working together to win a match.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

I think that one of the major problems with this years game is the fact that the robots are encouraged to go under the tunnel. This has caused almost all teams to build a short, box type robot. It made the game very uninteresting, and there were no radical designs that I saw :(.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

I have to agree with Nigel... the fact that there are a few different types of robots (not a lot) that mesh together to encourage teamwork. For example, a great teammate for our team to co-ordinate with (with our focus on middle-zone play and ball deflector) would be an excellent far zone scorer like 2771 or 910 at MSC.

In alliance selection, you have to go out to find who compliments your team the best, rather than who is the best at the game, period. It allows for in-depth strategy and teamwork, which I think is FTW.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

I agree. I love how easy the bumpers make it to differentiate the alliance. I've watch some of the videos of Overdrive on The Blue Alliance and it basically impossible to tell who is on who's team unless they're controlling one of the balls.

I agree with Nigel. Breakaway seems to be a much more team oriented game then in years past. In some ways, Breakaway does encourage robots to be less diverse, to do one thing well and then choice teammates who can do things you can't.

Also what does diversity even mean?(In this scenario, I know what it means normally) I mean your taking a whole bunch of people from all across the world, giving them a challenge, and saying "go." Every team is going to approach the challenge a different way and unless the teams are working together (and even then it's iffy) there is never going to be two identical robots. How is that not diverse? More or less diverse, that's just nitpicking. Robots are robots and robots are cool, no matter how many bells and whistles, or kickers and climbers it has.

Re: Robot Diversity
 

04 is still my favorite game...

the diversity of the robots was phenomenal in this game

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...8922126654120#

2v2 also created a "do everything" dynamic so you saw very interesting robots.