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Unread 17-04-2012, 01:37
Andrew Lawrence
 
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Re: Alliance Selection System

Quote:
Originally Posted by DampRobot View Post
In FRC, as in all sports, there is always an option to cheat. Theoretically, you could say you finished your robot during build season, and just forge the signature on the bag and tag form. Teams could take parts off to get inspected, get declared underweight, and just add the parts back on. Budgets could be doctored to allow over-budget teams to appear under-budget. It's not impossible to cheat. There are just rules and systems in place which keep the vast majority of incidents from happening. But at some point, it is the team's decision if they want to obey the rules or not.

Under my proposal, of course it would be possible to cheat, and of course, it would be hard to catch the cheaters. I'm mainly envisioning a G26 type rule that would essentially say that purposefully placing out of the top 8 is "not in the spirit of FRC and disallowed." The purpose of the rule would not be to punish teams that attempt to place out of the top 8 strategically. It would instead clarify the intention of the GDC, and allow the team's decision do depend on the team's integrity.

To answer your question about the incentive to be #1, seeds 1-3 could be automatically offered spots at district or world championships, in addition to being able to chose from any of the 42 other teams first. There would still be an incentive to do well. Top teams would still get their well earned spot in St. Louis, and eliminations would be more competitive. I'm simply trying to propose a system that both allows dominant teams to go to championships, and creates more exciting and competitive elimination rounds.
Alright buddy, I'm going to stop you there. Is this possible? Yes, it's possible, but it's also possible for me to win Einstein while in a coma. People wouldn't do that in FIRST.

I know you know that, and I know you weren't implying that, based on your use of the word "theoretically", I get that, but you are comparing two totally different "cheatings". One, where teams do things against the FIRST rules, such as the theoretical work on robot after season. The other, when you look at it, really isn't cheating. It's playing to the game. In order to rank this year, you needed to balance, so what did teams do? They balanced. If you need to have a close game, you let your opponents score a little. If you needed a landslide victory, you'd do your best every match.

If your rules (which I agree with mostly, BTW), are set in, a team could try and play to get a lower rank, but if I remember correctly, purposely throwing a match is un-GP, since it effects your alliance partners, and I remember someone recently got penalized for that (don't quote me on this). But then you have to look at it: Is a team throwing a game, or are they honestly having problems? For an example, 254, 2011 World Champion team, at CVR. They were having some problems, and ended up not being in the top 8. Heck, they were even behind us most of the time, which has never happened in the history of our competitions together. Could they theoretically be throwing matches with the intent of being left behind so they can be chosen by the top alliance of 1717 and 330? Yes, it's possible. Were they? I doubt it.

If a rule like this were in place, I'm positive the refs will be making some mistakes that will change the outcome of the event.

So while the rules that both you and I have previously thought of would be beneficial, they make the game just that more difficult, and can cause some unfair rulings.

Looking back, over my suggestions, and everyone else's, I think the current serpentine draft is fine the way it is. All other methods mentioned bring in new problems or difficulties that make everything harder than it needs to be.

Last edited by Andrew Lawrence : 17-04-2012 at 01:40.