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Unread 29-04-2004, 15:27
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Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Y.
What!??!?!?!? Thats probably our entire budget that we would spend on metal let alone the whole entire robot. And that money is what usually amounts to us build a robot that looks pretty professionally done. It would probably make a lot of teams life's harder.
The idea isn't supposed to make lives easier. It's supposed to make everything more balanced. It means that you have to make more tradeoffs on design (which is a key factor in real life engineering).

And while you may think that it's impossible to build a robot for that price, that number is far higher than the amount we were allowed to spend at Small Parts back in 1998 and 1999 (and probably years prior to that). And yes, you had to purchase almost all your materials from Small Parts (including aluminum, etc.; there was a small list of things you could purchase outside of Small Parts).

Matt
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Unread 29-04-2004, 16:08
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Re: On Game Design

Don't forget the Human element. The great thing about this year was that a human was the one making the points. Our robot had massive problems (which were finally fixed LAST NIGHT) with the drive train and was never able to run the entire UCF regional. However, the team was able to recruit a high scoring human shooter, and made what little points we started with, and the points our alliance partners generously let us have. With some luck, a good shooter, and no robot, we finished in 21st out of 41 teams. Surprisingly, if our goal was capped, the enemy alliance goal is capped, our alliance hangs one robot, and the enemy alliance hangs a robot...the game comes down to whichever team scored the most 5 point balls. Rookie teams have just as good of chance recruiting a human player as any other highschool.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 17:05
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Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonzack1390
Rookie teams have just as good of chance recruiting a human player as any other highschool.
yes but a team who gives their human player 18 extra chances to shoot 5 pt balls because they catch them all (good robot 93! ) has a better chance of getting more points
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Unread 29-04-2004, 19:24
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Re: On Game Design

I think that the kit allows for everyone....rookie or not....to be able to build some sort of a robot to compete. Simply use the 4x2 alluminum to build your base.....stick the drill motors on....do the electronics...and there you've got a robot that can decently compete in the game.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 20:02
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Re: On Game Design

The point is, FIRST looks to inspire people... the game is ... whatever.. We can either choose to accept it as a challenge and do something about it or .... ,. Frankly, It is my first year, I don't know too much of the game except for stack attack and FIRST frenzy. From what I see, it just looks like these are moderate level games, and the success level(building a working robot) is huge in rookie and veteran teams.

However, its not only the game. There is recognition for lots of other stuff like animation, websites, helping other teams etc. If for some reason your robots are not that good, try doing other stuff. Maybe that would make you feel better. FIRST is a huge world
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Unread 29-04-2004, 20:00
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Re: On Game Design

The game and the rules should not limit my or anyone else's creativity in the design of complex systems or any other aspect of building a robot or the strategy of how to play the game.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 16:27
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Re: On Game Design

O.K. I'm ready to chime in. I am going to address one aspect of Matt's original post: Additional parts restriction and money restriction. Many of you that know me or have had this conversation with me already know where I am going, but here I go again.

At first glance, one would think that restricting additional parts would level the playing field. On the contray, the more restriction placed on the additional parts; the more advantage the "big money" teams have. The ThunderChickens are one of those "big money" teams. If the restriction went to $700, or even $500 our machine would look the same. Why? We can make everything we currently buy. We buy a $25 gear today and I could have it made on a wire EDM for free (cost of the steel ~$2) by our sponsor. We currently chose not to do this, but we could. With no restriction, the small team could buy the same $25 gear. If the restriction existed, the small team would have to pay anywhere between $50 to $250 to have it made if they could find a place at all. The tighter the restriction, the more advantage my team has.

Another huge downfall of the restriction is the need for us to get T.V. exposure. What? How does the additional part restrictions have anything to do with T.V. exposure? The robots have to look good if we want to be on T.V. If they look like something we built in our garage, then we will have a harder time getting exposure. Look at the moster trucks .. beautiful artwork and design that gets destroyed at each competition ... the looks do nothing for the function but it is important for the exposure. Same goes for NASCAR or Drag Racing, or Formula 1. Looks matter and restriction on parts will kill any chance we have of getting real T.V. exposure.

Either way, we will play with whatever rules we are given because the ThunderChickens will be inspired either way.

-Paul
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Unread 29-04-2004, 17:49
Marc P. Marc P. is offline
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Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
If the restriction went to $700, or even $500 our machine would look the same. Why? We can make everything we currently buy. We buy a $25 gear today and I could have it made on a wire EDM for free (cost of the steel ~$2) by our sponsor. We currently chose not to do this, but we could. With no restriction, the small team could buy the same $25 gear. If the restriction existed, the small team would have to pay anywhere between $50 to $250 to have it made if they could find a place at all. The tighter the restriction, the more advantage my team has.

Another huge downfall of the restriction is the need for us to get T.V. exposure. What? How does the additional part restrictions have anything to do with T.V. exposure? The robots have to look good if we want to be on T.V. If they look like something we built in our garage, then we will have a harder time getting exposure. Look at the moster trucks .. beautiful artwork and design that gets destroyed at each competition ... the looks do nothing for the function but it is important for the exposure. Same goes for NASCAR or Drag Racing, or Formula 1. Looks matter and restriction on parts will kill any chance we have of getting real T.V. exposure.

Either way, we will play with whatever rules we are given because the ThunderChickens will be inspired either way.
I'll respectfully disagree. I understand your argument- you're saying you can manufacture parts just as easily as you buy them. However, I'm on a team with limited funds, and helped produce one of the many robots this season that came in at or under $1200.

I do believe Matt's point though, was this-

If other teams are capable of producing equally, if not more capable robots for much less money, why do teams have to spend the full $3000? Personally, I like the robots that look like they came out of a garage better than the polished up show robots. Maybe as Matt's info says, I've "been in FIRST too long", but I like seeing the ins and outs of a robot's systems. A machine will look good if it's well built, and throwing more money at a machine won't make it any better. What makes a machine great is it's fundadmental design and inherent functionality, not how much money is spent on it. To expand on that idea further, FIRST is about inspiring kids about science and technology, and what better way to get kids thinking than by presenting a problem. I'd rather students think of a creative and innovative method of coping with a mechanical issue with given resources, rather than say "well, we could always just buy this." My team has always been on a limited budget, so we're forced to find creative ways around what otherwise would end up as an expense, and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for that experience.

As far as TV exposure, I'd almost fear that for FIRST at this point. FIRST is no monster truck rally, or racing event, or sports game, and shares none of the values each of them entail. The only way robotics will become interesting to TV audiences is if they become all out battlebots. I think FIRST is trying to change America on a culteral level by planting the seeds of gracious professionalism in the youth of the nation, and hope it grows and flowers once those students grow up and become the leaders of the future.

Personally, I'd rather not see FIRST sacrifice it's roots of inspiration to pander to the TV crowd, even if the intentions are to inspire the TV crowd. I feel too much of what FIRST means would be lost in the process.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 18:03
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Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc P.
As far as TV exposure, I'd almost fear that for FIRST at this point. FIRST is no monster truck rally, or racing event, or sports game, and shares none of the values each of them entail.
I think we just need to find the right channel. How can golf, billiards or specifically curling be on television? Essentially because there's an audience to watch those programs on those channels. What FIRST needs is a channel (I.E: Tech TV) that has viewers that would want to watch a robotics competition, then some advertisers to air commercials during the time (Delphi, Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Autodesk, etc.).

If we could have a television network broadcast the final matches from Einstein we would be golden.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 18:39
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Re: On Game Design

Marc P.,

What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?

As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.

We will just agree to disagree about your comment on battlebots. The reason Comedy Central pulled the plug is that it was not interesting enough to capture the audiences' attention for 3 years in a row (same old, same old). We need to get the average Joe T.V. watcher to keep the channel on our competition for 10 minutes. If we can do that, then he will get interested and that will start an explosion of reaching more and more students outside of the current FIRST community. The key to those 10 minutes is flair. We need more flair.

As to your point about finding creative ways to solve problems. I agree with you, but I argue that even if the limits were opened up all the way (this year was very close) you can't just go out and buy any old component off the shelf. There is one MAJOR limiting factor we must deal with that rules almost every decision we make ... 130lb maximum. That limit forces us to make a lot more creative decisions than chsing between EDM gears vs. bought gears. I really don't like re-inventing the wheel, so just let me buy my gears (and bearings and sprockets, etc.)

I know, let's play a fun (and maybe enlightening for all) game. Let's think of a restriction we would like to put on the game to level the playing field and see how it affects different teams. Since I don't like any restriction, I won't go first.

-Paul

P.S. - I have been wating for this debate to resurface for a while now, because there are many long time FIRSTers that disagree on this subject.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 19:39
Steve W Steve W is offline
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Re: On Game Design

To spend or not to spend? Those that can do and those that can't don't. Has this impacted FIRST to this point? I must admit that I am a relative rookie in FIRST but I have seen a lot of teams and matches in my 3 short years. As a mentor and announcer I have seen from 2 sides (I'm not sure how many sides there are) the pros and cons of money. When building there never seems to be enough. When I look at some teams I am jealous. When some teams look at us they are jealous (not cause I'm on the team). We are a mid finance team. I think of what could we do if we had more cash. Then I think, probably wish I had more cash.

Inspiration comes on different levels and in different forms. This year I was inspired to do more fund raising because we wanted to increase the awareness of our team. We were inspired by winning the West Michigan Regional last year. We were inspired by Wildstang. We were inspired by FIRST !!! I don't believe in fixing something that's not broke. I like to see teams with lots of money building a nice machine. I like to see rookie teams glow as their robot leaves the starting block and pushes home their first ball. I love to see a team with no robot at Championship work with other teams to build a basic bot to compete. I love to see students open their eyes and see a whole new world.

Would I change anything ? Yes, but that is not to be discussed here. I would also like to see a game a bit more exciting than this year. Not that it didn't end up good it's just that it took all Friday to get there. I would like to continue seeing more technology developed. As you know this also takes money. If teams can find sponsers and have the money then let them spend. We already have limits. Don't change them just monitor how teams are beating the system and make them accountable. That is a big order I know and how do you accomplish it, I'm not sure but if FIRST wants some suggestions I would love to help.

I don't believe in superteams, I believe in small teams stretching to accomplish great feats. Many small subgroups have a better chance of solving a problem than one large group. If I have offended any one I appologize but I am not pointing any fingers. These are just my thoughts and ideas.

Paul - Throwing money at a problem does not always work. Take the New York Rangers, Please.
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Last edited by Steve W : 29-04-2004 at 19:41.
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Unread 29-04-2004, 19:49
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Unhappy Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
Marc P.,

What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?

As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.
I have to totally agree with Paul on the point above. I remember looking at robots back when I got into FIRST in 1999 and saw teams with custom aluminum sprockets and gears that weren't even legal to buy, but perfectly legal to make from stock. Huge sizes, light weight you name it. That is, however, only if you have the resources available to your team. So if you were a rookie without those resources, you got the gears and sprockets from small parts (At a not so cheap rate BTW) if were a veteren team with good resources, you got the same $300 or so dollars from small parts PLUS nearly unlimited gears and sprockets in almost any material you wanted. So where does the money limit get you? It will usually hurt the lower funded teams that can't get these parts any other way but by purchasing them. Look at some of the past robots and you will see that putting the cost limitation on FIRST or restricting the suppliers for parts will have little or no effect on a resourceful veteren team.

In fact it seems kind of against the real world way of doing things to say to the students, "hey we need this sprocket that you can buy off the shelf for $19 but instead we are going to make the exact same thing for $70??"
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Unread 29-04-2004, 20:06
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Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?
I apologize, I should have posted this before (I was at work, swamped with customers, couldn't think right )

I disagree with your example of the gear- if you can get your sponsor to manufacture it rather than purchasing it. Section 5.3.2.2 of The Robot part of the manual states:
Quote:
The cost of raw material obtained by a team + the cost of non-team labor expended to have the
material processed further. Team member processing labor is not included. Example: A team
purchases steel bar stock for $10.00 and has it machined by a local machine shop that donates its 2
hours of expended labor. The team must include the estimated normal cost of the labor as if it were
paid to the machine shop, and add it to the $10.00. Exception Examples: If the team members
themselves did the actual machining, there would be no associated labor cost. If the machine shop
were part of the team, its labor cost would not apply.
So, unless the machine shop where you would fabricate the part is indeed the team's work space, or a team member made the part, you would technically have to include the labor costs at fair market value in your total, even if it is donated.


Quote:
As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.
Again, I apologize for not thinking clearly. What I meant is, jobs must be performed within a budget. Say you sign a contract with a client to develop a widget that performs X, Y, and Z functions, for $3,500. By the time your budget is run through, you can only perform X and Y functions. Unless you can renegotiate the contract for more money, you're stuck with what you have- you can't throw any more money at it. Meanwhile, a competing firm, can create a widget that performs X, Y, and Z funtions for $1,200. In the future, who would the client be more likely to go with? I agree with you- you have to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost, so why wouldn't the same apply to robotics? All I'm saying is if some teams can do similar functions for less money, why is the budget so high?

Quote:
We will just agree to disagree about your comment on battlebots. The reason Comedy Central pulled the plug is that it was not interesting enough to capture the audiences' attention for 3 years in a row (same old, same old). We need to get the average Joe T.V. watcher to keep the channel on our competition for 10 minutes. If we can do that, then he will get interested and that will start an explosion of reaching more and more students outside of the current FIRST community. The key to those 10 minutes is flair. We need more flair.
I do completely agree with this. However, I think no matter how exciting FIRST gets, we'll have trouble reaching the crowd where American Idol gets more votes than the US presidential election, on networks where shows like The Swan are becoming more commonplace. I think FIRST is already addressing the problem at the social level, by influencing the youth, which may prove a more useful way of changing our culture than trying to get people more interested in robotics, learning, and inspiration than sports, crude humor, and corporate sit-coms.

Quote:
P.S. - I have been wating for this debate to resurface for a while now, because there are many long time FIRSTers that disagree on this subject.
Again, I agree.. I've been waiting for a good debate to jump in on
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Unread 30-04-2004, 11:44
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Re: On Game Design

I've been reading the posts regarding spending limits and I see 2 separate arguments. The first is about the cost placed on the teams to buy their parts from their sources. The second is the cost to sponsors for use of machining facilities.

In one scenario, if the cost allowed per robot and materials rules remains around where it is now, many parts can be bought from suppliers by the teams. These parts bought by teams are then charged to the cost allowed per robot and assuming they are within the materials limits, don't cost the sponsor any more additional money. Sponsors don't lose any machine time in creation of those parts and can more easily help with other aspects of the robot.

In the second scenario, if the materials rules and cost rules tighten, and assuming Section 5.3.2.2 still is the same, then teams will be limited by their outside selection and will be forced into custom designing parts that can be readily available off the shelf. Now the teams are responsible for buying the raw material and convincing one of their sponsors to place a decent amount of money into allowing the team to access and use their shop. The cost is now placed on the sponsors has increased significantly (in most cases) because the sponsor is now also paying for additional time on machines, employees to help the teams, and is not making any money with those machines while robot parts are created. Plus that sponsor will be asked to help with the things it has provided in years past!

Going back to the way it was is a huge advantage to the well funded teams. Plus there are many areas of this and other countries where manufacturing capabilities are very limited. All sponsors (large and small) are better off having the teams have access to COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) Parts than to custom design and manufacture everything. I have no problem with reasonable material or cost limitations, and as Paul said, we are always limited by that nagging 130 lb weight thing.

We want to have this competition attract sponsoring companies to build corporate-school relations. The only way to do that is to make the sponsor's time and money worthwhile.

Steve
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Re: On Game Design

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Leese
While I normally don't like to include more rules and I'm not even sure if this would ever be a good idea, but perhaps FIRST needs to look into a way of recording the costs of machining time? If FIRST is supposed to approximate real-world engineering in any way, this would seem to be an important part of the program. That said, I don't think any simple system would work nor am I proposing any. It's simply a thought.
Matt, I just read all of the posts that you've written on this topic. I understand the points that you are trying to make, however, I disagree with your FIRST pillisophy. I'll admit that I haven't been involved in FIRST for as long as you have. We're from different eras.

From your posts, What I am seeing is that you would like to have a game that is like the following:
You're in a 24' x 48' arena. 2 blue robots against 2 red robots. There are 30 soccer balls across the field edges. There are two 5' wide, 4' tall stationary octagon-shaped PVC goals, designated blue and red. Each ball is worth 5 points when you get it inside the goal. Most points wins.

This is a straightforward game, the rules are simple, and everyone has the same objective. Get the balls off the floor, put them in the goal. The tasks aren't trivial, but they're not difficult. The machine with the most consistent ball gatherer and unloader should win every time. You don't run the risk of picking the wrong "key of the game."

Personally, I find that boring.

And here's why:

Strategy.

After I saw the game released this year, I knew that there would be no robot that could do EVERYTHING consistently. One or two teams came somewhat close.

Everything:
Grab the goal
Climb the 6" steps
Knock off the 10 point ball
Hang from the bar
Fully secure the big ball from the floor, small goal, and big goal.
Pick balls off the floor
Capture the balls falling from the drop chute.

I personally would rather see teams make their engineering choices on their game strategy as opposed to the costs of components on their machine. You won't be able to control the dollars spent unless you limit FIRST to a single distributor and have a mile of bookkeeping. To be honest, the $3,500 limit appears to be more of a gesture than a true check. I think that the dollar limit really just ensures teams aren't using immense amounts of titanium. Limiting machines down to a much lower dollar amount just won't make the impact that you're looking to see, because the amount of money that teams typically spend on their robots only makes up between 10% and 20% of teams' budgets as it is.

Money is not what limits teams' success. Experience does. It always will.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Leese
We shouldn't be encouraging rookies to just build a robot that moves. We shouldn't make the tasks so hard that rookies fail. We should instead aim at the level where it's not accomplishing the task that's the differentiator but how well the task is accomplished.
I can tell from this comment that you don't like the idea of hanging, it's very 0 or 1. Hanging or not hanging. 50 points or 0 points.

I'm not so sure that I'm a fan of this either... especially in 2003's game where being on the ramp was the deciding factor on if you won the match or not in 95% of the cases. However, the points were balanced this year. 50 points was appropriate. 75 would have been too many. It should be noted that many competitive alliances had robots that did not hang, and they were very successful.

I do not think this year was complicated. There were no complex math formulas. You could read the points on the field. 5 points for the purple balls in the goals, you double the ball values if you cap the goal they're in, you get 50 points for hanging on the bar. For anyone attending a competition, this was easy to explain.

I think that restricting the "everything" list to one or two things will really limit the objective of this program - inspiration. Seeing robots twice as capable as your own with the same restrictions is awe-inspiring. I think FIRST wants to see more students with their tongues wagging over something incredible.

Loosing to incredible machines is okay in my book.

I think that rookies usually fail when they try to bite off more than they can chew. Hanging was a tough task, and many rookies who tried to do this via climbing up the steps had two seriously challenging things to do. This was perhaps the wrong choice for many rookies.

But I bet they learned a lot.

And I bet they'll be back next year.

Matt
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Last edited by Matt Adams : 30-04-2004 at 13:31.
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