IRI - Dates, Info and Rule Ideas

[Travis Hoffman]

If you want to make scores higher, try to minimize ball inconsistency by pre-conditioning balls before the event.

Get some volunteers to be official ball kneaders, kinda like the umpires rubbing up baseballs with mud before a game.

Take them to a local laundromat and toss game balls into dryers on tumble dry low or something.

[jason_zielke]

Originally Posted by John_1102

1. Extend the autonomous period 10 - 15 seconds, and give teams bonus points for autonomously balancing their robot.

This would be an interesting addition...I think we would see a lot more teams use the Kinect.

[Chi Meson]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

If you want to make scores higher, try to minimize ball inconsistency by pre-conditioning balls before the event.

Get some volunteers to be official ball kneaders, kinda like the umpires rubbing up baseballs with mud before a game.

Take them to a local laundromat and toss game balls into dryers on tumble dry low or something.

Poke a bunch of holes into the surfaces of brand new balls. What a surprise in our first quarterfinal when they completely changed-over the entire ball supply!

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Chi Meson

Poke a bunch of holes into the surfaces of brand new balls. What a surprise in our first quarterfinal when they completely changed-over the entire ball supply!

Acupuncture mellows out the balls, makes balls happy. More willing to enter baskets.

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

Even rule changes that initially seem to help all teams equally are likely to favor some teams over others. For instance, increased match length will favor robots optimized for shooting rather than balancing, as increased match time gives more opportunities for teleop baskets, but doesn't give more opportunities for balance points. Longer matches would also favor teams which use less of their battery during a match -- however, those teams might have intentionally designed their robot to use most of their battery in a regulation-length match.

(emphasis mine)

This post gave me an idea: What about lengthening Teleop by 45 seconds, taking the match to an even 3 minutes. Also add a "mid-game" segment that takes the end-game rules, but applies them before the final whistle. My best idea is to give a "balance whistle" with 60 seconds left, at which points any bridge points currently earned are applied (possibly at a reduced rate like 7, 15, or 30 points for 1, 2, or 3 robots), and then the robots can get off the bridges to continue scoring until the endgame, when they can come back and score bridge points again.

[Colin P]

Originally Posted by Chinmay

I'd love to see a change in the penalty for contacting an opposing alliance's bridge; it would be nice to see no penalty for this unless you contact the bridge while the opposing alliance is. This would get rid of the 9 pt fouls and also introduce the possibility of snatching 2 extra balls if you are careful.

Inadvertent contact for less than a second should be legal as long as no other robots on it. upvote

[hammerhead_399]

We should run 5v5 on a regulation size NBA court with 2 sets of hoops on each side... and a tip-off!!

In all seriousness, besides the change in coop point values, I'd like the rest of the scoring to stay the same. If a team LEGITIMATELY breaks the world record, you'd want to know, right? A record being broken because of points being altered is not a record broken, unless someone counts baskets

[EricH]

I had a totally crazy idea. (And picked up another one...)

First, the simple one. The first match at IRI is FiM champs vs. MAR champs.

OK, now for the other one...

All bridges are treated as the coopertition bridge, and all bridges earn balancing points based not on color but on who is on them. 10 points/robot balanced on a bridge, to that robot's alliance. For balances with more than one alliance represented, add 10 points and 2 CP for each alliance. (This involves removing all penalties associated with the bridges, save for interfering with balancing.)

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by EricH

First, the simple one. The first match at IRI is FiM champs vs. MAR champs.

Beat me to it.

Though, I think a best of 3 series during lunch would be better. See who the 'real' Champions are...

[gyroscopeRaptor]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Beat me to it.

Though, I think a best of 3 series during lunch would be better. See who the 'real' Champions are...

This would be better because both sides would have calibrated already and fine tuned their camera/sensors.

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Beat me to it.

Though, I think a best of 3 series during lunch would be better. See who the 'real' Champions are...

Which means we should also have a rematch of Einstein Finals (and replace whoever's not there with a team of relatively equal skill level)

-Duke

[Tetraman]

I agree with the FiM vs. MAR match, not so much about an Einstein rematch.

Which makes me think of a "auto alliance" option. If you are the alliance captain, and were an alliance captain at a district/regional/championship/division, you can choose to invite both original robots (in the case of backups) that your alliance selected as your first selection. Both teams must still accept, but it gives you the option of automatically setting your alliance to an alliance you had at a previous event that year.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

Which makes me think of a "auto alliance" option. If you are the alliance captain, and were an alliance captain at a district/regional/championship/division, you can choose to invite both original robots (in the case of backups) that your alliance selected as your first selection. Both teams must still accept, but it gives you the option of automatically setting your alliance to an alliance you had at a previous event that year.

Now that I don't like. That takes away the whole point of selecting alliances, in my opinion.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by EricH

All bridges are treated as the coopertition bridge, and all bridges earn balancing points based not on color but on who is on them. 10 points/robot balanced on a bridge, to that robot's alliance. For balances with more than one alliance represented, add 10 points and 2 CP for each alliance. (This involves removing all penalties associated with the bridges, save for interfering with balancing.)

So each alliance still owns its alley, but not the bridge that leads to it? The words "Key, Alley, or Bridge" replace by "Key or Alley" in [G29]? And [G25] replaced by a rule (wording TBD) that protects the act of balancing a bridge? Is this what you mean?

My initial impressions: (1) qualifying strategy would be VERY different from elimination play -- many teams would shoot less during qualification. (2) would a concept of transient bridge ownership (e.g., based on being fully supported by the bridge) be needed, to establish which robot is "interfering" with bridge balancing?

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

I agree with the FiM vs. MAR match, not so much about an Einstein rematch.

Reason being? (Not offended or anything, I'd just like to know)