Team Update 2-19 and FRC Blog - Week 0 Observations and Stop Build Day

[Brandon Holley]

While the blizzard of frisbees at the end of a match was not they key driver in a floor pickup mechanism for us, it certainly was a benefit we were planning on enjoying.

I have two main issues with the update. As Cory stated a few pages back, how could the GDC not have seen this coming? That is one I will never understand.

The other issue, and the more important one, is the mitigation steps taken to avoid the safety hazard. They did not need to eliminate all throwing of white frisbees to make a safe environment around the field. Adding penalties for discs thrown outside the field of play or limiting the number of discs able to be tossed all help the issue.

I'm definitely disappointed by the update. I definitely understand the reasoning behind it. I wish there was some better forethought on the GDC's part. I also hope they considered less drastic ways of altering the game before coming to this conclusion.

-Brando

[Bill_B]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

You think telling 6 overzealous teenagers that now they only have 15 seconds to score as many points as possible is going to make things less crazy? One of the recorded matches from Suffield shows an HP hurling frisbees overhand behind his back every 1-2 seconds. Spray and Pray sure came to mind there.

I think telling them they only have 6 discs and 30 seconds makes things better. Then they have an incentive to make every disc count and are much more likely to be accurate.

*I* don't think shortening the time would change much. I was only wondering if it had been considered.

The six disk count is further reduced by the number of 5-pt goal shots being attempted by robots. We're wondering what we have to do on an alliance to convince our partners we "deserve" custody of the colored disks for dumping. Maybe they should consider increasing the number of colored disks? IRI?

[ks_mumupsi]

We were one of the many teams with a floor pickup.

We as a team considered the possibility of the frisbees being thrown into the field at the end, but history tells me that the requirement for human players to throw frisbees, to have enough around is not going to be a big change. The most accurate of shooters last year still allowed a lot of balls on the field.

As for the highest levels of competition, I fully expect the highest levels of competition to have a 30 point climb and the ability to pickup from the floor. As impressive as many of the videos posted here have been, I think there's better out there.

On a side note - This has been a very hard year with trying to figure out strategy, the GDC has made so many changes since week 1, lacking clarification on bumpers, then have a cylinder rule change for climbing and its just been non-stop.

If there is anything I am disappointed in, it is that.

[Mike Copioli]

Soooo.... humans throwing discs over the player station at a target 54 feet away is a greater safety hazard than a 28" tall robot launching a disk using a flywheel spinning at 5000+ rpm? Huh?

How does limiting the amount of discs thrown in the last 30 seconds make this game any safer?

It seems to me a velocity restriction similar to the the one in 2006 would have been more appropriate.

This is a game changer.

Karthik,

I disagree with your comparison to 2012 in regards to shot percentages.

This years target is much larger than last years. The projectiles retain their form better and are more stable during flight. While your initial projections may be close I think you will see a marked improvement in percentages as the season progresses.

Time will tell.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Bill_B

*I* don't think shortening the time would change much. I was only wondering if it had been considered.

The six disk count is further reduced by the number of 5-pt goal shots being attempted by robots. We're wondering what we have to do on an alliance to convince our partners we "deserve" custody of the colored disks for dumping. Maybe they should consider increasing the number of colored disks? IRI?

I wouldn't be too concerned about not getting the colored discs-I don't know about others, but I'd be much more trusting in a robot to score the discs than a HP, especially in early qualification matches.

[FrankJ]

If defense of the GDC. (As if they needed any) Since any hint of an upcoming game will spark all sorts of rumors... Details of the game cannot be discussed with anybody outside of the GDC prior to kick off. (I know there are a few exceptions, but work with me). If the game was more widely vetted flaws on hindsight are obvious would be caught. Unfortunately they do not have that luxury.

I am going to miss the hale of Frisbee at end game though

Or if you think this is bad, be glad you are not a tax accountant.

[Ty Tremblay]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

It seems to me a velocity restriction similar to the the one in 2006 would have been more appropriate.

Limiting velocity would be detrimental to the teams that dedicated their season to designing a full-court shooter.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a velocity that the frisbees can be effectively launched at that is also safe for human impact. That being said, if a robot at competition repeatedly shoots frisbees out of the field in an unsafe manner, I assume the refs will issue a warning followed by a yellow card for additional aggregious infractions.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

Limiting velocity would be detrimental to the teams that dedicated their season to designing a full-court shooter.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a velocity that the frisbees can be effectively launched at that is also safe for human impact. That being said, if a robot at competition repeatedly shoots frisbees out of the field in an unsafe manner, I assume the refs will issue a warning followed by a yellow card for additional aggregious infractions.

My comment was in regards to the human players, not the robots.

[cmrnpizzo14]

I appreciate the GDC making this change as I believe that it will increase the level of play. While human player shots are exciting, most people have seen a hammer throw sometime in their life. Successful climbs are not commonplace and probably would be more entertaining to watch. Some of those HP's throw hard! Disks slamming into those walls can't possibly make lining up a climb easy. I was not behind the driverstation at a week 0 event, but just from being on the sidelines I definitely diverted part of my attention to the flying disks. I don't think I could line up a climb as quickly with the disks slamming into the wall in front of my face.

Also, I really don't think that this detracts from the value of any 'bots that teams might have made. I hope 1671 will let me use theirs as an example (again, thank you for joining us in Galileo last year). Full court shooters seem fairly prevalent. Even the best will not be able to make them all. If I were a team with a full court shooter (that will probably dominate qualifying rounds, I think we can assume that this will be true for the first few weeks at least), the first team that I would want is one with a floor pick up. A second full court shooter probably wouldn't do me any good as I would already be preparing to shoot all of my disks. I would want the "clean up bot" if you will to gather all of my misses and score them so that our alliance is almost guaranteed to score all 45 of the alliances white disks. Also, a floor pickup would help get me the extra AUTO points that would give me the edge over another full court shooting alliance. I believe that a floor acquiring 'bot would probably be the top pick at most regionals, possibly second only to a 30 point climber with a dumper.

I don't believe that any team should feel slighted by this at all. If it comes down to it and you still want to get your finale cycles in, just score the 6 colored disks that your HP throws. Honestly, I see 2 cycles as being ambitious even for the best teams. 6 disks, relative to 8, is not a huge loss. Heck, if you can even score them in the pyramid goal, that gives you an advantage.

I understand why teams feel as if they were cheated by the GDC, but I really think that this will just add to the number of successful climbs and only slightly decrease the number of acquired disks during the endgame but will make floor pickups more valuable during the first 3/4 of the match.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

My comment was in regards to the human players, not the robots.

How exactly were you expecting a human player velocity restriction to be enforced? It was easy on robots in 2006 because you'd ramp a shooter up to full power and that was as fast as it'd shoot. I'm uncertain how you determine the maximum velocity a human can throw a frisbee. What if she's sandbagging during the test? How would you know? How would you enforce a limit on the velocity on the field?

[KrazyCarl92]

While I am disappointed in the implications of this decision for the competitive value of our team's robot, I understand why FIRST made this decision and I can't be upset at them for making a change that they feel is necessary for the safety of volunteers, teams, and spectators.

From a strategic stand point, it's difficult to quantify the impacts. It could be up to 24 points per match less that we can score, but the average will probably be somewhere between 3-9. It is hard to tell because we don't know exactly how those thrown frisbees translate into high goals.

It's easy to say that our strategy would have changed with the new rules from day 1, but I cannot really be sure that it would have. What I mean is that the difference between the rules on day 1 and day 45 has been marginalized for us. With these juxtaposed we see that climbing is more valuable and floor pickup is less valuable than it previously was. On day 3ish we decided there was a trade off based on our resources for really 2 types of robots climbing: and shooting or floor pickup and shooting. We can't say for sure if we would have changed our decision if the rules had been as they are now. In fact, I doubt we would have.

This just means we have even more work to do for continuous improvement of our robot, and it makes scouting, strategy, and alliance selections even more important. This does not change that I am thrilled about the robot we bagged for competition last night, and despite diminishing the competitive advantage of our robot I am still excited to see what we can do to make it even better.

[QuackAttack177]

I was a human player at the Suffeild Scrimmage for team 177, and it was one of, if the best moment of my robotics experience. Over the course of a day I hit a total of 11 shots with my highest score in a single match being eight, (two three pointers and one two pointer) FIRST took all of the fun out of being a human player, while simultaneously ruining many teams overall strategy of relying on the discs of blizzard time. I am disappointed not only of the shortsightedness of FIRST (I mean what did you expect?) but also how poorly they responded to this problem. Instead of finding a rational solution that wouldn't change the overall flow and style of the game, the instead decided to cut out and ignore the problem all together. Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by QuackAttack177

I was a human player at the Suffeild Scrimmage for team 177, and it was one of, if the best moment of my robotics experience. Over the course of a day I hit a total of 11 shots with my highest score in a single match being eight, (two three pointers and one two pointer) FIRST took all of the fun out of being a human player, while simultaneously ruining many teams overall strategy of relying on the discs of blizzard time. I am disappointed not only of the shortsightedness of FIRST (I mean what did you expect?) but also how poorly they responded to this problem. Instead of finding a rational solution that wouldn't change the overall flow and style of the game, the instead decided to cut out and ignore the problem all together. Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

Actually, ignoring it would have been FIRST doing nothing.

[Gabe Salas Jr.]

I do agree with the general consensus of the lack of foresight that the GDC did not anticipate a 'blizzard' during endgame and have incorporated the proper amount of safety features.

Perhaps the GDC had enough faith in the Human Player's ability to be accurate with their shots considering that a disc has a more stable flight path than a ball.

In every sport, there is inherent risks involved with participating. This also extends itself to the referees and anyone else spectating close to the field of action.

Take a look at baseball umpires and hockey referees. In these sports where calls have to be made close to the action, they have to wear protective gear. Even though in these sports, it is one object (baseball, puck) that is used in play there are other factors they need to observe during the game (players interacting illegally with other players, etc.).

Safety has been the cornerstone to rules implemented within sports and especially within FIRST. I understand that negotiating between safety and an exciting game can be difficult.

Based on the new update to G35 it seems they trust six robots either firing discs or climbing a pyramid because the play of action is done in field (acceptable risk). But a bit contradictory that there is more concern over Human Players, perhaps because referees cannot E-stop them (I'm jesting, but I digress). Introducing Human Players to start throwing in discs can be a bit overwhelming but the discs that do matter are ultimately those thrown in field. If the concern was for individuals supporting the event inside the net, then perhaps provide those individuals with proper head gear (helmet with a face guard). If they want to wear extra padding under their clothes that is fine, but the refs attention should be on what is in field, and not distracted by an incoming plastic disc hitting them in the face.

Any referee anticipating not getting hit by a disc needs to know that it will happen and it is an inherent risk with this year's game with or without Human Players creating a 'blizzard'
_______________

Before Week 1 of competition, I propose HQ to implement protective head gear for referees, along with adequate placement of netting around the field and the GDC to retract the most recent update to G35 but know that it would be in vain. Prove me wrong.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

How exactly were you expecting a human player velocity restriction to be enforced? It was easy on robots in 2006 because you'd ramp a shooter up to full power and that was as fast as it'd shoot. I'm uncertain how you determine the maximum velocity a human can throw a Frisbee. What if she's sandbagging during the test? How would you know? How would you enforce a limit on the velocity on the field?

It would not be the first rule that was subjective.

I still feel the the robots are the bigger hazard. This ruling, IMO, changes the game more than it improves safety.

BTW the 2006 velocity restriction was not that easy to enforce during game play.