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

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

No, we would only complain if FIRST choice ran out of puppies

Hmmm, maybe that was the real reason that they changed this rule.

I also Game Announce and was considering referring to Frisbees leaving the field as souvenirs.

Have you tried to order Frisbees from AndyMark lately?

[BHS_STopping]

One idea might be to impose a penalty if a disc thrown by a human player leaves the field. It might encourage more care by the human players, and still give teams an opportunity to throw discs onto the field (not necessarily into the goals) in order to feed their robots.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Preface: I spent a large portion of the build season out of the country, so this is the least involved I have been in FRC in quite a few years.


One of the things that people here on Chief Delphi always ask for, is that FIRST should be more open and transparent with their decisions. And in regards to this, I would like to commend FIRST for this Team Update.

As outlined in the blog post, they did not anticipate the blizzard of discs thrown in the last thirty seconds; and as soon as they became aware of such occurring at Week 0 scrimmages, they quickly moved to improve the safety for everyone at an event and released a team update three days later. Their blog post very clearly laid out what they viewed as a problem and their course of actions to rectify it, and provided about as much transparency as is possible in a situation such as this.

While such a fast turnaround correction is to be commended, the timing of the update (hours before bag-n-tag deadline) likely contributed to the tsunami of pent-up, build-season stress and angst that was vented in this thread*.

Once everyone takes a few days to recuperate and regain lost sleep and look at this change from a big picture standpoint, I believe they will see that this does not drastically alter any portion of the game, and nor does it make any teams robots invalidated. IMHO, this game is probably the best game since 2004 to have all kinds of strategic checks-and-balances, which makes me very excited for the competition season.


* At this point in the season, I am sure that any change to the manual would cause outrage in the FRC community. They could release an update saying they were going to give every team free puppies and kittens, and many teams would vehemently complain this change was too late to budget dry kibbles into their budget.

The main problem I and many others have with this is that this problem could have (should have!) been anticipated in the first place - probably the majority of the students that took a little time to think about the game realized that the last 30 seconds were going to be a blizzard of disks, and I really have no idea why the GDC never realized the same thing. And whether or not it "drastically" changes the game, it does make a substantial change to the rules too late for most teams to do anything about it, and it does affect some teams significantly more than others, which is the real problem.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by BHS_STopping

One idea might be to impose a penalty if a disc thrown by a human player leaves the field. It might encourage more care by the human players, and still give teams an opportunity to throw discs onto the field (not necessarily into the goals) in order to feed their robots.

IMHO, the referees are already overtaxed in this game.

Just wait for that first 20 point technical and 30 points climb penalty as you leave your loading zone and hit a robot touching its pyramid.

[stjonl]

Originally Posted by bduddy

The main problem I and many others have with this is that this problem could have (should have!) been anticipated in the first place - probably the majority of the students that took a little time to think about the game realized that the last 30 seconds were going to be a blizzard of disks, and I really have no idea why the GDC never realized the same thing. And whether or not it "drastically" changes the game, it does make a substantial change to the rules too late for most teams to do anything about it, and it does affect some teams significantly more than others, which is the real problem.

Rule change on the last build day can happen, and did this year. I fully support and understand the reason the GDC did this.
Safety does come first. This rule change is still a MAJOR shift in the game and the stragerty that teams made decissions about during the entire build season.
There should be another game change to re-balance the stragtery of this rule change, weather it be a reduction in climbing points (10, 20, 25),
changing 45 white disk to 40 with the extra ten discs starting on the floor, or some other means or a combination of these or other ideas.
A pently for errand disks will be nearly impossible for the refs to track as they will be wondering what HP or robot made that shot.
Another game change is needed so this rule change that has happen will have minimum impact for all of this years teams.

[FrankJ]

A couple of thoughts from this thread. (no 3)

The issue seems to be the barrage of Frisbee coming from HPs not from overpowered robot shooters.

How many complaints would there be if you added that the robots couldn't shoot Frisbees?

They change the rules again to make it "more fair". Another 10 pages of complaints of how they ruined the game for some team.

I think I am suffering from post lock up day withdrawals. Wait, we have a practice bot to build. Never mind.

[ToddF]

I might as well weigh in...

I don't have a problem with a rule change for the sake of safety. I'm not even all that bothered that the GDC didn't anticipate the problem.

My problem is that their solution needlessly changed the strategic analysis of the game. I came into this thread late, but reading through the posts, it seems that most people don't disagree that a rule change was needed. They are just outraged at the unfairness of the actual change. It didn't need to be this way.

With just a little thought, a rule change could have been made which would have satisfied nearly everyone, because it would have left the strategy of the game intact (nearly). The best ones I've seen suggested are to either start with more disks on the floor, or to have referees toss out a handful of them at each side of the field (or the centerline) with 30 seconds left in the match.

The idea I like best would be:
"everybody wins"
-increase the number of disks on the centerline at the start from 2 to 8
-drop eight more on the centerline (four on each side) with 30 seconds left.
-ban all throwing of disks (not just white ones). If hard thrown disks are a safety hazard, it doesn't what color they are. This restores the stragic balance by making everyone happy, climber/dumpers and floor pickup robots.

"everybody looses"
As an alternative, only allow colored disks to count as scored if they are shot into the pyramid goals, not dumped. That would restore the strategic balance between floor pickup and climber/dumpers. Teams who just climb without dumping and those who only load from the feeder stations are unaffected, and floor pick-up'ers and dumpers both loose scoring potential which is roughly equal.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by ToddF

As an alternative, only allow colored disks to count as scored if they are shot into the pyramid goals, not dumped. That would restore the strategic balance between floor pickup and climber/dumpers. Teams who just climb without dumping and those who only load from the feeder stations are unaffected, and floor pick-up'ers and dumpers both loose scoring potential which is roughly equal.

I think that would be even a more absurd change than what was done...designing with the sole intention of climbing and dumping in the top(if that is what you are saying should be made illegal) is VERY different than floor loaders having less disks to pick up off the ground...taking that away from teams that designed SOLELY to climb and dump essentially devalues those robots EXTREMELY. Committing to designing a robot that SOLELY climbs and dumps is a much bigger commitment than designing one that picks up off the ground

[robochick1319]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

I think that would be even a more absurd change than what was done...designing with the sole intention of climbing and dumping in the top(if that is what you are saying should be made illegal) is VERY different than floor loaders having less disks to pick up off the ground...taking that away from teams that designed SOLELY to climb and dump essentially devalues those robots EXTREMELY. Committing to designing a robot that SOLELY climbs and dumps is a much bigger commitment than designing one that picks up off the ground

I couldn't agree more. People are upset about FIRST changing the rules at the last minute and having it affect their robots and strategy. This is awful, I agree. But why turn around and do the same to someone else?

Where's the GP in that?

I liked the idea of adding more discs on the field in the beginning though. That would certainly help a bit.

[~Cory~]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

They change the rules again to make it "more fair". Another 10 pages of complaints of how they ruined the game for some team.

The problem is teams develop their strategies around weighted value of each objective/action.

Game designers have to deal with this problem a lot. They listen to their player communities to see what kind of actions are over powered or under powered and make corresponding changes to keep the intent of the game. The GCD has changed a vital action and the intent of the game has changed (Hanging is more important than the Frisbees in the end game). Just like the game industry, the other corresponding actions should be nerfed or buffed.

If you are interested in game mechanics, take a look at this wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_(game_design)

Note: the GDC stands for Game Design Committee. I think it would be appropriate for them to at least know some of the theory behind game design and act upon it.

IMHO, the Frisbee doesn't decide how dangerous it is based on its color or if a robot or human threw it. A penalty should be assessed for errant shots.

Food for thought: Baseball is an inherently dangerous activity to watch and yet the games hasn't changed. Robots hurtling frisbees and climbing is inherently dangerous too!

[robochick1319]

Originally Posted by ~Cory~

The problem is teams develop their strategies around weighted value of each objective/action.

Game designers have to deal with this problem a lot. They listen to their player communities to see what kind of actions are over powered or under powered and make corresponding changes to keep the intent of the game. The GCD has changed a vital action and the intent of the game has changed (Hanging is more important than the Frisbees in the end game). Just like the game industry, the other corresponding actions should be nerfed or buffed.

If you are interested in game mechanics, take a look at this wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_(game_design)

Note: the GDC stands for Game Design Committee. I think it would be appropriate for them to at least know some of the theory behind game design and act upon it.

IMHO, the Frisbee doesn't decide how dangerous it is based on its color or if a robot or human threw it. A penalty should be assessed for errant shots.

Food for thought: Baseball is an inherently dangerous activity to watch and yet the games hasn't changed. Robots hurtling frisbees and climbing is inherently dangerous too!

I like most of what you said but frankly sports have changed due to safety concerns and baseball is no exception. Example, google "Babe Ruth" and try to find a picture of him with a helmet on like today's players use.

The GDC made the right move, just 6 weeks too late.

[Mr B]

This is disappointing. It isn’t so much about the game as it is the inspiration. We are here to show students just how awesome it is to be a scientist or an engineer, and encourage them to pursue it as a career. A critical part of the process is clearly identifying the problem (pink spends the entire kick-off day analyzing the game), and then finding the best solution for that specific problem. Yes it is fun to win, but it doesn’t compare to the rush that you feel when you see the problem conquered – and know that it was your brain that helped conquer it. That feedback is wonderfully motivating, and makes it easy to wake up for work in the morning. This changes the problem and it kind of takes away some of the payoff.

Still, I understand that we have to be reasonably safe, and I’ll bet the GDC dislikes the change as much as we do. And in the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of those “FIRST world problem” memes . We will just man-up and do the best we can. Who knows, maybe we will rise to the occasion and play even better.

[pfreivald]

To some extent, FIRST is simulated life. In life, sometimes the rules change, even when you don't want them to and were told they wouldn't.

Adapt, survive, get over it. I think they made a good call, here, and can't be too judgmental about their not foreseeing the problem.

[TheMadCADer]

Originally Posted by Mr B

This is disappointing. It isn’t so much about the game as it is the inspiration. We are here to show students just how awesome it is to be a scientist or an engineer, and encourage them to pursue it as a career. A critical part of the process is clearly identifying the problem (pink spends the entire kick-off day analyzing the game), and then finding the best solution for that specific problem. Yes it is fun to win, but it doesn’t compare to the rush that you feel when you see the problem conquered – and know that it was your brain that helped conquer it. That feedback is wonderfully motivating, and makes it easy to wake up for work in the morning. This changes the problem and it kind of takes away some of the payoff.

Still, I understand that we have to be reasonably safe, and I’ll bet the GDC dislikes the change as much as we do. And in the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of those “FIRST world problem” memes . We will just man-up and do the best we can. Who knows, maybe we will rise to the occasion and play even better.

I know exactly what you mean about how great it feels to solve a tough problem, that's why I'm addicted to this junk. However, when you teach about engineering it's good to also teach about what engineers have to deal with on a regular basis, including how fickle most customers can be. If you're working on a project and your project manager hasn't given you a major design change in the past couple weeks, something is up and you should be on your toes. This counts double towards the end of a project, if you give a customer time to think it over, they'll change their mind or something will "come up" and you have to work it out. Fast.

In this case, one could consider FIRST to be your customer, and they tell you what they want, and you give them exactly that and not something else. You meet the requirements or you lose the "contract" (and probably your job).

Maybe, for an example, a hypothetical deepwater drilling rig in the gulf explodes and causes a massive, highly publicized oil spill. New safety standards incoming, do all of your products hold up to this new scrutiny? Maybe you can't drill where you wanted to anymore, now what? This is the same thing, simply on a less... explosive... scale.

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by QuackAttack177

Great life lesson FIRST, if you don't want to deal with a problem just ignore it and everything will be better.

I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree. The addressed the problem and fixed it. Yes it might not be a solution that worked for everyone, but Safety is a number one concern above everything we do in FRC. And they addressed the issue. FIRST did what they had to do. They're setting a good example.

I know this is upsetting but if you look at all the logistics FIRST has to deal with, this is the clear only choice they had.