The Dark Side of the 2013 game

[M.O'Reilly]

I agree with many of the posts above. I also agree with you that defense can seem mean spirited, especially when conducted by powerful, heavy robots. The offense and defense aspect is something I wish there was more of. If you check out Aim High in 2006, there were dedicated periods to offense and defense.

I have always found that the NJ/Philly/NYC area competitions are more for the strong-willed. Sometimes negative attitudes, salty language, etc. sneak their way in more than I've noticed at any other regional. It's unfortunate, but I think inevitable and part of life. Like one of our other mentors said last week, students will learn from the most tense/stressful moments, and there won't always be someone there to give you a high five and tell you you're great. Is this an excuse? No, not really, just putting a positive spin on it.

[Hoover]

These replies are exactly opposite what I expected. Having only started in 2012 I have a different perspective since the game moved to more and not less competitive. Actually quite a refreshing view point, thanks all.

I will tell my story. In the quarter-finals we ended up down a bot for repairs. Our team was pushing on two of their bots at the same time. The pushing match did not subside and I saw no ref reaction. One of their bots began to tip so I told the driver to barrel through. Flip. For this we were yellow carded even though we thought we were valid (perhaps because we enjoyed it too much?).

Oddly they never displayed the "corrected" score so I don't know how much our penalty was but it was a 2 point loss. We actually ended up winning the quarter-final in the end by continued harassing by our bot in the 2nd and the arrival of the 3rd bot for the 3rd game.

Meanwhile my daughter 11 in the stands said "people were saying bad words daddy. They said ####". The conversation went like this.

Husband: <censored>
Wife: Relax its just a robot
Husband: It is NOT just a robot. <more rant>

I think these robots somehow become and extension of their teams. If it is hurt, they feel it. I think of it as "just a machine" because I was there when it was built. Do I need therapy?

In another match, I saw a robot hit another front bumper to front bumper square. It was what would have just bumped most bots but because the 2nd bot was top heavy it went straight back and down. Yellow card and they lost.

I am in agreement with a lot of you that the defense of the game this year has been hobbled. We had a stationary full court shooter on our alliance and so then had to devote one robot to protect it, no shooting from it. Our defense was more or less a pushing match the whole time. Meanwhile they had two excellent mobile shooters to our one mobile shooter. This is why I don't think with a stationary full court shooter on a team can they can win. If we could have eliminated the push-bot we could have assisted in defending our one mobile shooter. Or they could have gotten to the full court shooter if the other way around. Instead no change in the balance the whole match.

Seems kind of lame you have to penalized for what are now considered harsh defensive measures, that without there is not possibility of a win. Because of the penalties and the reaction to them it makes me feel like I've done something sleazy quite frankly. That is why I refer to it as 'The Dark Side'.

But I'll get over it. I've seen in the high scores thread how many fouls are occurring in the high stakes matches. There are those who are not afraid to defend in spite all the friction.

I also enjoyed reading the stories about damaged robots. Thanks for sharing. That could be its own thread. I wonder what kind of damage stories happened more recently and how they compare.

[GaryVoshol]

Just guessing, but you may have received a technical foul for G28: "Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not in the spirit of the FRC and are not allowed."

If you just hit someone and they happen to go over, that's not a strategy. But if you are pushing them and have them partially tipped, and then either continue to push or move back and hit them again, that can look pretty much like a strategy.

[Hoover]

"not in the spirit of the FRC and are not allowed"

That is the part that makes me think they've gone soft. Is the spirit of FRC that we just play an offensive game and show what the robot can do? This is mostly what we did during qualifying matches.

I think you are right about the strategy thing. But doesn't it seem like a strategy could be to put one robot out of commission in the first of a 3 match final event? Or is that a red card? But some teams might say so what.

Another observation is that once point accumulation is so high, teams can afford lots of fouls. So does this mean once a team is an ultra high scorer they lose the spirit of FRC. Just sayin...

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Hoover

"not in the spirit of the FRC and are not allowed"

That is the part that makes me think they've gone soft. Is the spirit of FRC that we just play an offensive game and show what the robot can do? This is mostly what we did during qualifying matches.

I think you are right about the strategy thing. But doesn't it seem like a strategy could be to put one robot out of commission in the first of a 3 match final event? Or is that a red card? But some teams might say so what.

Another observation is that once point accumulation is so high, teams can afford lots of fouls. So does this mean once a team is an ultra high scorer they lose the spirit of FRC. Just sayin...

My interpretation of "not in the spirit of FRC" would be thinking, "hey, team XXXX, its team XXXX so I gotta destroy them!" or "our strategy is just to simply knock every robot over!"

And as someone who was behind the glass (opposite of 4281) in the match referenced above with a robot tipping over, I'm not gonna debate/argue over what the call was, but the confusion over the final score was due to the head referee initially accidentally giving the foul points to the wrong team. After the following match, this was announced and corrected.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Hoover

"not in the spirit of the FRC and are not allowed"

That is the part that makes me think they've gone soft. Is the spirit of FRC that we just play an offensive game and show what the robot can do? This is mostly what we did during qualifying matches.

I think you are right about the strategy thing. But doesn't it seem like a strategy could be to put one robot out of commission in the first of a 3 match final event? Or is that a red card? But some teams might say so what.

"GONE soft"???? That particular rule has been on the books in one form or another since 1994 or so. (Scary thought: Some of the students in the competition might not have been born when the rule was first enacted!)

Guess what, some of the games since then have been extremely rough on robots. 2002, 2003, 2004, 2000 as I recall, 1999 maybe... I saw an arm torn off in 2007; multiple flipped robots due to field elements in 2006 and 2010 and some partner robots in 2007.

I'll address the strategy question first before I go into why defense tends to get penalties. There's an interesting story there.

If you can put one robot out of commission in the first of 3 matches, and you strategize to do so, yes, it's a red card. More than that, you WILL be facing 3 robots in either the next match or the third one, though they might not be the same--and chances are, you will have a yellow card against you as well. You really don't want that.

Anyways, back to the defense. Up until about 2005, all contact was metal on metal (except for a few teams who used bumpers). But in 2005, an event occurred that won't happen again (due to elimination tiebreaks): a 0-0 tie. In eliminations. Due to DQs (this is before red cards). Seems two teams with wedge-shaped robots managed to each tip one opponent in the same match. Both were DQed, taking their alliance with them to the red card. During the offseason, there was strong support for the wedges from the "offense-oriented" teams, as many of them had them primarily for defense against defenders who would otherwise harry them, even in their loading zone (that year, a 30-point penalty nicknamed the "Kiss of Death" for its ability to win--err, lose--matches). Essentially, the argument was "If we don't have protection, we will simply play the game these guys are playing. We will build a box on wheels with no apparent purpose other than to beat on other robots. Then the competition will REALLY stink." (This to counteract defense arguments that "We can't hit these guys without falling over, this competition stinks!"

But, FIRST apparently did not want the wedges to stay as defense, partly due to the double DQ, I think. For 2006, they rolled out a standard bumper design, but made it optional. No wedges were allowed. Ditto for 2007. Bumpers were made mandatory in 2008; from 2006-2010 there were no protected zones (besides a home zone with time in 2007 and "odd-man" offense areas/times in 2006 and 2010, as well as 2010's tower protection).

Somewhere along between 2010 and 2011, someone seems to have decided that offense is good and should be protected more than it was. So, we get the lanes in 2011, the key and alley in 2012, and of course this year's areas, along with various contact restrictions, some of which have always been there.

I think part of the restrictions is that it emphasizes the difficult parts of the game, or the areas where if you don't play smart defense, safety of either the robot or the nearby humans will be compromised. Imagine a robot falling from Level 3... and landing on YOUR robot! (Wait. Don't. I don't want you to be completely frightened.) Or imagine getting hit in the key last year... and shooting straight at the head ref's face at relatively close range. (Or how about the frisbees this year, from the feeder zone? I bet some GDC members figured out how many Ultimate Frisbee players were likely to try to go long...)

[bradleyarg]

Originally Posted by jee7s

I wouldn't call defense "the dark side"...that sounds far too ominous.
...And, yes, I've observed that newer teams have been surprised when good defense shows up. But, if it's clean defense (no contact inside the frame perimeter, no long distance ramming, etc) then it's part of the game...

So, just because it lowers the score, don't think defense is all bad. Actually, it can lead to some more exciting matches when a good defender can shut down a good scorer by exploiting a weakness.

All part of the game.

I agree completely. I'm a 5th year FTC student (and a 2nd Year FRC) and our robot is designed around being an defensive robot. For FTC (and FRC sorta) many teams use a four corner, four motor all direction omni wheel bots, in comparison our team uses a 6 motor strait drive train (with the capabilities of pushing both of our opponents robots at once) and in our first competition this year our servos went haywire and we spent all competition as just a drive train bot. We ended up getting picked by the 4th place team and we won the competition.

Just goes to show that defense is a game changing strategy.

[Hoover]

EricH,

Thanks for that great history of offense vs. defense. This sounds like something political enough it could have split the organization, but I am glad it didn't. There could have been a sort of battle-bots spin off. I think that has been taken care of by the MIT type folks, but it is more exclusive.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Hoover

EricH,

Thanks for that great history of offense vs. defense. This sounds like something political enough it could have split the organization, but I am glad it didn't. There could have been a sort of battle-bots spin off. I think that has been taken care of by the MIT type folks, but it is more exclusive.

On the other hand, some legendary offense and defense teams are VERY good friends.


Actually, there is one game where defense did not exist. We don't like to talk about it... 2001: Diabolical Dynamics. 4v0vclock. No defense, just a "did they Estop before or after their multiplier dropped, and how many points did they get before they did?" Very strategic, if you could stay awake.

[Peyton Yeung]

In 2011 we got a yellow card which ruined our event at championships. The ref called our defense not in the spirit of the game when we hadn't pinned, damaged, nor tipped the opposing robot. We only drove side to side to block them from their rack. He called it not in the spirit of the game and we were forced to resort to offense which was our lesser talent. It really depends where u are and who you get.

[faust1706]

I love that this year's game is physical. Our robot took a dive in the first round of the finals. In Qualification, a robot fell from the 20 point level. Bomb Squad fell from the 30 point climb height, as well as another team whose number I forget. It makes this year much more strategic and allows for defensive bots to have a big factor. Case in point: St Louis. Last year, robot interaction was very limited due to that bump in the middle and the time it took to cross the bridge. Dont forget that this is the first year in many years where game pieces can not be thrown to the middle of the field by the human player. In logomotion, our human player was able to throw the inner tube well past half field. Last year, nearly, if not all, human players could throw the ball to bounce over the bridge, thus getting the ball to the side of the field it needs to be on. I think FIRST did a good job this year on designing a well rounded challenge.

[JohnSchneider]

Those big jerks over at team 16 () got into a pretty rough collision at Hub City that actually split the welds on our frame. Through the bumper. Wasn't really a big deal, covered the bot in tin foil and had it re-welded. We've yet to see any carrer ending injuries.

[Lil' Lavery]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0CDop_IwW8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=37eo0d1PqW4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5nnGGRi-94

[Hoover]

Entertaining. The more things change the more they stay the same.

While putting a robot out for a match might be considered strategic, if they couldn't play the rest of the N-final, as EricH says, that doesn't do any good anyway. So terminal elimination wouldn't be desired. We don't think like that anyway and in fact I was having trouble getting the students to even touch another robot for much of the tournament. The fact that the driver began doing the bulldozer for the quarter-finals was miraculous. In fact he thought the 'incident' to be strategic and wondered why it was a foul.

Referring to rule 2.5.4: Backup Teams, in this years manual, you become the fourth member if you get knocked out. That is why I was perplexed that before we got our replacement wheel back on for the last match of our semi-final, that the official came and told us if we were not back on the field in time we would be 'disqualified', their words. I would have disagreed, but we got our replacement wheel back on with help from another team, so we never got to test this out.

If they are as quick to call tipping a 30 point foul, I am wondering if anyone has ever tried a 'play dead' strategy. Could a robot be built and programmed to tip itself, perhaps using a throttle burst, if a large enough jolt occurred. There would be some finesse involved to make this look real. It seems like if a game was close and they are so quick to call it, it might be a good 30 point play. I mean look how hard people worked to make a 30 point climber, the auto-tip seems a bit easier.

Especially if you also had an up-righting mechanism

[iVanDuzer]

Wait, what?

Originally Posted by Hoover

While putting a robot out for a match might be considered strategic, if they couldn't play the rest of the N-final, as EricH says, that doesn't do any good anyway. ... In fact he thought the 'incident' to be strategic and wondered why it was a foul.

Trying to "put out a robot" for any length is NOT ok and should be penalized. Actually, the fact that your driver thought that tipping was strategic is a direct violation of [G28], which directly calls out "strategies aimed at .. tipping."

That is why I was perplexed that before we got our replacement wheel back on for the last match of our semi-final, that the official came and told us if we were not back on the field in time we would be 'disqualified', their words. I would have disagreed, but we got our replacement wheel back on with help from another team, so we never got to test this out.

You called a time-out, I assume. The rules say that you have to be ON the field by the time the time-out ends. The refs do enforce this: in 2009 it cost 188-610-1305 the Greater Toronto Regional. Besides, even if you DO disagree with the ref, the Head Ref's word is final.

This ruling might have changed though: in Montreal, there was a team in the finals that was off the field after their time-out ended. They were allowed on the field, but had to be disabled due to [G07]. So, even if you HAD been let on the field, you probably wouldn't have been able to move your robot anyways.

If they are as quick to call tipping a 30 point foul, I am wondering if anyone has ever tried a 'play dead' strategy. Could a robot be built and programmed to tip itself, perhaps using a throttle burst, if a large enough jolt occurred. There would be some finesse involved to make this look real. It seems like if a game was close and they are so quick to call it, it might be a good 30 point play. I mean look how hard people worked to make a 30 point climber, the auto-tip seems a bit easier.

Especially if you also had an up-righting mechanism

Again, the manual kind of ruins this idea. [G26] says "ROBOTS may not intentionally fall down or tip over to block the FIELD." So that's one big minus against you. Then you've got the whole [G18-1] thing, which is all about not drawing penalties (like you would be if you made it look like people were tipping you). So, no, nobody has ever thought of building a flipping robot, because to do so would almost certainly mean losing every single match you ever play.

So yeah, literally EVERYTHING that you suggested in this post is against at least one rule in the FRC-Manual. I'd suggest giving it another read or two.