Aerial Assist and Ill Will

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Bill_B

This is the main reason I suggested that teams aspiring to win tournaments need to start now to raise the level of competition at their upcoming tournaments. Teams that have lower estimates of their abilities need to seek help, AKA offer the opportunity for other teams to help.

Dude, at some point teams just need to step it up themselves. You see "top tier" teams building the robots they do at the levels they do because they are able to put their heart and souls into them. If you see them having to gout out to 2, 3, 4, etc.. teams to help them actually get a half competitive robot, then you will drop the total competitiveness of everyone.

[Animal Control]

if any one has a idea on the scouting can you please share it because I am completely lost in this arena.

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by dodar

Dude, at some point teams just need to step it up themselves. You see "top tier" teams building the robots they do at the levels they do because they are able to put their heart and souls into them. If you see them having to gout out to 2, 3, 4, etc.. teams to help them actually get a half competitive robot, then you will drop the total competitiveness of everyone.

The problem there is that some teams are simply incapable of building a half-competitive robot without help. Our team consists of fifteen people, two hand drills, two bladeless hacksaws, a ratchet set, a cutoff saw, and a virtually nonexistent budget. I challenge any "competitive" team to try to build even their most simple mechanism with those tools, and 80-90% of the students building it having never picked up a screwdriver in their lives, and then tell us that those teams are capable of lifting themselves up without outside intervention. Without help from another team, it's not going to happen in many cases.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Whippet

The problem there is that some teams are simply incapable of building a half-competitive robot without help. Our team consists of fifteen people, two hand drills, two bladeless hacksaws, a ratchet set, a cutoff saw, and a virtually nonexistent budget. I challenge any "competitive" team to try to build even their most simple mechanism with those tools, and 80-90% of the students building it having never picked up a screwdriver in their lives, and then tell us that those teams are capable of lifting themselves up without outside intervention. Without help from another team, it's not going to happen in many cases.

Not with that attitude. Other teams help other teams(more unfortunate than themselves or not) all the time. But teams that build amazing machines cant send half a build team to help a less fortunate team for an entire build season to make sure they can move and gather a ball for a regional/competition.

And yes, I've seen teams with the minimalist of tools and building in garages build elimination caliber robots.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Whippet

The problem there is that some teams are simply incapable of building a half-competitive robot without help. Our team consists of fifteen people, two hand drills, two bladeless hacksaws, a ratchet set, a cutoff saw, and a virtually nonexistent budget. I challenge any "competitive" team to try to build even their most simple mechanism with those tools, and 80-90% of the students building it having never picked up a screwdriver in their lives, and then tell us that those teams are capable of lifting themselves up without outside intervention. Without help from another team, it's not going to happen in many cases.

We built out of a mentor's garage for a few years till 2012.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

We built out of a mentor's garage for a few years till 2012.

We still build out of a mentor's garage

[Chi Meson]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

For instance, lets take a suboptimal team's perspective. We have spent minimum $9000 to compete in this regional. We have spent the same six weeks of late nights, hard work and stress as any other team out there and here comes a team that tells us to play defense only. Sure my mechanism is slow and janky but it does allow us to score once a round. My student's parents are out in the crowd and I want to show off what I have been putting the late nights working on off. To be able to win I cant do that. 50% of the teams at the regional are in this situation. In the past there were other game pieces to play, now there aren't.

You make a good point and I can understand your position, but I would encourage all teams that would be in this situation to realize that the point of the game is not just to shoot. This game is about passing between robots. If a team spent 6 weeks to make a sub par shooting device, then they have not spent the build season wisely.

A pass/receive mechanism is much simpler, and ultimately worth more points. Any robot that spends their build season focused on a 50% successful catching mechanism should see eliminations, repeatedly.

I would venture to say that all strong teams will be looking to maximize the the capabilities of all their alliance partners.

Maybe I'm just too optimistic

[Canon reeves]

One thing that indefinitely plagues our team, and many others, is ambition. While not inherently bad in and off itself, to much can cap logistics and can lead to a team trying to do it all, especially the lower class teams, like my own. many people fail to see the big picture in first competitions, I have been a voice of reason within my team so that when my team says lets shoot and feed well when we have no experience except for one very poor year that ended up being simply a robot that could drive. I believe while yes teams will try to do it all, and many fail, soon they will realize strategic advantages. If you have three box on wheel robots against three high end teams, they can still make a difference, no they won't win, but there is only one ball? I think as a regional progresses the maturity of the newer teams will too, teams will soon learn that they can't win if they don't work together, and the teams that believe they have something to prove and don't care of their alliances agendas, they will fall behind and eventually learn. So while in the beginning there will be some negative things happen, over all I believe by the end of the season the people of FIRST will have a new attitude towards working together, one for the better. Maybe I'm wrong, but thats just how I see it.

[rsegrest]

In describing this game to a fellow teacher who has followed FIRST and our games for the past 5 years his first comment was, 'Hmm, finally getting back to gracious professionalism and teamwork are they?'

This game is all about team work between alliance partners. I agree with BedHed and the other posters regarding this game being all about strategy. We are one of those 'mid-level' teams who usually make it into the top 12 - 15 at our regional and into quals but never seem to make it to finals. We know that we are our own limitator in terms of design, ideas, etc. We fully recognize the importance of strategy in all our games both on the field and off and it is because of that willingness to do what is necessary for the alliance that we have both hurt ourselves and helped ourselves over the years (hurt because we forfeited ranking points to play a particular role for an alliance strategy and helped because teams knew that we would do whatever was best for a strategy regardless of what we 'wanted to show off').

I think that is what the GDC is really shooting for this year without calling it co-opertition. This game is all about working together to complete a goal and serves to (hopefully) teach our rookies as well as remind some of our veterans how to effectively strategize with other teams.

As far as 'ill will', let me state that we are not perfect, either my team or myself, but after 7 years of FIRST I believe that the game is the game and how you handle your emotions about match outcomes is an indicator not of how much you care about FIRST and your robot but instead an indicator of your emotional maturity and ability to see yourself and your robot rationally and realistically. And as far as this game goes...alliance strategy has never been more important.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

Make sure your drivetrain is nails and that your drivers know how to drive it. Defense will be big this year; and like I said, even boxes on wheels can help an alliance gain mucho points just by being able to push a ball in a direction--and they can score it in the lower goal.

That way, if your upper mechanical systems are all utter, catastrophic failures, you can still be a solid addition to an alliance.

(This advice goes for every year of FIRST I've ever seen, by the way. Drivetrain first; then everything else.)

tl;dr

Actually, it is Drivetrain First, Driver Practice Second, then everything else.

A drive team should be able to do the routine maneuvering routinely, and drive that robot wherever they need to with almost trivial ease. It needs to be second-nature. Then they can focus on accomplishing the task that is the reason for the driving, not the driving itself.


.

[mitchklong]

I dont worry about motion-only bots, or highly capable bots. I am most concerned with pairings that involve a mediocre throwing bot that is in love with their engineering. If they have invest sweat equity in the a throwing solution that is less than 50% accurate, how do we convince them that we can score more points going for the low goal?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by mitchklong

I am most concerned with pairings that involve a mediocre throwing bot that is in love with their engineering. If they have invest sweat equity in the a throwing solution that is less than 50% accurate, how do we convince them that we can score more points going for the low goal?

You put them on truss launcher duty. You don't have to be accurate to get those points. Win-win--as long as someone can corral the ball after it goes over!

[Kevin Ray]

In keeping with the original poster's theme I agree very strongly with BedHed and rsegrest. Although this game is about the abilities of the individual robots, I'd bet a paycheck that a red alliance of average/poor bots could and will beat a blue alliance of good/very good bots this year specifically because of strategy. To be successful that strategy session necessarily needs to take place prior to the match and the teams need to adhere to it.
Yes, elite bots will love to strut their stuff (as would most team, including ours), but they can be defeated this year by a minimum of defense by one or two opponents. This would force the single playing piece (ball) to be tied up. The assist component of the scoring forces you to utilize allies.
I actually think that this year's game is "the great equalizer". Elite teams can shine--and they will, but rookie and poorly supported teams can do quite well with the plethora of info. out there (here) with even the simplest of tools. In fact, just making a bot that can take-in and hand-off a ball is a very valuable asset--especially if it does it quickly. They would be a definite 3rd choice in the elimination rounds.
Finally, if a very weak ball handler has a decent drive system and can tie up the opponents and prevent them from scoring, each point they prevent is just as valuable as the points his allies do score! In fact, they might be even more valuable. If he prevents 60 points in the time that his allies score only 10, his alliance is +10 for that given time period.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

In keeping with the original poster's theme I agree very strongly with BedHed and rsegrest. Although this game is about the abilities of the individual robots, I'd bet a paycheck that a red alliance of average/poor bots could and will beat a blue alliance of good/very good bots this year specifically because of strategy. To be successful that strategy session necessarily needs to take place prior to the match and the teams need to adhere to it.
Yes, elite bots will love to strut their stuff (as would most team, including ours), but they can be defeated this year by a minimum of defense by one or two opponents. This would force the single playing piece (ball) to be tied up. The assist component of the scoring forces you to utilize allies.
I actually think that this year's game is "the great equalizer". Elite teams can shine--and they will, but rookie and poorly supported teams can do quite well with the plethora of info. out there (here) with even the simplest of tools. In fact, just making a bot that can take-in and hand-off a ball is a very valuable asset--especially if it does it quickly. They would be a definite 3rd choice in the elimination rounds.
Finally, if a very weak ball handler has a decent drive system and can tie up the opponents and prevent them from scoring, each point they prevent is just as valuable as the points his allies do score! In fact, they might be even more valuable. If he prevents 60 points in the time that his allies score only 10, his alliance is +10 for that given time period.

That can be said for any game that FIRST has had. Also, his team would be +70 for that cycle period.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Chi Meson

If, on the other hand, the above Bot 1 thinks it deserves to keep the ball, and sloshes it around for 90 seconds without doing anything, that team is rejecting the spirit and written intent of the game. Well before that point, a strong-bot would and should intercept the ball and score it. If that team can't do so, then it is not as strong as they think they might be.

When a robot was chasing the same ball for half a match in 2012 it wasn't because it was planned that way. The driver just couldn't get the intake to work quite right, and always thought that if he just tried for a couple more seconds he would get it.

Similarly, I expect that this year there will be teams failing to pick up the ball for extended periods of time, and not because the drivers want to do poorly. Sure, you could go steal the ball from your partner, but don't expect them to like it. If they didn't think that they were going to get the ball they wouldn't still be trying to pick it up.