paper: Spanking the Children

[fox46]

I would postulate that back in the days before bumpers gameplay was far more violent. Today we may experience batteries sliding around and wires pulling out during impact but back then a hard hit could completely destroy a robot's frame. I remember one team with a beautifully engineered and constructed robot made of laminated maple. It was a piece of art. One hit by a fast moving machine though and it was reduced to splinters.

I don't agree with the idea that robots have increased in power. Back then you had Bosch drill motors which in themselves were up around the 500W range, CIM @ 300W, FP-0673 @ 290W, combine two or more and you are easily keeping pace with the drivetrain power of today. What has changed however are that FIRST has done away with the impossibly difficult to mount/use drill motors and given us more CIMS. With the availability of products from vendors like AM and VEX, combining three motors in a 2 speed gearbox which was once considered the holy grail of drivetrains is now within everyone's reach.

Furthermore, I distinctly remember when the "kit frame" included 80-20 Bosch extrusion and 2x4x0.125" aluminum box tubing. If anything the kit frames from today are far more flimsy than in the past. This is okay though - the inclusion of bumpers has facilitated this.

I have no problem with the speed and power of today's machines. It's thrilling to see a robot zip from one end of the field to another, deeking their opponents out and pirouetting around them at 18fps. Just don't get in it's way! Don't complain that a robot "hurt" yours when you got in their way and that it's their fault your machine is now broken. The robot who ran into you experienced just as much energy transfer and impact as yours did. Build em strong!

I truly believe the key to mitigating defensive strategies and violence on the field is all in how the game is constructed. Like preventing war between countries, the key to a peaceful civilization is that it has to be unprofitable for parties to fight. The answer here is not through the increased use of penalties. Give every robot a ball to play with and a constructive job to do aside from messing with their opponents and they'll all play nice.

[mathking]

Jason, very nice rant. Joseph I think you hit the nail on the head. So many times I have seen teams not helping their allies get free to shoot. This requires some coordination. After watching a lot of game film, we have come to the conclusion that sometimes the most effective "blocking" is to get the blocking robot to lead the way and get between the defender and the ally with the ball.

This year I have felt what I see as two distinct kinds of frustration over the game. The first is that penalties are too big (and often because the refs are toggling between pad screens too inconsistently called) so that penalties incurred by accident are changing too many matches. I completely understand that frustration. The second is the "We built a really great robot that can score well and this 'box on wheels' just keeps running into us." While I understand that frustration, I think it might well have been intended by the GDC.

Probably more than any other FRC game I have experienced, in Aerial Assist good driving and good strategy trumps a good robot. I really liked the games the last two years, but they were both games in which one really good robot could dominate most alliances. I was describing this year's game to a friend and he said "From what you said it sounds like it is how well you act without the ball that determines whether your alliance wins."

In one of our better matches, we were partnered with 4269. They were acting as the middle robot, picking up from 4306, heading to the white zone and passing to us. When a defender was near us they would give us the ball and then drive the defenders away from the side of the field giving us a clear lane to score. We got three 40 point cycles (after having to spend some time clearing autonomous balls) fairly easily this way. That match made me focus more on thinking about what the robot should be doing when it doesn't have the ball.

[jman4747]

+1 Great paper.

Hard Hits:
This field is very open so both you and whoever you run into are that much more likely to be at your top speed. Personally I'm fine with 6CIM's total being allowed, I feel it gives greater flexibility and increases robot diversity. However if you are concerned with collision speed you would need to limit max fps maybe to 10-12 or so or increase bumper thickness? I really don't know how I feel about that.

Foul Values:
Contact inside the frame perimeter, goal, whatever needs to be conditional. Why can you get a penalty for doing something that doesn't affect game play or safety? Emphasis on dose not affect. The 50pt for pinning may be changed to the current point value of a ball possessed by that robot or 20p if it possesses no ball.

Ball position and does G14 even exist?:
Possession of an opponent's ball rule and the wording of G14 means as long as you can't prove they tried to put the ball in your robot you get the foul no matter how it happened. You could loose coms because your DS crashed and an opposing alliance bot could push the ball into your robot and it would be completely legal so long as they say it was accidental. My test for a fare foul is can you literally do nothing (assuming that doing nothing does not incur a foul by it self like a G25 for example) and get a foul. G14 needs to say that you cannot intentionally or Unintentionally cause another alliance to incur a foul with 20p and 50p for Unintentionally and intentionally respectively. Just see the video in post #46 top of page 4.

Summery:
I think this is a good game with a misguided focus on how and what for foul points are applied and an all too weak G14. Also a lack of any protection for offence bots just makes more defense and interference play which means more broken bots.