Unscheduled Team Update: 3-20-2014

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

The only thing that I could see being called is the collision right after autonomous. That in my mind would be a high speed collision and definitely seems like it could have damaging effects.

It didn't appear terribly high speed to me. It doesn't seem any higher speed than a dozen other hits in that match. My interpretation is that the red robot probably didn't adequately secure its Anderson connector. Is that the blue robots fault?

And there in sort of lies the problem. One persons 'high speed' is anothers reasonable bump (which, incidentally is really effective this year). On top of asking refs to gauge whether damage occurs (a non trivial task!) does anyone expect them to figure out what 'High-Speed' means, and apply that evenly?

I would be happy if FIRST just established some non-subjective criteria for what it considers fair play. A top speed, for instance, would be wonderful. Tell me what 'high speed' means in feet per second and I'll limit the robot to that in code and never have to worry about the penalty (neither will the refs!). Everyone can then design a robot and bumpers around a known impact (150lb robot moving at Xfps) going into the season.

I'm glad I didn't volunteer as a ref this year. Seems like an impossible job.

[sircedric4]

Sorry everyone, I think this new subjective ruling is totally my fault. I had this to say in another thread:

"Our beef is with the harsh and subjective penalties associated with the game Aerial Assist. Being on the field is a high stress environment for anyone much less over-stressed refs and high school students. Mistakes are easily made, and having so many penalties in the game, and making them worth so much is our issue. An inconsequential mistake that happens to be observed at that time can cost a team their game. That is why I agree with this petition that the technical fouls should be lowered, changed, or the safety zone improved to decrease the likelihood of bad feelings about this game."

It is obvious that I treaded on some GDC member's ideal version of the game and to punish us they have added even more subjective arbitrary rules for the refs to try and call.

My bad.

(This was sarcasm and hyperbole by the way. To be serious, I just can't see how adding more things for the ref to try and call can be a good thing. This game is now literally irrelevant to what robot you build, it all falls to luck and to what the refs see now. I don't even know how to react to this new rule. I am thinking we will remove our wheels, that way we know we can't foul.)

[E Dawg]

I am not a huge fan of the update. However, I think I can understand the reasoning behind it. This year's game is all about assisting. With heavy defense being played, it is difficult to assist and therefore show off the technical prowess of teams. It's difficult to show what your robot can do if it is stuck. This update is a quick and dirty solution to this problem.

I'm not saying I like what's going on. But perhaps we need to step back and consider the teams that can't get out of a tight spot and simply want to get a shot off.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

The only thing that I could see being called is the collision right after autonomous. That in my mind would be a high speed collision and definitely seems like it could have damaging effects.

If that type of collision is illegal under the new rules, then all effective defense is dead. That was utterly mild - if that's not allowed, then if a flimsy robot is moving around, everyone else now has an obligation to run away from it.

[Woolly]

Originally Posted by OZ_341

I am just visualizing some critical moment in the eliminations when a robot loses a roller and the opposing alliance gets a tech foul for what amounts to an incidental collision and a loose part. If the new rules are taken to the letter, then this scenario is entirely possible.

It probably would have happened at Greater Kansas City last weekend if this rule would have been in effect during Finals Match 3.

[geomapguy]

Anytime we played D at Arkansas, we tried to play passive D in which we'd essentially draw a pinning action from the robot we were defending.. It was very effective yet not detrimental to our robot or the opposing robot. I think this update will help lower the "battlebot-esque" defense

[Swan217]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

If that type of collision is illegal under the new rules, then all effective defense is dead. That was utterly mild - if that's not allowed, then if a flimsy robot is moving around, everyone else now has an obligation to run away from it.

These sort of statements make me wonder if people on Chief Delphi have lost their collective minds.

We're talking about RAMMING, people. Taking your robot from across the field & smashing it against a prone robot. This should NEVER be a valid strategy in FIRST. Come on now, we're all better than that.

You're saying you can't play defense without ramming. That is LITERALLY like saying you can't play defense in hockey without leaving your feet, or boarding. Ramming with bumpers is like helmet-to-helmet contact in football - Yes, the helmets protect your head from damage, but only so much. This is like saying you can't play defense in soccer without bodychecking your opponents. It's completely un-gracious & un-professional.

You're saying that engineers, in the smartest sport in the world, can't figure out how to play defense without bashing another robot's skull in? I have been in FIRST for 15 years, and I KNOW there are better defensive strategies than you give us credit for. I think my respect for Chief Delphi posters has gone down quite a few notches from not just this but MANY posts in this thread.

[E Dawg]

Originally Posted by Swan217

These sort of statements make me wonder if people on Chief Delphi have lost their collective minds.

We're talking about RAMMING, people. Taking your robot from across the field & smashing it against a prone robot. This should NEVER be a valid strategy in FIRST. Come on now, we're all better than that.

You're saying you can't play defense without ramming. That is LITERALLY like saying you can't play defense in hockey without leaving your feet, or boarding. Ramming with bumpers is like helmet-to-helmet contact in football - Yes, the helmets protect your head from damage, but only so much. This is like saying you can't play defense in soccer without bodychecking your opponents. It's completely un-gracious & un-professional.

You're saying that engineers, in the smartest sport in the world, can't figure out how to play defense without bashing another robot's skull in? I have been in FIRST for 15 years, and I KNOW there are better defensive strategies than you give us credit for. I think my respect for Chief Delphi posters has gone down quite a few notches from not just this but MANY posts in this thread.

I think many people aren't worried so much about not being able to ram as about what constitutes ramming in the the first place. Preferably ramming falls under the category you think it does (all the way across the field), but does moving 1/8 of the field to intercept an opposing bot and colliding with it cause me a foul? That's where the issue comes in.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Swan217

These sort of statements make me wonder if people on Chief Delphi have lost their collective minds.

We're talking about RAMMING, people. Taking your robot from across the field & smashing it against a prone robot. This should NEVER be a valid strategy in FIRST. Come on now, we're all better than that.

You're saying you can't play defense without ramming. That is LITERALLY like saying you can't play defense in hockey without leaving your feet, or boarding. Ramming with bumpers is like helmet-to-helmet contact in football - Yes, the helmets protect your head from damage, but only so much. This is like saying you can't play defense in soccer without bodychecking your opponents. It's completely un-gracious & un-professional.

You're saying that engineers, in the smartest sport in the world, can't figure out how to play defense without bashing another robot's skull in? I have been in FIRST for 15 years, and I KNOW there are better defensive strategies than you give us credit for. I think my respect for Chief Delphi posters has gone down quite a few notches from not just this but MANY posts in this thread.

This sort of statement makes me wonder if we're watching the same video.

We saw two robots, moving at a brisk pace, hit each other squarely on the bumpers. It was not particularly violent, it was clear neither had the aim of damaging the other, and it was utterly unavoidable unless one robot decided to cripple their own play by making an effort to not contact the other.

How can this possibly be made to penalize either party without completely breaking all strategies that involve robot-to-robot contact? Moreover, how would it be clear which robot to penalize? "Which one broke after the hit" is a terrible deciding factor for a number of very obvious reasons.

If that hit in that video is now illegal, then I do not know of a single defensive strategy that involves moving quickly around the field (i.e. all of them, save perhaps a goalie-bot) that would not be at grave risk of incurring fouls and losing the match. What, do you think you can get in position to set a pick or get between a robot and their ball without risking hitting them while moving? Are we supposed to cut our drive speed down in half when we're near other robots? How is this a benefit to the game? How is it fair to the teams that built their robots around powerful drives which they're now not allowed to use?

If a shooting robot has a beefy tank-drive, the only way to interrupt their shot is to hit them rather hard on the bumpers. Everyone who did more than a cursory analysis of the game saw this coming and built their robot accordingly. If other people didn't, tough luck - I don't see anything ungracious or unprofessional about hard defense, so long as there's no intent to damage or disable the other robot. Aggressive driving is good driving - it makes for more impressive games, more interesting strategies, and a much better spectator sport.

[Tungrus]

So what's next for the overloaded refs? Get a radar gun to check speed? If a robot cannot handle defense it shouldn't be on the field! Six robots running around trying to achieve their goal, crashes are bound to happen!

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Swan217

You're saying you can't play defense without ramming. That is LITERALLY like saying you can't play defense in hockey without leaving your feet, or boarding. Ramming with bumpers is like helmet-to-helmet contact in football - Yes, the helmets protect your head from damage, but only so much. This is like saying you can't play defense in soccer without bodychecking your opponents. It's completely un-gracious & un-professional.

The concern is that we don't have a precise understanding of what "inhibition", "high-speed", "aggressive", and "ramming" mean in an Aerial Assist context.

This isn't just trying to be pedantic. Many people have already witnessed completely contradictory and inconsistent rulings when it comes to physical contact this year. You have teams intentionally flipping other teams without penalty at one regional, and then you have teams getting called for Tech Fouls because an opponent's intake fell off when they hit the field barrier at another. (Even before this update).

And then you have all of the missed assists because refs are too busy entering scores, watching human players, and trying to get the defensive calls right.

Now you have all of the new gray areas being thrown into the mix. Yes, there are cases where "high-speed aggressive ramming" is clear as day. But there are plenty of other big collisions that occur naturally between teams acting in good faith, and you have normal defensive contact that results in damaged robots due to bad luck or poor construction. How will these be called?

The NHL has had rules against boarding for a long time, and there are still controversial calls and tweaks to the rule from time to time (there was a major one in 2011). But tens of thousands of NHL games called by a fairly small group of professional referees have established precedent for how the foul is generally called. We are halfway through the FRC season and have a much larger pool of volunteer referees...

[atucker4072]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

So what's next for the overloaded refs? Get a radar gun to check speed? If a robot cannot handle defense it shouldn't be on the field! Six robots running around trying to achieve their goal, crashes are bound to happen!

"Strategies aimed at" if teams are trying to get a ball they are trying to get the ball. If they are playing defense and ram into someone that is different.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

"Strategies aimed at" if teams are trying to get a ball they are trying to get the ball. If they are playing defense and ram into someone that is different.

"Strategies aimed at" was already in the rule. The rule change added "or gameplay resulting in."

[E Dawg]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

If a robot cannot handle defense it shouldn't be on the field!!

Some teams aren't capable of creating a bot that can handle hits. Are you saying they shouldn't be allowed to participate?

It seems to me the point of this update is to solve this problem. Many teams aren't capable of making a sturdy bot (as already discussed). I've never had one of my robots be totaled, but I can only imagine how heartbreaking that would be. 6 weeks destroyed by a single hit. With the carnage of this year's game, it seems to me that the GDC is trying to protect weak bots, not shut down the strong ones!

Now of course it would be great if every single robot was an invincible tank, but that isn't the case. From the general attitude in this thread it seems that most of the people in FRC have pretty robust robots, but some teams just don't.

I don't like the update, because it negates a lot of the abilities our robot has. And yet... I kind of agree with it, because I've seen way too much carnage in the past few weeks and it needs to stop.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by E Dawg

It seems to me the point of this update is to solve this problem. Many teams aren't capable of making a sturdy bot (as already discussed).

This isn't true. The kitbot this year, if properly assembled (there are instructions), is quite sturdy. It can be trivially made even more sturdy with the addition of a few extra stiffeners (say, a minimum of 30 minutes of work and a $20 investment in some wood).

I've had robots I've spent 6 weeks on fail miserably. I learned from the experience. It was clear this was going to be a rough game; you cannot make it a not-rough game without choking it with penalties and forcing drivers to actively avoid contact, which is a terrible idea.

I will tell you that as a drive coach, it is very possible that this rule will be enforced in a way which will force me to advise our drivers to sit still and try not to touch anyone when they don't have the ball, or else do something completely benign and nearly useless like camping in front of the low goal. It is impossible to play active defense with a strong drive without having the risk of hitting another robot with a considerable amount of force. That is the nature of FRC; these are 150lb machines with north of 2 hp in drive power. If you did not build your machine to be able to withstand contact from another such machine, how is that any different than failing to build a shooter that shoots the ball, or a drive that drives? Perhaps we ought to remove the scoring, because it's unfair to robots that are unable to do it?

Of course, if a team shows up with a non-functional robot, I will do everything in my power to help them get it to a functional state and put it on the field. That is the spirit of gracious professionalism, and the competition demands it. Gracious professionalism should not, however, demand that everyone instead work around the fact that their robot is non-functional. For example, if a team's battery mount is haphazard, the onus on other teams is to help them improve it, not to go out of their way to avoid hitting them in matches because it might fall off.