Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke

[mathking]

I have been hesitant to jump into this fray on any of the many threads, but here goes. The difference I try to keep in mind is the same one I keep in mind in coaching other sports. I am a competitive person by nature, and I think it is healthy to try to win. Whether I am coaching robotics, cross country, track, soccer or basketball I try to prepare my team to do their best and to devise strategies to win. But winning should not be THE goal. Not if you are actually trying to change the culture.

Many people will talk about all of the great benefits of competitive endeavors like this. They will talk about teaching the virtues of hard work, of overcoming challenges, learning to deal with frustration and how to deal with failure. But if you want kids to actually get those benefits you have to actually work to make sure they do. Because way too often what they see is adults giving lip service to all of those things but modeling winning being the measure of success. I see it this all the time in coaching other sports. I see it less frequently, but still see it, when I coach FRC.

I have never gone to a FIRST Robotics competitions and not had fun. Even years when our robot has not been good and we have not played well. This game is FAR from my least favorite, but I still had a ton of fun even with my least favorite game.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by mathking

Many people will talk about all of the great benefits of competitive endeavors like this. They will talk about teaching the virtues of hard work, of overcoming challenges, learning to deal with frustration and how to deal with failure. But if you want kids to actually get those benefits you have to actually work to make sure they do.

It's one thing to get them to understand these concepts when the challenges are borne out of a relatively pure competition experience, when the mistakes and failure are theirs to own and to live up to, to learn from. When excessive challenges are thrown in their path that are out of their control, when failure and struggle is made more likely by a flawed COMPETITION SYSTEM that should be designed such that it works so well it is invisible but instead randomly and frequently penalizes teams for no just reason, that is something I don't feel students should have to cope with at an event.

It is natural to expect some level of "built-in" unfairness at a competition, as no system is perfect, but NOTHING like the sustained assault of blar that has been levied against teams this season. It is natural for teams to expect and require corrective action from the governing body to restore the competitive system to some semblance of sanity.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

It's one thing to get them to understand these concepts when the challenges are borne out of a relatively pure competition experience, when the mistakes and failure are theirs to own and to live up to, to learn form. When excessive challenges are thrown in their path that are out of their control, when failure and struggle is made more likely by a flawed COMPETITION SYSTEM that should be designed such that it works so well it is invisible but instead randomly and frequently penalizes teams for no just reason, that is something I don't feel students should have to cope with at an event.

It is natural to expect some level of "built-in" unfairness at a competition, as no system is perfect, but NOTHING like the sustained assault of blar that has been levied against teams this season. It is natural for teams to expect and require corrective action from the governing body to restore the competitive system to some semblance of sanity.

^^^^^
This

I have seen refs this year that I know are some of the best in the biz and whom I have nothing but respect for struggle with this game. I love the basic structure of the game, the auton that anyone can do but still gives better teams a challenge, and the lack of an end game but the refs were totally thrown under the bus.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by IndySam

^^^^^
This

I have seen refs this year that I know are some of the best in the biz and whom I have nothing but respect for struggle with this game. I love the basic structure of the game, the auton that anyone can do but still gives better teams a challenge, and the lack of an end game but the refs were totally thrown under the bus.

I agree with this, too many people are lumping in the technical issues and the poorly planned ref issues with the game itself. I love the game, there are issues that are effecting it, but the game itself I think is solid. I feel really bad for the refs this year, there is just way too much on their plates.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

I agree with, too many people are lumping in the technical issues and the poorly planned ref issues with the game itself. I love the game, there are issues that are effecting it, but the game itself I think is solid.

The challenging thing is that these issues are related to the game's design. A game could be designed to avoid these issues, and this one wasn't. The game can't be good if the rules (what the refs have to deal with) aren't.

I like the physical challenge of picking up and scoring big balls. The game itself is fundamentally flawed. You can't do one game piece for three robots and not expect defense. You can't do one game piece for three robots where assists get you points and not have strength of schedule be the determinant of seeding more than any other year. You can't fix these by adding 100 rules that referees have to juggle in addition to tracking scoring or you'll get an emotionally charged mess. There are a lot of things to like about this game, and it's been fun, but it's just not compatible with the FRC format.

I think this game was pretty bad. Would I have not competed in this season knowing the game was this bad? I probably still would have done it. So in that sense I can't say I have "buyer's remorse" for paying the FRC entry fee. But I do expect far better. At a certain point, with the amount they expect us to take every rule seriously, follow everything to the letter, etc. we should get the same back.

[c.shu]

I like this game from a concept perspective. I think the idea of making everyone rely on one another is a good thing, and if you want more robots in your area to be capable of helping you during qualifications, try mentoring some teams. You would be surprised to see how much it can help. In my opinion, leveling the playing field is exactly what was needed for the large amount of rookies joining FIRST this year, and I am happy to see that they have a game they can be useful in and not just be told to sit in a corner and let the 'elite' teams do all the work.

In terms of how it effects teams chances in participating in eliminations: As long as you show what you are capable of during qualifications, teams who are scouting will know that your qualification record does not reflect your robots ability to perform. Take 254 for example, they selected 973 and 2135 (43rd and 41st seed at CVR) because due to scouting they knew that they were capable robots.

I am not a huge fan of how difficult it is to track penalties this year, but complaining about it is not going to change anything. If it was, we would have had large changes to the rules after week 1 or 2. It is a little late in the season for the GDC to make so many large changes to the rules and many teams would complain that it is unfair because they did not get to play by the same rules at their regionals.

So lets just play with the cards we are dealt and enjoy the rest of the season!