FRC Blog - How We’re Doing and FIRST Babies

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

Heck someone said they were tired of hearing "it's not about the robot." Folks need to evaluate their priorities. This rage is misplaced and misguided.

This. So much this.

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Just wondering, how does this game compare to, say, Lunacy, in everyone's opinion?

Lunacy was a gigantic mess; human players scored more than robots, and the standard of play was terrible all the way through every competition I saw.

Aerial Assist rewards good robots and good teamwork, and has by far the most strategic depth of any game in recent memory, but suffers from inconsistent reffing and some field problems. The eliminations (at least at greater DC, and in a few of the streams I've watched) have a very high standard of play and are a blast to watch.

The two aren't even remotely comparable.

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

The people who fill out these surveys on teams rarely know what the hell is going on on the field. Make it drive coach or refs who are mandated to take the survey and you'll see the difference.

Hooray for broad-brush, unjustified, insulting generalizations. This kind of attitude is not going to win you any friends outside of the insular bubble here on CD. I hope you don't interact with other teams this way.

(As it so happens, I'm a drive coach, and I filled out the survery).

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Just wondering, how does this game compare to, say, Lunacy, in everyone's opinion?

I think the some of reason that many long time FIRST mentors are pretty unhappy with this game is not due to the nature or general strategy of the game, but rather the implementation.

In 2009 we saw that robots would be traction limited and had to lug around a big heavy goal. It was pretty apparent from the beginning the game would be a snoozefest. Most people accepted this, built the best robot they could, and competed with it. Sure there were some penalties but they weren't game changers and the scoring was straightforward. Like most good games, the score could easily be verified by counting the game pieces in the goal at the end of the match.

This year, we have the opposite situation. On paper, the game looks good. It has tons of potential (Robots working together? To throw and catch giant balls? With a human player in the mix? Sounds AWESOME!). The issues this year have been mostly technical due to an overcomplication of both field hardware and penalty rules. This will leave a bad taste in any engineer's mouth because these issues are totally avoidable. Unlike 2009, the bad parts of the game are not inherently part of the game!

Some of the issues people have been complaining about are seemingly things that can be fixed with no team intervention (for example with a field software patch or rules update).

• Referee tablets freezing, causing pedestal delays
• Hot goals not turning on
• Missed assists/points due to referees having to watch too many things and having a bad interface to record the score.
• Rules which allow an entangled robot to force penalties on to their opponent (Waterloo SF1-3?)

Now, I'm sure our gripes do not fall upon deaf ears. There have been field software updates. There have been rule changes. While I love that the community's concerns are being heard, these updates have not solved the issues. What makes this blog post a bit hard to swallow is it seems like damage control. This is understandable, this is something every company will have to do at some point in time (though in the real world this comes with a replacement or refund).

We don't want to have the blanket pulled over our eyes. We want FIRST to fix the field. I promise we won't hold a grudge. Just fix the field.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

so roughly 1% doesn't like the game. That's roughly 35-40 folks who took the survey. I could totally live with that.

I'm glad you can sleep well at night.

The following doesn't even take into account the game design itself. It is purely a look at the game managment problems this season, which have been well documented and widely accepted.

The Aerial Assist game is essentially being judged as guilty by association with the severely flawed game management quality control, which is entirely on the shoulders of HQ. If these issues never existed, the game would be much better received. Would it be perfect? Heck no. The single game piece factor, rules, impact of huge tech fouls, etc. would still be debated, and some would still revile the game. But it would not be viewed in nearly the same negative light by nearly as many.

Now, FIRST was willing to move HEAVEN AND EARTH to fix Einstein 2012, right? How many teams were GENUINELY affected by that exploit? 12? Perhaps a few others if the exploit was used earlier in the season in a certain northern state?

Now WHY IS THAT? What lit a fire under FIRST's keister? Could it be that the exploit - the FLAW - the OVERSIGHT in design THEY and their contractors were RESPONSIBLE FOR - was exposed on their biggest stage, in front of SPONSORS, DONORS, VIP's, MEDIA, and tens of thousands of team members and volunteers?

FIRST was E-M-B-A-R-R-A-S-S-E-D, and they felt their ability to raise funds and maintain growth would be directly threatened if they didn't respond proactively. So they did. Happy fun times ensued...although those teams that felt the burn as a result of their oversight probably still feel very blar that they had to endure that process.

Now what is different about the pedestal delays and FMS/field control design flaws this year, and all other human-generated blar that has manifested as a result of these deficiencies? Have more teams been affected than 12 plus a few others? I would say so! I would say it's in the hundreds or more across the entire season. Have they been hindered in their ability to play the game to the best of their ability? I would say so! Have some been adversely affected in the standings to the point where their chances of securing a victory or even an alliance captaincy are dealt a crippling blow? Undoubtedly.

So where's the uproar from the masses? Where's the prompt response from Manchester? Could it be that since these transgressions are being spread out across numerous events, away from the spotlight of FIRST's greatest stage, that both teams and Manchester simply DON'T CARE that this is going on? They don't feel OBLIGATED to do right by all the teams who've been harpooned by these latest quality control issues? Maybe if the dollar signs aren't being threatened, and teams keep coming back, and people don't speak up and share their frustrations out of some misguided sense that such things just aren't GP, it's just. not. really. worth. anyone's. time. to. care. Let's just post some happy charts saying everyone and everything is swell and move on...nothing to see here!


That, to me, is the true tragedy of this Aerial Assist season.

[bduddy]

^ You're not saying that it's somehow a new phenomenon that FIRST ignores problems until they become too obvious to do anything else, are you? Because that would be a pretty strong assertion.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

snip snip snip and snip again
.

You are equating wanton cheating by a third party to issues with reffing and a light going off? maybe it's just my gentle nature, but I don't see these two things being in the same state let alone on the same page.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I wasn't around in 2004, so I have no opinion on or knowledge of that game...

Well, allow me to inform you: Human players were the only way the main scoring object could be scored. Not by practicality, by rules. Yet, many folks who were around consider 2004 to be a high point for FRC game design. We had 2 distinct game pieces, we had lots of them so there was no penalty for trying to play the game, there was no chokehold strategy. Matches were exciting up until the last second due to hanging being worth a ton of points but also due to the 2x multiplier ball... It was a great game.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

You are equating wanton cheating by a third party to issues with reffing and a light going off? maybe it's just my gentle nature, but I don't see these two things being in the same state let alone on the same page.

He is comparing a field flaw to a field flaw.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

You are equating wanton cheating by a third party to issues with reffing and a light going off? maybe it's just my gentle nature, but I don't see these two things being in the same state let alone on the same page.

I agree - FIRST knew about these latest self-generated system flaws much earlier in the season, and they still vetted and unleashed them upon the unsuspecting masses anyway. Since then, the passion with which they've communicated and implemented fixes has not come anywhere near what was undertaken following Einstein 2012.

So you're right....the net adverse impact this year is much worse.

[Zach O]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

FIRST knew about these latest self-generated system flaws much earlier in the season, and they still vetted and unleashed them upon the unsuspecting masses anyway.

If everything I ever built worked perfectly the first time, I'd be one hell of an engineer. The reason problems arise is development environments and production environments differ. FIRST isn't an exception to this.

As for software related issues with the FMS, I think FIRST would benefit from getting some more in-house developers to build, debug, and support their software systems.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Zach O

If everything I ever built worked perfectly the first time, I'd be one hell of an engineer. The reason problems arise is development environments and production environments differ. FIRST isn't an exception to this.

Many have noted that the first time they took a look at the field control relative to the game rules, they quickly identified major weaknesses that would rear their ugly heads if left unchecked.

More eyeballs on the game and field design/vetting processes are needed. Perhaps even eyeballs from the *outside* that have not previously been privy to these processes.

As for software related issues with the FMS, I think FIRST would benefit from getting some more in-house developers to build, debug, and support their software systems.

It's a pity FIRST hasn't taken such advice in the past to add more internal resources to alleviate "quality control" problems with field design, referee consistency, and the like.

It's not like such things haven't been suggested before. Wayback machine, engage. Could you imagine the improvements in competition quality that could have been realized had FIRST invested more people and funding into a full blown quality control staff back in the day? If they stopped trying to design and release these games under self-imposed human, time, and monetary resource limits? The teams are the ones who should be operating under such limits in designing their bots. There is no need for the central organization to flog themselves in a similar fashion. Spend some money. Invest. Hire more creative minds to design and build the field hardware and software. Hire more creative minds to create and deploy improved volunteer training for key roles, and supervise and support those roles at competitions - namely, the referees. Make it easier on yourselves up front such that teams reap the benefits during the competitions - let's get it done! I mean a lot of the money FIRST holds in reserve is our fee money, right? Let's spend some more of it in support of the teams paying the fees!

(Wow, I missed the G25 Freightliner. I was even more of a pain in the $@#$@#$@# back then than I am now.)

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Zach O

If everything I ever built worked perfectly the first time, I'd be one hell of an engineer. The reason problems arise is development environments and production environments differ. FIRST isn't an exception to this.

As for software related issues with the FMS, I think FIRST would benefit from getting some more in-house developers to build, debug, and support their software systems.

And any engineering organization should know this and design a test plan to catch as many of those things as possible.

When you are on the cutting edge (like Aerial Assist is*), there are inevitably some things you won't catch. Unfortunately, many of the things that were flubbed are not new problems. The HOT goal issue irks me to the core. That field logic has fundamentally one job, make one set of lights shine for 5 seconds, and then make another set of lights shine for 5 seconds. And after 5 weeks, that still doesn't work right!

*Credit where credit is due, Aerial Assist is fundamentally different to other FRC games. For the first time teams really are forced to work together, and a cohesive strategy isn't something you only see at the highest levels of play. And I think that's pretty dang cool.