Suggestion for a new overall approach

[A Dog IRL]

I don't think that we need to have FIRST announce what the game will be way ahead of time, even if it's a minor detail. As the founder of a rookie team, I really enjoyed the game this year as it put a lot of our minds to work on the team in the design and testing processes.

I do, however, love this game over past years. The game actually feels like a sporting event, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time at Einstein. I hope next year the game is something similar. I kinda wish it was the same game so we could build an even better robot, but that wouldn't be very fair.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by A Dog IRL

I don't think that we need to have FIRST announce what the game will be way ahead of time, even if it's a minor detail.

Don't you think that it would be great to have teams like 254 working with rookie and newer teams in the fall? Again, listen to EJ's talk--they stepped up their involvement with other teams (which was already extensive) because of the incentives in the game. Why not extend that incentive to early in the year when those teams have more available time and resources? Please don't say that they already do this--EJ's comments prove that these teams can step up even more with the right changes.

[A Dog IRL]

They're supposed to anyways! We don't need FIRST forcing everyone to work together. I'm not going to sit around and expect 254 to come around and help us. We can ask for help from them, sure, but it's in the spirit of FIRST that they help us. Not because the game requires it.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Don't you think that it would be great to have teams like 254 working with rookie and newer teams in the fall? Again, listen to EJ's talk--they stepped up their involvement with other teams (which was already extensive) because of the incentives in the game. Why not extend that incentive to early in the year when those teams have more available time and resources? Please don't say that they already do this--EJ's comments prove that these teams can step up even more with the right changes.

I'm trying to understand why you think that FIRST announcing a cooperation aspect of the game in the fall will incentivize teams to help neighboring teams before competition even begins.

I listened to the GameSense show, and 254 was incentivized by this game to help their own alliance partners before their matches. While this is advantageous to do every year, the "multiplier effect" of having 3 good robots on your alliance made this even more crucial this year. Thus, I agree that Aerial Assist probably caused more support of lower-caliber partner teams than was seen in other years (although I would need more than one anecdote to be confident about this).

However, let's think about the opponents of 254. I have in the past heard stories of teams helping out the very team that they will be competing against in the next match. While I am certain that these situations happen, I am also certain that teams help out their partners for upcoming matches far more than they ever help their opponents.

So we come to your "fall announcement" idea. What about this game specifically would have incentivized 254 to go out of their way to help local teams in the fall? There are already some very good reasons to help out other teams, but this game, even had it been fully announced in September would not have been one of them in my mind. The reason why this game causes no additional incentive to help out teams in the fall comes from the way FRC matches are currently structured. Since, in any given qual match, you are partnered with 2 random robots, and against 3 random robots, you are 50% more likely to be helping out an eventual opponent than you are an eventual partner when you help out a random team in the fall. This is the same as any other year, thus, I don't see how FIRST doing anything like what you have suggested in the fall would cause additional incentive to help local teams.

I suppose an argument could be made that 254 could stand to gain a little from reducing the variance induced by the randomly generated schedule, but it doesn't seem that you are making this argument.

Again, I'm just trying to understand why you think announcing a "cooperation aspect" of the game will cause any additional incentive to help teams before the match schedule is even generated, please enlighten me.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

For those of you who don't think that the Aerial Assist format caused even the power teams to step up their support of other teams this year, listen to EJ from 254 discussing their in-pit strategy on GameSense, starting at about 0:30 (and further discussion of 1678's in-pit scouting). This should end the discussion about whether the cooperative play mode changed how teams interacted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdiGHYcrdQ

I think the 'even' is misplaced. 254 and other powerhouses this season knew they were in an arms race for assist points. Very, very, very few teams in FRC, very few even among eventual alliance captains, participated in the type work EJ described during quals. And even accepting that, there's a huge jump between a concentrated effort in the pit for your own match schedule and a substantive helpful presence pre-season. I don't see any harm in such a pre-season announcement, but predicting a broad pre-season response based on 254/etc response this year is substantively a major stretch. It's certainly possible, but if HQ has compelling points against the release, history isn't strongly counter-weighted.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Siri

I think the 'even' is misplaced. 254 and other powerhouses this season knew they were in an arms race for assist points. Very, very, very few teams in FRC, very few even among eventual alliance captains, participated in the type work EJ described during quals. And even accepting that, there's a huge jump between a concentrated effort in the pit for your own match schedule and a substantive helpful presence pre-season. I don't see any harm in such a pre-season announcement, but predicting a broad pre-season response based on 254/etc response this year is substantively a major stretch. It's certainly possible, but if HQ has compelling points against the release, history isn't strongly counter-weighted.

Let's back to the original premise of this thread: that the GDC wants to dramatically change the relationship among teams by creating an incentive to cooperate. I presume that the GDC is a bunch of pretty smart people and they understand that for such cooperation to be effective that it requires preparation before the competitions, and even before the build season. Team resources get stretched in the build season, but are generally more flexible in the fall. Based on the GDC's action I think I'm suggesting a relatively minor tweak that is consistent with their overall intent.

I also don't think that it is a major effort for most experienced teams to provide additional support in the pre season, especially if the rookie teams are proactively identified along with key contact information (rather than passively posting the list on a website and expecting teams to go there.)

I'm not predicting that teams will respond broadly, but I do predict that teams will NOT change their behavior unless FIRST gives the teams a stronger incentive to cooperate. The GDC appears to believe that the teams are NOT cooperating enough--why else to have such a radical change?

I understand that 254's effort was almost unique (we did the same thing in the Newton field), but that doesn't mean that other teams won't pick up on that in future years. 1114's claw was unique in 2008, but many teams copied it this year. Teams innovate and other follow.

I don't see the downside for the GDC to say simply in September "this season's game will require interaction among robots to score bonus points." How does that undermine the principle of having 6 weeks to come up with a design and build? (We already know that 2015 won't be a water game! Is that too much of a hint? ) More seriously, teams already know what type of drive base they are most likely using next year--that's a HUGE leg up on designing a robot in comparison. The increased incentive for cooperation will outweigh any extremely minor premature revelation that might be possible. I'm not hearing what teams can learn for design from such a statement.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by inkling16

I'm trying to understand why you think that FIRST announcing a cooperation aspect of the game in the fall will incentivize teams to help neighboring teams before competition even begins.

I listened to the GameSense show, and 254 was incentivized by this game to help their own alliance partners before their matches. While this is advantageous to do every year, the "multiplier effect" of having 3 good robots on your alliance made this even more crucial this year. Thus, I agree that Aerial Assist probably caused more support of lower-caliber partner teams than was seen in other years (although I would need more than one anecdote to be confident about this).

Let's make that two teams: We did exactly the same thing as 254, independently. Our team also went to help teams that we were going to play with on the Newton field. We went to their pits on Wed and worked with them so that they could play at a higher level for the ENTIRE competition. (We helped 1114 who also was teamed with them in a match.) We continued to help them after they played with us. (And it was a ton of fun! ) Notably, both 254 and us were the alliance captains in the Einstein final.

Originally Posted by inkling16

However, let's think about the opponents of 254. I have in the past heard stories of teams helping out the very team that they will be competing against in the next match. While I am certain that these situations happen, I am also certain that teams help out their partners for upcoming matches far more than they ever help their opponents.

So we come to your "fall announcement" idea. What about this game specifically would have incentivized 254 to go out of their way to help local teams in the fall? There are already some very good reasons to help out other teams, but this game, even had it been fully announced in September would not have been one of them in my mind. The reason why this game causes no additional incentive to help out teams in the fall comes from the way FRC matches are currently structured. Since, in any given qual match, you are partnered with 2 random robots, and against 3 random robots, you are 50% more likely to be helping out an eventual opponent than you are an eventual partner when you help out a random team in the fall. This is the same as any other year, thus, I don't see how FIRST doing anything like what you have suggested in the fall would cause additional incentive to help local teams.

I suppose an argument could be made that 254 could stand to gain a little from reducing the variance induced by the randomly generated schedule, but it doesn't seem that you are making this argument.

Again, I'm just trying to understand why you think announcing a "cooperation aspect" of the game will cause any additional incentive to help teams before the match schedule is even generated, please enlighten me.

The issue you're discussing about whether robots are opponents or alliance mates was discussed extensively earlier in the thread, so I'll refer you there in part. However, I'll tell you as the lead scouting mentor that having poor performing alliance mates was a bigger penalty than the gain of competing against poor performing robots. The fact is that you can have more control over how your alliance mates perform than over your opponents. Our drive coach was most frustrated by poor performing robots and felt is job was easier with those that were up to snuff. So you can't look at this as simple probability problem--it's actually a weighted expected outcome gain. The value of added performance by your allies is greater than the risk of loss from your opponents. I think most of the stronger teams recognize this situation.

One additional factor you haven't mentioned--it provides a deeper pool of prospects for the elimination rounds. The top teams are more likely to be choosing among the lower quality robots given the snake draft. Having a larger pool of better robots, especially at districts and smaller regionals, makes that job much easier (speaking for experience). We took a rookie team to Einstein, so we have a pretty broad scope of who we are looking at. So you need to look at more than just the quals rounds.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by A Dog IRL

They're supposed to anyways! We don't need FIRST forcing everyone to work together. I'm not going to sit around and expect 254 to come around and help us. We can ask for help from them, sure, but it's in the spirit of FIRST that they help us. Not because the game requires it.

As I posted earlier in this thread, what people SHOULD do, and what they ACTUALLY do are two different things. I'm a professional economist who works on policies to close the gap between SHOULD and ACTUALLY. Incentives matter, and I can show you the research that proves this incontrovertibly. Rather than just sit back and passively extol teams to act, the teams need more of a push to act. (And note that I am not saying FIRST is "forcing" them together--the teams still have a choice, but now they get a more explicit reward.) The GDC apparently decided this was the case when they designed this year's game. I am suggesting a couple steps further to accomplish the GDC's goal.

You're rookie team made it to the World Champs because it is unusual. Most teams do not have that wherewithal. Look back at how other teams performed at the South Florida Regional. There were almost certainly robots that could not effectively interact with other robots on the field. They had problems in conceptual design or in quality of manufacture. In past games, these problems were of little consequence. This year, it could cost an alliance up to a 100 points. These teams, especially rookies, may not have thought to ask, or may not have known who to ask. They don't have enough experience to know which other teams have the resources and knowledge to help them. So why not have FIRST proactively solve this problem?

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

As I posted earlier in this thread, what people SHOULD do, and what they ACTUALLY do are two different things. I'm a professional economist who works on policies to close the gap between SHOULD and ACTUALLY. Incentives matter, and I can show you the research that proves this incontrovertibly. Rather than just sit back and passively extol teams to act, the teams need more of a push to act. (And note that I am not saying FIRST is "forcing" them together--the teams still have a choice, but now they get a more explicit reward.) The GDC apparently decided this was the case when they designed this year's game. I am suggesting a couple steps further to accomplish the GDC's goal.

Can't it be argued that the same thing would happen even if there was some form of presesason announcement?

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

Can't it be argued that the same thing would happen even if there was some form of presesason announcement?

There are no guarantees about human behavior. And "making the perfect the enemy of the better" is not a productive argument. But from economics we know that providing incentives is likely to change behavior. And the substantial research and analysis from that discipline is the basis for making this proposal. I will tell you that the same thing is HIGHLY likely to occur WITHOUT the pre season announcement. If you want to change behavior (which the GDC apparently wants to do) then you need to change the incentives and structure. It's unlikely to change on a wide scale without these types of changes.

Plus 254 (and 1678) stepped up their assistance in the pits responding to the incentives provided in January. I can tell you that our team would have reached out much earlier if we had known about the game structure in the fall. January was too late to reach out effectively.

[ArtemusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

The comments on this year's game makes me wonder if FRC should take a different approach to releasing the game design so as to promote greater cooperation within the FRC community.

Other than the disproportionate foul points, I think this game gets an important aspect that can enhance the FIRST experience across all teams. It requires cooperation across the entire alliance to succeed. Unfortunately this year's competition has been dominated by power teams, even to the extent that there's a thread about the "ethics of saying 'no'". This game gets all of the teams back into the action. I think that the game could be better designed, and even Ultimate Ascent could have given even more incentives to alliance play (e.g., more points for FCS and rebound collected shots, and more allowance for blocking FCS to require counterdefense.) But that shouldn't take away from the aim of the GDC.

That said, the lack of design and build experience by the newer teams is highlighted in this game. A disabled or unavailable robot creates a 20 point per cycle penalty. That's unfair to the other two alliance members who have absolutely NO control over that aspect--it's even worse than a 50 point technical. FIRST accentuated this problem this year by pursuing a strong team recruitment effort, particularly in California and Michigan (which I applaud hugely!) The result is even MORE inexperienced teams. From my analysis of the OPRs, it appears that the spread between teams has increased this year compared to 2013 and 2013 (which had very similar year to year spreads).

The answer is requires a three-fold strategy (which we plan to implement the our part locally here in the Sacramento Valley).

1) FIRST needs to announce in September, long before Kickoff, that it is planning a game that requires robot interaction with bonus points. This gives all teams a signal that they must rely on their alliance members much more than in the past. The GDC need not reveal anything more so teams are not going to get a jump on design.

2) FIRST needs to provide a list of newest teams (including prospects) to other teams in the region so that the older teams know who they need to contact for step 3). FIRST should try to finalize this list by the end of November.

3) The more experienced teams should start in September to visit the newest teams, both this year's and last year's rookies to start, to explain how they design for different game strategies, including focusing on specific, manageable tasks at the outset, and to train these teams in building robust, reliable robots. And guess what? This program both enhances the FIRST experience AND achieves some of the most important educational objectives of FIRST. It also builds community by bringing together the best teams (which aren't always viewed in the best light) with the newest teams.

FIRST could take this a step further by assigning the top teams a number of new teams to mentor, e.g., 3-5, and start the assignments based on world ranked order. Participating could become a requirement for FIRST membership. Many top teams do this, but it would formalize the process and ease finding the newest teams. FIRST could even create the ability to have "superalliances" that some how play into regional rankings and world championships qualifications.

I know I am jumping late into this conversation and I haven't had time to read all the posts, but I wanted to express my opinion nevertheless.
I like the idea of having veteran FRC team assigned as a mentor to a rooky FRC team.
Having 2014 our rooky year, I can tell first hand that even with all resources available "out there" it is extremely difficult to know everything that is necessary for FRC Season.
We were very small team (9 kids, 5 mentors) one of first 4 FRC teams registered in our city. Only 2 teams made it to compete.
It's a miracle we made it, considering number of setbacks we had (missing parts in KOP; other ordered parts took 3 weeks to arrive; fried sidecar etc).
Our first practice run with the robot was our first game at the regionals.

Why am I telling this? Not just for the sake of venting, but to say that it would be awesome to have a Mentor for our mentors and kids, even if it is a "remote" one.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

...I don't see the downside for the GDC to say simply in September "this season's game will require interaction among robots to score bonus points." How does that undermine the principle of having 6 weeks to come up with a design and build? (We already know that 2015 won't be a water game! Is that too much of a hint? ) More seriously, teams already know what type of drive base they are most likely using next year--that's a HUGE leg up on designing a robot in comparison. The increased incentive for cooperation will outweigh any extremely minor premature revelation that might be possible. I'm not hearing what teams can learn for design from such a statement.

Just so it's clear, I'm not saying there is a downside to doing this if the game is going to fit the bill. I don't see a downside, but I'm not the GDC. As I said, if there is, the probability on the upside isn't very strong in terms of counteracting.

Now, getting the game to fit the bill is a different issue. Simply making/executing highly cooperative games has its own set of challenges, and I wouldn't blame the GDC if they're not ready to tackle it twice. For instance, if they can't come up with a way to do so that meets all their other specs while not overburdening their refs and technology while forcing down game/officiation quality, I could see this type of cooperation taking a back seat.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Siri

Just so it's clear, I'm not saying there is a downside to doing this if the game is going to fit the bill. I don't see a downside, but I'm not the GDC. As I said, if there is, the probability on the upside isn't very strong in terms of counteracting.

Now, getting the game to fit the bill is a different issue. Simply making/executing highly cooperative games has its own set of challenges, and I wouldn't blame the GDC if they're not ready to tackle it twice. For instance, if they can't come up with a way to do so that meets all their other specs while not overburdening their refs and technology while forcing down game/officiation quality, I could see this type of cooperation taking a back seat.

I think we differ on the probability of success may be higher than you think. The alliance captains of the two Einstein finalists have publicly announced that assertively stepping up their efforts at support in the pits was an important component of their success in this year's Championship. (Your team was a highly valued member of our alliance and a beneficiary, even if indirectly, of our efforts.) Just as 1114's 2008 "claw" was an influential model for this year's game, I would hope that 254's and 1678's rather public displays in the Curie and Newton Divisions will cause other teams to step forward.

I think the plea by the previous poster illustrates the need for this type of outreach much earlier than January if FIRST is really going to expand its footprint. (I say more in replay to the above.)

As for fixing the officiating issues, I think it's fairly simple. Before this year, a separate group did the actual scoring (of course after the match in those cases), but they simply need to reinstitute a separate scoring table. Our scouts were able to easily keep up on our live webcasts (see Inland Empire and Sacramento Regionals.) Giving the refs a single screen to look at will allow them to follow the relevant action more easily. The other foul issues were independent of the cooperative play aspect (e.g. G40 reaching fouls.)

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by ArtemusMaximus

I know I am jumping late into this conversation and I haven't had time to read all the posts, but I wanted to express my opinion nevertheless.
I like the idea of having veteran FRC team assigned as a mentor to a rooky FRC team.
Having 2014 our rooky year, I can tell first hand that even with all resources available "out there" it is extremely difficult to know everything that is necessary for FRC Season.
We were very small team (9 kids, 5 mentors) one of first 4 FRC teams registered in our city. Only 2 teams made it to compete.
It's a miracle we made it, considering number of setbacks we had (missing parts in KOP; other ordered parts took 3 weeks to arrive; fried sidecar etc).
Our first practice run with the robot was our first game at the regionals.

Why am I telling this? Not just for the sake of venting, but to say that it would be awesome to have a Mentor for our mentors and kids, even if it is a "remote" one.

Thank you for offering your opinion. Your plight describes exactly what I hope we can address. I suspect that if a more experienced team was able to reach out to you in September (your team # is consistent with starting earlier in the fall) that you have had smoother sailing through the build season. I don't think we can rely solely on "should"--we need to create a situation where teams are "rewarded" much more directly than a feather for a possible Chairman's Award if they act.