2015 HINT DISCUSSION

[ybansal17]

Has anyone else noticed they used 97 footage for the 99 game? Seem people think it was just a fluke...but I doubt they put a lot of time into what the game hint will be, only to mess up the footage they put in. That was the year they added alliances too--so I think the change is going to be in the alliances. Perhaps making it 4 robots to an alliance or having 3 alliances per match.

I also don't think the triangle is the most significant thing in the video, and so it won't be a huge factor in this coming game

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by ybansal17

Has anyone else noticed they used 97 footage for the 99 game? Seem people think it was just a fluke...but I doubt they put a lot of time into what the game hint will be, only to mess up the footage they put in. That was the year they added alliances too--so I think the change is going to be in the alliances. Perhaps making it 4 robots to an alliance or having 3 alliances per match.

I also don't think the triangle is the most significant thing in the video, and so it won't be a huge factor in this coming game

I know there are over 500 posts in this thread, but yes, we've all noticed that and been over it many times. People (particularly the more veteran members of the forum) will appreciate it more if you are aware of this. You can use the "Search this Thread" box at the bottom of the page to help check if certain topics have been brought up already.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by hardcopi

Haven't heard this idea mentioned, but if they really want to change things up... no wheels. Never been done ASFAIK in FRC.

Forget Water Game... Walking Game. Would certainly level the playing field a bit. Anyone ever had a walking bot?

FRC 276 Madcow from Youngstown, Ohio, built walking robots back in the day. I recall seeing some discussion about a patent application they filed. I also recall competing against them at the 2004 St. Louis Regional. I had the pleasure of escorting Dean Kamen around the pits and arena that year, and vividly recall the keen interest he showed in the 276 machine while watching matches at field-side. Their robot could not score balls, cap, or move fast, but its drivetrain was unstoppable and it could hang. I think the team had just one mentor and three students that year.

Anyway, walking robots have been done, some more successfully than others.

[Zeromonkey]

Earlier in the thread, I am not sure who said it, someone mentioned something about multiple game pieces. There is also a lot of speculation as to the GDC editing our alliance system as well.
Jacob Bendicksen, the Co-President from 1540, and I were thinking about these ideas, the hint, and the other tidbits we know.
We came up with a possible idea for the game.

The video references that "Change is Coming". One thing that has never happened (I have done my research) is multiple game piece types. By this, I mean having in one game for example an inner tube and a frisbee as the primary game pieces. We envisioned a game where there were multiple game pieces that were changed out during the match at set intervals. Then the leftover game pieces from the previous interval would just become dead game pieces.

Where do these game pieces come from? That was when we looked to the "recycling bin" ideas. We were thinking they would recycle game pieces from the past in this game.

Then we thought of the problem during qualification matches "So the game switches game pieces every XX seconds, but my alliance can only manipulate one of them". To decrease the chance of that happening, we thought they should add a fourth alliance member.

But this fourth bot would be a robot that can "line change" in and out with other teammates. Like in hockey, this would mean alliances could quickly switch out their "bench" team into play depending on the game piece in play. Thus, at one time, there would only be three robots on the field at once.

Then, we thought that there would be a problem. At district events, we can't have 32 teams in eliminations. That would be too much.

So we thought, if they reduced it to 6 team playoffs, we could keep the 4 team alliances, keep the same 24 teams in eliminations, and the bracket could still work. First and Second teams would get a bye (Like in football playoffs, the best teams get a bye) and would play the winner of 3v5 and 4v6, respectively.

We want to know what you all think.

TL;DR Multiple Game pieces. Recycled Game Pieces from Past Games. 4th "Benched" Team in Alliances. 6 Alliance Playoffs with 1st and 2nd Seed having a Bye.

[Nathan Streeter]

I've been thinking of a few different areas that could be sources of big change, and I have to say the one 'genre' that I really don't like is changing the 3v3 structure. I like having a selected backup robot in elims (at bigger-than-district events), but otherwise don't want to see change there.

A few potential areas of "big change" that I do think could/would actually be good:

- Reducing weight limit to 100lbs or 90lbs. Robots have only been getting heavier over FRC history, with the early increase to 120lbs, then the addition of a separate bumper weight (and the growth of this allocation up to 20lbs), but the perimeter change has brought the area down these past two years. Additionally the presence of bumpers, COTS components, and better motors have enabled teams to build lighter. Bringing the weight limit down noticeably would reduce the 'm' aspect of robots' kinetic energy, push teams towards fewer motors on the drive (by reducing the weight budget those extra CIMs are more costly and also less necessary since less torque can be applied to the weels), and make teams evaluate which assemblies/mechanisms are really worth including (seems to me like recent rookie teams rarely come close to the 120lb limit).

- Dramatically reducing # of rules. Obvious, but highly unlikely given the GDCs recent trends.

- Multiple game pieces. I like this one a lot... could become very interesting and would force teams to either specialize or do some incredible engineering to combine.

- Moving autonomous to the end (or having a beginning and ending mode). The more I think about this the neater it would be... teams would have to prepare for the autonomous mode during the match and reserve time to place themselves carefully or use exceptional autonomous capabilities to ensure a successful final auto mode. It would be kind of like an end-game of itself...

- A dramatic change to the 'T' section of the manual such as how ranking is done or enabling a form of instant replay.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Canon reeves

In 1999, the NFL allowed instant replay for coaches to be able to question the call,here this could be a possiblity, but I doubt it because the question box is already full, imagine the nightmare of rewatching every match for simple calls? But if the penalty affected the game outcome they could use instant replay?

I was going to respond earlier to this, but things happened.

So...
This isn't going to happen, not in the near future at least. It's been discussed before, but the upshot is that nobody's yet been able to implement a system where the money cost is low, the "extra time" cost is low, AND the "refs don't wanna do this anymore" cost is low. Actually, getting past the first one is hard enough.

And here's one example of why.

There was a match at L.A. that had one alliance in the question box for three straight matches (the refs would break off to run the matches, then come back to the box) trying to figure out why they didn't get points that they thought they should have gotten. Now, I can't find video of that match on TBA, and can't remember what teams were in that match--just that one of the teams on that alliance had appeared, to the team in the box, to have fully crossed into a zone with a ball and thus gotten an assist. Just to refresh our collective memory, the robots had to be contacting the ground entirely within the zone to get the possession in the zone. Also, there were three refs looking primarily at that robot--one scoring ref, one spotter for the scoring ref (me, in this case), and one ref diagonally from the scoring and spotter who had a better view. Oh, and if I recall correctly, the final score was such that the assist would not have made a difference.

The result of that discussion was that the team did not get the assist points. Why? Because 3 refs, looking at that robot, did not see the robot contacting the ground entirely within the zone on that particular cycle. So, either it did not qualify for the possession in the zone, OR a ref standing about 15 feet away and looking right at it missed seeing it AND 2 refs at about 30 feet away looking right at it missed it. (Or couldn't remember when asked a couple matches later--pick your choice of the three options.)

Now, how does that example play into why getting past those obstacles is hard? Consider this: The camera(s) for any instant replay will almost certainly be farther away than the refs' eyes, and due to arena considerations, probably higher up. They will need to be looking at the area in question. And they will need to be able to show--clearly--whether a robot is contacting the floor in a given area, from what will probably be a worse angle. That means a really good camera set, and trained operators--no closeups of flipped robots, no moving the camera(s) to random locations, sharp focus on key areas... Guess what, that means extra money to rig the cameras and make sure they're operating "properly".

I could go on, but I'll keep it short: I haven't gone into the logistics of calling for a review, getting the video to point X for review by ref Y, and keeping the time down. Nobody's really figured out much of an actionable plan for those. Until someone figures out all those logistical items in a way that makes sense, instant replay will be good only for match highlights.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

I've been thinking of a few different areas that could be sources of big change, and I have to say the one 'genre' that I really don't like is changing the 3v3 structure. I like having a selected backup robot in elims (at bigger-than-district events), but otherwise don't want to see change there.

A few potential areas of "big change" that I do think could/would actually be good:

- Reducing weight limit to 100lbs or 90lbs. Robots have only been getting heavier over FRC history, with the early increase to 120lbs, then the addition of a separate bumper weight (and the growth of this allocation up to 20lbs), but the perimeter change has brought the area down these past two years. Additionally the presence of bumpers, COTS components, and better motors have enabled teams to build lighter. Bringing the weight limit down noticeably would reduce the 'm' aspect of robots' kinetic energy, push teams towards fewer motors on the drive (by reducing the weight budget those extra CIMs are more costly and also less necessary since less torque can be applied to the weels), and make teams evaluate which assemblies/mechanisms are really worth including (seems to me like recent rookie teams rarely come close to the 120lb limit).

- Dramatically reducing # of rules. Obvious, but highly unlikely given the GDCs recent trends.

- Multiple game pieces. I like this one a lot... could become very interesting and would force teams to either specialize or do some incredible engineering to combine.

- Moving autonomous to the end (or having a beginning and ending mode). The more I think about this the neater it would be... teams would have to prepare for the autonomous mode during the match and reserve time to place themselves carefully or use exceptional autonomous capabilities to ensure a successful final auto mode. It would be kind of like an end-game of itself...

- A dramatic change to the 'T' section of the manual such as how ranking is done or enabling a form of instant replay.

Agree with everything here. Only thing is I don't see them reducing the weight limit for a couple reasons:

-First, I don't get the feeling that reduced weight would be a big change. You're still building a robot that will be more or less similar to the past few years' and playing the same format competitions. There are already light robots, so for those teams who regularly build very light, it won't be a big change.

-Second, very minor, I think FIRST likes having the press know we build some heavyweight robots compared to what some other smaller robotics programs are out there for high schools.

Though it's definitely not out of the question to change the weight, I just don't think that's the change referred to in the hint. Agree with all the other comments.

[BBray_T1296]

I took this picture at the Dallas Regional in 2014. I think you will find it relevant
(even though it was made by a team)

[superlizardmo]

What about something like the shot clock in basketball? To my knowledge, both alliances have always had an equal opportunity to score points throughout the duration of the match. What if the game had alternating scoring periods so only one alliance could score at a time, alternating every thirty seconds or so. Something like this would make game play resemble the one game piece option that some people have discussed.

[RunawayEngineer]

Originally Posted by superlizardmo

What about something like the shot clock in basketball? To my knowledge, both alliances have always had an equal opportunity to score points throughout the duration of the match. What if the game had alternating scoring periods so only one alliance could score at a time, alternating every thirty seconds or so. Something like this would make game play resemble the one game piece option that some people have discussed.

That is very close to how the 2006 game was structured.
It could happen again, though.
I enjoyed it - though it turned out that whoever had the last scoring period had a significant advantage that was difficult to overcome.
That year, whoever scored more points in autonomous got a bonus score and their opponents would start their scoring period first. Going first was a disadvantage for several reasons, the primary one being that there were much fewer balls lying on the field to score with.

[notmattlythgoe]

What are all of the ideas that have been brought up for the long KOP box?

Light pole
Bumper fabric
Noodle
Hockey stick
Donated stock
Hockey pucks
Pieces to build a game element/goal

Anything else?

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

What are all of the ideas that have been brought up for the long KOP box?

Light pole
Bumper fabric
Noodle
Hockey stick
Donated stock

Anything else?

A bunch of Hockey Pucks

[Boe]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

What are all of the ideas that have been brought up for the long KOP box?

Light pole
Bumper fabric
Noodle
Hockey stick
Donated stock
Hockey pucks

Anything else?

Pieces to build tetras/mobile goals/some other game element

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

While I am not under the belief that hockey pucks are in our near future, I am willing to agree with the following logic that was proposed to me:

The Mystery Box in the KOP: 3" x 3" x 60", 6lbs

Proposal: Pucks in a long cylindrical tube (minimal weight increase and space reduction)

Individual Puck Size: 2.875" Diameter, 1.25' Thick, Weight 2oz

45 of these pucks would come out to 5.625 lbs and 56.25" when stacked. That would certainly fit the extents and leave a little room and weight for packaging...

Originally Posted by Wiifi

A bunch of Hockey Pucks

No, no, no a thousand times no. Frank loves to troll CD however he is not going to authorize spending thousands of dollars just to troll CD and confuse people. What ever the collection of items that is 3x3x60 you can be assured that they are ~60" long and can not be folded or otherwise fit into a smaller dimension. Anything that does not fit on a standard 40" x 48" pallet that the collection of items is not under a total of 48" high, including the pallet will be more expensive to ship. That 60" long collection of items is also a pain for some people to transport home in their particular vehicle. So Frank is not going to authorize inconveniencing the majority of the FRC community just to mess with the minority that is on CD.

Tl/DR; The 3" x 3" x 60" collection of items could not be packed in something substantially less than 60" long.

[AndyBare]

The St. Louis Blues won their first Presidents' Cup in the 1999-2000 season.
This cup allows a single team with a highest record(by points not ratio W/L/T) during the season to be guaranteed home-ice advantage for every round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs they make it to.

Take it how you want.
-What if highest seed alliance can pick alliance color? etc.
-Perhaps this is a game where alliance color determines role?