Week 1 Observations

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Whats the reasoning behind no tethering on the field? The red cards in FRC follow the general pattern of being safety related (don't let your robot wield totes in an aggressive manner towards refs), GP related (be civil) or just actions that would break the game (don't throw auto totes that you took off the field into the auto zone during auto)
Tethering doesn't fall into any of those categories at least not that I know of.

Here you go

Originally Posted by Team Update 2015-01-23

This note is from Frank Merrick, Director of FRC

Hi Teams. In this update, you will see we’ve added a blue box to G14 to explain what we mean by ‘tethering’. I’ll tell you how this came about. Someone asked a question (Q216)
about using an external control box to drive a motor after a match. It wasn’t stated in the question, but we’re assuming the intent was to reset a mechanism and possibly get the
robot into Transport Configuration. This approach raised safety concerns for us. At the end of a match, teams and volunteers are rushing around trying to clear the field and get
it set up for the next match. They may not necessarily be paying attention to robot mechanisms activating near them. If we allowed custom control boxes, without a number of
additional rules that would add significant complexity, teams could be creating controls that slam motors on at full speed. They could potentially lose control of the situation, in
a crowded, busy environment. Broadening the traditional FRC definition of ‘tethering’ seemed the best way for us to solve this issue. It’s true that teams can still, for example,
leave hex shafts on mechanisms accessible to be mechanically driven externally, using hand tools or battery operated drills, so mechanisms could still be activated on the field.
However, using hand tools or battery operated drills to drive mechanisms struck us as more controllable situations. Most battery operated drills are variable speed, and – unless
locked on – if a team member’s finger slips or the tool is dropped, the mechanism in many cases would stop moving. We’re trying to balance the need to make sure teams can
do what they need to do to play the game with helping to ensure everyone stays safe.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by MechEng83

Here you go

That was a fast response...
Can you get me a box of thin mints? The cookie dealer I know is out.
Either way an observation I failed to have until now is just how bad fallen stacks are. I didn't bother pitching the idea of a tote flipper because of the limited amount of them on the field, and its biggest use would be when a stack fell over. The totes as resources are interesting because when right you get points, but when things go wrong and they fall over you have the potential to lose using them all together.
That is something very hard to do in physical sports or activities without adding levels of complexity. The GDC did a great job of making the field another player in this game. I normally felt like the fields in past games punished teams who didn't invest heavily into drive bases this was a nice change from that.
Although I still do not like straight mecanum...

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by DareDad

I didn't say I hated the game I said it's hard, perhaps impossible, for teams who don't have excellent engineering and manufacturing (and programming) skills to be able to build a high scoring robot.

I'm sorry, when has this ever not been true? In 2013, could a team without excellent engineering, manufacturing and programming skills have built a robot with a 7 disk auto and a 30 point climb? Could a team without those skills have had a 3 ball auto for Aerial Assist? High scoring robots are built by teams that excel in all of these areas, regardless of the game.

[AllenGregoryIV]

The red cards make some sense during a normal match and while attempting to get into transport configuration. Franks explanation is reasonable. During a field timeout, it will only delay matches for teams to have to recharge pneumatics off the field, when it could easily be done on the field as it has been done in every year I can remember.

Another rule that will be changed at most off-seasons if not sooner by FIRST, I'm sure.

In general I don't understand why the FRC rule book needs to be so strict. Everyone is out here to play, have fun, and yes to win. The VEX rule book gives the head referee a lot of room to give teams warning before and after they commit offenses before drastic action is taken. Why isn't this the same in FRC. When it comes down to it, warning a team and explaining the rules is just the civil thing to do. Rule enforcement should change through the event and year, everyone is learning in early weeks, why not be kind and cut teams some slack. Later in the event, if you have warned them and they are still not following then there should be repercussion for their actions. First strike rules seem far to harsh for an organization that prides it self on being gracious. We talk about cooperation and wanting to compete against teams when they are at their best. I don't know any competitive team that goes into an event wanting to win by having another robot tipped over or not working, let alone red carded for minor non-match actions. This is one of the reason I have never been an FRC referee.

[EricH]

I know that at Inland Empire, we were calling fouls during practice matches. And if we called a foul at that time, we generally went over to the team and said "hey, we called a foul on you, here's what it is". By quals, most teams had figured out what sort of actions would cause a foul/card. (Though one of the first fouls called in quals was a yellow card--that was also the last team to touch their controls during auto!)

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

I'm sorry, when has this ever not been true? In 2013, could a team without excellent engineering, manufacturing and programming skills have built a robot with a 7 disk auto and a 30 point climb? Could a team without those skills have had a 3 ball auto for Aerial Assist? High scoring robots are built by teams that excel in all of these areas, regardless of the game.

But, a marginal team with a kit-bot could manage to do autonomous mobility and a 10 point climb. This year, a basic kit-bot can be part of a robot set, but only if the other two members of the alliance don't blow it off as unneeded points.

Beyond that, if they try to push single totes onto the scoring platform, they're likely to get yelled at by their partners for "cluttering" the field and getting in the way. There's certainly a place for a less advanced team with a good driver to pick up litter, but that would require engineering and manufacturing an effective noodle grabber which would mean that they aren't a less advanced team.

Last year, it was about all 3 robots on an alliance working together, this year leaving the third alliance robot off the field in eliminations has been an effective strategy.

[Jared Russell]

Things I learned from webcasts:

1) This year there are more HD webcasts and fewer "potato" quality webcasts than in years past. That is a good thing. In particular, the Michigan, PNW, and Dallas webcasts were phenomenal. Although I don't know why Dallas had to disable embed, meaning you can't watch alongside other events on The Blue Alliance.

2) I found the black-on-white numbering scheme to be very difficult to read from afar, particularly when numbers can be mounted at any height. Some teams had them low, some high, some on large panels, others taped onto superstructure. The high numbers were the worst to read, because of all the visual clutter in the background at that height. And black on white does not pop whatsoever against the gray aluminum structure that 80% of FRC teams use. I guess this is one downside of extremely liberal robot rules...with bumpers, you always know where you need to look. #bringbackthespinnylight

3) The litter mechanic is my least favorite part of this game, and maybe my least favorite FRC game mechanic ever. Human players have long been a part of FRC, and I have no problem letting them directly contribute to the score. But the noodles become land mines for both alliances, blocking access to totes and recycling cans, invalidating swaths of the scoring ramp, and getting lodged in drive trains. There is nothing inspiring in watching an effective robot get a "noodle flat tire" or be unable to load because of a piece of litter (and it is basically impossible to design a robot that is totally impervious). I also find it simultaneously depressing and ironic that "throwing your trash into your neighbor's lawn" is in many ways just as effective or more effective than recycling It's certainly easier...

4) This game did not pass the "wife" test (my litmus test for the crowd-pleasing-ness of a game is to show it to my wife). The scoring was easy for her to understand, but she did not find it interesting to watch in the least. (As background she really liked 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013; tolerated 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2014; and despised 2009).

5) I do not know how the refs are supposed to judge the state of 3 robots, 3 yellow bins, and 3+ recycling cans simultaneously and instantly at the end of autonomous mode. There were times on the webcast where I swear I saw an auto stack in contact with a robot (the scorer or a partner) at the end of autonomous, but the points were awarded anyways.

6) One more thing about webcasts...many events cut from the field feed to the "Thank You Sponsors" roll the SECOND that the match ended, meaning that the viewer could only guess whether that last second cap was successful, or whether that precarious stack finally tumbled...

Originally Posted by Ichlieberoboter

I saw quite a few penalties called when teams tried to do coopertition and accidentally knocked the yellow totes to the other side of the field while stacking them.

Imagine how great it would have been if the yellow totes were the only game object that a robot was allow to transfer to the other side of the field without penalty. Not only would this eliminate the (questionable) penalty for trying and failing to co-op, but it would have given rise to a new class of "tote catapult" robots during elims! Stacking high? Better be ready to protect them...

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Not only would this eliminate the (questionable) penalty for trying and failing to co-op, but it would have given rise to a new class of "tote catapult" robots during elims! Stacking high? Better be ready to protect them...

Why? If a hit is scored by such a method, the points are guaranteed. OTOH, if that alliance gets crazy and knocks them over themselves, no points are awarded...

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by EricH

Why? If a hit is scored by such a method, the points are guaranteed. OTOH, if that alliance gets crazy and knocks them over themselves, no points are awarded...

Yes, I was (jokingly) proposing that yellow tote wrecking balls would be allowed to descore.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Yes, I was (jokingly) proposing that yellow tote wrecking balls would be allowed to descore.

IRI can dream.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

IRI can dream.

IRI should remove the noodles, replace them with one Aerial Assist ball per alliance that can be used for descoring, and let teams enter either their 2014 or 2015 robots as they see fit. That would make this game a lot more interesting to watch, and hey, it's recycling?

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Yes, I was (jokingly) proposing that yellow tote wrecking balls would be allowed to descore.

That would give them some use to their otherwise useless role in teleop of elims...

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

IRI should remove the noodles, replace them with one Aerial Assist ball per alliance that can be used for descoring, and let teams enter either their 2014 or 2015 robots as they see fit. That would make this game a lot more interesting to watch, and hey, it's recycling?

They need to reverse the noodle policy. Now, its noodles till final 20; it should be, no noodles till final 20.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Things I learned from webcasts:

...

3) The litter mechanic is my least favorite part of this game, and maybe my least favorite FRC game mechanic ever. Human players have long been a part of FRC, and I have no problem letting them directly contribute to the score. But the noodles become land mines for both alliances, blocking access to totes and recycling cans, invalidating swaths of the scoring ramp, and getting lodged in drive trains. There is nothing inspiring in watching an effective robot get a "noodle flat tire" or be unable to load because of a piece of litter (and it is basically impossible to design a robot that is totally impervious). I also find it simultaneously depressing and ironic that "throwing your trash into your neighbor's lawn" is in many ways just as effective or more effective than recycling It's certainly easier...

...

Yes - my feelings exactly! In a game that is meant to showcase precise robot engineering and manipulation skills, the noodles just seem like a cheap distraction.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by dodar

They need to reverse the noodle policy. Now, its noodles till final 20; it should be, no noodles till final 20.

As much as I would love this, it makes the rarely used but still existing "processing litter" mechanic hard to execute. I'd prefer if they go ahead and "recycle" all of the noodles tomorrow morning, though.

With regards to the numbering on robots, I can't tell you how surprised I wasn't how the numbering turned out. Bonus points to robots at Palmetto with vertical and split numbering, as well as teams just throwing on the number plate they get in the pits and rolling out to the field with them (this actually happened).

With regards to the game being hard to understand, I really don't know how the GDC expected it to be easy to understand. I know hindsight is 20/20 but to improve the understandability of the game, I would have done this:

1) Get rid of Litter
2) Divide all remaining point values by 2 (not really necessary, but it helps later)
3) Instead of gratuitously stamping the FIRST logo on every game piece even though the banners, scoring overlay, and logos on the field walls apparently aren't enough, and replace every logo with the point value stamped on to the object. Every tote has a big white "1" printed on each side and each can has each FIRST logo replaced by a big white "x3" stamped around the cylinders.
3-a) Change auto point values so we don't see the most useless auto period since 2010. Tote set is worth 6, robot set is worth 4, and stack set is 12, but the containers are x3 to your auto score for both consistency but also to encourage better auto play.
4) Replace the gold totes on the field at the start of the match with gray totes, or a different color. Keep gold totes off the field. Allow the new totes in the staging zone to be scored on the bumps. Stamp the +1 on those
5) Replace the vision targets no one uses with the "grabsomefeet" co-op logo on the cans. On each side of the step have a display that shows the current point value of the co-op stack. In eliminations, have the display show the seeds playing in the matches.
6) Maybe have displays on top of each backstop showing how many points currently sit on each backstop.
7) (Totally optional and a little crazy) Somehow get the bumps to illuminate where a scored stack is placed

If I had no clue what this game was when I saw it, I would wonder why teams are throwing scoring objects to the other alliance, why teams are delivering yellow totes to a center object in qualification matches for a lot of points but don't ever touch them in eliminations (when points matter more, right!), why a stack of 6 totes tall is not worth any more than 6 totes laying alone on the bumps, and understand exactly how much cans help.

I'm pretty sure as much as 11 years ago FIRST had scoring object values printed on the objects (Frenzy, right?). This way I could look at the field and figure out exactly what was happening. You count "1, 1, 1, 1, x3... that's 12 points!" You see the co-op display and know how much that is worth.

Post-match overlay could be really good if some thought was put into it. One idea I have at 2:30 AM is this:

1) Take a screenshot of the field before the field gets the green lights.
2) Have the first overlay take up the lower third, like the small one we see in the playoffs, while you see the field screenshot.
3) After that screen, move to a screen that shows the final score of the match as well as a sample of the standings. Have 16 slots to show at once. You get the top 10 + the 6 robots in the last match on the screen showing their rank and change arrow, QA and change arrow, Co-Op score, and Next Match. The teams not in the match are not highlighted while the ones from the match are highlighted in their alliance colors. If one of the teams from the last match are in the top 10, you show the 11th place team, 2 means you show up to 12th, and so on.

One concerning thing I have gotten out of this game so far has nothing to do with FRC the program. FRC is a product. A game like this is hard to sell as a product to potential sponsors, volunteers, media partners, schools, etc.