This year's "game" is a job, not a game

[Siri]

Originally Posted by jman4747

FRC matches never look "cool" to outsiders at lower and medium levels of play and usually not even at high levels. That aspect is no different than years past. This challenge is great and the competition is as good as its ever been.

I will counter your anecdote-based opinion with my own anecdote. I've been fieldside for a number of high-profile outsider guests these past few weeks, and it is much worse than last year or particularly 2013 (also 2012). They're not as engaged, don't get caught up in the action, don't watch as long, and make decidedly unexcited comments about how hard this must be.

Now that we both have anecdotes, can we stop asserting their conclusions as fact?

If you'd like to recall your own anecdotes, I'd like to suggest the TBA Approach. Pick your favorite event and your favorite number (under ~70). Watch that match from 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012 (a current senior's career in FIRST). I just did Match 40 at Week 1 Hatboro-Horsham.

2015 Week 1 HH Match 40
2014 Week 1 HH Match 40
2013 Week 1 HH Match 41 (40 is missing)
2012 Week 1 HH Match 40

There's no correct answer as to which one you enjoy more, but it might be an interesting exercise regardless.

[KelliV]

Originally Posted by jman4747

FRC matches never look "cool" to outsiders at lower and medium levels of play and usually not even at high levels. That aspect is no different than years past. This challenge is great and the competition is as good as its ever been.

I have to disagree, several games have looked cool and were fun to watch (2012 for example). In college, most of my friends really didn't care about engineering but LOVED watching matches with great defense, a solid objective, and an exciting end game. I showed some footage of this year's competition to a few people at work who were interested in FIRST and they declared it "boring" and "confusing". One even commented that watching our fork lift driver move pieces of basketball court was more interesting than watching robots try to stack boxes. They then turned it off. I hate saying it but at the end of the day this is a boring game UNLESS you are on a team, in which case I guess it could be fun because it's your robot out there?

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Siri

I will counter your anecdote-based opinion with my own anecdote. I've been fieldside for a number of high-profile outsider guests these past few weeks, and it is much worse than last year or particularly 2013 (also 2012). They're not as engaged, don't get caught up in the action, don't watch as long, and make decidedly unexcited comments about how hard this must be.

Now that we both have anecdotes, can we stop asserting their conclusions as fact?

If you'd like to recall your own anecdotes, I'd like to suggest the TBA Approach. Pick your favorite event and your favorite number (under ~70). Watch that match from 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012 (a current senior's career in FIRST). I just did Match 40 at Week 1 Hatboro-Horsham.

2015 Week 1 HH Match 40
2014 Week 1 HH Match 40
2013 Week 1 HH Match 41 (40 is missing)
2012 Week 1 HH Match 40

There's no correct answer as to which one you enjoy more, but it might be an interesting exercise regardless.

1st 2013
2nd 2014
3rd 2015,2012 tie

That's how interesting those matches were in order, and I was getting into the 2015 one more (probably because were playing it now). My point is an outsider looking at any match here wouldn't decide to get into STEM by virtue of the match alone. I think the better way to illustrate this is to imagine watching week one match one of 2014 and Einstein finals vs week one match one of 2015 and finals at Ontario this year. The relative reaction would be the same. A good 2015 match can be as good as a good 2012-13-14 match. If the robots are all doing really good bystanders can tell and will react accordingly. If the match ends with a few stray totes here and there it can be confusing as to what they were trying to do. If 1114 comes in and cleans up the field you will have a good example of both the objective and how it can be accomplished.

Basically I think this game is harder and thus you will see less high level play. High level play is exciting in any sport. Also the absence of a hole or box to shoot things through makes it more difficult to see the end goal with no fore knowledge. For instance if in 2013 one robot shot only 3 discs and made two the whole match you knew what they wanted to do (put disk in rectangle). In 2015 if a robot only gets 4 totes at all and one falls off the stack you may not know they wanted them there (what if the platform just looked like an obstacle?). Also I think everyone is to used to shooting and defending. Bottom line is if we all played like we wish we did matches would all look better and be more obvious to the outsider every year.

And TLDR because none of that is what makes you decide to do STEM. It's our job to get new people in the door not the GDC. Dean needs us to make it loud no matter whats going on at the field. The game is not bad.

[MrJohnston]

I find that when I talk to folks about FIRST and this year's game, the spin I put on it is huge.... I generally talk about the process - the six week build and how we never know what game we are playing until that first Saturday of the New Year. I mention all the different sorts of games we've played.... They then eagerly ask what this year's game is.... I word my answer something like this: "Well, this year, the game committee took a little away from teh game from a spectator's perspective and gave us a brutally difficult engineering challenge - the hardest one since I've been involved." I then go on to talk about attempting to stack those totes and can 8-10 feet high (six totes + RC + noodle).

I find they are still interested. I do acknowledge, however, that the game does not generate the same "wow" factor as our FCS did in 2013 or our free-throw shooter did in 2012.... Still, my students and I are enjoying the challenges this year.

[nixiebunny]

Looks like I'm not the only one who sees this task as not exactly exciting to the causal observer. I do see some thoughtful comments about the value of the challenge, with which I agree. But it still sounds like a job.

I would love to be watching our robot compete in Chandler at Arizona East this weekend, but I am currently waiting for my older son's appendectomy to be performed. Maybe I'll get to be there for the eliminations.

[pmangels17]

Originally Posted by jman4747

It's our job to get new people in the door not the GDC. Dean needs us to make it loud no matter whats going on at the field. The game is not bad.

Firstly, the GDC is our version of product design. It is always the job of designers (GDC) to create an appealing product that consumers (teams), so as to attract enough consumers to increase profits (which don't have to be monetary profits). We hold it on them to create a game that attracts the interest of competitors and spectators alike, like Apple expects the iPhone team to produce an iPhone that consumers want to buy. This extends past just recruiting new members. You can't market the "Sport for the Mind" if the sport is competitive box stacking, and you can't expect sponsors (especially new sponsors) to donate to a team that basically builds a miniature forklift, because there are already forklifts. It'd be like me investing in your company to invent the wooden wheel; it has already been done.

Secondly, and I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, it isn't about what Dean wants or needs us to do. I have the utmost respect for Dean for starting something huge, and something that I love. However, FIRST is a community larger than one man, and we should be making it loud for students, for teams, for schools, for our friends, for our generation, and for our future, not because one man needs us to. This is a point that I cannot stress enough. Dean is awesome, but if you do things because Dean says you should, you are missing part of the point.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by jman4747

But we've never had sports cars!

You weren't around for 2008, so I'll give you a pass on that. What you missed: In 2008, the GDC gave us a game in which the objective was to go around and around a track, pushing and/or throwing large balls (bigger than last year's, and arguably one of the biggest game pieces FRC has ever seen) as you went. The more laps, the more points. Some teams built robots for speed and maneuverability rather than attempting to handle the large balls. BTW, this was NASCAR style: direction of travel was a left-hand turn.

Incidentally, 2008, like 2014, was a heavily-penalized year. Teams would get penalties for turning in place if they weren't careful, on occasion. (They'd violate some rule about position/crossing a line, or be seen to be doing that even though they weren't.) The next year, we got Lunacy with very few interaction rules. This time through the cycle, it was Aerial Assist followed by Recycle Rush. 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 oughtta be good years for spectator involvement if we are in fact on a roughly 6-year cycle of increasing penalties, followed by a year of very few penalties in reaction to massive penalties the previous year.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by pmangels17

Firstly, the GDC is our version of product design. It is always the job of designers (GDC) to create an appealing product that consumers (teams), so as to attract enough consumers to increase profits (which don't have to be monetary profits). We hold it on them to create a game that attracts the interest of competitors and spectators alike, like Apple expects the iPhone team to produce an iPhone that consumers want to buy. This extends past just recruiting new members. You can't market the "Sport for the Mind" if the sport is competitive box stacking, and you can't expect sponsors (especially new sponsors) to donate to a team that basically builds a miniature forklift, because there are already forklifts. It'd be like me investing in your company to invent the wooden wheel; it has already been done.

Secondly, and I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, it isn't about what Dean wants or needs us to do. I have the utmost respect for Dean for starting something huge, and something that I love. However, FIRST is a community larger than one man, and we should be making it loud for students, for teams, for schools, for our friends, for our generation, and for our future, not because one man needs us to. This is a point that I cannot stress enough. Dean is awesome, but if you do things because Dean says you should, you are missing part of the point.

Sponsors
I got five new sponsors this year who are just fine with box stacking and put in thousands worth of machining, money, engineering advice, tools and more. They and our returning sponsors do not care about the game. They care about what the students get from competing and building the robot. In fact all five of our new sponsors agreed to help before the game came out because the excitement of the game is not the important part of FIRST. It's the people and what we do to make matches happen. They wanted to help us kids gain the knowledge and skills needed to do well in whatever game came out. They were confident that whatever it was it would demand the knowledge and skills that FRC always has.

Recruitment
If this game not being like 2013-14 negatively affects your recruitment somehow it's because you could only talk about how bad the games are. Instead of that try to remember all the work you put in and the things you learned to get the robot to the field in the first place.

Learning?
I guess I forgot that learning anything technical was on the back burner to the FRC community compared to how cool the game is. Yea I know that's quite cynical.

Word choice
I said Dean because the first time I remember hearing that phrase in reference to FIRST was when he mentioned it at 2013 champs because I was there. That is what came to mind so that's what I said.

Lastly, It's our job to get new people in the door not the GDC. If we can't even make the experience of building the robot seem attractive why would anyone join and stay on FRC team in the first place?

Game this year is great! I love it!

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by EricH

You weren't around for 2008, so I'll give you a pass on that. What you missed: In 2008, the GDC gave us a game in which the objective was to go around and around a track, pushing and/or throwing large balls (bigger than last year's, and arguably one of the biggest game pieces FRC has ever seen) as you went. The more laps, the more points. Some teams built robots for speed and maneuverability rather than attempting to handle the large balls. BTW, this was NASCAR style: direction of travel was a left-hand turn.

Incidentally, 2008, like 2014, was a heavily-penalized year. Teams would get penalties for turning in place if they weren't careful, on occasion. (They'd violate some rule about position/crossing a line, or be seen to be doing that even though they weren't.) The next year, we got Lunacy with very few interaction rules. This time through the cycle, it was Aerial Assist followed by Recycle Rush. 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 oughtta be good years for spectator involvement if we are in fact on a roughly 6-year cycle of increasing penalties, followed by a year of very few penalties in reaction to massive penalties the previous year.

Ask someone if they want world champion FRC robot or a BMW M3...

We are here in huge part because STEM related things are under appreciated. Building that appreciation means nothing if it isn't based on what it really takes to do what we do. Most of our work is not to be on the field in front of the crowd. That's the goal, to do our best out there. What we do to get there is what we want people to appreciate. Would we say we are promoting stem if 10,000 spectators came to a regional because the games were so amazing to watch but participation never rose again?

[SousVide]

Originally Posted by jman4747

Ask someone if they want world champion FRC robot or a BMW M3...

We are here in huge part because STEM related things are under appreciated. Building that appreciation means nothing if it isn't based on what it really takes to do what we do. Most of our work is not to be on the field in front of the crowd. That's the goal, to do our best out there. What we do to get there is what we want people to appreciate. Would we say we are promoting stem if 10,000 spectators came to a regional because the games were so amazing to watch but participation never rose again?

Has everyone seen Dr. Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture", if not, I highly recommend it. You can see it here:
https://youtu.be/j7zzQpvoYcQ

It's a inspirational message about how people learn - and it was actually his last lecture - he meant to leave that as his legacy to his children. Anyways, in it, he talks about head-fake. In which, he teaches someone an important lesson that they might not know to learn (or care to) by showing them something else that they might have an interest in instead.

Anyways, I see the FIRST world as two different types of people - and no, this isn't a joke about the binary counting system. Type A is the people who already come in with some interest or appreciation for metal work, hand tools, electrical wiring, programming, or just plain old STEM. These people are either standing at the thresholding waiting to be invited in or have already boldly stride through. Our work as mentors is to groom them and "mentor" them - keep them interested, reveal to them the rest of the wonder, etc. There are also adults who are in this category and they are ready to jump in enthusiastically to help, to pitch in with support, etc.

But those aren't necessarily the people I'm talking about. I am talking about the Type B people. They have no interest in this stuff - nobody has shone them and they might not even care. Here's the head-fake, I show them a sports game - that he/she can relate to. We can talk about how exciting these things can get. How much sports there is and look at all of these young people, parents, and mentors all very much engaged, etc... While they are enjoying all of this and nodding, I take them to the workshop and the pit where everybody are furiously working towards a common goal - show them all of the GP and coopertition that's happening... Head faked again... because all of that exciting stuff that we just shared and enjoyed out of the field happens because of all of this other stuff that happens here - now we all have an understanding. "Bud, I need your help", etc. ,etc... Sometimes people can learn to appreciate something that they haven't before if you can show them some common ground and a powerful shared vision - eventhough they had completely no interest in it in the first place.

We are not just trying to reach Type A folks, we need to bring in Type B folks too... In my case, I have to, because most of the town are Type B folks - absolutely no interest. But hey, if I can show them a basketball-like game, or soccer-like game, I just might be able to head-fake them into it.

It's sooo much harder when they think what's going on out on the field is a snore.

(and again, I am completely fine with whatever engineering type challenges that are put out by our fine GDC folks at FIRST. The Type A folks we have will eat it up either way. It's the Type B folks that will always make it a challenge; and some years it's just harder.)

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by SousVide

The Type A folks we have will eat it up either way.

I wish... see this thread : http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=135888

The game design and how matches look aren't it it's the fact that we are competing with each other. The excitement of doing well and winning. Then there is wanting to do better than what you are seeing. Competing with others always gets people excited.

The matches being exciting has more to do with how well we do in them. The more we score the more exciting it will be. Furthermore a low scoring match in 2012-14 probably looked better than this year. You have to do a bit more proportional to the current challenge for it to look as good. A few 2-3 stacks and the stray tote here or there doesn't look as good. That said Getting 2-3 caped 4-6 tote stacks looks pretty good. In that case the game design has less to do with it than robot performance, which is determined by competitors. I think this game is harder too.

Game is great. Recycle Rush hype!

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by jman4747

Ask someone if they want world champion FRC robot or a BMW M3...

If I had the choice between a BMW M3 and 1114's Simbot Sideswipe (in the beautiful red powder coat)... hmmm... !

[SousVide]

Originally Posted by jman4747

I wish... see this thread : http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=135888

The game design and how matches look aren't it it's the fact that we are competing with each other. The excitement of doing well and winning. Then there is wanting to do better than what you are seeing. Competing with others always gets people excited.

The matches being exciting has more to do with how well we do in them. The more we score the more exciting it will be. Furthermore a low scoring match in 2012-14 probably looked better than this year. You have to do a bit more proportional to the current challenge for it to look as good. A few 2-3 stacks and the stray tote here or there doesn't look as good. That said Getting 2-3 caped 4-6 tote stacks looks pretty good. In that case the game design has less to do with it than robot performance, which is determined by competitors. I think this game is harder too.

Game is great. Recycle Rush hype!

I know that many and most teams take the game and the regionals super-serious. We compete at our hardest too, but we focus on other aspects: the design, the building of the robot, how we organize and run our team at the event, how we partner up with our alliances, how we create and run the strategy, how we treat each other as people.... Win, Lose, Draw, we have fun. I truly have no gripes with the game from the team internal perspective - I am not overly concerned with the scoring mechanisms; it could be building a competitive rubber-stamping or dish-washing machine for all I care (edited: not that I don't care about what the GDC does or share their enthusiasm. It's just not really a main sole focus.). I really want the students in the team to focus on the process and themselves as the product.

The Robot and the game that's just another head-fake.... Do we get excited about the build season and getting to Regionals - heck, yeah. Do we take it seriously - absolutely... but not in that way though.

[bduddy]

I can only claim to be speaking for myself in this, but I'm not going to be able to attend SVR this year due to work stuff. While I'm sorry for not being able to volunteer, and to meet my former team and experience the atmosphere of an FRC regional, for the last couple years I would have also been upset about not being able to watch amazing teams play fun games. This year? Uhh, not so much.

I'm continually confused by the people here making excuses and trying to claim in various ways that the game being boring isn't important. Why are you here? Have you ever listened to even one of Dean's speeches? There are few things less important to FRC. I would honestly be surprised if next year isn't the worst for rookie retention in a long time due largely to this game. Anyone willing to argue that that isn't important?

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Have you ever listened to even one of Dean's speeches?

I'd argue that Recycle Rush is more thrilling than a Dean speech.