A Recycle Rush Reflection

[Rachel Lim]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Or, will we finally see the values changed? Hmm...

The GDC can't* change the values now, not when many teams have been planning their strategy around them since kickoff. Unlike a minor change (like not allowing noodle throwing or something similar), that would be a HUGE strategic change for high level matches.

(And I'm saying this as a student on a team that hasn't put a large focus on them and probably won't be that affected by a change like that. But I think it would be completely unfair to teams who have done this to have the entire game changed right before champs.)

*Can't = will avoid this if it is at all possible (i.e. they have the ability, but almost definitely won't)

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

Can you elaborate on why you feel this way?

Mostly because I use global team performance as a proxy for engineering difficulty per performance level. The contribution skew is the worst it's been in years, with more teams lower and some out in the stratosphere. Combined with the game's limits on contributions (essentially, it's really easy to get in the way), the effective floor to contribute is relatively high relative to that spread.

At the same time, those stratospheric teams are capped in the literal sense in terms of game pieces. I guess it's not so much that it's a low ceiling as it's a ceiling no one really wanted to break. This isn't trying to squeeze in another 3 assist cycle or nail the triple balance or design that 6 second climb. This is minibots: an arms race for a coin flip.

Originally Posted by itsjustjon

I meant simple in the fact that most (if not, all) robots this year are similar in design. For me, I did not see too many designs that were unique (One exception being 2122 with their table for resting an RC). All designs have same/similar intake style and lift design. They all do the same thing except some are faster or more efficient. Of course there are other exceptions that I didn't name. One other dichotomy is that either your bot does landfill or feeder, and very few bots do both. I honestly do not know what I was necessarily expecting but I just feel that there wasn't room for uniqueness.

This lack of uniqueness makes the game simple because the task isn't too hard. It doesn't demand thinking outside of the box. All you need to do is stack something. No more, no less.

I gotcha. Yeah, this isn't full-court frisbee shooting versus 10-foot pyramid climbing--I can see how that combined with the limited interaction makes things look very similar. That's not to say that, as Mark was, there's no devil in the details.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

The GDC can't change the values now, not when many teams have been planning their strategy around them since kickoff. Unlike a minor change (like not allowing noodle throwing or something similar), that would be a HUGE strategic change for high level matches.

They specifically said they can change scoring values.

Originally Posted by Section 3.1.2.4 Blue Box

As competition at the FIRST Championship is typically different from that during rest of the competition season, FIRST may alter each scoring value at the FIRST Championship.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Necroterra

When I show our team's victory to an outsider, be it a family member, a friend, a potential sponsor, I think their experience is something like this:

"BLUE ALLIANCE WINS" - Ok, so they won. Now what? They get to go to Championships and lose against teams I have never heard of? Uh...

This to me is not all that different than any other high school sport. Your season qualifies you for the playoffs, and the playoffs end with one team winning the State Championship. Maybe it is different because with other sports a State Championship is the highest goal to obtain, since there is no consensus National/World Championship for most high school sports even if there are national tournaments and attempts at rankings by sites like Max Preps. If that's the case the District system will eventually solve that problem; winning a District event is like winning a meet or tournament (helps you rank highly but not required to advance to the playoffs), and winning the District Championship is like winning the State Championship. Eventually with the growth of FRC attending the World Championships could be an unknown concept and not the ultimate goal for most, it already is that way with FLL (25,000 teams with almost 100 District Championships and only about 100 teams attend the World Festival). Competing with out of state teams for high school sports is typical only of very high level programs.

Originally Posted by artK

It happens almost every year, with teams like 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, and 148 (the third champion robots from 2013-2008) falling to one of the last picks of the draft.

I still don't know how 148 (the fastest lap runner in the world) ever fell to the last pick of the #1 alliance in their division. There were only two track balls to use, what else was the third partner going to do?

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

This is a very difficult game. Watch videos of matches with combined scores under 30 points and you will understand where I'm coming from. There are quite a few of them.

These game pieces were not conductive to teams that struggle building manipulators. Large, asymmetrical, heavy (8 lbs) game pieces require a lot of attention to detail, and the totes being either packed in the landfill or flipped over from the chute door didn't help. Mentoring a team that were effectively rookies from their experience level, we struggled even though our arm could lift totes because we made our arms about 1" too wide so that they ran into the totes neighboring the one we wanted in the landfill rather than fitting nicely into the gaps between them. We sized to give ourselves a little room to line up when picking up a single stationary tote but never tested on a landfill setup since we didn't have enough game pieces for it.


I did enjoy this game a lot more than I thought I would, but the barrier to a competitive robot was the highest imo since 2010 (oh the 0-0 soccer scores!).

[itsjustjon]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

Hey Jon,
I think you had a fun time because you students were prototyping a lot. Think about how many prototypes you went through. I remember your original tote lifter, I am very happy you continued testing to find a vastly superior design. Not to mention how many intake ideas were traded back and forth with 3476.

Your CAD team worked very hard this year to make sure everything work as designed. I am glad everything came together so smoothly and simple. There were pitfalls along the way, your robot was vastly different before the intake was finished.

The funny thing this game was anything but simple for robots, a lot of the tough stuff was in the details, intake geometry, space for the tote lifter, geometry of the tote lifter. A lot of the unique stuff is in the details. i am sure when our 2 robots are side by side each other sometime this summer your will notice a lot of similarities but also a lot key differences when you look up close. for one 3476 holds up a stack using a disc brake and you have a second set of pneumatically driven latches. These are 2 very different solutions to the same problem. If dig under the hood of most robots you will find plenty of outside of the box ideas.

That is all very true. I never took a step back and thought of it from that angle. Thank you for the different perspective.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

They specifically said they can change scoring values.

That would make for a very interesting Championships. I sort of hope they do just to keep the game competitive after the first quarter of a second.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

They specifically said they can change scoring values.

In 2013, the following was included in the manual

As competition at the FIRST Championship is typically different from that during the competition season, FIRST may alter the value of CLIMBING at the FIRST Championship by up to ten (10) points per Level.

There was a great deal of speculation that the incentive for climbing would be increased at Championship, but this did not materialize.

I think the incentives in Recycle Rush are overall more rational that the incentive for climbing was in Ultimate Ascent, so the chance of any score change happening is even lower. For that decision to make sense, the GDC would have to conclude that the benefits of making such a change would outweigh the backlash from teams who spent a season building and competing with a robot designed around the current incentive structure.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by dcarr

In 2013, the following was included in the manual



There was a great deal of speculation that the incentive for climbing would be increased at Championship, but this did not materialize.

I think the incentives in Recycle Rush are overall more rational that the incentive for climbing was in Ultimate Ascent, so the chance of any score change happening is even lower. For that decision to make sense, the GDC would have to conclude that the benefits of making such a change would outweigh the backlash from teams who spent a season building and competing with a robot designed around the current incentive structure.

IMO, quite the opposite. Climbing in Ultimate Ascent may have been less valuable than some people thought it would be, but ultimately the game was fairly well balanced and exciting to watch. Recycle Rush, on the other hand, is barreling straight towards a 2011 scenario where top-level matches are decided by a single action that wasn't supposed to be the main focus of the game in the first place... and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the blue box was designed to prevent.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by bduddy

IMO, quite the opposite. Climbing in Ultimate Ascent may have been less valuable than some people thought it would be, but ultimately the game was fairly well balanced and exciting to watch. Recycle Rush, on the other hand, is barreling straight towards a 2011 scenario where top-level matches are decided by a single action that wasn't supposed to be the main focus of the game in the first place... and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the blue box was designed to prevent.

I think there's a difference between point incentives for game actions, and availability of game resources that are then used to score points. What score value change in Recycle Rush would eliminate the significance of the "single action" (presumably, the rush for RCs during the first < 1 second of autonomous)?. Lower RC value? Adding more RCs would not be a score change, it would be a game mechanics change. Not something that the GDC states is a possibility at least based on that blue box.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by dcarr

I think there's a difference between point incentives for game actions, and availability of game resources that are then used to score points. What score value change in Recycle Rush would eliminate the significance of the "single action" (presumably, the rush for RCs during the first < 1 second of autonomous)?. Lower RC value? Adding more RCs would not be a score change, it would be a game mechanics change. Not something that the GDC states is a possibility at least based on that blue box.

I may be afraid I said this, but the solution to ending the midstep rush in the first second would be to drastically lower the RC values and/or up the tote stacking value.

[Rachel Lim]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

They specifically said they can change scoring values.

Sorry, I guess my original post wasn't clear. The GDC can legally change the values, but can't without completely changing the game and what mechanisms teams should have focused on. For weeks everything has been focused on those center containers; by changing the rules the best designs will become those robots focused on stacking totes very fast.

So yes, they can change the values, but they basically change the entire game. And they definitely can't change it without a very long thread on CD discussing whether they should or shouldn't have done so...

I'm not saying I like the fact that games will be decided in the first 0.1sec or so. I'm just saying that it has been this way so far, and to change it at this point will be...very interesting.

[MooreteP]

I may be afraid to say this too, but I have heard that the FMS may have a subtle micro-delay between when each alliance is enabled in autonomous.
FMS Enabling Sequence

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

Sorry, I guess my original post wasn't clear. The GDC can legally change the values, but can't without completely changing the game and what mechanisms teams should have focused on. For weeks everything has been focused on those center containers; by changing the rules the best designs will become those robots focused on stacking totes very fast.

So yes, they can change the values, but they basically change the entire game. And they definitely can't change it without a very long thread on CD discussing whether they should or shouldn't have done so...

I'm not saying I like the fact that games will be decided in the first 0.1sec or so. I'm just saying that it has been this way so far, and to change it at this point will be...very interesting.

In general, I agree with you. The GDC will have to, and I hope they are, consider what is the bigger problem: the unfairness caused by changing the rules, or the negative effects on the whole of FRC if the Championship games end up happening in the way many are predicting.