The cheesecake runaway

[Jared Russell]

I can only applaud teams for their ability to work within the rules and come up with both effective and creative cheesecake recipes for Recycle Rush. 1114 and 148 had two of the best, and I wish we had been able to see the harpoon guns on the field.

That being said, I think and hope that in future seasons cheesecake will not be allowed to this extent. Teams should be chosen based on their ability and fit within an alliance...not literally the fit of a premade mechanism within their chassis. Seeing less capable teams chosen over more capable teams solely to operate a foreign subsystem disincentivizes striving for excellence for a large part of the FRC population, and instead encourages things like making flyers advertising how easy it is to commandeer their robot.

Again, I do not mean to slight any cheesecake givers or receivers, as they have acted within the rules the same way I would have (and did). But there needs to be some sort of limit. Having a game that didn't depend so much on a single sub-1 second function would certainly help.

[Skyehawk]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

... Having a game that didn't depend so much on a single sub-1 second function would certainly help.

I have a feeling that we will never see a game that matches are decided within the first second ever again.

Everyone loves cheesecake, but when you can no longer love your bot because of cheesecaking, that's where I draw the line.

We all know it is a competitive atmosphere out there, even if it is "more than just robots". I want to win, you want to win, we all want to win, and some teams will go further then others. I am sure that if I found myself in the position, I would cheesecake the heck out of another bot (or my bot for that matter) if it meant a trip to Einstein.

[steelerborn]

Well I feel like in the long run this hurt 1114 and 148. You couldn't win recycle rush with just having two bots do everything on the alliance. It is about the alliance flow. 118, 1678, 1671, and 5012 won because they had three bots contribute a relatively "even" point distribution. When each bot only has to worry about getting two capped stacks of 6 or 5 it allows them to focus on the task, not feel rushed, and focus on being consistent.

While the level of cheesecake may or may not have been too much, in the end it was about building an alliance that had the best flow without cheesecake.

[Irwin772]

To clarify what 1114 did with 900, 900 built a kitbot chassis on Friday in order to have a light enough robot to be cheescaked, this obviously made them a viable pick despite their low ranking in the subdivision. This had more to do with 900 making a decision that paid off for them than 1114 and 148 asking them to do something they may not have planned on.

Also, the majority of the cheescaking that I saw happening this year was not very elaborate, most of them being ramp bots or adding a simple mechanism for canburgling. It was not until champs where I saw more elaborate cheesecake recipes, such as 1114's harpoons.

[Kpchem]

Originally Posted by Irwin772

To clarify what 1114 did with 900, 900 built a kitbot chassis on Friday in order to have a light enough robot to be cheescaked, this obviously made them a viable pick despite their low ranking in the subdivision. This had more to do with 900 making a decision that paid off for them than 1114 and 148 asking them to do something they may not have planned on.

Which further emphasizes the point made by grstex regarding teams looking at their ranking and "cutting bait" as he puts it.

But as others have pointed out, a lot of the problems here stem from the nature of Recycle Rush. It's a game where 2 top-tier robots can score almost all of the totes by themselves and don't need a third robot, and where it is incredibly easy to bolt on incredibly important and impressive add ons to an otherwise average robot and take that robot from average to "the best" at something (either a canburglar or ramps for the feeder station, your choice).

In 2014 you couldn't bolt on a manipulator to handle the ball. In 2013 you couldn't bolt on a shooter. You could bolt on a 10-point hang device, but that wasn't as important as the canburglars this year. And the same can be said for 2012 with regards to shooters (not possible) vs. a "stinger" (possible, but not critical). The last time we've had something where it was relatively easy to bolt on an extra device was 2011 with minibots, another year that had diminishing returns in scoring and the top-tier teams could do all of the "worthwhile" scoring. And that was/is one of the biggest complaints for that year. Matches were decided before they started based on the minibots.

I am hoping that FIRST realizes this when designing games in the future and stays away from these problems.

[Irwin772]

It did also allow teams to add things they did not have weight, which is pretty much what happened with all the ramps.

[Ubiquity]

I love CheeseCake - I think I like the citrus flavor best.

Cheesecaking has been part of FIRST for at least 12 years, but In every FRC competition I have been involved in it always seems that offense is what counts in the qualifiers, and defense is what ultimately decides eliminations. Now while in general a good offense is the best defense, this isn't always the case. This year was unusual, in that the only viable defense was grabbing the cans in auto. (Despite the catchy video, it wasn't "It's all about the totes.." and there was defense.) There was a secondary defense that almost never worked, and that was throwing pool noodles. In the case of the Poofs, that was the ultimate reason they didn't make to Einstein. The most sophisticated teams realized that in eliminations burgling was the key to success, and were prepared to make a super defense robot if they couldn't find one.

Our team only made it to Champs, because the Poofs and Circuits cheesecaked us at SVR. We came to champs as a pure can burglar and nothing else. We ultimately made to the Newton quarter finals as the fourth pick of the 6 seed, and were delighted to have got that far. The Robonauts and Citrus Circuits(the Circuits even brought us a spare set of arms) and both coached and helped tune our can grabbers during qualifiers. They wisely picked the BirdBrains (one of the best human side stackers) and Griffengears (because 118 could modify them as a pure pneumatic 4 can tethered grabber) I don't know if they ever got it working, but I would have loved to see it in action.

I don't think cheesecaking should be banned. I think a game design where defense and offense are more balanced would be better, but you have to have the bar set high enough to challenge the experienced teams, but low enough so the rookies with a KOP base can do something to aid their alliance. The game design committee has a darn hard job, and I think they get it right 99% of the time.

In the old days, I know of at least two occasions where a rookie team showed up at an event with an unassembled KOP and had a working robot by the end of qualifiers. Even at Davis this year one team showed up 40 lbs overweight, and I am proud to say the Apes of Wrath won the GP award for helping them to pass inspection. Instead of banning cheesecaking, we should encourage it.

[Conor Ryan]

I work in an industry where people will literally do anything to get ahead, when it goes too far rules get put into place (IE - Wolf of Wall Street when they are selling Pump and Dump Schemes, perfectly in the grey area of the law). Lets embrace STEM education the right way and push the right values through better rule guidance.

I didn't like the type of cheesecake at Worlds this year. 2011 style cheesecake, where robots shared Minibots? Awesome. I can't get enough of that. It didn't reconfigure the robot in the eyes of the community, it was just a neighbor helping a neighbor.

Throwing the robot that students built with mentors and teachers in their community and proudly showed off to sponsors and schools in the name of a last ditch effort to get picked? This is questionable ethics. Would I do it if I was in the situation? Sure, its a survival tactic, and as a mentor my students would be down in the dumps and it would be terrible to say no, that is just not in the spirit of mentoring. Should it be against the rules? Yes. Keep the Build Season Sacred.


Now this is starting to sound like the Financial World and Regulation. Do financial institutions like making lots of money? Yes. Should we be allowed to do it certain ways? No.

[Joe Johnson]

Perhaps I should have read this thread first, but I didn't. I read 900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles before this one.

I am full square against Cheesecaking. Read my arguments in that other thread here.


Dr. Joe J.

[Joe G.]

I think that cheesecaking to the excessive extent which was common throughout this year can be solved mostly through smart game design. Here are just a few factors off the top of my head which made recycle rush uniquely suited for cheesecaking:

• An incredibly cluttered field, which made it hard to effectively utilize three scoring robots without getting in each other's way
• No defense, which necessitated that a third partner contribute to the alliance through means other than their drivetrain, generally a crucial, and very integral, element of third partners.
• Three distinct, moderate/high difficulty autonomous tasks (20pt stack, cans 1/2, cans 3/4), all with extremely high reward, which were very hard or impossible for a single team to do more than one.
• The ease through which canburgling could be done through an "auxillary" mechanism, rather than something more integral to the design
• The transport configuration rules, and the extreme flexability they gave teams in these types of "auxillary" mechanisms. (see tethered ramps)
• The extreme strategic importance of a task which didn't immediately draw attention to itself, and was not initially focused on by a majority of teams.
• The fact that this importance varied to an extreme degree with the level of play, to the point where designing entirely around can grabbing was likely not a smart choice for a low resource team
• The "arms race" nature of the task, with continual dramatic redesigns being a requirement to remain competitive.
• The fact that canburgling was autonomous and very fast, giving the cheesecaking team complete control over a number of variables they likely would not have otherwise.

All of these can easily be designed out of future games. Not necessarily saying that they're all bad things (in fact, I quite like some of them), but all together, they created the perfect storm of cheesecake this season.

[T^2]

You're all correct that the prevalence of cheesecake is not due to teams' being un-GP, but rather to the idiotically designed game they were forced to play. They did the best engineering they could with the restrictions they were given.

[Electronica1]

Maybe a good compromise would be a weight limit for cheese cake parts, like 20 lbs(I randomly used 20, could be more or less depending on the game or actual analysis) of cheese cake, so it is still mostly the same robot with cheese cake added and not a completely new robot.

That said, I love the cheese caking this year (and not just because it is cheese related and my teams sole purpose is to find every cheese pun ever). It really raised the competitive level for teams. I would just like to see some actual rules in place for it, before it gets to a point where teams are essentially walking in with their own alliance partner, and randomly picking a team to drive it. I would be incredibly disappointed if FIRST got rid of it though, since it does have a positive impact.

(This is my personal opinion)

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by Electronica1

Maybe a good compromise would be a weight limit for cheese cake parts, like 20 lbs(I randomly used 20, could be more or less depending on the game or actual analysis) of cheese cake, so it is still mostly the same robot with cheese cake added and not a completely new robot.

That said, I love the cheese caking this year (and not just because it is cheese related and my teams sole purpose is to find every cheese pun ever). It really raised the competitive level for teams. I would just like to see some actual rules in place for it, before it gets to a point where teams are essentially walking in with their own alliance partner, and randomly picking a team to drive it. I would be incredibly disappointed if FIRST got rid of it though, since it does have a positive impact.

(This is my personal opinion)

I totally agree with the idea of regulating cheesecake; adding a gigantic mechanism (from what I heard, upwards of 70lbs) to a robot, regardless of that robot's previous weight, is extreme and should be disallowed. However, regulating the parts used for cheesecake is hard; mechanisms would be easier. If during partial inspection, a sticker with a team number was placed on every functional mechanism (defined by the inspectors, but generally things that have benefit to an alliance. For example, having a sensor or camera on the robot wouldn't count as a mechanism, but having an elevator pulley or ramp would). Then, the inspectors can see for eliminations which objects have a sticker with a different team number or no sticker at all. Inspectors would then be able to regulate the number of cheesecaked mechanisms and/or the weight of them. Additionally, they could also regulate the number of mechanisms that have been removed from the original robot (as they should/would be able to know how many stickers they gave).

Just an idea, and completely my own opinion. I would personally have a hard time taking apart my robot to the same extent as some others, but along with Alex, I do think it added another element to the game. Did it make Recycle Rush better? That's a debate for another day.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

It's not for the sake of winning, it's for the sake of the alliance. I always say that when you get to the elimination rounds, it's no longer just about your team - it's about the success of the entire alliance. If you're not putting in your all to achieve your alliance's goals (which should be inspiring your students through accomplishment and success [aka winning]), then you're doing a disservice to the other teams on your alliance.

Each team should ask not what their alliance can do for them, but what they can do for their alliance.

They made the call before they were selected onto an alliance.

[Glacier]

Originally Posted by Electronica1

Maybe a good compromise would be a weight limit for cheese cake parts, like 20 lbs(I randomly used 20, could be more or less depending on the game or actual analysis) of cheese cake, so it is still mostly the same robot with cheese cake added and not a completely new robot.

That said, I love the cheese caking this year (and not just because it is cheese related and my teams sole purpose is to find every cheese pun ever). It really raised the competitive level for teams. I would just like to see some actual rules in place for it, before it gets to a point where teams are essentially walking in with their own alliance partner, and randomly picking a team to drive it. I would be incredibly disappointed if FIRST got rid of it though, since it does have a positive impact.

(This is my personal opinion)

I am speaking from limited but enlightening experience about cheese caking when I say that a limit to the weight or size dimensions of the cheese would be a thoughtful idea. This year I have witnessed and read about two similar incidents concerning an alliance's ability to make it to the playoffs in a regional/district/division and actually win the whole shabang. 2383 (The Ningineers) came up with a "Noodle Net" that they put on team 5469 (Flare). The idea was creative and the purpose was to block or prevent "litter" from getting tangled in the drive trains of that alliance as well as to reduce the points scored for the litter. During the Bayou semifinals the alliance consisting of 2383, 179, and 5469 the net's tethering rope became tangled up in 2383's drive train, preventing them from scoring their maximum amount of points. Note: 5469 did not move the entire playoffs! So it became a 2vs3, and the cheese cake was effective in some ways but led to that alliance's demise.
I will only be able to restate the pros and cons of the
4 harpoon cheese cake idea. But it did hurt 148's alliance, regardless of the can burglaring properties it had, I feel like 1114 and 148 should have used their own automonous can burglars to retrieve the same amount of cans. I feel like if that had been accomplished than the third member of the alliance would have been able to contribute more toward the teams progression in the finals on Einstein, and potentially have won. So for all the ingenuis cheese cakers out their beware of the potential hurt it could bring your team or alliance.......