900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles

[blazingbronco18]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

It was ready just after Newton Finals. Preparation of our cheesecake was setting up the mechanism on a stand-in kitbot frame, a wood base on Friday. Saturday morning the plan changed to make it able to tether to 3rd bot with our robot parked OVER it. The mechanism was tested with 5 wraps in the pits while being weighed down with 2 cinder-blocks and 2 sandbags and grabbed the cans in 158 ms AFTER BUCKING NEARLY A FOOT off the ground and shrugging the blocks off. So if our robot could hold it down even better on the field there would be less wasted energy propelling it even faster! Then after auto we would drive off of Tether-Cake and stack some totes while leaving those 2 cans to be tied up the whole match.

Video?

[blackbrandt]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

We don't have to make it as black and white as most people seem to think. FIRST is a great community. Given the nature of the community, I think it can be handled quite simply with a statement of principle and a rule:

STATEMENT (put in a blue box in the rules if you like):

[Note, this post is my opinion and not the opinion of 900-Zebracorns]
That is funny. I think that it is cool that FIRST has nothing in the rules preventing this. I thought that it presented a more unique challenge.

[Harshizzle]

First of all, congratulations! It was great to see a North Carolina team get recognition on the big stage, and hopefully is a sign of greater things to come from our region.

900 (and 1519) was a common name heard in our strategy sessions week 1, as we noticed the tendency for unconventional robots to win North Carolina. Your full court launcher from 2014 is what fueled us to go with our crazy conveyor belt design. You guys didn't dissapoint, and watching your sleek design swerve around was great.

Now as for the cheescaking, that was inspirational stuff. I was keeping my team updated throughout your whole journey (just ask Chase, he's still in our Facebook group), and we were cheering you on every single step. So no, it wasn't 900's robot that got them picked. It was their guts, determination, boldness, and tenacity that made them a part of that alliance. And I'm okay with that. This isn't just a robotics competition, it's a human one as well, and 900 did what they had to do to make it work.

Having done a robot rebuild in one day due to weight problems, we know somewhat how driven you have to be to do it. Its pretty cool.

In the future, I'd like a robot with the ability to manipulate game pieces to be more valuable that a light chassis, but this alliance was just playing the cards they were dealt. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[notmattlythgoe]

So I have a question about a hypothetical situation.

Using the situation that had happened with 900 asking 1114 to help cheesecake them. If the #2 alliance had picked 900 with their 2nd pick, what would the reaction be?

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

So I have a question about a hypothetical situation.

Using the situation that had happened with 900 asking 1114 to help cheesecake them. If the #2 alliance had picked 900 with their 2nd pick, what would the reaction be?

I would have commended their bravery. That kind of move takes a lot of guts.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by pabeekm

I would have commended their bravery. That kind of move takes a lot of guts.

What would the reaction be if the #1 alliance (hypothetical here not saying anyone would do this) then took their cheesecake back?

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

What would the reaction be if the #1 alliance (hypothetical here not saying anyone would do this) then took their cheesecake back?

I don't know if we'd let them at that point..... They would be our greatest threat, after all. (joking, maybe).

Honestly, I think the number one alliance would have just let everything happen as things were, because it would have probably been too much effort for alliance number 2 to get the cheesecake working, as that they didn't know it as intimately as 1114.

Now, if the number two alliance brought in their own cheesecake material for us, then things would get interesting!

[meg]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

What would the reaction be if the #1 alliance (hypothetical here not saying anyone would do this) then took their cheesecake back?

At the time of alliance picks, the "cheese cake" wasn't on the bot. We were just finishing up the drive train at the time.

We knew going into this that it there were absolutely no guarantees. We had discussed what would happen if someone else chose us (I believe the final conclusion was that we would accept and ask if they wanted just the drive train or us to reassemble our original bot).

[marshall]

Originally Posted by pabeekm

I would have commended their bravery. That kind of move takes a lot of guts.

Ohh, but would you have given them a cookie too?

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

So I have a question about a hypothetical situation.

Using the situation that had happened with 900 asking 1114 to help cheesecake them. If the #2 alliance had picked 900 with their 2nd pick, what would the reaction be?

THIS IS AN AWESOME QUESTION!

I was going to ask something very similar sometime today when I got few minutes to spare.

Let's suppose 148 had prepared a Harpoon2.0 Bot prior to Championships and that 1114 was incompatible with 148 for some reason and let's suppose further that 900 had approached 148 rather than 1114. Recall that 148 was the #1 seed and 1114 was #2 (behind 148 by a grand total of 7 points -- had they simply tossed two more noodles over the step at some point during 10 qualification matches, their positions would have flipped).

In this situation you have to ask, What Would Karthik Do?

I think we all know this answer: He would advocate for drafting 900 as their second pick just to prevent 148 from getting access to Harpoon2.0 Bot.

What would 900 do then? If they accept, 148 almost certainly would not have allowed Harpoon2.0 Bot to exist at all (recall key bits of kit were designed and built by folks not on Team 900). If they refuse, then their season is over. It is tough ethical choice.

Either way, this really puts the lie to argument that many cheesecaking advocates make: that it is all done in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism. I think one of the features of the draft is that all teams are available for all drafters (with the exception of those who decide they would prefer to captain their own alliance) but in this case, 900 was really only available for one team, no other drafters allowed.

I don't like it. No sir. I don't like it one bit.

Dr. Joe J.

P.S. It has come to my attention that a lot of folks are giving Libby K and others who have said supportive things about Team 900 a hard time over the past few days.

I myself called Libby out for an innocent hyperbole she made about the amount of work Team 900 did. I was wrong to do so. This was a cheap shot and I should have been a better man. I publicly apologize and wish that I could take it back. Libby, I am sorry.

As to you other trolls... ...you need to look in the mirror a bit as well. If there is not space on CD for someone as awesome as Libby to express her thoughts then CD has fallen mightily. We are better than that. JJ

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

What would the reaction be if the #1 alliance (hypothetical here not saying anyone would do this) then took their cheesecake back?

We did not start installing the Frog and Lily pad until after we picked them. They already made their new drive train at this point though. We both knew this was a possibility and were prepared if this did happen.

I haven't really said anthing in this thread, but I really have to say thank you to the Inspectors. They were nothing but Graciously professional towards our team (pre-alliance selections) and towards our alliance. They acted as a true FRC Inspection crew should, working with a team to become legal and to meet all of the FRC rules.

I also need to say thank you to Team 900, 148 and 1923. You guys were amazing to work with. It might be the most amazing part of my FRC career.

Also, Congrats to 118, 1678, 1671, and 5012. You guys put everything you had out on the field in SF6, and it was a crazy match. Props to your human player that noodled that can from 118's stack. At first I thought it was during the 20 second end game period, and that there should have been a penalty. However, after reviewing the video 1676 posted yesterday I could tell that we were wrong, and that it was just a perfectly timed noodling. The noodle that put you guys into the finals, an ultimately World Champions.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by akoscielski3

We did not start installing the Frog and Lily pad until after we picked them. They already made their new drive train at this point though. We both knew this was a possibility and were prepared if this did happen.

But the intent was there from the time 900 approached 1114 correct? I don't know what was said between the teams so I could be wrong.

Again, I want to put out there that I am not insinuating that any team would have done any of the hypotheticals I'm stating. Just starting a discussion to see what people's thoughts on it would have been.

[meg]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

But the intent was there from the time 900 approached 1114 correct? I don't know what was said between the teams so I could be wrong.

Again, I want to put out there that I am not insinuating that any team would have done any of the hypotheticals I'm stating. Just starting a discussion to see what people's thoughts on it would have been.

As I said a little bit earlier, the mechanism was still 1114 and hadn't been handed to us. We knew it was a very long shot and so many things could go wrong. At NO point in time did 1114 make us any promises.

Had some other alliance chosen us, that alliance would have been offered two choices, a drive train which they could strap things on, or reassembling our original robot.

Regardless of what team chose us, we would have done our absolute best to do our most for that alliance. Part of the reason we didn't start disassembling our first robot until AFTER our last qualifying match was we didn't believe it would be fair to the teams we were competing with.


All of that said, I'm not sure 1114 would have been able to find another robot small and light enough to pull off adding the "crossbow". 1114 will have to answer to what their plans were if someone else chose us first.

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by marshall

Ohh, but would you have given them a cookie too?

Of course!
(For those who don't know, I gave 148 a giant cookie after they selected us.)

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Either way, this really puts the lie to argument that many cheesecaking advocates make: that it is all done in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism. I think one of the features of the draft is that all teams are available for all drafters (with the exception of those who decide they would prefer to captain their own alliance) but in this case, 900 was really only available for one team, no other drafters allowed.

I think this really is the key point. This level of cheesecaking breaks the whole concept of the draft, since you're not really drafting a robot, you're only drafting a slot to insert the second robot you've built yourself. If this becomes common and accepted, it's not even going to be possible to draft "900" out from under "1114", because "901" and "902" will be lined up with their own kitbots ready for the cheesecake. It's going to happen, because if you're down in the rankings and unlikely to get picked, there's almost no downside to tearing out your electronics halfway through Friday and wiring them onto a cheesecake platter. You still have your original robot that definitely wasn't getting picked, but suddenly you could be drafted by #1 or #2 so they can bolt their second robot on top of you.

I just don't think a game mechanic that encourages teams to teardown to a mini kitbot and wait for someone to pick them and hand them a better robot (some assembly required) is a good game mechanic.