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Unread 17-03-2003, 00:55
DougHogg DougHogg is offline
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The point system which gives the winner their own score plus twice the loosers makes it desirable for your opponent to have a score close to yours but less so that you still win. If team A allows another team's stack to remain standing because team A is pretty sure of winning, that is part of what was intended by the game designers. However after talking to FIRST officials in Phoenix, I know that it was not intended that teams get together with their opponents ahead of time to agree not to touch each others stacks. They told me that the game designers were very surprised that this was occurring.

Unfortunately the current rules do reward that behaviour with high point scores. At the Arizona Regional, that behaviour caused bad feelings to be generated. One team told me that they were voting on whether to withdraw from the competition and go home. They didn't leave, but the fact that they even considered this, should be a wake-up call for all of us.

Our team spent a lot of time as the fourth seed trying to decide who not to pick because they had benefitted from these agreements. We also made it clear that we would not accept if chosen by such a team.

Team 68 showed great courage by publicly acknowledging in writing the error made by some of their team, and then doing something about it by writing a letter with an agreement for teams to sign and going around (with team members from 624 and 980) to talk to the other teams. As we told Team 68 at the regional, your team showed guts in what you did, and we would be proud to team with you any time.

Other teams who participated in match fixing started to realize that they had caused a bad effect on the competition, and I observed them trying to make up for the upset they caused. As far as I know, no more match fixing occurred on Sat.

Is it against the rules to talk to your opponent and make agreements? I haven't seen any such rule. However, the practice is harmful to the competition and to FIRST as a whole for many reasons, and therefore it is wrong.

1) Teams expect that they are coming to a competition and that their team will rise and fall on its merits and not be pushed down the ranks because others have rigged their matches to have vastly inflated scores.

2) Also look where such behavior would lead. If teams get huge scores by meeting and agreeing ahead of time with their opponents to leave stacks up, other teams would sooner or later be forced to do the same thing. At that point, the teams who started the process would be back where they started with no advantage. They could then agree to allow all the robots up onto the ramp to get an advantage. Once again all teams would be forced to do the same. Okay, they could agree to split the bins except for the last one and then fight over that one. Well at that point, you don't have a competition--it would be a theatrical performance with robot actors, and I for one would not bother to attend.

3) One of the things Dean said at the kickoff this year is that we do want to make our competitions more audience friendly so we can spread the benefits of FIRST to others. Well imagine an audience of millions of people watching a FIRST match and seeing all the robots avoiding each others stacks, with no robots guarding them. What would they think? Imagine if they then saw all the robots making space for the opposition on the top of the ramp. Would you want to watch a competition like that? It would be like the Giants agreeing with the Dodgers to throw soft pitches so the batters could all make more home runs and make it to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately no one would come to watch such games, and the teams would eventually wind up in the hall of shame.

As to comparing this year's competition to the one in 2001, yes that was a cooperative match, but we left that behind in 2002. This year, we have a 2-on-2 competition. Here is the definition of "compete":

"To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory."

Source: The American HeritageŽ Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

As far is FIRST is concerned, I talked to Jason Morella personally on several occasions in Phoenix and he agreed with me that this behavior is bad for the competition. He also communicated the power that teams have to influence other teams. Among other things, he suggested that teams post on this forum about the practice. He said that FIRST does pay attention to what is said here.

Lastly I would like to praise Team 624 for their clear vision in seeing that this behavior is wrong (not against the rules as they stand but wrong because it is harmful to FIRST and therefore to all FIRST teams) and for doing something about it. You guys are heros and get my personal award for bravery, integrity and responsibility. Thank you for helping to save our regional and FIRST from becoming something fake.
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  #62   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 17-03-2003, 01:28
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why r we calling this "FIXING"

You know what fixing means? Fixing means you make sure certain partner of yours loses in qualifying matches to help my ranking, and I'll pick u as my alliance partner. That's what fixing is, and I COMPLETELY agree that it is against the FIRST spirit.

But just making an agreement of leaving each other's stacks alone and competing for the rest of the boxes is not. Maybe I'm not from a 6 or 7 year old team, but I've been in this competition for long enough to realize what FIRST spirit is, I think.

Making an agreement is just a strategy that maintains the sense of uncertainty and competetiveness in the competition. And again, why would FIRST make your score your score + 2 X loser's score if they didn't want the cooperation? Making agreements is just taking that cooperation to another level.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 01:43
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Here are some suggested strategies for dealing with this issue:

1) Probably the easiest to implement, if somebody "makes you an offer" then target ALL of their stacks, even though it makes you lose QP's. A few rounds of this and they'll get the point.

2) Send around a petition similar to the one from the AZ regional and post the teams that agree or not. One note of caution, make sure it is someone who can speak for the team that signs the petition. Been there, done that. It isn't that difficult.

3) More difficult but still doable. Agree that teams who have signed the above petition will not select teams that have not as alliance partners in the finals.

4) The most difficult would be to agree to refuse to be the alliance partner of a team that refused to sign and live by the agreement. I wonder what FIRST would do if all the other teams declined an alliance with the #1 seed? Declare them the winner? Talk about an empty victory, winning because nobody was willing to play WITH you. But it would certainly send a message.

One final note; there is a wide difference of opinion on this issue. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of it. Just because somebody disagrees with your position does not make them a "bad person or a bad team". They just see things a little differently. The reason you would not want to be on an alliance with them is that obviously your values are incompatible. That doesn't mean they should be shunned or belittled.

The on-going discussion is forcing people to think about their ethical structure and whether this fits within it or not. Teams are having to make a hard ethical choice, and I belive this is a good thing. So does FIRST, that's why they are "enjoying the discussion". Some times you learn the most from unexpected situations like this one.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 01:47
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Personally i think that team 68 got screwed out of being #1 seed


and that was not cool at all
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Unread 17-03-2003, 02:02
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Quote:
Originally posted by ChrisH
One final note; there is a wide difference of opinion on this issue. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of it. Just because somebody disagrees with your position does not make them a "bad person or a bad team". They just see things a little differently. The reason you would not want to be on an alliance with them is that obviously your values are incompatible. That doesn't mean they should be shunned or belittled.

The on-going discussion is forcing people to think about their ethical structure and whether this fits within it or not. Teams are having to make a hard ethical choice, and I belive this is a good thing. So does FIRST, that's why they are "enjoying the discussion". Some times you learn the most from unexpected situations like this one.
Love that!
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Unread 17-03-2003, 02:06
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i don't think we can start discussing ways of stooping this untill we all decide that it defies FIRST spirit and is wrong
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Unread 17-03-2003, 02:18
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i think the only way of stopping it IS to convince everyone that it violates the spirit of FIRST and is wrong.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 02:23
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Quote:
Originally posted by GregT
edit: whats more, if FIRST did make a rule against "fixing" the match, how could you ever hope to enforce such a rule? Would not knocking stacks over be considered illegal?
Nobody ever considered this: maybe FIRST did not ever think that people would stoop to that level on the basis of winning? This rule wouldn't be enforced by the referees, because as you said, it would be impossible. It would also be unnecessary if gracious professionalism came before winning. Nobody should come to a FIRST competition to win, they should come to learn. I think we're all learning a valuable lesson right now, just expressing our opinions on this forum, and that's what FIRST is trying to express to us.

Quote:
Originally posted by Stu Bloom
AND any team whose members/representatives are soliciting any pre-match arrangements with their opponent alliance members should be EXCUSED from the remainder of the competition. There is NO room for this type of behavior in FIRST.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=18979

To be honest, when we were approached in St. Lou, I was upset. I had never been in that situation before, and I did not know how to react. I was upset and angered that someone approached us with only the intent to win, especially when our team wasn't even MOVING at that point. I was incredulous as to how someone could have the audacity to approach our driver (a rookie) while we were all elbow deep in robot parts.

But I was wrong to judge, and I will admit that. That team that approached us ended up being good opponents and rightfully going on to the eliminations. After competition was over, one of their mentors emailed me several times and apologized for that mentor's behavior. I realized that the team had nothing to do with one person's willingness to cheat the system. So please-

DON'T judge or hold it against a team because of one member's actions!

Quote:
Originally posted by punarhero
i don't think we can start discussing ways of stooping this untill we all decide that it defies FIRST spirit and is wrong
Dean was right, and he did predict the 'gentleman's agreements'. There is no use arguing what is wrong when there is no right or wrong. There's only ways to tell each other what can be improved and how we, as the FIRST community, can improve it.
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  #69   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 17-03-2003, 02:33
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Engineers or Lawyers?

Who are we mentoring here, students who want to make a difference as scientists and engineers, or students who want to be laywers splitting ethical hairs over what is "legal" and "illegal"? Maybe "Fixing" isn't the proper term, but "Collusion" is.

DEFINITION: Collusion--to act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose; conspire.

If you agree with your partner to allow the opponents stacks to stand to increase your potential QP's that is not collusion. As soon as you begin to talk with your opponent about mutually allowing each others stacks to stand you cross the line and are guilty of collusion. You have conspired to inflate the scores of both teams regardless of who is the winner. If "Gracious Professionalism" is defined as that behavior which would make your grandmother proud, how can you tell her your robot achieved its' high ranking using secret deceitful agreements?

Inherent to any legitimate competition is a requirement to make every possible attempt to defeat your opponent. Agreements to limit the competition to a smaller subset of options reduces the legitimacy of their results. Perhaps the teams who are so proud of developing this strategy should include it in their Chairman's Award submissions in the future. We'll let FIRST decide which team behavior is considered as a role model.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 02:34
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I don't really care if we win our lose because of these agreements. I just think the game becomes really boring without them. The bins (the non-stacked ones), at Sacramento, were playing a very small role in the game. The stacks were all but pointless. All that teams got from stacking (that I saw) was some wows from the croud, and very rarely an extra 20 QP points. Considering getting to the ramp is 25 points this is not much. Also, I still maintain that it would not change rankings, just increase overall QPs, and make the games more interesting.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 03:46
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On the subject of Stacking

Stacking bots do have a place in the seeding matches but almost never in the finals @the UTC scrimmage we saw this.

But our Bot can stack pretty quickley and in the semi finals our bot and our alliance partner tipped over (thefirst time we ever tipped) in the second round we still won because our drivers made a three high stack in the final 20 seconds, the other alliance HAD to knock it over but couldn't get to the top in time. WIN!!

Team 236 Techno Ticks !!!!
(doing ok this year)
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Unread 17-03-2003, 03:57
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Consider yourselves WARNED!

the fair playing teams who are posting here on chief delphi their dislike (that would be to kind of a word to use for some of the opinions expressed here) about this kind of strategy are not doing anything really drastic (is that the word?) YET!

However for teams that have used this collusion method and are going to a second regional consider this:

Say you robot breaks and you need a spare drill motor and the only team with a replacement motor is VERY much against your strategy. How are you going to feel asking them for help after practically backstabbing them in the back? Are they going to give you this help?

I can see very clear of what will happen at the next regional events:

Team that play fair (lets just call it that for now) make a list of all the teams that don't and when ever in a match with teams that don't play fair do every possible thing to have those teams get a score of 0 sure it will hurt the fair playing teams but the drive of REVENGE on the non fair playing team might be so great that they are willing to go to the extremes.

BTW there is always next year! Some teams hold a grudge against other teams for a very long time. So even if you play fair next year teams might not pick you for elimination rounds at all because of your actions this year

Last edited by Dima : 17-03-2003 at 04:00.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 04:04
Alex1072 Alex1072 is offline
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I am making it very clear in this post, that I do not support teams making agreements before matches, unless the community can be convinced that this is fair to everyone. Even though this is not likly, I still intend to voice my opinion because I think it is a shame that an interseting aspect of the game is so under-valued.

Team #1072 has never suggested these agreements, and in the future WILL NOT agree to them. When we agreed to them in the past we did not encounter any critism from anyone; we were under the impression that it was in the "cooperative competitive" spirit of FIRST, and no one told us otherwise or even implied that it was unfair.
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Unread 17-03-2003, 04:12
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Angry

This happened at the Arizona regionals.The team that requested such a proposal also happened to make it to finals

That team also included the son of Microchip's President...

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Unread 17-03-2003, 04:20
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Re: Engineers or Lawyers?

Quote:
Originally posted by Bill Moore


DEFINITION: Collusion--to act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose; conspire.
I would agree if it was secret, but from what I understand we are debating open agreements that free for everyone to see.
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