Cheesecake robot. How far is too far?

[marshall]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

That was a very interesting example because in that case clearly 900 was willing to do it, and there was a lot of notoriety over this particular case, but I think it backfired on them in the end. There were a number of matches where only two robots came out to play. Presumably 900 was busy being cheesecaked at the time. The alliance ended up losing a semifinal by only a few points. Had a third robot been out stacking, even if they had only managed to stack a few totes, I believe that would have been enough to up the average alliance score high enough that they would have won.

And we never got to see the harpoons in action

Sorry to correct but 1923 was the third robot (1114 and 148 being the first two) and they were out playing. The loss on Einstein had little to do with our (900's) cheesecaking.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by marshall

Sorry to correct but 1923 was the third robot (1114 and 148 being the first two) and they were out playing. The loss on Einstein had little to do with our (900's) cheesecaking.

Ah, thank you for the clarification.

Still never got to see those harpoons

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Ah, thank you for the clarification.

Still never got to see those harpoons

Still never got to see those harpoons go against our M.A.D. cheesecake strategy. Happy we won without it, sad we didn't get to use it. If you thought our can grabbers were scary, the cheesecake tether grabbers were 30-40% faster.

That scenario will live on in my dreams. Thank you 5012 for giving me the mental image of fighting a full on millisecond war of power against teams 900 and 1114's harpoons with our tethered can grabbers and 118's bolt on can grabbers.

[CJ_Elliott]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

Still never got to see those harpoons go against our M.A.D. cheesecake strategy. Happy we won without it, sad we didn't get to use it. If you thought our can grabbers were scary, the cheesecake tether grabbers were 30-40% faster.

That scenario will live on in my dreams. Thank you 5012 for giving me the mental image of fighting a full on millisecond war of power against teams 900 and 1114's harpoons with our tethered can grabbers and 118's bolt on can grabbers.

Excuse me good sir, but why haven't I seen/heard of these?

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by CJ_Elliott

Excuse me good sir, but why haven't I seen/heard of these?

Which didn't you see, 900s harpoons, or 1678's remote can grabbers. There's video on CD of both of these.

[CJ_Elliott]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Which didn't you see, 900s harpoons, or 1678's remote can grabbers. There's video on CD of both of these.

1678's... Im looking now but I don't think this thread is for this conversation

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by CJ_Elliott

Excuse me good sir, but why haven't I seen/heard of these?

https://youtu.be/6pwuyqeMoOM

As requested. Afaik I didn't upload this footage anywhere until now, and I believe the only other person who saw this was one of the Newton inspectors who stayed around the in pit during elims/einstein.

This system was mounted entirely on a separate wood platform that would sit underneath our robot at the start of the match, but be tethered to 5012 (who would also have 118's modular grabbers mounted on their actual chassis). When the match started these would launch, our robot would hold the platform to the ground, then we would drive away during tele op leaving it attached to 5012 (and hopefully the cans they hit) while leaving our robot mobile to build stacks for the rest of the match.

Essentially, it would have boiled down to 900 and 5012 in a tug of war at the center of the field, and 1678 + 118 stacking against 1114 + 148.

[Lil' Lavery]

Wasn't the whole point of the 1114/900 harpoons to negate any tugs of war? Simply to grab the cans with a hook that could not be removed, rendering them essentially unusable for both alliances?

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Wasn't the whole point of the 1114/900 harpoons to negate any tugs of war? Simply to grab the cans with a hook that could not be removed, rendering them essentially unusable for both alliances?

I might be wrong, it's been a long time since seeing that contraption, but I thought their robot collapsed on itself to pull them away, maybe same goal.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by JohnM

I might be wrong, it's been a long time since seeing that contraption, but I thought their robot collapsed on itself to pull them away, maybe same goal.

Yes.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery in that other thread

First off, the positives your listing are also teams talking about how they feel.

Secondly, the unfortunate reality is that when the source of inspiration comes from working closely with an elite team and/or deep runs in the eliminations, unfortunately that's a zero sum equation. For each team that was picked to cheesecake, a team was left off an elimination alliance. In many cases that team was a very capable team that had a competitive season, but was left off in favor of a bot that presented a better blank slate to add parts to. In other words, they were left off for a less capable team. It's pretty easy to see how being passed over for a less capable team could be disappointing. Disappointment can very well lead to a lack of inspiration.

Does the the benefit of the cheesecaking team outweigh the disappointment of the teams passed over in alliance selection? It's certainly not an easy call to make, but it's not one that should be written off as some trivial matter that can be summed up by air quotes and sarcastic titles.

Sean, at the risk of causing you to go into a rage (and I hope you don't because you seem like a nice fella)... I don't understand your analysis of the problem. Alliance selections work in mysterious ways. I have seen teams choose numbers at random from people in the audience shouting them as well as teams pick rookie teams who had barely functional robots because they wanted to share the experience.

Let us forget robot modifications for a moment and then let me ask you this. If a team were to choose a less capable alliance partner instead of a more capable team then is that inspirational? What about choosing a team not based on scouting data but based on purely the fact that you like their pants, is that ok? (Go #TeamCrazyPants) What about choosing a team because the mentors know each other really well? What about because the students know each other really well? What about because they paid you to choose them?

Now let's add robot modifications back in. What about choosing a team with a known bad drivetrain that they have to repair before eliminations and you offered to help them or lend them parts? What about choosing a team based on the fact that they are going to put a giant goal blocking sheet on their robot instead of choosing another offensive capable robot because defense suits your strategy?

Just spitballing but perhaps instead of alliance selections we could move to a process by which the serpentine draft just auto assigns teams based on qualification rankings instead of allowing a team's feelings and perception to come into play. Except that qualification rankings could be attributed to match luck. We've all seen some post-turtles turn up in the top 8 at events. So we should probably get rid of qualification matches and then we can judge robots purely on if they can accomplish the tasks that a team built them for. We don't even need events for that, we can all just sit in our labs and build robots in isolation and take videos of them completing the tasks.... Cheesecaking isn't the only slippery slope around here.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by marshall

Sean, at the risk of causing you to go into a rage (and I hope you don't because you seem like a nice fella)... I don't understand your analysis of the problem. Alliance selections work in mysterious ways. I have seen teams choose numbers at random from people in the audience shouting them as well as teams pick rookie teams who had barely functional robots because they wanted to share the experience.

Let us forget robot modifications for a moment and then let me ask you this. If a team were to choose a less capable alliance partner instead of a more capable team then is that inspirational? What about choosing a team not based on scouting data but based on purely the fact that you like their pants, is that ok? (Go #TeamCrazyPants) What about choosing a team because the mentors know each other really well? What about because the students know each other really well? What about because they paid you to choose them?

None of that is particularly relevant to this discussion. Nobody here is claiming that alliance selection is perfect. There are plenty of shortcomings in many facets of FRC, alliance selection included. However, claiming that because a system has other potential flaws means you should embrace a contentious aspect is not sound logic. I don't have to pick a bad option* just because there are even worse options. Strive to optimize the situation, rather than perpetuating the flaws.

*Do not interpret this to mean I'm definitely declaring that cheesecaking is a bad option. I'm just illustrating my logic.

Originally Posted by marshall

Now let's add robot modifications back in. What about choosing a team with a known bad drivetrain that they have to repair before eliminations and you offered to help them or lend them parts? What about choosing a team based on the fact that they are going to put a giant goal blocking sheet on their robot instead of choosing another offensive capable robot because defense suits your strategy?

The drivetrain scenario is cheesecaking (albeit, offering parts solely on the condition that a team will be on your alliance may not leave the best taste in many people's mouths).
The second scenario is picking based off of strategy. I'm not advocating we take the ability to select strategically out of the hands of alliance captains. I'm not advocating we take any selection choices out of the hands of alliance captains.

I'll try to word my point slightly differently, in the hopes it is better communicated.

When people cite the inspirational value of cheesecaking, they're almost always talking about the team receiving the cheesecake. They talk about the inspirational value of winning (which has also shown up in many other threads). They talk about the inspirational value of getting to work closely with powerhouse teams as alliance partners. They talk about the inspirational value of collaborating together to improve a robot. When all parties are on the same page, that can be some real value.

However, the benefit of one team is not the total utility of the move. That one team may have been very inspired, but that doesn't mean other parties were not disillusioned by the same circumstances. The cheesecaked team was granted an opportunity, but (barring a 24 team event) another team was left out in order for that team to have that opportunity. In the case of a large and highly competitive event (such as a championship subdivision), the teams left out are highly capable teams already. Seeing a highly competitive (by any metric) team left on the sidelines in favor of a "blank slate" is something that would obviously raise questions and mixed emotions. Not simply for the teams excluded, but for parents, VIPs, sponsors, and others who may not be familiar with the esoteric practices of FRC.

I'm not arguing that cheesecake is automatically bad. I'm not arguing that cheesecake is automatically good. I'm stating that there are factors that should be considered, beyond how the teams receiving the cheesecake feel. They are not the sole parties impact by the act of cheesecaking. Like it or not, some of the peculiar things that happen in FRC might not appeal to the grandmothers in the audience.

Based on the comments in this thread and many of those preceding, you know firsthand that there are plenty of those out there who did not get the same takeaway from your partnership with 1114 as you did. Some of that is based hearsay or factual inaccuracies. You can do your best to communicate the real story, but you're never going to reach everyone. Further still, there are those who know what happened and still don't like it. These are people who are ultimately aiming for the same culture change, and their opinions of the situation do matter, even if they were not directly involved.

To me, cheesecaking is obviously a grey area.

Originally Posted by marshall

Just spitballing but perhaps instead of alliance selections we could move to a process by which the serpentine draft just auto assigns teams based on qualification rankings instead of allowing a team's feelings and perception to come into play. Except that qualification rankings could be attributed to match luck. We've all seen some post-turtles turn up in the top 8 at events. So we should probably get rid of qualification matches and then we can judge robots purely on if they can accomplish the tasks that a team built them for. We don't even need events for that, we can all just sit in our labs and build robots in isolation and take videos of them completing the tasks.... Cheesecaking isn't the only slippery slope around here.

I have no idea what this statement is in response to. Nothing in my posts in this thread or the previous thread stated anything regarding the validity of qualification rankings. Nor were any of my positions "slippery slopes." As stated, my position was pointing out that the totality should be considered, not simply the one team that (in some cases) benefits positively. My position, as stated, was that the benefits of cheesecaking and being an alliance partner are (unfortunately) zero-sum. Neither of those are arguing that cheesecaking is a slippery slope, but rather they're challenging the logic being used here. Nor am I even claiming to have all the answers (and the post you quoted from the other thread makes that very clear).

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

My feelings on cheesecake is that as long you aren't stripping major fuctions off of the receiving team's robot for the cheesecake is not okay in my opinion. I know it's allowed currently and I'll respect teams who do it but I'm never going to like it. Putting can grabbers or simple blockers is one thing. But say taking a stacker off for a better stacker is too far.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

None of that is particularly relevant to this discussion. Nobody here is claiming that alliance selection is perfect. There are plenty of shortcomings in many facets of FRC, alliance selection included. However, claiming that because a system has other potential flaws means you should embrace a contentious aspect is not sound logic. I don't have to pick a bad option* just because there are even worse options. Strive to optimize the situation, rather than perpetuating the flaws.

*Do not interpret this to mean I'm definitely declaring that cheesecaking is a bad option. I'm just illustrating my logic.


The drivetrain scenario is cheesecaking (albeit, offering parts solely on the condition that a team will be on your alliance may not leave the best taste in many people's mouths).
The second scenario is picking based off of strategy. I'm not advocating we take the ability to select strategically out of the hands of alliance captains. I'm not advocating we take any selection choices out of the hands of alliance captains.

I'll try to word my point slightly differently, in the hopes it is better communicated.

When people cite the inspirational value of cheesecaking, they're almost always talking about the team receiving the cheesecake. They talk about the inspirational value of winning (which has also shown up in many other threads). They talk about the inspirational value of getting to work closely with powerhouse teams as alliance partners. They talk about the inspirational value of collaborating together to improve a robot. When all parties are on the same page, that can be some real value.

However, the benefit of one team is not the total utility of the move. That one team may have been very inspired, but that doesn't mean other parties were not disillusioned by the same circumstances. The cheesecaked team was granted an opportunity, but (barring a 24 team event) another team was left out in order for that team to have that opportunity. In the case of a large and highly competitive event (such as a championship subdivision), the teams left out are highly capable teams already. Seeing a highly competitive (by any metric) team left on the sidelines in favor of a "blank slate" is something that would obviously raise questions and mixed emotions. Not simply for the teams excluded, but for parents, VIPs, sponsors, and others who may not be familiar with the esoteric practices of FRC.

I'm not arguing that cheesecake is automatically bad. I'm not arguing that cheesecake is automatically good. I'm stating that there are factors that should be considered, beyond how the teams receiving the cheesecake feel. They are not the sole parties impact by the act of cheesecaking. Like it or not, some of the peculiar things that happen in FRC might not appeal to the grandmothers in the audience.

Based on the comments in this thread and many of those preceding, you know firsthand that there are plenty of those out there who did not get the same takeaway from your partnership with 1114 as you did. Some of that is based hearsay or factual inaccuracies. You can do your best to communicate the real story, but you're never going to reach everyone. Further still, there are those who know what happened and still don't like it. These are people who are ultimately aiming for the same culture change, and their opinions of the situation do matter, even if they were not directly involved.

To me, cheesecaking is obviously a grey area.


I have no idea what this statement is in response to. Nothing in my posts in this thread or the previous thread stated anything regarding the validity of qualification rankings. Nor were any of my positions "slippery slopes." As stated, my position was pointing out that the totality should be considered, not simply the one team that (in some cases) benefits positively. My position, as stated, was that the benefits of cheesecaking and being an alliance partner are (unfortunately) zero-sum. Neither of those are arguing that cheesecaking is a slippery slope, but rather they're challenging the logic being used here. Nor am I even claiming to have all the answers (and the post you quoted from the other thread makes that very clear).

I appreciate the response and I think I have a better understanding of where you are coming from now.

Ultimately I don't view this as a grey area or a zero-sum situation but that is me. I think the competitive nature of FRC and the rules both enable and encourage "cheesecaking".

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by marshall

I think the competitive nature of FRC and the rules both enable and encourage "cheesecaking".

I believe this statement is absolutely true. I also believe this is the root of the underlying frustration for all involved.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Wasn't the whole point of the 1114/900 harpoons to negate any tugs of war? Simply to grab the cans with a hook that could not be removed, rendering them essentially unusable for both alliances?

If you didn't bother challenging the harpoons, then they'd just pull them to their side where I believe they had the ability to release/use them. They absolutely intended to get in a tug of war, but they wanted to lose as few bots as possible to it, which was the same objective we had with that tethered ramp. If they brought out the harpoons we had to each sacrifice one bot to holding down the cans, this was our match to their strategy, mutually assured destruction.