Cheesecake robot. How far is too far?

[Nuwanda]

[quote=Lil' Lavery;1555076]Nuwanda, the "situation on Curie" last year was initiated by team 900, not 1114. They approached 1114 with the idea. There's already extensive discussion of that situation in other threads. No reason to rehash that here.


I was not aware, and I apologize. I was a passive observer of the situation.

[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 Chief Hedgehog

However, there was a point at Lake Superior where a few teams got together in case a rookie team did not have one ready to go. Luckily for all involved - the rookie team showed up with a robot that was nearly ready to go. That being stated, the robot DID need some major work - and kudos to FRC 93 and FRC 1816 the team was ready to go at the end of the day on Thursday.

I think building an entire new robot crosses the line, and I think the new rule about requiring alliances to use robots to their full potential, which I took as no longer parking and cabling a bot, probably precludes that.

The situation you describe above is why the rules about cheesecaking need to be flexible. Helping a team improve their bot and make it competitive is an important aspect of the FRC experience. It certainly falls withing gracious professionalism.

[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

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Let's just say "I have a friend" whose team was selected by another team for the sole purpose of (massively) cheesecaking their robot, that these plans were not discussed in advance and came as a complete surprise to the receiving team, and that the entire experience was frustrating, demoralizing and even humiliating for the team being cheesecaked.

All I'm saying is, as you have said, if all teams involved are open about their intentions and agree to it, then it's fine -- but if it isn't open and discussed prior to selection, then it's not fine at all.

To explain our team's approach, we talked to everyone of the teams that we drafted last year about their willingness to add our can grabbers. They were always able to elect a different course. And they were always involved in installing the devices.

It's important to remember that it is the alliance captain who is assembling the alliance and it is the alliance captain's discretion to choose the strategy; it is not the role of the 2nd pick robot to dictate what strategy the alliance captain should be using. If a team built a robot to pursue a specific strategy and either it is not well executed or doesn't fit with the alliance captain's chosen strategy, then that team needs to accept that they may not be selected. That's always the nature of a competitive setting; it might be a surprise to some who have been only in the school system that the real world works this way too. You will not always be rewarded solely for your efforts.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by BenBernard

What bothers me about this thread is how far from "gracious professionalism" some writers seem willing to stray in their pursuit of "winning at all costs."

I never apply 'gracious professionalism' to others. I do apply it to myself and my team.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I would rather you consider the totality of the actions, rather than just the impacts on one team. I already posted similar thoughts on this back in April, during the previous round of cheesecake debate.
https://crbewebappdev.dt.navy.mil/CR....php?id=366878

I believe I have considered the totality of this action.

I have not "cheesecaked" another's robot, nor has my robot ever been "cheesecaked". That being said, if it inspired my (or another's) team then why wouldn't I do so? and why would I be upset if it was used against me?

Remember, FIRSTs mission is to inspire, not to win on the field.

BTW, Sean your link is unreachable.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

I believe I have considered the totality of this action.

I have not "cheesecaked" another's robot, nor has my robot ever been "cheesecaked". That being said, if it inspired my (or another's) team then why wouldn't I do so? and why would I be upset if it was used against me?

Remember, FIRSTs mission is to inspire, not to win on the field.

BTW, Sean your link is unreachable.

Oops, clipboard error. Sorry about that! This is the appropriate link.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=87

[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.

[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.

[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).