Significance of the Human Player

[KevinB]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

Really? What year was that? I'd like to get some more information, and possibly video. it must have been before my time.

2000.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by KevinB

2000.

Thanks!
Sorry I screwed up with that.

[Winged Wonder]

i may be a noob at all of this cuz its my first year on a team, but i've been going to first competitions for a few years now, and it seems like theyve taken the challenges from the past 4 years, stuck them in a blender, and came up with this. personally i like the game and i think its exciting this year. i cant wait to see what everyone comes up with.

the human players are equally as important as the robot itself. the robot and the human player have a symbiotic relationship, and the team will not succeed if they cannot work together efficiently. thats basically my take on it as of now... good luck everyone

[RabidWombat]

Everyone on 639's pretty PO'd about the amount of human involvement this year. Of course, our team hasn't been around that long, so we haven't seen some of the competitions you guys are talking about, but I think the emphasis should be on the robot, as in FIRST Robot ics. Talking about working together is all fine and good, but the fact remains that teams with better human players will have an advantage over other teams. To my understanding, after a quick once-over of the rules, a team could use the mobile goals to make it easier to sink shots, but this takes time, while a team with a good human player could just be feeding them balls. Of course, 639 might just be freakin out about this because we're all...dare I say...NERRRRDS! But I'd hate to see a team win it just because their HP can "sink a jumper from half court".

[Thulium]

Then again, maybe FIRST isn't about winning...

[mtangolics]

I'm just a rookie, but personally I don't really like the idea of depending so heavily on a human element in a robotics competition. To me, it seems like the robot should do most, if not all of the work (minus the control for non-autonomous mode). Just my thoughts..

[abeD]

Come on guys, I'm sure you all saw kickoff and you saw that one lady that made oh I'd say about 99% of her shots. I really don't beleive that teams should be freaking out over this. Just take one or two people aside and say okay all you have to do is be good at making shots. I'm sure by the end of the six week periods they will also be a 99% shooter. Making these shots is nowhere near as hard as making a basketball shot, its a 4ft diff in height and the goal has a giant backstop and is very wide. If you are that crazy about not shooting into the stationary goal make your robot grab the mobile one and drag it over the your station and fill it up real easy by takin a 2ft shot.

[Cory]

If you guys are all worried about having terrible human players, recruit some from your school's basketball team. Or practice a lot... I got quite good in 2002 with very little practice. It really isnt that tough.

Cory

[Tom Bottiglieri]

duhh.. i think it was 99... not sure tho

[RabidWombat]

Hitting a certain % of the shots is only half the problem though. The other half is being able to fire off shots in a timely fashion, cause I'd hate to have balls sitting there, unthrown, when time runs out. Anyway, goal moving is going to be rather inefficient, not only because of the use of time in the competition, but also because of the use of design and build time. Anyway, I doubt that many people join FIRST teams to practice their jump shot for six weeks.

[Gabriel]

There are six balls in the operator station to start, 18 in the ball-drop thing and 2 on the tee, thats two people shooting 26 balls. Figure 13 balls a person thats a shot every ten seconds, plenty of time. Now I haven't actually gone out and timed this but I'm guessing that it shouldn't take more than 3 or 4 seconds for someone with a LOT of practice to bend over, grab a ball, aim and shoot at a stationary target.

[Yan Wang]

Originally Posted by Cory

If you guys are all worried about having terrible human players, recruit some from your school's basketball team. Or practice a lot...

I don't think what FIRST is asking us to do is to get skilled athletes to improve our chances of winning. I think what FIRST is asking us to do is what you said second - the people already on the team (who may or may not be classified as "geeks", "nerds", or the like) need to get out to the gym and improve their motor skills. Being technologically capable is great, but so is having the ability to not get creamed in a game of H.O.R.S.E.

[Andrew Rosselet]

I like the concept of cooperation between human players and robots, but this year they have taken it a bit too far- youre score basically relies upon the shooting abilities of your human players- completely independant of your team robot...

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by monsieurcoffee

I don't think what FIRST is asking us to do is to get skilled athletes to improve our chances of winning. I think what FIRST is asking us to do is what you said second - the people already on the team (who may or may not be classified as "geeks", "nerds", or the like) need to get out to the gym and improve their motor skills. Being technologically capable is great, but so is having the ability to not get creamed in a game of H.O.R.S.E.

I like that. FIRST is ultimately more about the people than the robots and there's more to life (and FIRST) than just machines. Also, ultimately technology isn't the answer to every problem and people do have to make important, often philosophical decisions about how they use and interact with technology. I don't really know the answers to those questions but I'm glad that FIRST is making me think about that

[Lil' Lavery]

There are plenty of ways to make up for a bad human player, such as moving a moblile closer for a shorter shot, capping, and the bar. Keep in mind you can pass the ball to your allies human player if he/shes any better. Also there several significant differences between this game and previous years, the biggest three are the platform, no scoring zones, and the C programming code. Also a note from someone at the NH kick-off was that the better of the 2 human players(who was REALLY good) shot more like a soccer goalie(underhanded-ish) than a basketball player.