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#16
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I am proud to say that our alliance (492,957,1031) won the PNW Regional in this pattern:
1. Tie 2. Their Victory 3. Our Victory 4. Our Vic... Ah....I see what you're saying... ![]() |
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#17
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
in st louis we had the tie situation. in quaterfinals, it went like this:
1.Red wins 2.Blue wins 3.Tie (blue has 20 more points, but gets 2 penalties )4.Tie (blue has 10 more points, but gets 1 penalty )5.Red wins (both blue bots tip over )and me being on the blue team. if we had last year's rules, or even this years rules minus one of the updates, we would have won based on point avg, margin of victory, or highest score, but thats how it goes. btw gg to 1018 and the rest of that team for 5 great matches (in a row...) |
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#18
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
5 rounds to deternine a winner? Think about that. Is that fair to you or your opponent? After so many matches the chances of something breaking, or wearing out, or just shear exhaustion can realy take a toll. So the National Champion is decided by the luckiest team whose had easy matches, and the best robots have all destroyed each other because they have had 3 or four matches more than their luckier opponents.
Think about the nationals where we repeat this in both the division and national titles. I agree the two game only rule last year was bad, but only bcause the score was based on QPs not overall points. If you lost a close first round, it was impossible to recover. If the two matches were based on winning points, there rarely would have to be a third tie breaking match. I strongly suggest the rules for the nationls be changed to make the winner the best 2 out of 3 if the teams split. So first team to win two rounds, or after three games, highest points scored by any team, highest qp by anyteam, coin toss. We want the most capable robot alliance to win. As it stands now, the best robot to have for the national champion is a battlebot that can hang quickly. It wins by knocking opponents over or disabling them, playing king of the hill, and hanging at the last minute. Opponents a good ball herder? (knock em over) a big ball handler? (knock em over) can hang? (knock em over). As a ref it is really hard to judge intention. Were they trying to prevent the other robot from scoring, or were they malicious? That is an almost impossible call to make. Having teams play more than three matches to dermine the round is not in anyone's best interest. I don't know how we get the attention of the rules committee on this. Last edited by Dr.Bot : 14-03-2004 at 09:36. |
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#19
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I dont see why that would be a hard call to make?
if someone is trying to score and you get it front of them, get in their path, and block it or push them backwards, you are defending the goal but if a bot is trying to score and you fly across the field and slam into their back or side your intent is obvious - you are not stopping them from reaching the goal, you are attacking the robot - esp obvious if serious damage results fom the impact. kinda like if a hockey player skates up from behind and punches another player in the back of the head, knocking him unconscience, and then jumps on him and hits him again - if an attack like that is not even allowed in hockey, you would think an attack like that against a robot would not be allowed in FIRST Last edited by KenWittlief : 14-03-2004 at 12:47. |
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#20
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
Quote:
There is a slightly subtle, but VERY important difference between this year's game and prior versions. In prior years, the rules typically stated "you can't do action xxxx during a match" but never really specified what would happen if you violated the rule. This year, almost all the rules are stated in the form "you can't do action xxxx during a match; if you do there will be a penalty of yyyy." Personally, I think this is a very good thing, and it helps remove a lot of ambiguity and inconsistency that we have seen in the past. Yes, there is still some, and things can still be cleaned up a little more, but I think this is a big step forward. Quote:
Plus, who says that having teams play just three rounds is some sort of panacea for ANY problem? Does anyone remember kick off? Does anyone remember the explicit and implicit message that FIRST has been giving this season? Does anyone remember the whole discussion about the necessity to BUILD ROBUST ROBOTS? If a team has built a robot that can just barely survive three rounds, but can't last through a fourth, then why should we be considering torqueing the entire competition process around just to appease them? Particularly when there are other teams that have listened to the ROBUSTNESS message, and designed their robots accordingly? One more thought on this. From the audience entertainment/involvement standpoint, going into an extra "overtime" match or two due to a tie situation is GREAT! It very definitely adds to the drama of the event, and kicks the excitement level up a notch or two. Given the clearly stated objective from FIRST to increase the general public awareness and involvement, and to make the competitions more attractive to the public and mass media, this is a very good thing. The "unwashed masses" love to see the sort of extended play, sudden death, tie-breaker overtime matches that these opportunities create. It draws them in, helps make fans of them, and opens the door a little bit for FIRST to expand their message. Conversely, having the final game of an elimination match decided by the flip of a coin is about as boring and anti-climatic a way to determine a winner as I could possibly imagine. Alan, I have read your messages on this topic (all of them, on this and other forii), but with all due respect, I gotta disagree with you on this one. -dave Last edited by dlavery : 14-03-2004 at 12:07. |
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#21
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
Quote:
We were done anyway. |
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#22
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I think it would be wrong to change the rules on who wins in the elimination rounds, simply because teams have designed their machines based on what the rules are.
your opponets points are important in the seeding rounds, but not in the elimination rounds - many teams have build machines designed to win the elimination rounds, not necessarily to ensure high points for the losing team changing the rules now would be unfair to them -esp a change that drastic. |
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#23
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
At Bae in one of the quarterfinals there was a tie. I may get a few facts wrong but bear with me on this. I forget the teams but they tied with one alliance having 1 win and the other having none. The tie showed how close the first alliance was to winning and how close the other alliance was to losing. With that in mind, both alliances played their hearts and getting all 4 robots to hang!
I think the race to 2 wins is a great format. To change the eliminations structure would have people crying for rematches and to be made champions. To have the CHAMPIONSHIP WINNERS decided on a COIN FLIP would be devastating to the losing alliance and the winning alliance would not feel accomplished. |
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#24
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
FIRST is here to inspire and excite kids (and adults too) about science.
FIRST has chosen to use a competition to do this. So why is 5 rounds unfair? The teams in the finals have been through 6 or so more matches then teams in the quarterfinal. Teams that goto Na. The Championship in Atlanta will have been through at least one regional. Is it unfair to play more matches? If you want to determine who built the best robot, how is playing more unfair. If something wears out in that time, then it wasn't engineered for a long enough duty cycle. The NCAA tournament. You have to play more games as you go on. If the team gets tired before another team, then the other team will win. The best will prevail and move on. Like with the DARPA contest, the teams that failed early on didn't get far enough to run into the problems that teams later on ran into, but the collective knowledge and experiance from the challenge will allow the teams to do better next time. Extra matches are not unfair, they are part of the challenge. Wetzel |
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#25
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I don't think that ties are as big of a problem as Time-Outs are. While it is statistically unlikely that a tie will happen, nevermind two or three, TO's are givens.
With 4 QF's, 2 SF, and 1 Final round, Times 2 alliances, Times 6 minutes, there's the possibility that you will be at a competition for an extra 84 minutes, just sitting around waiting for a match. At the GLR, I estimate that we were sitting around for at least 45 min during these such timeouts. Incedently, why the heck did the Red alliance call timeout in the Finals while the Blue teams were only a minute into their own timeout? Seems like a waste to me... |
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#26
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I was floored when that happened. However, had they called their timeout later our other alliance partner would have again been fully functional and we "could" have ran away with it rather than turning it into the tight race it became. Made it more exciting tho didnt it?
Side note: How about robots going after refs? Dan i know you almost got nailed a few times, lol. And BTW we did find our own distribution block after we returned the one we borrowed on thursday |
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#27
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
My team was on the losing side (Blue Alliance) of the 5 match quarterfinal in St. Louis. Much as I would like that match to have gone our way, I would feel very bad about the outcome if it had been determined by the original version of rule 7.4.4 (max pt total decides if tied after 4 matches). Continuing until one alliance has won two matches is easier for the audience to follow, and it favors the better built robots.
The audience excitement during our quarterfinal was equalled only by the final round. Exciting elimination rounds are good for our Regional and good for FIRST. Any game can be improved, but I think the 2004 game is much better than the previous two years. Thanks and congratulations to the game design folks at FIRST. Now if they can just continue the trend toward simplifying the rules... |
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#28
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I, too think I see a trend... and I am not sure if I like it...
We were on the winning side of the quarter final in St. Louis that had two ties.. it was tremendously exciting to be part of that... We are just a second year team and I was very proud of the Alliance we had there... but on to the rest of the story... I posted the following elsewhere here: ************ I do want to clarify something about the semi-final matches. This is where it became very physical... 1098 was again damaged and couldn't compete... and in the very final match after withstanding a pounding by Team 16 ...even our beloved Luci robot couldn't get the grippers to work because the contact had bent the rod on our pneumatic actuator. I guess this is a viable strategy as it wasn't flagged. We were on the verge of capping a small goal with 12 balls and couldn't open our grippers...so we didn't go on to the finals. I just am sending out a warning to all teams who use grippers and collect balls and perform these tasks.... the big hangers will just pound you into submission... you may not be able to do what you are designed to do because of the physical damage you may have done to you. It is not just pushing around... it is IN YOUR FACE, hammering and slamming with whatever they have to do it with... reminiscent of battle bots rather than the FIRST competition we all enjoy. My personal thoughts are that this is a dangerous trend... but it is within the rules and I cannot fault teams for using the strategy as long as it is legal. More power to them... All three of our alliance's robots were damaged in the semi at St. Louis. I am sure many others were too... I, for one, really don't want this competition to be about robots beating on each other.... FIRST has more to say than the "strongest robot" should dominate another... Please don't think that I am complaining about any particular teams... everything done was within the rules and using those rules are part of the game... I only speak to the greater good of the competition as it matures... It does seem to be a trend though... last year we had quite abit and now this year its even worse...... anyway that's my two cents We will be busy in Cleveland on practice day repairing our robot and we will continue to try and accomplish the game using our strategy... Our robot WAS pretty robust... until the last match, our robot had competed in 4 quarter final matches and 2 semi-finals with no more repairs than just changing the battery... thanks for reading Bob Steele |
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#29
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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I'm from team 492... along with 1031 and 957 we took the regional, barely edging out a very powerful robot from team 753. Their robot had been all over the field - they tiped over the basket case robot in the semis, and tipped over our alliance partners in the first match (a tie) and the second match (which they won)... After a few false starts, however, they were dead in the water - which was lucky for us, but also shows why the rule is this way. 753 had an intimidating robot that beat up the competition and hung from the bar consistently. However, their drivetrain broke and another alliance won - so who built the better robot?
Team 492 ran into trouble... we took the timeout to fix our arm (it worked out for us, thank goodness for that rule)... an when 753 took their timeout, they got something replaced but it evidently wasn't enough. They also took their timeout, but the timeout can also be bad, since it gave them false hope and they fielded a dead robot in two straight matches, when they did have an alliance partner that could have taken the field and made for a much closer final match. I have to agree with those saying there is no need to change the rules now. We built our drivetrain to be powerful but nice on the batteries as well (we ran out in the finals last year), so suddenly changing the rules so that there were fewer matches would be extremely unfair to us, and any number of teams that built less powerful but very robust robots. Let the best robot win, however the game determines the best robot. We don't need to change the rules to achieve some other outcome... As long as the rules are applied evenly across the board, the game will determine the winners without a problem. |
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#30
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Quote:
Good job at squeezing out a victory at GLR, despite breaking your arm twice and "limping" off the platform at the end! Congratulations at finding your destrib block! |
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