On Game Design

[Paul Copioli]

O.K. I'm ready to chime in. I am going to address one aspect of Matt's original post: Additional parts restriction and money restriction. Many of you that know me or have had this conversation with me already know where I am going, but here I go again.

At first glance, one would think that restricting additional parts would level the playing field. On the contray, the more restriction placed on the additional parts; the more advantage the "big money" teams have. The ThunderChickens are one of those "big money" teams. If the restriction went to $700, or even $500 our machine would look the same. Why? We can make everything we currently buy. We buy a $25 gear today and I could have it made on a wire EDM for free (cost of the steel ~$2) by our sponsor. We currently chose not to do this, but we could. With no restriction, the small team could buy the same $25 gear. If the restriction existed, the small team would have to pay anywhere between $50 to $250 to have it made if they could find a place at all. The tighter the restriction, the more advantage my team has.

Another huge downfall of the restriction is the need for us to get T.V. exposure. What? How does the additional part restrictions have anything to do with T.V. exposure? The robots have to look good if we want to be on T.V. If they look like something we built in our garage, then we will have a harder time getting exposure. Look at the moster trucks .. beautiful artwork and design that gets destroyed at each competition ... the looks do nothing for the function but it is important for the exposure. Same goes for NASCAR or Drag Racing, or Formula 1. Looks matter and restriction on parts will kill any chance we have of getting real T.V. exposure.

Either way, we will play with whatever rules we are given because the ThunderChickens will be inspired either way.

-Paul

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by Bonzack1390

Rookie teams have just as good of chance recruiting a human player as any other highschool.

yes but a team who gives their human player 18 extra chances to shoot 5 pt balls because they catch them all (good robot 93! ) has a better chance of getting more points

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

If the restriction went to $700, or even $500 our machine would look the same. Why? We can make everything we currently buy. We buy a $25 gear today and I could have it made on a wire EDM for free (cost of the steel ~$2) by our sponsor. We currently chose not to do this, but we could. With no restriction, the small team could buy the same $25 gear. If the restriction existed, the small team would have to pay anywhere between $50 to $250 to have it made if they could find a place at all. The tighter the restriction, the more advantage my team has.

Another huge downfall of the restriction is the need for us to get T.V. exposure. What? How does the additional part restrictions have anything to do with T.V. exposure? The robots have to look good if we want to be on T.V. If they look like something we built in our garage, then we will have a harder time getting exposure. Look at the moster trucks .. beautiful artwork and design that gets destroyed at each competition ... the looks do nothing for the function but it is important for the exposure. Same goes for NASCAR or Drag Racing, or Formula 1. Looks matter and restriction on parts will kill any chance we have of getting real T.V. exposure.

Either way, we will play with whatever rules we are given because the ThunderChickens will be inspired either way.

I'll respectfully disagree. I understand your argument- you're saying you can manufacture parts just as easily as you buy them. However, I'm on a team with limited funds, and helped produce one of the many robots this season that came in at or under $1200.

I do believe Matt's point though, was this-

If other teams are capable of producing equally, if not more capable robots for much less money, why do teams have to spend the full $3000? Personally, I like the robots that look like they came out of a garage better than the polished up show robots. Maybe as Matt's info says, I've "been in FIRST too long", but I like seeing the ins and outs of a robot's systems. A machine will look good if it's well built, and throwing more money at a machine won't make it any better. What makes a machine great is it's fundadmental design and inherent functionality, not how much money is spent on it. To expand on that idea further, FIRST is about inspiring kids about science and technology, and what better way to get kids thinking than by presenting a problem. I'd rather students think of a creative and innovative method of coping with a mechanical issue with given resources, rather than say "well, we could always just buy this." My team has always been on a limited budget, so we're forced to find creative ways around what otherwise would end up as an expense, and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for that experience.

As far as TV exposure, I'd almost fear that for FIRST at this point. FIRST is no monster truck rally, or racing event, or sports game, and shares none of the values each of them entail. The only way robotics will become interesting to TV audiences is if they become all out battlebots. I think FIRST is trying to change America on a culteral level by planting the seeds of gracious professionalism in the youth of the nation, and hope it grows and flowers once those students grow up and become the leaders of the future.

Personally, I'd rather not see FIRST sacrifice it's roots of inspiration to pander to the TV crowd, even if the intentions are to inspire the TV crowd. I feel too much of what FIRST means would be lost in the process.

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

As far as TV exposure, I'd almost fear that for FIRST at this point. FIRST is no monster truck rally, or racing event, or sports game, and shares none of the values each of them entail.

I think we just need to find the right channel. How can golf, billiards or specifically curling be on television? Essentially because there's an audience to watch those programs on those channels. What FIRST needs is a channel (I.E: Tech TV) that has viewers that would want to watch a robotics competition, then some advertisers to air commercials during the time (Delphi, Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Autodesk, etc.).

If we could have a television network broadcast the final matches from Einstein we would be golden.

[Paul Copioli]

Marc P.,

What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?

As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.

We will just agree to disagree about your comment on battlebots. The reason Comedy Central pulled the plug is that it was not interesting enough to capture the audiences' attention for 3 years in a row (same old, same old). We need to get the average Joe T.V. watcher to keep the channel on our competition for 10 minutes. If we can do that, then he will get interested and that will start an explosion of reaching more and more students outside of the current FIRST community. The key to those 10 minutes is flair. We need more flair.

As to your point about finding creative ways to solve problems. I agree with you, but I argue that even if the limits were opened up all the way (this year was very close) you can't just go out and buy any old component off the shelf. There is one MAJOR limiting factor we must deal with that rules almost every decision we make ... 130lb maximum. That limit forces us to make a lot more creative decisions than chsing between EDM gears vs. bought gears. I really don't like re-inventing the wheel, so just let me buy my gears (and bearings and sprockets, etc.)

I know, let's play a fun (and maybe enlightening for all) game. Let's think of a restriction we would like to put on the game to level the playing field and see how it affects different teams. Since I don't like any restriction, I won't go first.

-Paul

P.S. - I have been wating for this debate to resurface for a while now, because there are many long time FIRSTers that disagree on this subject.

[Ryan F.]

I think that the kit allows for everyone....rookie or not....to be able to build some sort of a robot to compete. Simply use the 4x2 alluminum to build your base.....stick the drill motors on....do the electronics...and there you've got a robot that can decently compete in the game.

[Steve W]

To spend or not to spend? Those that can do and those that can't don't. Has this impacted FIRST to this point? I must admit that I am a relative rookie in FIRST but I have seen a lot of teams and matches in my 3 short years. As a mentor and announcer I have seen from 2 sides (I'm not sure how many sides there are) the pros and cons of money. When building there never seems to be enough. When I look at some teams I am jealous. When some teams look at us they are jealous (not cause I'm on the team). We are a mid finance team. I think of what could we do if we had more cash. Then I think, probably wish I had more cash.

Inspiration comes on different levels and in different forms. This year I was inspired to do more fund raising because we wanted to increase the awareness of our team. We were inspired by winning the West Michigan Regional last year. We were inspired by Wildstang. We were inspired by FIRST !!! I don't believe in fixing something that's not broke. I like to see teams with lots of money building a nice machine. I like to see rookie teams glow as their robot leaves the starting block and pushes home their first ball. I love to see a team with no robot at Championship work with other teams to build a basic bot to compete. I love to see students open their eyes and see a whole new world.

Would I change anything ? Yes, but that is not to be discussed here. I would also like to see a game a bit more exciting than this year. Not that it didn't end up good it's just that it took all Friday to get there. I would like to continue seeing more technology developed. As you know this also takes money. If teams can find sponsers and have the money then let them spend. We already have limits. Don't change them just monitor how teams are beating the system and make them accountable. That is a big order I know and how do you accomplish it, I'm not sure but if FIRST wants some suggestions I would love to help.

I don't believe in superteams, I believe in small teams stretching to accomplish great feats. Many small subgroups have a better chance of solving a problem than one large group. If I have offended any one I appologize but I am not pointing any fingers. These are just my thoughts and ideas.

Paul - Throwing money at a problem does not always work. Take the New York Rangers, Please.

[Matt Reiland]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Marc P.,

What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?

As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.

I have to totally agree with Paul on the point above. I remember looking at robots back when I got into FIRST in 1999 and saw teams with custom aluminum sprockets and gears that weren't even legal to buy, but perfectly legal to make from stock. Huge sizes, light weight you name it. That is, however, only if you have the resources available to your team. So if you were a rookie without those resources, you got the gears and sprockets from small parts (At a not so cheap rate BTW) if were a veteren team with good resources, you got the same $300 or so dollars from small parts PLUS nearly unlimited gears and sprockets in almost any material you wanted. So where does the money limit get you? It will usually hurt the lower funded teams that can't get these parts any other way but by purchasing them. Look at some of the past robots and you will see that putting the cost limitation on FIRST or restricting the suppliers for parts will have little or no effect on a resourceful veteren team.

In fact it seems kind of against the real world way of doing things to say to the students, "hey we need this sprocket that you can buy off the shelf for $19 but instead we are going to make the exact same thing for $70??"

[Bcahn836]

The game and the rules should not limit my or anyone else's creativity in the design of complex systems or any other aspect of building a robot or the strategy of how to play the game.

[Bharat Nain]

The point is, FIRST looks to inspire people... the game is ... whatever.. We can either choose to accept it as a challenge and do something about it or .... ,. Frankly, It is my first year, I don't know too much of the game except for stack attack and FIRST frenzy. From what I see, it just looks like these are moderate level games, and the success level(building a working robot) is huge in rookie and veteran teams.

However, its not only the game. There is recognition for lots of other stuff like animation, websites, helping other teams etc. If for some reason your robots are not that good, try doing other stuff. Maybe that would make you feel better. FIRST is a huge world

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?

I apologize, I should have posted this before (I was at work, swamped with customers, couldn't think right )

I disagree with your example of the gear- if you can get your sponsor to manufacture it rather than purchasing it. Section 5.3.2.2 of The Robot part of the manual states:

The cost of raw material obtained by a team + the cost of non-team labor expended to have the
material processed further. Team member processing labor is not included. Example: A team
purchases steel bar stock for $10.00 and has it machined by a local machine shop that donates its 2
hours of expended labor. The team must include the estimated normal cost of the labor as if it were
paid to the machine shop, and add it to the $10.00. Exception Examples: If the team members
themselves did the actual machining, there would be no associated labor cost. If the machine shop
were part of the team, its labor cost would not apply.

So, unless the machine shop where you would fabricate the part is indeed the team's work space, or a team member made the part, you would technically have to include the labor costs at fair market value in your total, even if it is donated.

As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.

Again, I apologize for not thinking clearly. What I meant is, jobs must be performed within a budget. Say you sign a contract with a client to develop a widget that performs X, Y, and Z functions, for $3,500. By the time your budget is run through, you can only perform X and Y functions. Unless you can renegotiate the contract for more money, you're stuck with what you have- you can't throw any more money at it. Meanwhile, a competing firm, can create a widget that performs X, Y, and Z funtions for $1,200. In the future, who would the client be more likely to go with? I agree with you- you have to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost, so why wouldn't the same apply to robotics? All I'm saying is if some teams can do similar functions for less money, why is the budget so high?

We will just agree to disagree about your comment on battlebots. The reason Comedy Central pulled the plug is that it was not interesting enough to capture the audiences' attention for 3 years in a row (same old, same old). We need to get the average Joe T.V. watcher to keep the channel on our competition for 10 minutes. If we can do that, then he will get interested and that will start an explosion of reaching more and more students outside of the current FIRST community. The key to those 10 minutes is flair. We need more flair.

I do completely agree with this. However, I think no matter how exciting FIRST gets, we'll have trouble reaching the crowd where American Idol gets more votes than the US presidential election, on networks where shows like The Swan are becoming more commonplace. I think FIRST is already addressing the problem at the social level, by influencing the youth, which may prove a more useful way of changing our culture than trying to get people more interested in robotics, learning, and inspiration than sports, crude humor, and corporate sit-coms.

P.S. - I have been wating for this debate to resurface for a while now, because there are many long time FIRSTers that disagree on this subject.

Again, I agree.. I've been waiting for a good debate to jump in on

[Ryan Foley]

"The game isn't fair. It was never supposed to be fair."

Dean Kamen, kickoff 2003

[Matt Adams]

Here's a serious question that perhaps some have not thought about_:

What percent of your team's budget is put into building the robot?

I would say that most typical small-medium teams are running budgets of 20-30k aren't limited by the costs on building the robot. The $5,000 for the first competition and $4,000 for a second regional, plus all of the buses or airplane tickets hotel arrangements... this isn't cheap stuff. This is prohibitive.

Money doesn't help you build a better robot... or even level the field. Great engineers will do more with less.

The real quality difference isn't the cost, it's the machining setup. If you or a local sponsor has access to CNC equipment, you've got a huge advantage to the small team using hand drills in a janitor's closet. This is a fact of life, and nothing can change this. Team 461 has CNC's set up at their high school... which has been a huge advantage. Lots of money, lots of top notch engineers and high school students, large facilities, and off season programs are making FIRST teams more competitive. Each teams needs to decide for themselves how much they want to invest in being competive, and how much they want to invest in engineering inspiration. They are only mildly intertwined.

As to regards to this years game, I don't think that picking up a ball and placing it on the goal was an extraordinatorly difficult task. However, hanging was trickier for one reason... so I'll go a little off topic.

It would be a very different game this year if the bar was 8 or 9 feet off the ground instead of 10. Because of the robot's 5 foot height limit, you couldn't have a two link arm fold in on itself once and be tall enough to reach over the 10 foot bar to hang. Hanging required an arm to either two revolute joints, or a revolute and prismatic joint. This makes arms much more complicated in terms of finding kinematic solutions for object placement by the drivers, and requires an additional motor to provide this function. You could get around this requirement by being able to climb the 6" steps, but often still, many teams still required an additional link on their robot due to the angle of approach and additional length required.

Anyway, those are some thoughts. Thanks to everyone for bringing up this interesting topic.

Matt

[ngreen]

I know there are some teams with a lot of money. But I don't see them setting around thinking, "hmmm...I could build this for 1,200 or 3,500 and it will have the same functionality. I think I'll spend the 3,500." People try to build the best robot for the cheapest price. It is human nature, especially around us engineering types.

I don't see having a the limit at 3,500 as causing bad robot design. I want example of teams spending 3,500 for things they could do for 1,200. And if they did for some reason I don't think I would really care. If they found an easier way and kept under the limits and it worked for them it is okay by me.

Money is really good at finding its way into places. You've heard of campaign finance reform. Well in FIRST the limit is kind of like your hard money. But all the organization that become part of your team and help with machining are like soft money. You will always have people with more resources in FIRST. Hence, FIRST isn't meant to be fair.

These ideas are meant to even the playing field. I don't see them making that happen. There will always be the have and have-nots. There will be teams with lots of resources and teams with little resources. The best way I've seen if your serious about making a level playing field would be to limit teams to one regional. This seems to give an advantage to teams with the resources to attend two regionals and to team in the proximity of multiple regionals, primarily the East and Mid-East regions.

Originally Posted by Matt Leese

Over the past couple of years, I haved made some observations on the direction FIRST seems to be headed. FIRST has changed the overall direction of some of the rules and the game design in this time span. In some ways these changes have been positive but I've started to believe that there were some unintended consequences that were derived from these changes.

First of all, we've seen that overall the games have gotten more complicated over the past few years (last year with the stacking, this year with the hanging). By complicated and complex, I mean that it requires a complicated or complex robot to successfully compete in the game. This was done with the stated intention of giving more of a challenge to veteran teams but still allowing a "easy" component to the game for rookie teams. While I do find it a bit condescending to leave an "easier" component for the rookie teams, the bigger problem is the fact that it divides the competition into several levels of play. In some ways it's saying that if you're rookie or choose one objective that you aren't eligibile to actually compete.

One of the other major issues that I've seern is tied into the idea of more complicated games. Over the past several years, FIRST has dramatically loosened the parts requirements. This had made it much easier for more complicated robots to be built. Because it's easier to build complicated robots, FIRST has had to make the game more challenging to keep up. While I do appreciate some of the well designed systems that teams have come up with, I think that it helps to further divide teams between those who are able to compete and those who are not.

Because of this added complexity, some teams spend their off-seasons designing two-speed drive trains and other components. While I saluate teams that are able to successfully create a year-round program, it shouldn't be a requirement to be competitive. FIRST knows that many sponsors are not interested in year-round programs and has attempted to address the issue; by making it easy to design systems that can be used on the robot outside of the build period (specifically, I look at various drive trains), FIRST is not helping reduce the reliance on year-round programs.

My proposed solution to these problems is fairly simple. For one, make the complexity of the game less. It's not a problem to raise the bar but don't make it too high for most teams to compete. However, simply making the complexity of the game less would not be enough as it would just allow teams to dominate. The real key is to also drastically restrict the allowable parts. I would highly suggest dropping the allowable spending amount to below $1000 (I think somewhere between $500 and $750 would be a good point). This has many benefits. For one, it does not stop anyone from building a complex robot; it merely makes it harder and would require more ingenious solutions. It would also require more tradeoffs to be made if one complex component were desired by a team. It also drops the required amount of fundraising a team has to do as it wouldn't be possible to spend as much money on the robot.

As for reducing the complexity of the game, I would make several other suggestions to FIRST. For one, keep the methods of scoring to two ways that require specific mechanisms to accomplish it (i.e. moving your robot to a certain area of the field wouldn't count as a method). For games that did this well, I'd look at 2002 and 2000. This makes it reasonable to either make a specialized robot or a generic robot. The key is to also keep the difficulty of the two methods not too divergent or one method will be ignored. The other key is to keep the methods of scoring somewhat similiar in point values (2004 and 2000 did this very well; 2003 did not).

I do not know if it's desired by FIRST for everyone to compete on an equal footing (which, while truly impossible, we can at least attempt to approach it), but I would say it should be. The key to doing this is to make the games such that even a rookie can successfully do any of the tasks. The corollary to this is restricting the parts availability rules such that teams have to engineer from scratch every year to add everything they want to (this means that teams can't carry over designs year-after-year as easily and instead have to tailor their design to each year's game).

Matt

Although your intentions seem good, I don't think the way you want to go about 'enforcing' it is the right way. If you prohibit teams from spending money on the robot (the current limit is good), many complex robot systems might not be able to be added. Personally, I think its cool when a robot does something really complicated - and, yes, it does inspire me. So, I say, don't overregulate.

On the issue of rookie team competition, no way can anyone say that rookie teams have a huge disadvantage. And, a big obstacle is just a bigger motivation to do even better. There are always some rookie teams at the top of the rankings (if you want to measure success that way). FIRST's methods for desiging the game are great, and I've only seen their games get better every year!