Gracious Professionalism

[Wolfe]

Our team gets a lot of comments about Gracious Professionalism. It seems most people define the concept this way:

Gracious Professionalisms Behavior that would be approved by your kindergarten teacher while building a block tower with little Jamie.

Our robot is mainly drive system but also has a wedge to move around other robots. It can move around almost every robot in the competition by pushing it, or wedging and dragging it. Several people have refused to believe this is legal despite FIRST's approval.

This year's competition had contact for a reason, because it is a legitimate strategy. It's not unfair or any easier to build a bruiser robot. It is a very effective strategy as seen by that fact that our team won the Canadian Regional.

Most people's argument is that while it may not break any rules, it is not very gracious. Well, look at the phrase Gracious Professionalism. It doesn't say you have to be Gracious! Gracious is an adjective, modifying the noun Professionalism. You have to Graciously Professional. It is NOT the spirit of Graciousness and Professionalism!

[Digo]

This year, that subject was the origin of several arguments and problems, dividing a lot of people.

In my opinion, FIRST shouldn't have allowed that kind of strategy, cause it's against everything FIRST taught us untill today. But since they said it's legal, it's legal.

Now some teams made robots that drag opponents around, and it's not against any rule, but it is against many speeches I heard in my three years of FIRST.

It's not those teams fault, they are not guilty at all.

[Rob Jenkins]

I think that the problem that most teams are having is the drastic change from last year to this year as far as strategy and game play go. Last year there was little to no interaction because it wasn't how the game was played. The 2000 and '99 years that I was involved in, however, were heavily based on contact because it was a physicaly challenging 2 vs. 2 game design. Emphasis was given in the beginning on robust designs, and people had to know that contact was going to happen.

I am a firm believer that there is nothing as far as playing hard on the field that goes against gracious professionalism. Frankly, no one likes losing a match, and the physical robots do come out on top a lot, so envy often leads to complaining about these designs. This isn't the point though. If a teams builds and efficient, aggressive robot and goes out to play hard that's fine. The important part is that the team carries themselves professionally on and off the field. Ruthlessly attacking broken robots or robots that are not a threat is not the purpose, and then there is a problem. Also, being a respectable team off the fiels, whether a team wins or loses is key. If teams are being respectful and just playing as hard as they can, I think that everyone should just have fun, be proud of the outcome of the matches and we should all remember the real reasons to be doing programs like FIRST.

[GregT]

I have no problem with this strategery, but i do believe it is easier to build that kind of robot.

We played 3 elim matches with you (639 was the candian 2nd place alliance captain, not 629 as your website news says ). I had no idea you guys were a bully bot... no complaints from any of my alliance members about you pushing them around or playing rough. My team must have been one of those few you can't push around, because we never failed to move our goal into scoring position.

FIRST clearly said to build a robust robot because contact was expected. That said, I love a good ball bot much more then a good goal bot, they are just funner to watch. I wish balls counted for more this year, my team built a strong 2 goal handler because thats how you win this year- you HAVE to bully.

My thoughts,
Greg

[Wetzel]

I direct you to the back of your FIRST-SME cards.
"
The FIRST-SME Partnership is dedicated to inspiring students to pursue careers in science and engineering through participation in the annual FIRST Robotics Competition.

<center>
FIRST Code of Ethics
"Gracious Professionalism"
+ Respect
+ Courtesy
+ Good Sportmanship
+ Best Behavior at All Times



www.first-sme.org
</center>


Wetzel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Future research librarian

[asher]

I think what a lot of people forget is that a lot of these teams weren't around in 2000 or before, they haven't seen what fights their were over the ramp in 2000, and to which robust designs were challenged. Even the teams in their second year only played in 2001 so having any contact is a complete change. I would personally like to see more contact than I saw this year, there are still many teams that I feel would benefit and learn many things from a higher contact game, such as the amount of contact in 2000. Only after you see your electronics ripped to pieces or your battery laying in the middle of the field do many teams learn what robust really is. I applaud any team who created a defensive robot (and those of you that say its so much easier to build must realize that 70-80% of these bots aren't such complex engineering marvels as they like to think they are). I see nothing wrong with being as defensive as you wish, and if I team suffers from poor design they will learn something from the experience. At least your team took time to learn how to play the game and picked a strategy, something many teams neglected to do, and again I applaud you.

Ashley

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Gracious Professionalism has more accurately been referred to as "acting in a way that your grandmother would be proud of." (if she were watching) I extend that to my grandmother who at 95 is still very alert and active. Could you defend your design to her? If your robot is only designed to interact with other robots and neither the field pieces nor a human player is it defendable under this definition? This is a hard question to ask and an even harder one to answer.
Good Luck All

[Perseus]

if all it can do is interact with other robots, why didn't you just join BattleBots. I mean, it isn't as expensive, and you can make money! FIRST competitions are show the "finesse" of robots, not their brute strength, although lots oftorque isnt bad

[DanL]

To play the devil's advocate for a little bit, couldn't the "finesse" be it's power? Gracious professionalism was defined as
+ Respect
+ Courtesy
+ Good Sportmanship
+ Best Behavior at All Times

Respect - is it really disrespectful to control other bots? If you feel the best strategy is to control other bots, thats your strategy, and others should respect it as long as you respect their strategies - or, their robot design. What I mean is basically it's one thing to aim to destroy another bot (battlebots), but it's another thing to aim to control other bots. If your methods of control are not designed to destroy or harm the other bot, you are showing respect towards the other team - both their bot and their strategy - and they should do the same.

Courtesy - the game has certain rules. The game was designed this year to be a contact sport. Dean specifically said that during Kickoff. Again, you must show courtesy towards others - any methods that are designed to harm the other robot don't do this. However, is pushing such a harmful strategy? If your robot gets harmed by being pushed, did the pusher show 'dis-courtesy' towards you, or did your team ignore a key element of your game? Gracious profesionalism is designed to facilitate the advancement of engineering. However, if you failed to incorporate a key concept of the game into your engineering, couldn't it be argued that by being pushed, you were taught that you forgot to include several important parts. Needless to say, next year, you won't make that mistake (if the game has the same amount of pushing). And so, didn't you learn an important engineering lesson - or put another way, didn't you learn what gracious profesionalism is out to teach? At SBPLI, there were several robots that took the pushing possibility very seriously. As soon as they got the goals in their endzone, they shot pnumatic cylindars down, lifting their robot up onto steel plates, and making them immovable. When I first saw this, I was impressed by the creativity these teams showed in their engineering. By considering a key concept of the game, they advanced their engineering to a superior level. Isn't that what gracious profesionalism is set out to do in the first place - advance the pursuit of engineering?

As for Good Sportsmanship and Behavior, that isn't necesarily limited to the robot. If it turns out that someone's robot IS harmed by your tactics, what if you sent your team engineer to fix them up for their next match? They would have learned to make their robot more robust next year, AND they would have been fixed for their next match. Isn't that what gracious profesionalism is out to do?

Summing everything up, I'm trying to say that you can still follow Gracious Professionalism using offensive tactics. There is a huge difference between putting a large piece of steel sharpened to a point that could pierce any robot, and making a robot designed to push other guys around. In no way am I supporting the hood-ornament idea. What I'm saying is that the mission of FIRST is to inspire and recognize science and technology. Which team should be recognized more - which team completed the mission of FIRST: one that completely ignored an important aspect of the game, or a team that considered it and incorporated it into their design? Like or not, robustness was a key element this year - Dean said so at Kick-Off. As such, it shouldn't have been ignored completely, and testing robustness should be a respected strategy. Of course, if your team fails the test, it is only right that the other team help you and fix what they did destroy. After all, they did destroy, and thats not part of the fun.

[Jim McGeehin]

But, Dan, to argue technical terms, controlling another alliance's robot or robots is not a strategy to have yourself achieve victory. That is a strategy to render the other alliance unable to achieve victory, which is definitely not the same thing

I'm pretty sure most are aware of this, but stopping another person from winning is not the same as winning.

While it is a strategy to get yourself the victory, and to come up with 'counter-counterstrategies' to further yourselves toward that end, it is not a victory strategy to just stop others from winning.

It's no more different in thought than if you and I were in a game of soccer, and I would continually have a teammate drag you away from the goal so that I could have an easy shot.

However, the FIRST group has more experience in dealing with these matters than I. Their decision has their own reasons, and I'm not going to argue about it.

[DanL]

I have to disagree with you here. Controlling the other robots is a perfectly 'moral' strategy - just like controlling the goals. Going back to your sentence:

"But, Dan, to argue technical terms, controlling another alliance's robot or robots is not a strategy to have yourself achieve victory. That is a strategy to render the other alliance unable to achieve victory, which is definitely not the same thing "

What if you replaced 'robots' with 'goals'

But, Dan, to argue technical terms, controlling another alliance's goal or goals is not a strategy to have yourself achieve victory. That is a strategy to render the other alliance unable to achieve victory, which is definitely not the same thing.

What if you built a robot that is capable of completely controlling the goals. How is that different from controlling the other robots? Either way, the other alliance team doesn't accomplish what they wanted to accomplish because you are preventing them from doing that. Your post doesn't really explain why controlling robots is so 'immoral', while controlling other elements is.

Going to your soccer analogy, me being dragged around by your teammate would be against the rules - and you would recieve the appropriate consequences for that, much like if you purposely harmed another robot. What this is actually like is your team mate blocking me and not letting me reach the ball. There is nothing wrong with that. To actually achieve my goal - that is, reach the soccer ball - in training, my coach should have put us through some drills to learn how to get around this behavior - how to accomplish my mission even though you are trying to block me.

[Dan 550]

You have to use your robot to the best of its strategic ability, and for some, including my team, that means that you move everything on the field where you want it. To maximize our score and the other alliance's, we frequently repositioned other robots into their own bot zone while maintaining control of a goal. Almost anyone that was at Rutgers and isn't blind can tell you what we do. Once, a driver was spoken too about being overly aggressive, but just once. He was a Freshman, by the way, and the excitement got to him. In my book, gracious professionalism is apologizing to a team after accidently getting a hook tangled in their pneumatic lines that were exposed. Granted, the Buffalo Dance (ask a Boy Scout) wasn't too tactful at times, but you have to be allowed to celebrate. Anyway, if you have the power to move stuff, move it. You shouldn't be penalized for using your robot to the best of its abilities.

[Ben Mitchell]

whimper...

didnt we have a thread just like this? Deja vu...

The debate is somewhat futile, the teams that did make those kinds of bots have little to apoligize for, since morals are hazy, at best, and their right, they are allowed to by the rules.


whether this is right or wrong is debatable, check the robot-lifter post by tinyfarnsworth for my side of the issue. I may not agree with it, but hey, its just a game, and their call, as far as what is right goes.

[SGopwani]

Let me start out by saying that our team has one Sportsmanship/Gracious Proffesionalism awards the past 2 years, and we are more proud of these then any number one ranking our championship we could ever attain. Our team attempts to hold this priority over all others.

In the 2000 year, our robot was intended to go under the bar, pick up balls, run them to the troughs, hang, etc. Being 30 pounds over weight, we lost the hanging and balling mechanisms, and soon realized that our robot drew to much current to drive in our high gear, and we were stuck at some few feet per second. Our new strategy became to pull teams off the bar, and push teams off the ramp. We won every single match at nationls with this defensive strategy. Yes, we were trying to stop our opponents from winning, but in a legal and legitimate manor. Some robots are faster, some are stronger, some are more durable. All of these features should be considered when building robots. It's all part of the game. It's unfortunate that robots get thrown around and broken, but rebuilding your robot in 10 minutes between every match is half the fun of the competition!!!!

I have not read all the posts here, but this is my 2 cents on the topic.

[Jim McGeehin]

Replacing the word robots with goals completely changes the context of the message. The goals are not animate, nor are they controlled by any team or teams directly. They are manipulated by teams through various measures.

As to your counter-soccer analogy, you miss the point entirely. Were I to block you in soccer, I would stay in front of you. The same goes for the robot, albeit it's very hard to do. Wedging under a robot and pulling it around against it's own power is not blocking, it's moving. That is more akin to my analogy then to yours.

I never said controlling other robot was 'immoral,' I said it was not a victory strategy. To say that it is immoral would be saying that it's not right to move another robot against it's own power. I never said that, not did I ever say it. It's a little risky to the carpet, however, when you're moving it one way when its wheels are going another.