can there be agressive play?

[Corey Balint]

Defense wins Championships.

I can not put it any better then that. Rough play is inevitable when you get into the playoffs. It also is very exciting, as long as the other robots dont get torn apart or the field(although i tore the field in half at B.E., thats another story). If the game gets slow again, i think we may lose more students and prospective teams. The past two years have been incredibly exciting and non stop action until the very end.

In my own experiences this year, we went through NJ, Annapolis, Nationals, and PARC playing an offensive minded game. Never made it past the quarterfinals. Then in the next four offseasons I changed my strategy to playing defense and hanging only if necessary. We won 3 of the 4 and got 2nd in the other. I also have watched 494 vs 469 in the final matches over and over on SOAP and this only supports my theory.

However, I knew the extent of how to play defense (changes for every years rules). You need to be able to shove and push around, but not RAM with intent to harm or Batter repetitively. Ramming should be ok in some situations though. When you have little time left to block an opponent, i personally think almost anything can go (just no intent to harm). Say a robot is pulling itself up on the other side of the field, you have to go full speed to prevent them from getting up, and instead of slowing down and possibly letting them latch on, you have to get them out of the way. I know this is not a very well liked strategy, but if its win or lose, then you have to.

[J Flex 188]

A really really good post. I love your message about FIRSTers getting off their horses (not anyone in particular at least =P). The development in technology through the years leads to more and more challenges for the teams to accomplish. At the same time, the people who are not involved with FIRST may not realise the extra effort it takes to adapt to these new technologies (IR for example). In order for FIRST to continue its growth, a balance needs to be achieved between entertainment and technological challenge. The raucous cheering in Atlanta this April proved to me that FIRST just might have been on to something with raising the bar =P

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

In my three years in FIRST and the competitions I have attended I preferred the "physical" challenges over the "cerbral" ones. The 2002 rug game was fairly boring particualrly in the playoffs. One robot would race to the goals and just hold them in their zone while the other allaince would pull with utter fultility to move them and fail miserably more often than not. Total snoozefest.
The Stack Attack game was pretty fun with it's King-of-the-Hill element even if the main goal of the competiton inadvertant bred it's mutant illigitimant child (cue dramitic music) COLLUSION (is it just me or is that word veing used wrong in that context?) !!!!
Last years competiton was a brilliant mix of the physical (king of the hill battle for the bar) and the cerebral (so many strategies could be used to win and an incredible array of many different kinds of robots of all kinds of shapes and sizes). The most exciting moment I remember from last year happened in the playoffs at Buckeye (I think it was a semi-final match) when team 378 the Circut Stompers had latched onto the bar but had not pulled up yet becasue team 279 and their amazing clamshell bot was tryign to get on the bar. 378 tried blocking them but 279 latched on and 378 tried to sit on them but 279 would not be denied and pulled themselves up and took 378 off of the bar abd down to the floor. The place went nuts.
I know there are alot of old schoolers who fret that FIRST is turing into The Robotics Competition That Cannot Be Mentioned but truth be told y'all need to get off of your high horses. This aint some country club bred proper gentlemans game where we have to have absolute silence when the robot are doing their manuvers. There's loud music and even louder cheering. This is as high octanane enegry as any sporting event out there. A little contact never hurt anyone (and truth be told it's kinda fun even if you're the one getting slammed).
It's not like were going to turn into The Robotics Competition That Cannot Be Mentioned part II. But if you want the general public to get on board guess what? They like the rough stuff (and please don't say "well we don't need them" because we do. If you want to change the culture sometimes you need to change a little yourself). Which do you prefer? Last years multifacited game (that included rough play) or the four team alliance cure for insomnia from 2000? We can still be rough and smart because FIRST isn't just innovative it's imaginative.

[aaronbr28040]

If you expect to go onto the field with a robot that tips over easily or can be pushed around and you don't think other teams will take advantage of it think again. I don't think that there are any teams that would intentionally damage a robot, but the robots are very powerful and are easy to do damage with. This past season we had a very strong pushing bot and it got us in trouble with the refs a few times. We flipped somewhere around 8 bots during the season. We weren't trying to do it on purpose, but the robots with exposed wheels would just climb right up our frame and flip over. The ref told us we needed to calm it down a little and we tried our best to keep from tipping other robots. You feel bad when your team destroys or damages another teams bot. If our team damaged another teams robot I would expect my team to go help with repairs. Its part of gracious professionalism. You have to help out other teams and build those lasting friendships with them. The thing is, you never know when they might choose you as an alliance partner.
-Aaron

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by aaronbr28040

If you expect to go onto the field with a robot that tips over easily or can be pushed around and you don't think other teams will take advantage of it think again. I don't think that there are any teams that would intentionally damage a robot, but the robots are very powerful and are easy to do damage with. This past season we had a very strong pushing bot and it got us in trouble with the refs a few times. We flipped somewhere around 8 bots during the season. We weren't trying to do it on purpose, but the robots with exposed wheels would just climb right up our frame and flip over. The ref told us we needed to calm it down a little and we tried our best to keep from tipping other robots. You feel bad when your team destroys or damages another teams bot. If our team damaged another teams robot I would expect my team to go help with repairs. Its part of gracious professionalism. You have to help out other teams and build those lasting friendships with them. The thing is, you never know when they might choose you as an alliance partner.
-Aaron

We had a match with team 67 and got tangled up with them and got judo thrown the the floor. They came over to our pits and apologized. We were in the next match with them and scored our highest point total of the year.
One thing that is very unique about FIRST compared to other sporting events is that getting along with other is of paramount importance because you actually have to work with otehr teams. So if you go around burning bridges you will find yourself in need of the burn cream yourself.

[Joe Ross]

It's important to remember the rules with regards to aggressive play, rather then specific extreme cases, especially when conveying information to rookies.

Rules like R10, R17, G06, G27, G31, G32 come to mind, although there are probably others.

[gburlison]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

No, I was just saying that there are times there are agressive play in FIRST. We had a built in weakness in our robot (too top heavy) and it got tipped over easily and other teams at the championship took advatage of it and slammed us often. It was fair. If you don't like getting tipped don't build a robot that tips.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

At 1:29 left in the match 662 raced across the platform and threw us off the platform to the floor.

As the coach for 662 I must say that it was never our intention to tip over your robot. Since our robot was basically a one trick pony ( we could hang and thats about it ), our strategy was to hang and stop other robots from hanging. So we were just trying to stop you from gaining access to the platform. As you said your robot tipped over easily and our driver was a little to aggressive.

To add something new to the discussion, during regional competition at the Colorado Regional, in one match we had an opponent slam into wall in front of our driver hard enough to move the wall. You could feel the carpet move beneath you feet. This happened during autonomous mode and since our robot had 15 inch wheels, our opponent just sort of ran under one side of our robot and upset our autonomous mode. I assume that if it had been a direct hit, our robot would been severely damaged.

[JamesCH95]

I would say that blocking, tipping, hitting, and expoliting design flaws are legal (as long as it isn't too malicious or does intention damage) but pinning or "hanging up" a robot is not cool. Pinning is illegitimate and should be banned. If your only effective strategdy is to pin a 'bot against a wall, well, you have some huge flaws in your game/bot.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

I would say that blocking, tipping, hitting, and expoliting design flaws are legal (as long as it isn't too malicious or does intention damage) but pinning or "hanging up" a robot is not cool. Pinning is illegitimate and should be banned. If your only effective strategdy is to pin a 'bot against a wall, well, you have some huge flaws in your game/bot.

I remember in 2002 at Buckeye this one team used the mobile goal to pin another robot against the side of the filed. Teh ref gave them the 10 count and they let go. The goal was still pinning the robot on the side and they went about their business.

[JudyVandy]

If I remember the usual rules correctly, a certain amount of what may be termed 'aggressive play' is permitted, as long as the intent is to prevent the other robot from scoring or to enable your robot to score points. This does include pinning, but only for a limited number of seconds. Pushing an opposing robot to keep it from scoring points is, likewise permitted. Wanton destruction of another robot is not permitted, which includes beating up on a robot when it's down. Pushing a downed robot out of your way so you could score points is something that could be subject to a referee's judgment.

[aaronbr28040]

The debate now is not really whether or not aggressive play is allowed but rather how much will be tolerated. It really isn't that important due to the fact that as long as you aren't deliberately breaking the rules or hurting another robot your team will not get any penalties. The refs do not throw penalties just to do it, they try not to but sometimes they are forced to by extremely aggressive play. Just go out there and play hard and always keep gracious professionalism in mind and you will be fine.

-Aaron