Week 1: Thoughts, comments

[Faith]

Originally Posted by platypus

I posted these thoughts after day 1 at the BAE Granite State Regional:


After Saturday, here are my additional comments/revisions:

1. Like I mentioned after Friday, autonomous is so important for the very reason that you aren't covered. The only exception to what I posted before is what team 1276 did: they climbed the opponent's ramp and shot from there. This gave them perfect accuracy, while at the same time making them undependable. Many teams could not climb the ramp at all, and while they pretty much all could in the elimination rounds, none were really built to climb it easily (it's just such a deceptively hard task). They had absolutely forever to take their shots but at the same time did not need long to line up and take them. As far as I know, they only had a defensive autonomous mode, but it didn't matter because they just picked shooters with strong autonomous modes for their alliance, which let them interfere with the opponent's autonomous while their alliance took its own shots. They would be the only team to score anything of note in the rest of the game (as a result, their alliance swept in all their elimination matches easily to win the regional). My congratulations to team 1276 on solving this years game!

If you look at the videos of the semifinals and finals of BAE(those are the only ones I've found so far), which had a link posted earlier and can be found at http://www.team195.com/video/BAE2K6/ you can look at 1276's strategy and how people attempted to defend them. If you look, other robots only tried blocking them during two matches. The first of those matches 1276 DID NOT get up the ramp and score- they were successfully blocked from accomplishing that. The second of those two matches was a failure, because although the other team tried to defend them they actually pushed 1276 up the ramp a little, jostling them but from the wrong direction and helping rather then hindering.

In conclusion, I believe that although 1276 was brilliant and their strategy very good, it is easy enough to block with either
a) A robot on the ramp pushing them (I think)
or
b) A big robot or two that blocks them before they get on the ramp.

[steven114]

It seems to me that the intent to have a more 'full contact' game may have gone a bit too far - I have nothing against relaxing the hitting rules a bit, but it seems that now it's not being enforced at all. We were down on our side, completely out of one match, and our opponents kept hitting us, smashing in our shooter and breaking two welds on our frame...

Seems that something like that deserves a penalty at least.

[Faith]

Originally Posted by steven114

It seems to me that the intent to have a more 'full contact' game may have gone a bit too far - I have nothing against relaxing the hitting rules a bit, but it seems that now it's not being enforced at all. We were down on our side, completely out of one match, and our opponents kept hitting us, smashing in our shooter and breaking two welds on our frame...

Seems that something like that deserves a penalty at least.

I agree - that is deserving of at least a penalty if not more. I don't think that it would be easy to call though. It might be kind of like reffing soccer - You don't know when it starts needing a penalty until years of experience (which these refs don't get to have) and once something bad happens you haven't been calling the penalty for the same push, just this time something broke, so what should you do?
There are cases where robots are on the ground that I think shouldn't deserve a penalty, however. For instance, if a robot was pushing, knocked themselves and the other robot down, the other robot was on the opposing team's ramp though, and an alliance of the other robot moves the first robot to get the other one off the ramp. Also, if it is an alliance member and they push the robot onto the ramp and get extra points, I think it is fine. I saw both of these happen...

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

5. Why in the world do so many HP's chuck balls up toward the corner goals like crazy during the 2nd and 3rd periods when they are on offense? Does anyone realize how few of those balls actually make it into the goals? All you are doing is giving opposing backbots with ball collectors more opportunities to load up and use those unrealized points against you. It also clutters the audience's view and makes it harder to see where robot shots are coming from. Save your balls in your ball corrals for human player robot loading or feeding directly to the backbot(s) during defense. And remember, balls in your ball corral are balls that can't ever be used by your opposition against you. In the 4th period, with a relatively uncluttered field and clear line of sight, that's when you start firing away at those corner goals. And make sure the balls are ROLLING, not bouncing, well before they reach the ramp.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=44930

i saw this early and often on VCU's webcast.....i still don't understand the logic in it.

[Gdeaver]

Last year I was very critical of the game because match after match robots did nothing during autonomous. This year the game gives some serious motivation to do something. I saw allot of autonomous action this weekend. Still there are to many robots that apparently have no auto strategy. First did their part to encourage auto. Between the sensors included with the kit and the easy-c functions, there is no reason that any team should not be doing something this year. So I consider this year a step forward.

[petek]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

3. FIRST better get their act straight SOON when it comes to the numerous field control and scoring glitches, or you are going to have a mass uprising on your hands. I returned home to Warren, OH at 3:25 AM after driving back from New Jersey. This late return was due in no small part to the HOURS of delays teams and spectators had to endure from the ridiculous amount of restarts and field downtimes. This is at least the 2nd year in a row these problems have been permitted to leak into the competition season, especially during the first few weeks, and it seems even worse this year. FIRST, HATCH TECHNOLOGIES, and whomever else is responsible for developing the field control systems - FIX THE PROBLEM, or find the number of registrants for 1st week regionals dwindle away and die. WE ARE NOT YOUR GUINEA PIGS!!!! My registration fees are not there for you to spend on people who develop buggy, regional experience and audience interest-degrading software and hardware. If you do not do more to improve your quality control and accelerate your testing and debug, you may find those fees absent from future seasons. I will gladly pay a lot less money to someone who isn't FIRST to attend more offseason events like the IRI where the probability of playing on fully debugged fields is 80000% greater. This is one area where I will be more gracious when FIRST starts being more professional. I can only imagine how these numerous problems could hurt teams who work their hardest to scrape together enough dough to attend a single Week 1 event.

We were 45 minutes behind at the end of Friday, but had gotten our match cycle time down to 5 minutes by then. We did lose a lot of time early in the day due to scoring system and field control issues, but were able to make most of it back. We actually ran ahead of schedule on Saturday, and had few major system issues.

Bear in mind that this year's field and scoring system is much more complex than ever before - necessarily so because of the demands of counting balls and enabling/disabling goals. Sarah, the Good Scorekeeping Fairy of NJ, said the scoring system is the best she's seen and she has been head scorekeeper three years running.

Despite all the problems, the New Jersey Regional proved to be a fun, spirited albeit way too freaking long event filled with a bunch of great teams. Our team is very excited heading into Buckeye next week. I have heard, however, that the New Jersey field is scheduled to be shipped to Cleveland next. This makes me cringe (although I'm sure all the fields have been experiencing problems). I hope the problems plaguing the field control systems and causing stress for all the valiant volunteers responsible for keeping it limping along are minimized.

Actually, the NJ field is on its way to Pittsburgh. Cleveland gets a brand spanking new field.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Plooshiska

There are cases where robots are on the ground that I think shouldn't deserve a penalty, however. For instance, if a robot was pushing, knocked themselves and the other robot down, the other robot was on the opposing team's ramp though, and an alliance of the other robot moves the first robot to get the other one off the ramp. Also, if it is an alliance member and they push the robot onto the ramp and get extra points, I think it is fine. I saw both of these happen...

I also saw a bot push a fallen opposing robot gently aside so that the ramp was clear for the ramp dash at the end. No smashing, though, just a gentle nudge in front of the low goal. It also blocked the low goal completely, which might have been the second part of a brilliant move.

[Steve W]

Human players don't know the rules. I spoke to a lot of them after they had thrown balls at the 1 point goals and the celebrated. They didn't realize that they only get points when the green light is on.

Hard hitting, exciting, fast paced heck it sounds like hockey. I really think that there is a lot for spectators to watch. I liked the way the one ref pointed in the offensive zone at the beginning of the period.

Team 25 really drove over one robot but that was after they were almost pushed over twice by that same bot. I don't think that they were out of line for that move. I saw no ramming penalties either.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Steve W

Human players don't know the rules. I spoke to a lot of them after they had thrown balls at the 1 point goals and the celebrated. They didn't realize that they only get points when the green light is on.

I notice that alot in FIRST.
Alot of teams don't follow the rules and that includes drivers. You would think teams would take more care to at least know the basics and that's why the game so often looks so chaotic.

[Mr. A]

Originally Posted by steven114

It seems to me that the intent to have a more 'full contact' game may have gone a bit too far - I have nothing against relaxing the hitting rules a bit, but it seems that now it's not being enforced at all. ...

This does seem to be an overly aggressive game. I heard some team members saying it was more like battle-bots than a first competition. I do think there's something wrong when we are asked to develop highly sensitive targeting systems and then encourage teams to ram them off target. It's kind of like allowing tackling in a basketball game. Maybe there should be free shots for fouls.

I love First and it's mission, but I think this game seems to celebrate aggression as much as if not more than science and technology. One of our long time mentors has often mentioned that his favorite game was the one where four bots worked together to balance on a ramp competing for the best time. Now that's a celebration of science, technology, and collaboration! Maybe it wouldn't play as well to a large venue, but I think it was really more what Dean's vision in creating First is about. Make a better world through gracious professionalism, not make better machines for fighting.

That said, I do also have to say we love shooting those balls!

[Jack Jones]

Week 1: Thoughts, comments

Disapointed so far. I expect to see something better (in every respect) at GLR - If not there, then .

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by Mr. A

This does seem to be an overly aggressive game. I heard some team members saying it was more like battle-bots than a first competition. I do think there's something wrong when we are asked to develop highly sensitive targeting systems and then encourage teams to ram them off target.

It is pretty amazing to me how much things have changed in a year. Last year if you just accidentally brushed a robot in the loading zone you were hit with a major 30 point penalty. This year full contact is encouraged and even high speed ramming is not even being penalized via the rules from what I can tell from the webcasts.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

It is pretty amazing to me how much things have changed in a year. Last year if you just accidentally brushed a robot in the loading zone you were hit with a major 30 point penalty. This year full contact is encouraged and even high speed ramming is not even being penalized via the rules from what I can tell from the webcasts.

I think they should be calling some ramming penalties. I saw at least 2 robots get completely blindsided by other robots going full speed. Calling more penalties will give those teams with high goal scoring robots a better chance to show their stuff. As it stands, only EXCEPTIONAL shooters are doing well.

[B. Flaherty]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

1626 nearly destroyed themselves one match.
They hit so hard a large piece of their robot flew off and then it raced to the other side of the field and smashed into that side.
Treat your babies with care folks. Dail down the speed or program it to stop short so you flush six weeks of hard work down the tubes due to a programming mistake.

I just want to say that while it was a programming error, we were very far off from "destroying" ourselves. What you saw fly off was nothing more then a lexan side panel, held on by velcro, and most likely it wasnt properly secured. We wouldn't do something completely idiotic without knowing the consequences. I was the driver, and the only thing I became concerned about was hitting one of our own alliance members. Other then that, it was somewhat fun to watch.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I've had some time to sit and think about the game, and honestly I'm still not sure whether or not I like it yet. Watching it over a webcast won't sway my decision, I'll have to wait until BMR to ultimately decide.

However, I will say that from first glance, this game appears to be not as exciting as 2003, 2004, or 2005.