Is defense necessary in practice rounds?

[pklevann]

This is a general question for all teams and participants. Is it necessary to practice defense during practice rounds? Personally I do not see any reason to practice pushing or ramming another robot during the practice rounds on Thursday. I don't see any reason to even touch another robot during practice unless it is agreed upon by all teams. This years game requires offensive robots time to "dial in" a shooter and/or tweak a ball gathering mechanism. It is difficult to do that when you are getting pushed and bumped by other teams. In some instances at GLR teams were playing flat out rockem sockem on THURSDAY. How is it GP to bump, slam, and crash an opponent trying to tune their robot during practice rounds? Is it GP to potentially cause significant damage to an opponent during practice? Practice rounds were much more useful when it was a ten minute, unstructured period, in which you could test out your robot without fear of having things broken or more frustrating, being prevented from even attempting to work out a problem because an over aggressive robot is "practicing" bumping you. What are your thoughts?

[Heretic121]

defense... its a touchy subject on practice day...

i know teams that do go all out on thursday and play it like its qualifying which is understandable espically if its their first regional and the drivers need practice on the full field... now full contact ramming in my opinion is not needed and i told my drivers to avoid contact as much as possible... but also there are bots that mainly play defense and thier drivers need to get that practice in when they can....

my best advice is go talk to the other alliances before you start practice and say "We are doing this, this, and this... please do not hit us if you dont have to we are trying to fine tune part X..." and most of the time teams will back off... =D GL

[LPaton716]

Defense may be necessary to test the strenght and capabilities of your robot as well as giving the driver some defense practice. However, there is no reason for this to be excessive...maybe 10 seconds or so. Most robots need practice scoring therefor it shouldn't matter which goal you try for either just as long as you can practice getting the balls in the goals.

So I basically agree that defensive shouldn't the main focus of practice rounds and robots should be allowed to score.

Actually why not leave the lights on all the time (other than for field testing) to maximize a teams chance to practice scoring?

[Peter Matteson]

There really is no reason for it. On practice day even if your not supposed to be on offense you can practice many things like shooting and picking up balls or having your human player toss them into the machine. That said, have your bumpers on if possible because you really don't know where some teams are going to go during autonomous mode. Some of them don't even know. Letting people get back the feel and dialing in their robots to be competitive. Let them do it the game will be better on Friday and Saturday for it. No one wants to get broken during a meaningless scrimage, although that would give you plenty of time to fix what breaks and make it better.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I really don't like robots defending other robots on practice day. The other robots are mostly barely moving and not really trying all out to score a bazillion points and win a game anyways. What's the point of practicing against a robot that's not even trying? What's so professional about risking breaking an opponent's robot before they get to play one official match?

Personally, if I have to deal with robots trying to "practice" running into my robot, I'd just as soon take my robot to the practice field where everyone is trying to be productive and get robots working and tested.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

You design a robot that can score but is not very strong.

I design a robot that cant score much but can push anyone.

You want to practice getting on the ramp.

I want to practice getting you up the ramp.

Both teams are testing their strategy. I see nothing wrong with defense on practice day.

[Joe J.]

With most of the past games I've seen I would agree that Practice day should be for practicing scoring, BUT this year we are not only allowed to play defense in the game, theres a whole 40 second period of the game where your alliance is on DEFENSE. Its a major part of this years game so you should practice it.

[Btower]

From the tournament manual.

8.2 PRACTICE ROUNDS
8.2.1 Schedule
The Practice Rounds will be played all day Thursday. The Practice Rounds schedule will be available on
Thursday morning. Practice Rounds will be randomly assigned. Each team will be assigned an equal number
of Practice Rounds. At some events, additional rounds may be available on a standby basis. Each Practice
Round will consist of a ten-minute period in which teams may operate their robot on the field. The first five
minutes of each Practice Round will start with a 10-second autonomous period, and followed by a “free-form”
session, in which the robots may be exercised to evaluate operational characteristics, gain driver experience,
determine system robustness, etc. The second five minutes of each Practice Round will be conducted as a
“match” with approximately two minutes for set up, two minutes and fifteen seconds of regular game play
(including autonomous operations), and one minute to clear the field.

So I'd say defense is necessary and allowed within reason. Thankfully, I'm the one who gets to decide "reason", sorry.

Seriously though, should we make an field announcement, say at a drivers meeting prior to the start of practice rounds?

On a second practice related topic. Should we allow team extra practices on a standby basis, if another team does not show?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

You design a robot that can score but is not very strong.

I design a robot that cant score much but can push anyone.

You want to practice getting on the ramp.

I want to practice getting you up the ramp.

Both teams are testing their strategy. I see nothing wrong with defense on practice day.

Tom,

Assume I've got the defendingest robot in the competition and you've got a shooter, defender, whatever. Would you appreciate it if I spent 10 minutes defending your robot up onto the ramp and pinning it there? Would you like it if in the process of defending you, I accidentally knocked your robot over?

You don't particularly need another robot around to practice defending against. Pushing things is not as hard as you seem to think, just practice driving and you'll be plenty prepared for defending. Failing that, if you really really want to defend someone, then seek out one of the teams on the field and ask them if you can practice against them for a while. An offensive team with all their bugs worked out will probably want to practice shooting and maneuvering against defense. Much, much better to ask permission than to ask forgiveness for annoying a team that's simply trying to get a robot working.

[abeD]

I've always heard how you practice is how you play, but you should still keep it within reason. If your bot is a defensive bot then yes practice defending the goal then when you are sure that you can (10-20 seconds) go do something else, remember let the other team practice too.

[Jon Jack]

If a team is playing defense in the practice rounds and they see that a robot is breaking, on their alliance or not, they should have the common sense to make an effort NOT to hit that robot.

I do agree that if a team needs to test a part of their robot and they request not to be hit that match, teams should not hit them.

Remember, that team could be on you alliance in qualifying matches. If that team isn't allowed to test their robot, they might not be as effective of an alliance partner as they could be.

[gren737]

Defense during the practice rounds at BAE was fairly significant, we were actually flipped during one and one of our friends, Team Discovery, had a gearbox broken from being rammed by an oppenent.

The more practice time teams have to get "dialed in" on thursday means for better competition friday and saturday. If they spend all day thursday in the pits fixing stuff that's broken during practice rounds they may never be able to compete up to their full potential when it counts.

[MrForbes]

at AZ regional the practice rounds were much more laid back than the the action on Friday. Most practice rounds were missing a team or two or three, and many of the teams were indeed having trouble just getting the robot working. So there really isn't much opportunity to practice strong defense, and it could be quite annoying to those teams who are struggling with whatever operational problems they're having.

On the other hand, if your robot does have trouble dealing with the mild skirmishes in practice, you'll be in big trouble on Friday and especially Saturday...best to find the weaknesses early so you can have more time to figure out a way to fix them!

So perhaps the best approach is to discuss your defensive practice plans ahead of time with the other teams, and only engage in "rough play" with permission. And if you are asked about it, you might consider letting the opposing teams practice defending you, because it is a major part of the game and you need to figure out how to deal with it as soon as possible.

[Paul Copioli]

Communication is the key. If you are trying to tune something in, then just simply ask the other team to lay off during your round. They will probably oblige. In many instances we have done this and the teams respected our wishes.

[sanddrag]

We've done that even in a real round.

For practice day, if something is going to break, I'd much rather break it then than on Friday.