RACK & ROLL Reaction

[Katy]

Please understand I have a great deal of respect for how difficult it must be to make a new and challenging game every year and that I know no game will please everybody.

With that said I will also say I think this game did an absolutely terrible job considering several importaint needs (mainly those of rookie and low-budget teams.)

Many previous games have had real time scoring systems which for whatever reason do not have a great history of working. I think that a game like this (where human drivers and players won't be able to even clearly see nearly half the scoring zone and there is so much counting) simply isn't reasonable without an absolutely bulletproof real-time scoring system. Teams often miscounted last year when all they were doing was counting balls through a hoop...how are we going to keep track of rows in two dimensions...plus spoilers? What a mess.

I think the tubes will pop and people will get spider legs in the face.

I think we will see a decent-sized population of rookie teams and low-budget teams get to competition only to realize the model they were practicing scoring on is not an realistic representation of the one on the field. Teams are going to need to build the entire scoring structure to simulate the balance and momentum of the swinging parts. That is no small structure and many teams do not have the storage space to keep such an object together. If they had made the object smaller and put more of them on the field it would have been more reasonable.

I can't believe we are still using that green light. I think that is simply inviting old teams to dust off their code for tracking and make a new autonomous mode. At least vary the sensor...autonomous is hard enough for rookie teams without having all the older teams already know the sensor.

I am worried that some hard feelings may occur when headstrong drivers cause uninvited robots attempt to climb on other robots and things break. I suppose that is not FIRST's concern but it is still a potential problem.

I think this is not a crowd friendly game. Yes it is "shiny" but the general crowd of people who watch competitive robotics are either generally the sort of people who like to know what is going on or friends/family of people competing. Both groups care about the score and I do not think this will be an easy game for an audience to score in real-time.

With all that said this is still the game we are playing and I wish you all the best of luck.

[Noah Kleinberg]

Originally Posted by Katy

Please understand I have a great deal of respect for how difficult it must be to make a new and challenging game every year and that I know no game will please everybody.

With that said I will also say I think this game did an absolutely terrible job considering several importaint needs (mainly those of rookie and low-budget teams.)

Many previous games have had real time scoring systems which for whatever reason do not have a great history of working. I think that a game like this (where human drivers and players won't be able to even clearly see nearly half the scoring zone and there is so much counting) simply isn't reasonable without an absolutely bulletproof real-time scoring system. Teams often miscounted last year when all they were doing was counting balls through a hoop...how are we going to keep track of rows in two dimensions...plus spoilers? What a mess.

I think the tubes will pop and people will get spider legs in the face.

I think we will see a decent-sized population of rookie teams and low-budget teams get to competition only to realize the model they were practicing scoring on is not an realistic representation of the one on the field. Teams are going to need to build the entire scoring structure to simulate the balance and momentum of the swinging parts. That is no small structure and many teams do not have the storage space to keep such an object together. If they had made the object smaller and put more of them on the field it would have been more reasonable.

I can't believe we are still using that green light. I think that is simply inviting old teams to dust off their code for tracking and make a new autonomous mode. At least vary the sensor...autonomous is hard enough for rookie teams without having all the older teams already know the sensor.

I am worried that some hard feelings may occur when headstrong drivers cause uninvited robots attempt to climb on other robots and things break. I suppose that is not FIRST's concern but it is still a potential problem.

I think this is not a crowd friendly game. Yes it is "shiny" but the general crowd of people who watch competitive robotics are either generally the sort of people who like to know what is going on or friends/family of people competing. Both groups care about the score and I do not think this will be an easy game for an audience to score in real-time.

With all that said this is still the game we are playing and I wish you all the best of luck.

Another concern with the rack is that it's expensive to build. Somewhere on chiefdelphi someone said that the wooden version of it costs around $500 to build, and it's still not going to be the same as the competition model. Even if you have the money and space for a rack, your next problem is time, especially on smaller teams. Rookies are going to have a pretty hard time this year I feel...

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Katy

Please understand I have a great deal of respect for how difficult it must be to make a new and challenging game every year and that I know no game will please everybody.

With that said I will also say I think this game did an absolutely terrible job considering several importaint needs (mainly those of rookie and low-budget teams.)

Many previous games have had real time scoring systems which for whatever reason do not have a great history of working. I think that a game like this (where human drivers and players won't be able to even clearly see nearly half the scoring zone and there is so much counting) simply isn't reasonable without an absolutely bulletproof real-time scoring system. Teams often miscounted last year when all they were doing was counting balls through a hoop...how are we going to keep track of rows in two dimensions...plus spoilers? What a mess.

It's still better than last year, when the scoring system went down (and even often when it was up) there was little indicator of the exact score as the game pieces were recycled back into play. After seeing pictures taken from the alliance stations in New Hampshire, it isn't quite as hard to see the other side as one might imagine.

Originally Posted by Katy

I think the tubes will pop and people will get spider legs in the face.

I people got shot with poof balls, tetras broke, balls popped, and just about all that stuff before too...

Originally Posted by Katy

I can't believe we are still using that green light. I think that is simply inviting old teams to dust off their code for tracking and make a new autonomous mode. At least vary the sensor...autonomous is hard enough for rookie teams without having all the older teams already know the sensor.

How would rookies learn to program better if older teams had to learn a new sensor? That makes no sense to me. If anything, it's easier on the rookies, because mentoring teams can help them with far more expertise than if they were learning new technology as well.

Originally Posted by Katy

I am worried that some hard feelings may occur when headstrong drivers cause uninvited robots attempt to climb on other robots and things break. I suppose that is not FIRST's concern but it is still a potential problem.

It's no worse than defense in a game like last years (especially considering the autonomous interaction last year). Also consider, for "climbing" on other robots, it is most likely going to be essential they have some device to help you get atop of them, so it is going to have to be consentual.

[Kamikaze]

An observation about game complaints: Speaking as a 4th-year FRC programmer, I would say that the differences between the competence of programming teams will be more related to the programming skill, enthusiasm, and awareness of good development practice of the team members more than a particular familiarity with a specific component.

So I don't think the arguments about cameras being easier for veterans that have been presented in this thread hold much water. Teams with quality robot code will have good programming as long as they can retain their skilled members and good practices (e.g. use revision control, sub-divide tasks, test at every step, etc.). The best way to improve your programming team is by having members become passionate about computer science in their own time and investing some effort to go read a few books and papers (and you certainly can't level that out with rules).

I'm not a big fan of the CMUCam's capabilities either. However, it's certainly a relevant technology for us roboticians. Guess what Stanford used on their winning DARPA autonomous vehicle? A camera augmented with laser range finders. This stuff will be important, even though we won't get to play with bayesian inference engines on our dinky PICs.

Finally, perhaps it's valuable to see the wide range of opinions that exist about this year's game, but I think some people are being unnecessarily negative in this thread ("hate" is a strong word and all that). Maybe we should reserve some judgement on whether the game design was good or bad until we actually get some robots built and see some competition. Sorry for adding another rant to this thread (meta-rant though).

[Ryan Dognaux]

My pre-build / competition reaction to the game: I like it. 2 thumbs up game design committee, you created a game that's not only challenging but allows for multiple strategies and styles of play, and continues to build on using the camera while making autonomous mode more important this year more than ever as well.

This is going to be one interesting year.

[Gabe]

I'm on mechanical team and all I want to say is...

I Want Some Obstacles On The Field!

Seriously, they could have placed a 4 by 4 piece of pine on the gound at the very least. Imagine how much harder THAT would have been to navigate. Imagine the difficulty in accounting for unpredictable obstacles that block your robot while trying to track an unpredictably moving light.

Actually, I can imagine what 2008 will be like...

[teh_pwnerer795]

Originally Posted by Gabe

I'm on mechanical team and all I want to say is...

I Want Some Obstacles On The Field!

Seriously, they could have placed a 4 by 4 piece of pine on the gound at the very least. Imagine how much harder THAT would have been to navigate. Imagine the difficulty in accounting for unpredictable obstacles that block your robot while trying to track an unpredictably moving light.

Actually, I can imagine what 2008 will be like...

no i agree with you... there should be some obstacles on the field. however! as a programmer myself for the first year, and any 1 one else new would probally agree with me on this..... auto mode would be intense to the point that people would not score any points in 15 seconds... i could be wrong.. but those are my thoughts

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by teh_pwnerer795

no i agree with you... there should be some obstacles on the field. however! as a programmer myself for the first year, and any 1 one else new would probally agree with me on this..... auto mode would be intense to the point that people would not score any points in 15 seconds... i could be wrong.. but those are my thoughts

I actually also want another obstacle...like additional places to put rings for points...but because this game can revolve around needing space to place rings and needing space to defend the other alliance from placing rings...wide open spaces are the best idea

[Protronie]

Originally Posted by Gabe

I'm on mechanical team and all I want to say is...

I Want Some Obstacles On The Field!

Seriously, they could have placed a 4 by 4 piece of pine on the gound at the very least. Imagine how much harder THAT would have been to navigate. Imagine the difficulty in accounting for unpredictable obstacles that block your robot while trying to track an unpredictably moving light.

Actually, I can imagine what 2008 will be like...

You do have obstacles... they called other robots.
You can either go around, move them or my personal fav ... over them

[Cody Carey]

Ok, My reaction is that I don't like the game so much. Last years game was awesome, because anybody who came in and sat down could understand " If you put the ball in the hole, you get points for it", because it was reminiscent of basketball. The game let teams choose multiple routs of design: Shooter, Dumper, defense, or all three.

With the introduction of the FIRST KOP wheels, the playing field for defense has been leveled. In previous years we have made custom wheels that enabled us to push anybody, even with IFI traction wheels. These new FIRST wheels are more grippy, and have harder rubber than our custom ones, which means that we will be using them this year. With everybody having the same High traction wheels, FIRST has effectively eliminated defense in this years game (Except for the limited weight advantage that can be gained from weight/height differences).

As for the mechanical design portion of the game, teams are left two options, build an exceptional articulated arm, or build an exceptional lift robot. Building an articulated arm is old hat, and I don't envision building a ramp/lift to be all that difficult. Also, I don't envision too much scoring on the other side of the spider rack, because in order to do this successfully, you have to implement a good camera setup, which quite a few rookie teams won't be able to to, and a fair number of non-rookie teams were unable to do last year.

My last qualm with this game is the complexity of it. We have 120 seconds to complete it, and there is so much strategy in this game that it is kinda like completing a game of Chinese-checkers in two minutes. Not everyone who comes in and sits down will be able to understand what is happening, and after running the game animation for my 14-year-old brother twice, he still didn't understand the entire form of the game.I guess that I wish the game was more design-intensive, and less strategy intensive. That would have provided a more exciting game for non-FIRST viewers, and more exciting game play for FIRST participants.


Just some thoughts on the subject,

-Cody C

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by Cody C

Ok, My reaction is that I don't like the game so much. Last years game was awesome, because anybody who came in and sat down could understand " If you put the ball in the hole, you get points for it", because it was reminiscent of basketball. The game let teams choose multiple routs of design: Shooter, Dumper, defense, or all three.

With the introduction of the FIRST KOP wheels, the playing field for defense has been leveled. In previous years we have made custom wheels that enabled us to push anybody, even with IFI traction wheels. These new FIRST wheels are more grippy, and have harder rubber than our custom ones, which means that we will be using them this year. With everybody having the same High traction wheels, FIRST has effectively eliminated defense in this years game (Except for the limited weight advantage that can be gained from weight/height differences).

As for the mechanical design portion of the game, teams are left two options, build an exceptional articulated arm, or build an exceptional lift robot. Building an articulated arm is old hat, and I don't envision building a ramp/lift to be all that difficult. Also, I don't envision too much scoring on the other side of the spider rack, because in order to do this successfully, you have to implement a good camera setup, which quite a few rookie teams won't be able to to, and a fair number of non-rookie teams were unable to do last year.

My last qualm with this game is the complexity of it. We have 120 seconds to complete it, and there is so much strategy in this game that it is kinda like completing a game of Chinese-checkers in two minutes. Not everyone who comes in and sits down will be able to understand what is happening, and after running the game animation for my 14-year-old brother twice, he still didn't understand the entire form of the game.I guess that I wish the game was more design-intensive, and less strategy intensive. That would have provided a more exciting game for non-FIRST viewers, and more exciting game play for FIRST participants.


Just some thoughts on the subject,

-Cody C

Yes!

Exactly my issues with the game as well!

[Corsair]

Originally Posted by Protronie

You do have obstacles... they called other robots.
You can either go around, move them or my personal fav ... over them

one problem with going over, these robots will usually be 4' at the least and that will be a bit hard

[StephLee]

Originally Posted by Corsair

one problem with going over, these robots will usually be 4' at the least and that will be a bit hard

It was easier last year with the ramp to launch off of...


I am, of course, kidding. I have no intention of so purposefully destroying another robot. That takes all the fun out of it; 2 on 3 games are just no fun.

[Corsair]

lol, who says you will break em, i think it would be more fun to hitch a ride on them, like a giant hat, you could still do stuff but not too much

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by StephLee

It was easier last year with the ramp to launch off of...

Hmm, I never though it it that way. A low weight robot charging up a ramped robot parked next to the edge of the field could result in a flying out-of-bounds robot, and that doesn't seem very safe to me...

Personally, I'm looking forward to this game. I think it may be too strategic, and next to impossible to score on the far side of the rack. Being a first week regional guy is going to really level the playing field. No one will have any idea how the game is going to play out (except those silly people from Hammond).