Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll

[Scion13]

Because contact outside the bumper zone is legal, teams should have built their arms to withstand contact. Because team 1727 was worried about our claw being bent we mounted it on a doubled door hinge so that if it was rammed it would give and then spring back into action.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Scion13

Because contact outside the bumper zone is legal, teams should have built their arms to withstand contact. Because team 1727 was worried about our claw being bent we mounted it on a doubled door hinge so that if it was rammed it would give and then spring back into action.

Same here, but if you beat anything with a sledge hammer enough times, it will break.

[T3_1565]

It is clearly not incidental contact if there is no need for the end effector to be raised/used for interaction in the first place. When acceptable bumper-bumper defense is being played, any arm/manipulator that is used out of the bumper zone (5' in the air) to interact/contact with the defended robot's manipulator is unnecessary, and clearly done intentionally. I ask again, why should they not be given the 10-point penalty if the interaction was done intentionally?

I understand what you mean, and although some may find it intentional, other may find it as they were trying to there arm out of the way, or trying to get it clear of the rack, or just trying to move it into a better spot for future pick ups.

I do understand it is upsetting, but look at the possiblities of raising an arm, the team could of been doing a number of things besides attacking your arm, so the refs have to take that into account, or people will complain about that side of it as well

[AznPrincess3089]

Ref calls between LA Regional and Silicon Valley Regional emphasized different parts of the game. The LA refs were very particular about robot aggressiveness but SVR refs, though they warned against it, didn't make too many calls when robots were pinned or rammed.

[Frenchie]

Originally Posted by AznPrincess3089

Ref calls between LA Regional and Silicon Valley Regional emphasized different parts of the game. The LA refs were very particular about robot aggressiveness but SVR refs, though they warned against it, didn't make too many calls when robots were pinned or rammed.

Once again, let's not make this thread a succession of complaints about such and such referee.

[PVCMike]

I found that the game went in an interesting direction. My team competed at the BAE GSR and we expected ramps to be an important part, but not a crucial part like they turned out to be. We were unable to ramp, but managed to make it to the semi-finals by scoring quickly and efficiently. It seems that a combination of two fast scoring robots, and one good defensive ramp bot is the key to winning.

Speaking of defense, and having read the feedback about refs, i suppose i'll throw in my opinion. I think the refs have a hard job, which when broken down, really comes down to reading minds and intentions. Despite all our best intentions, some teams may take advantage of this grey area and purposely cause damage or be a little too rough, but overall, remember almost everyone has good intentions, and in the heat of the competiton, things get rough. It happens. Robots break. Getting angry at the ref's calls, or other teams WILL NOT fix your robot. You need to learn to roll with the punches, fix your robot, exercise gracious professionalism and move on. If your defense damages another teams robot, offer to give them a hand fixing it if needed. Instead of arguing about what should have been, learn from the breaks, and celebrate the gracious professionalism being displayed by the other 99% of teams. Word.

[Josh Murphy]

I believe that this game is becoming very defensive. Anybody can build a 120 lb chassis with 8 motors on it and just beat everyone and win, and alot of teams have done this because they think it is to hard to score on the rack. There was one point in Detroit when we were pinned against the rack by our opponents on friday and we were not moving and they just continued to push and broke our cross pieces. The refs did not call anything and. I believe that 3 defensive robots with no tube scoring abilities and 1 ramp will win this game more than any alliance that can score the tubes. This is just my opinion.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by PhilBot

In Annapolis they were saying that you had to be inspected by the end of Thursday if you wanted to compete.

However, when we started queing for our first seed match on Friday (match 9) one of our alliance parners still didn't have their inspection sticker so they didn't turn up.

What's the point of having an inspection deadline if un-inspected teams will still be included in the next morning's match rotations anyway.

It seems to me that if a team misses their inspection deadline on Thursday, they should NOT be included in the match rotations the next morning.

This rule would have created a stir at the LA Regional - about half of the teams had not completed inspection when the pits closed at 8pm on Thursday! Robot inspectors really scrambled to get teams in the first three matches inspected before opening ceremonies.

Of course, if teams knew that they wouldn't be allowed to compete if not inspected by end-of-day Thursday, they'd find a way to be ready for inspection earlier..

[T3_1565]

Originally Posted by PVCMike

You need to learn to roll with the punches, fix your robot, exercise gracious professionalism and move on. If your defense damages another teams robot, offer to give them a hand fixing it if needed. Instead of arguing about what should have been, learn from the breaks, and celebrate the gracious professionalism being displayed by the other 99% of teams. Word.

very well said! Couldn't of put it better myself

[Andy Grady]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

What if arms are used to break arms? How about ramming an arm? The refs did NOT call ramming. There is a clear difference between bumper to bumper CONTACT and RAMMING. RAMMING consists of a team driving at a high speed towards another robot. Bumper to bumper contact consists of one team pushing another robot. I like it when the refs allow the game to be played and don't call ramming on EVERYTHING, but ignoring the rule is just ridiculous. The rule is there for a reason, and if a teams arm has to break, there is no point trying to even score. Why even build a robot that can score if you can simply break another robots arms and win?

With all due respect Bharat...the refs in fact did call ramming, multiple times. Heck...they even called it on your team once, in your last round when you guys decided to go kamakazie on team 230.

You are not as familiar with the regionals up here, but that is in general how it gets. When I come on here boasting about New England defense, im not just blowing a bunch of smoke. Its always been a little more brutal at the regionals up here, and to be honest...thats how all the teams like it. And ya know...at championships, many times the New England teams pay for it, because they will get called for it more often. So now it becomes a matter of personal preference. Some regionals are more sensitive than others when it comes to various rules. If you guys were unhappy with how ramming was called at the CT Regional, well then I wouldn't recommend you come back, because unless FIRST cracks down big time, it'll continue to be that way.

You guys should be proud, you did a great job this weekend. Just take it in stride and move on.

[Grant Cox]

I'm going to say the same precursor as Francois; my analysis here is based off of only the Detroit regional. Also, without seeing any of the videos from above (my view from behind the player station is somewhat tunnelled), I may be making some incorrect calls here. However, this is what I, as the driver of a primarily offensive robot, emotionally feel about the game now.

I think the ramps have destroyed the point of the Rack n' Roll game. They have become not a bonus, but a requirement for elimination matches. I think that the GDC was expecting more rack scoring to be done and fewer matches like in the brutally defensive Detroit finals, which is why the ramps are worth so many points. Think about Aim High last year; the maximum bonus you could get (excluding auton) was 25 points, and that was if all 3 robots could make it up a 30 degree incline with barely enough room. Now, you have more than double that (pointwise) for two robots to get up a nice shallow ramp with plenty of room (look at the ramps on 469 and 27 for what I mean).

However, I'm going to have to disagree with ya, frenchie. I now have a personal stigma about the whole offensive vs defensive issue, and anyone who was at Detroit knows why. Defense is absolutely key in this game. In one qualifying match, 703 pushed us literally in a circle around the rack, and in the elims obviously 247/903 were dominating (more about that in a second). Defense doesn't just mean stopping ringers anymore; it now also means stopping the opposing defense from getting to your scorers so that they can be given the chance to do what they do best.

Segway-ing from that last line, there is NO scoring robot that can make it through a double team from the other alliance's two defensive bots. This was proven wholly at Detroit. The double team of 247/903 was able to easily shut down 217, and were together able to give 469/302 a ridiculously hard time. I like to think of us three as being fairly good scorers. If it was my own alliance, I would still prefer 2 offensive + 1 defensive ramp as always, but 2 amazing defensive can really frustrate the other alliance (especially if that other one only has one scorer).

Finally (and this goes along somewhat with the defensive notes), driver skill is an enormous asset to have in this game. For defending teams, being able to hold your ground against a squirrelly offensive bot can be tough at times. For a scoring team, being able to drive around a team like 247 or 703 is key. You have to try and make best of whatever is happening; things like picking up a tube while being pushed, or placing the tube on whatever ringer you're pushed into (regardless of what your original plan was).

Disclaimer: My head is kind of scrambled with a lot of thoughts about the insane weekend, so there may be half-finished statements here and there, but I stand firm (for now at least) about everything said here.

Edit: wow, you guys reply fast a lot of the stuff in here was said above while I was typing this, I guess

Originally Posted by Josh Murphy

There was one point in Detroit when we were pinned against the rack by our opponents on friday and we were not moving and they just continued to push and broke our cross pieces.

Is that the match where the pushing was moving the entire rack? That was unbelievable to watch, and I was stunned when there were no penalties called. I grabbed a quick picture of it on my camera, I don't think I've ever seen the rack (or a robot) being mangled so much.

[Athleticgirl389]

As I saw in the UTC Regional and a little bit in the NYC Regional, ramping did mean a lot, especially in the end. If an alliance just played pure defensive and ramped both robots at the end while the other tried to score within the last few seconds [without being blocked] nor ramped, the team that ramped won. If it was even a close match, getting one robot for 15 bonus points helped lead to a win. Ramping just seems to become more and more important as the weeks are going on; best alliance [i think] will have 2 great scoring robots and a ramp robot that can play defensive and the 2 scorers can get on the ramo robot [just my 2 cents]

I also noticed that the rack didn't seem to be moved [many times] prior to starting the match. Now this could have been due to the fact not many teams were using autonomous mode, but who knows. And when autonomous was being used [by the few robots] they did pretty well. Things just seem to be getting much better and get higher scores as the weeks are going on =)

[PandaMan]

Originally Posted by Josh Murphy

I believe that this game is becoming very defensive. Anybody can build a 120 lb chassis with 8 motors on it and just beat everyone and win, and alot of teams have done this because they think it is to hard to score on the rack. There was one point in Detroit when we were pinned against the rack by our opponents on friday and we were not moving and they just continued to push and broke our cross pieces. The refs did not call anything and. I believe that 3 defensive robots with no tube scoring abilities and 1 ramp will win this game more than any alliance that can score the tubes. This is just my opinion.

I agree with this. From what I saw from several week 3 regionals was that teams began deviating from the rack and started playing more and more defense. In theory, an offensive bot can out-push any defensive bot in their way. In reality, due to the threshold on pushing power, defensive bots can effectively stop offensive bots from putting up any points at all. On top of this, the offensive bots are receiving no help from the refs while the defensive bots pound away at their base/manipulator. I understand this game requires a lot of contact, but machines can only take a certain level of abuse. I think this can be fixed if the refs pay more attention to this[defense penalties] aspect of the game. (I'm not bashing the refs in any way; I'm friends with several of them and I know it's a hard job watching several different things at the same time- this is just a suggestion for the future.)

[Adamskiy]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

Ringers intentionally put on opposing robots should not earn penalties for those robots. Ill go find the rule in a sec.

EDIT:

[yada yada yada, copy+pasted rule here]


Emphasis mine. However, there is no rule against throwing ringers at an opponents gripper in an attempt to knock the tube out of it. I've seen that work.

Oh, my mistake, I didn't realize that. The one time I saw a ringer get thrown onto a robot, that robot then did not pick another one up....but now that I think about it, the match was almost over and they were going to their alliance's ramp.

[Josh Murphy]

Originally Posted by GeeForce

I'm going to say the same precursor as Francois; my analysis here is based off of only the Detroit regional. Also, without seeing any of the videos from above (my view from behind the player station is somewhat tunnelled), I may be making some incorrect calls here. However, this is what I, as the driver of a primarily offensive robot, emotionally feel about the game now.

I think the ramps have destroyed the point of the Rack n' Roll game. They have become not a bonus, but a requirement for elimination matches. I think that the GDC was expecting more rack scoring to be done and fewer matches like in the brutally defensive Detroit finals, which is why the ramps are worth so many points. Think about Aim High last year; the maximum bonus you could get (excluding auton) was 25 points, and that was if all 3 robots could make it up a 30 degree incline with barely enough room. Now, you have more than double that (pointwise) for two robots to get up a nice shallow ramp with plenty of room (look at the ramps on 469 and 27 for what I mean).

However, I'm going to have to disagree with ya, frenchie. I now have a personal stigma about the whole offensive vs defensive issue, and anyone who was at Detroit knows why. Defense is absolutely key in this game. In one qualifying match, 703 pushed us literally in a circle around the rack, and in the elims obviously 247/903 were dominating (more about that in a second). Defense doesn't just mean stopping ringers anymore; it now also means stopping the opposing defense from getting to your scorers so that they can be given the chance to do what they do best.

Segway-ing from that last line, there is NO scoring robot that can make it through a double team from the other alliance's two defensive bots. This was proven wholly at Detroit. The double team of 247/903 was able to easily shut down 217, and were together able to give 469/302 a ridiculously hard time. I like to think of us three as being fairly good scorers. If it was my own alliance, I would still prefer 2 offensive + 1 defensive ramp as always, but 2 amazing defensive can really frustrate the other alliance (especially if that other one only has one scorer).

Finally (and this goes along somewhat with the defensive notes), driver skill is an enormous asset to have in this game. For defending teams, being able to hold your ground against a squirrelly offensive bot can be tough at times. For a scoring team, being able to drive around a team like 247 or 703 is key. You have to try and make best of whatever is happening; things like picking up a tube while being pushed, or placing the tube on whatever ringer you're pushed into (regardless of what your original plan was).

Disclaimer: My head is kind of scrambled with a lot of thoughts about the insane weekend, so there may be half-finished statements here and there, but I stand firm (for now at least) about everything said here.

Edit: wow, you guys reply fast a lot of the stuff in here was said above while I was typing this, I guess

Is that the match where the pushing was moving the entire rack? That was unbelievable to watch, and I was stunned when there were no penalties called. I grabbed a quick picture of it on my camera, I don't think I've ever seen the rack (or a robot) being mangled so much.

I think it may have been because we were getting pushed pretty good and I finally just said heck with it and let go of the controls and our ramps got deployed and they continued this for about 10 sec non stop and no penalty was called. There was also a time on friday where we were triple teamed. Oh well this is the game and we have to play it.