Team Update #18

[ChrisMcK2186]

Wow, this is getting rather heated. While I disagree with the changing of rules after half the game is over, I believe FIRST does have a good point in making this rule. Chew on this:

Your drive train is not operational on one match, so you stack ontop of another dead bot. The bottom bot's team forgot to remove autonomous mode, and your multi-thousand dollar investment crashes to the ground in a blaze of flying extrusion and sparks.

First does not want that to happen, so they put a rule up prohibiting the action that might destroy your bot. They made the right call but at the wrong time.

Chris

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Cory

2002 all over again...

at least this time it's not as big a deal as it was before.

Are you comparing this to the infamous "tape measure rule"?

It definitely fits the mold of FIRST reversing a ruling after seeing it play out in the game. Lets add it to the list.

EDIT: I don't think it is nearly as big a deal as the tape measures (allowing a expressly prohibited item mid season). There was no rule against it initially and the Q&A stated that. Now there is a rule against it. If you think about it, that happens with many rule changes/clarifications, just not usually this direct and high profile since this strategy was recently used for the first time. Nothing really to get upset about. It wasn't a major strategy (and shouldn't be since we build robots, not stacking boxes). It was just one you could occasionally pull out of your bag of tricks when circumstances dictate (if you and your partners can't fix their bot in time).

[KTorak]

I seem to remember the Anti HOT Team flop bot rule imposed on 2006....maybe this is another trend to make it harder for veteran teams?

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by KTorak

I seem to remember the Anti HOT Team flop bot rule imposed on 2006....maybe this is another trend to make it harder for veteran teams?

I actually see this as more of an anti-rookie team rule if anything. I would bet that the chances are higher that 2 rookie teams on an alliance are non-fuctional than 2 veteran teams. After all, this year FIRST is making it as difficult as possible for two veteran teams to even be on the same alliance during qualification matches where this is more than likely going to happen. If you are in an elimination match and have a non-functioning partner you are probably going to call for a replacement bot.

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by KTorak

I seem to remember the Anti HOT Team flop bot rule imposed on 2006....maybe this is another trend to make it harder for veteran teams?

How about limiting one regional win a year? That would really suck.

Seriously. I agree with the new rule. I didn't like the idea of starting the match with a robot on top of another to get 30 points.

[ScoutingNerd175]

Originally Posted by KTorak

I seem to remember the Anti HOT Team flop bot rule imposed on 2006....maybe this is another trend to make it harder for veteran teams?

This is sarcasm, right?

If not, it's not like this is a part of Wildstang's robot design. It was a creative solution to an unfortunate problem. In fact, the strategy didn't even involve them. I fail to see how this is "another trend to make it harder for veteran teams" unless you think that veteran teams are more likely to have nonfunctional robots that need to be stacked on top of eachother.

That being said, it seems odd to me to have an entire rule update about this. Somethint which has only happened once, and is really unlikely to happen all that often.

[JaneYoung]

this is one of my thoughts regarding #18
- I don't see this as making it harder for veterans - I see it as safeguarding potential situations involving rookie teams and teams with less experience.

We just read in a post that a lot of thought went into this. Careful planning went into this on the part of all 3 teams involved in the alliance, lead by WildStang.

Lone Star Regional has a lot of rookie teams coming to our regional. I would rather have Update #18 in place now and deal with the uproar that it is causing than have anything happen during the competition. I'm thinking along the lines of safety and precaution.
Jane

PS - I realize that I celebrated with a little 'YaY' in the other thread after Dave Flowerday made a post clarifying the situation. I doubt I would have posted if he had not clarified.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

Seriously. I agree with the new rule. I didn't like the idea of starting the match with a robot on top of another to get 30 points.

It's got nothing to do with whether or not you agree with the substance of the rule.

The issue here is that for the second time in two weeks, FIRST says one thing, and then turns around and says something else, when the time for rule changes is long past.

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by Cody Carey

That wouldn't be a very smart Idea. A robot that is supported by a ringer at the end of the match is worth no points.

That's why you start off with the *keeper* between the two, get it in a "precarious" position, and the ref will remove it for you! Now, get back to the home zone in the next 2 minutes--take your time--and you're golden!

But seriously, I think that this stacking idea was great, and quite dangerous, and I'm jealous that I didn't think of it, but I totally understand why FIRST issued this update, and I am not frustrated at all with this call. It should not be blown up into a big deal like the past few updates have been.

Changing the rules is okay when it is a safety issue, as it appears to be in this situation. Is "okay" even a word? Firefox keeps saying it's not... Think about this: FIRST leaves a loophole in the rules saying that teams may use a, for instance, radio jamming device. They are not aware of the hole. Now, a team exploits that. FIRST becomes aware that *on one occasion, a loophole was used to create a safety hazard*. Sound familiar? FIRST has every right to make safety-related rule changes, IMHO. It makes no difference if it was an innovative idea or not. If it's unsafe, FIRST should, and will, shut it down.

Please, please, please, don't turn this into another FIRST-bashing thread.

JBot

[Tristan Lall]

The sad part is, 30 points wins most matches. (Consider the Great Lakes Regional: the mean losers' score was 11.3, and the median was 5.) And the incentive created by this fact could prompt teams to stack their robots; teams would be weighing the obvious advantages of sitting around and doing nothing, versus being the cause of the obviously boring match that would result. Strangely enough, if teams had consistently good ramps, and drivetrains consistently capable of climbing these ramps, everybody would be getting these points, and still keeping the other 2:00 of the match relatively interesting.

If I were to guess, that's the problem that the GDC has with it. He who perches his robot precariously upon something ought to be well aware of the risks of that strategy (note that there was previously no rule against interlocking robots—big zip ties might have been a very useful thing, were it not for the update). But autonomous mode is generally tragic to watch; if something moves, the crowd cheers. The prospect of whole matches like that probably isn't quite what FIRST bargained for, when they pitched the competition to their sponsors. It sounds to me like FIRST wanted to guarantee that there would be substantial robot activity during every match, rather than making a substantial number of matches into 1 vs. 1 competition, with a stationary tower at either end.

I have to say, though; it's better than the tape measure rule. At least they issued an update this time. (I am aware that that was five years ago, and I am mostly over it.)

[Spider-Man]

I believe that a large part of this is a safety issue and another part is a fairness issue.

Safety-wise:
Unless a team purposefully has a robot that is the minimal parts to be inspected covered in bubble wrap with a flag holder and access to change battery and so on to be placed on or in another robot, we are talking about robots designed for participation in this year's game. This strategy can be tempting to certain alliances to guarantee points at the end of the match; however matches are a dynamic experience with many things changing. A robot could leave autonomous on and do something before an e-stop is pressed, or an attempt to throw a ringer onto the rack could disturb something in the stack. More likely an issue is defense of such a strategy, which expands the number of robots at risk.

Fairness-wise:
I remember our team discussing the possibility of placing one robot on another at the beginning of the game, but the more I think about it, it does not seem very fair. An interesting strategy would be to deploy a ramp and have a partner drive up it in autonomous, which would be kinda neat and similar to what we are talking about, yet the difference here I think is vast: the scoring is done based on the merits of the robot in its entirety of hardware and software. Stacking a robot is also unfair to the competing alliance, which depending on the makeup of the other alliance, may encourage them to do the same. I don't think we want to see a three robot stack versus a three robot stack in a match for a 60-60 tie, nor do we want to see one-on-one matches with 30 guaranteed like this.

Furthermore, as the season has progressed, we have seen teams defending the bonus point lifts before the endgame, which I believe should continue to be legal if done within the spirit of the rules. How would one defend a pre-match stack? I would want to just push them outside of the home zone, but how safe is that? Is it fair to have an indefensible 30-60 points sitting on the opposite side of the field?

Rule-Changing:
As far as FIRST changing these rules after build and even during the competition season, I sincerely hope no one was betting on interfacing with another robot to this extent. Competition has shown that it was hard enough to interface robots for getting bonus points let alone for piggybacking. The GDC probably weighed the fairness and safety of the issue with a pretty good example to show that this would probably not fall within the guidelines of Safety, the Spirit of the Rules and GP when it comes to the opposing alliance.

[Lil' Lavery]

This strategy was used ONCE in more than 1500 matches played so far this year. Once. It obviously is not a integral part of the game, and in 99% of the matches is really an illogical thing to do (why play 1 vs. 3?). Instead of stacking two dead bots on each other for 30 points, why not help them getting running so they can grant a bigger reward for your alliance?
And the e-stop button only makes it partially more safe, by preventing those 2 teams from causing the "Stack" to tip. There are still 4 other robots and 6 human players introducing energy to the field that could potentially cause a robot to fall from the other one or the whole "stack" to fall over, even if not intended.

[d.courtney]

After seeing the brilliance of Wildstang, et al, in this strategy, we considered this if we had a non functional robot on our alliance during eliminations, as to give them more time to fix it between matches before just automatically pulling up a replacement bot. We thought that since something was seen in that robot, mid as well make it score points and buy time for them to solve the problem.

I do understand the safety concern, but if the rule was that they had to be e-stopped, it would be better then this outcome.

I really believe this has been a blunderous year for FIRST (then again who doesn't), yes they went a few steps forward as far as scoring system and other parts, but went twice as many back with random seeding, banebots, Update 16, batteries (it seems people have forgotten about this due to everything else, and rightly so), and now this. I hope this streak can turn around now for FIRST (or at least end).

David

[Steve Kaneb]

I agree with Cory that there are enough things going on that changing rules in the middle of the season doesn't help your position.

Legitimately, it can be considered a safety issue, but I'm pretty sure Wildstang and their partners figured out "oh, maybe we should turn off the autonomous and disable the robots as soon as possible."

The fact is that a team update was pretty much entirely about outlawing something that happened once and likely won't happen again, despite the fact that there are quite a few rules that need clarifying. Wouldn't it have been time better spent doing something about the issue of ringers around flags?

[ChuckDickerson]

Why is it inherently unsafe? Shouldn’t it be a decision between the three teams of the alliance if they think they can pull it off safely not someone in NH that isn’t even there? If the refs feel that a robot is precariously placed or otherwise unsafe before a match begins then they should call the team(s) out to fix it whether they are stacked or not. I fail to see why this is a safety issue at all. Again, this year FIRST is forcing a veteran team on each alliance so they should be able lead the younger teams as to whether a stack is a good idea or not. The reason this is such a brilliant play is that there is HUGE risk involved and weighing whether it is a safe play or not is part of the game. If the scheduling algorithm was like in the past and you had 3 rookie teams on an alliance unsafely trying to pull of a stack without any one telling them that it is a bad idea then I might understand but that is and impossibility this year and the refs are always there as a backup plan anyway to keep us all safe with the big red buttons.