1vs3 What would you do?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by bduddy

I respectfully disagree-one of the challenges in the game is building a reliable, resilient robot. Professionalism is just as important as graciousness, and it is wholly unprofessional, in my opinion, to not take advantage (in a legal way!) of your opponents failures. Of course you should offer to help them with their problems so you can decide the match on the field, but I think forfeiting goes way too far.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about professionalism.

Just a comment specific to SF 2.1 GTR. In the situation at GTR, it wasn't a robot failure that kept 247 or 1507 off the field. The field crew and refs determined that they had taken to long to move their robot from queuing to the field (as per the timeout rules), and as such closed the gates. It was a strange situation to say the least. Anyone who was watching, must have seen the confusion on my face while I was introducing the teams and realizing that the match was missing two robots.

[Mr. Lim]

I was just as surprised, being a coach on the other side of the field that we were facing only 1 robot.

I can give a bit of commentary on how things unfolded on our side. For this match 1503 was awarded the "Play of the Day" award from our team, and deservedly so. Despite it being a loss for their alliance, at the conclusion of the match, there was a definite air that the alliance back at full strength would be able to do some serious damage, and they did end up winning the next 2 matches, eliminating us from the GTR.

1503 alone did amazingly well, and my guess is that they showed enough firepower to make the decision for 1507 to pin one of our trackballs for the entirety of the ensuing matches an easy one. 1507 was the most consistent hurdler at the GTR outside of 1114 and 2056. The strategy required scoring support from 1503 and 247, which both were able to provide nicely.

We did make an adjustment on our strategy against a solo 1503. Instead of knocking post-hurdled balls back clockwise as 2505 had been doing all of elims, 2505 focused on lapping instead. There were two pretty good reasons to do this, neither of which involved "going easy on a solo robot." With less hurdles coming over, there'd be less opportunities to knock them back clockwise. Was it worth dedicating 2505 entirely to this strategy? Idle time is wasted time, so probably not. Secondly, we'd broken our robot's "forks" in nearly every match at GTR. In the elims, massive traffic jams were the side-effect 2505's knock-back attempts, making the risk of us breaking even higher. We just wanted to make it out alive and well...

[Stephmthompson]

Originally Posted by SlimBoJones

I was just as surprised, being a coach on the other side of the field that we were facing only 1 robot.

1503 alone did amazingly well, and my guess is that they showed enough firepower to make the decision for 1507 to pin one of our trackballs for the entirety of the ensuing matches an easy one. 1507 was the most consistent hurdler at the GTR outside of 1114 and 2056. The strategy required scoring support from 1503 and 247, which both were able to provide nicely.

We did make an adjustment on our strategy against a solo 1503. Instead of knocking post-hurdled balls back clockwise as 2505 had been doing all of elims, 2505 focused on lapping instead. There were two pretty good reasons to do this, neither of which involved "going easy on a solo robot."

As a coach, I think the most difficult matches are the ones that just don't go quite as expected. It is a team's ability to react to different situations well that strengthens their experiences and allows for future sucesses. I saw this as just another opportunity to practice creative thinking and working against the odds. I know my drivers went into this match with a "let's show them what we can do" attitude. We'll always be able to remember the successes of this match in anything else we do.

Thank you to Team 188, 1310 and 2505. If I had been in your shoes, I would have done the same thing and I didn't expect any less of your alliance.

Priority #1 is to secure the win - this is a competition. The next priority for me would have been to execute and practice a strategy that would be used against the full-strength alliance - making sure all our members knew their roles and be able to work out any bugs & co-ordination - how great to be able to get the 3 robots out there and look for any weaknesses in the agreed to plan? And by running this at slightly reduced force, you can also minimize risk for your team going into match 2.

Thank you to team 1507 for selecting us and for soliciting our input. To team 247 for being such excellent partners, both on and off the field. I believe we were a formidible alliance and my only regret is that we didn't get the chance to show off our strategy at full strength.

Of course, congratulations to team 1114, team 2056 and team 2166. Our team has had great experiences with all 3 teams over the past few years. It has always been a pleasure seeing what new ways NiagaraFIRST.org challenges the world of robotics. You'll represent Canada well in Atlanta, and I look forward to being around to experience more of your successes.

Congratulations as well to Team 1547 - your Chairman's Award was well deserved.

Lastly, thank you to the organizers and fans of the GTR. It was a well run event and we look forward to it next year.

[Liz Smith]

For the 1 team alliance, I think they should definitely play to the best of their ability.

If a robot can't make it to the field due to a mechanical failure then I think both alliances should play their hardest.

If the reasoning behind the 1 vs. 3 was that the teams were just late to the field after their timeout rather than being broken and unable to come out, I think the circumstances are different. As the 3-team alliance, I'd be more inclined to discuss, with the other alliance, the possibility of creating a 0-0 tie situation in order to have a more evenly matched elimination round. To me, it would be less satisfying to win the 2/3 when one of the alliances lost a match with only one robot on the field.