i didnt like this years game....please read

[archiver]

Posted by Kevin Sevcik at 04/11/2001 10:49 AM EST


Other on team #57, Leopards, from BT Washington and the High School for Engineering Professions and Exxon, Kellog Brown & Root, Powell Electrical.


In Reply to: Why I don't like this year's game
Posted by Chris Hibner on 04/11/2001 10:00 AM EST:



First off, are you absolutely sure you were at Nats? I don't know what you're talking about with the batting practice thing. I'll grant that things were kind of quiet after a match when a team did poorly. But after a match when a team did well, it got REALLY loud. And during a match when a team scored a big ball things got loud. And you could almost feel the audience trying to will the bridge to balance. I think that while pattern of cheering may have been different, the cheering was still as enthusiastic. Frankly, I think this whole cheering thing is just another excuse people use because they just feel uncomfortable about the game. On that note...


I'm gonna try t explain just why I think people feel weird about this game, and try to answer a few points those people have. :^) Be prepared, cause I'm bound to be long-winded.
First, about the whole luck thing. Luck has almost always played a part in competitions, and it always will. In any previous game, who you competed against was still a matter of luck. A fairly bad team could still move high in the rankings if they were paired against other bad teams, or more recently, teamed with really good teams. I don't think this has changed all that much. I think the facts are that FIRST is just bigger, and there's bound to be bigger statistical variances. I think peoples real problem with the luck factor is that it's affecting them more directly and obviously than it was before, because all the robots are now on their side.
As for depending on other robots, no one said you had to depend on other robots. The lead robot of the alliance that won could do just about everything themselves. You also had the option of designing a modular robot that could adapt so it'd fit other teams better. And again, in the head to head competitions, you were still depending on the quality of the other robots. The only difference is that then you were depending on them to be worse than you.
About the wrong lessons learned thing. While it does appear that this years competition was all about teamwork and a warm and fuzzy "everybody wins" scoring system, I'd like to restate my claim that I really think it was more about putting an end to the violence. Basically, the only way to do that was to force everyone to work together. Violence is inherently part of almost any head to head competition. I know I can't think of a way to keep head to head while stopping robots from pinning, bashing, etc. So I think this is a sort of "chicken and the egg" kind of thing. My belief is that the non-violence stance lead to a game with lots of teamwork, but it could be the other way around.
And on a more philosophical note, I'd like to comment on a reply to an earlier post of mine. Bill Beaty noted that while people feel bad about cheering for another team's failure, the don't feel bad if they're directly causing that team to fail. I think this points out the whole problem that people have with this year's competition. People just don't feel right about beating another team unless they directly take a hand in it. I imagine this is just some weird quirk of most people, but it sure seems to explain most people's problems with the competition. All the complaints seem to boil down to the fact that we're just plain not competing directly against other teams, and it just doesn't seem right. I'm hoping that this is just a bout of growing pains, and that we'll all eventually embrace the new kind of competition. Like I said before, I know that I enjoy not having to design a robot like a tank to have any hope of winning. And I know that a sport without direct competition can succeed. There's all kinds of examples. Golf, Bowling, Drag Racing, almost all of the olympics, junkyard wars.... :^) So I know it can be done, the only question is if we're brave enough to make the switch.

Told ya I can be long winded. I think I just like to hear myself talk. Or type, as it were....

[archiver]

Posted by Kevin at 04/11/2001 4:10 PM EST


Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monsters, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.


In Reply to: More thoughts..
Posted by Kevin Sevcik on 04/11/2001 10:49 AM EST:



I watched a number of matches at nationals, and when a 400 - 700 point match was played (not all that frequent) the crowd cheered wildly. When a 0 - 200 point match was played, there was no cheering, despite big balls being placed. There was no winner and no loser. Again, in previous years when teams went head to head, even in a 3-0 scoring match, the crowd would cheer for the winning team. The crowd would be involved in every match, and there was cheering every match. While it's true this year's match might be closer to golf or bowling, it was as exciting as watching golf and bowling on television. The crowd responded similarly to that of players making a birdie / strike or a double-bogey / double gutter.

When it was every team for themself, a great team would advance through the double elimination tournament, regardless of opponents. At least with bowling and golf, each player completely controls their own destiny, and the best bowler / golfer will necessarily rise to the top. With 2 team alliances, this was not quite guaranteed, but very probable. With 4 team alliances, when one team falls down on the bridge, or when one team knocks the bridge off the 4x6, all 4 teams were negatively effected. The point is that the best robots (even if they could do everything on their own) had to depend on luck to survive, and that robots that would have been eliminated in two consecutive rounds of a double elimination tournament would likely do much better in this year's game.
As a result, I believe there was a much better correlation of robot design to ranking in prior years than in this year's competition.

I honestly don't believe the problems with this year's game resulted from a lack of a destructive / defensive nature, and hope that a better team-work game concept can be derived, but use less teams such that luck is not as big a factor.


: First off, are you absolutely sure you were at Nats? I don't know what you're talking about with the batting practice thing. I'll grant that things were kind of quiet after a match when a team did poorly. But after a match when a team did well, it got REALLY loud. And during a match when a team scored a big ball things got loud. And you could almost feel the audience trying to will the bridge to balance. I think that while pattern of cheering may have been different, the cheering was still as enthusiastic. Frankly, I think this whole cheering thing is just another excuse people use because they just feel uncomfortable about the game. On that note...

:
: I'm gonna try t explain just why I think people feel weird about this game, and try to answer a few points those people have. :^) Be prepared, cause I'm bound to be long-winded.
: First, about the whole luck thing. Luck has almost always played a part in competitions, and it always will. In any previous game, who you competed against was still a matter of luck. A fairly bad team could still move high in the rankings if they were paired against other bad teams, or more recently, teamed with really good teams. I don't think this has changed all that much. I think the facts are that FIRST is just bigger, and there's bound to be bigger statistical variances. I think peoples real problem with the luck factor is that it's affecting them more directly and obviously than it was before, because all the robots are now on their side.
: As for depending on other robots, no one said you had to depend on other robots. The lead robot of the alliance that won could do just about everything themselves. You also had the option of designing a modular robot that could adapt so it'd fit other teams better. And again, in the head to head competitions, you were still depending on the quality of the other robots. The only difference is that then you were depending on them to be worse than you.
: About the wrong lessons learned thing. While it does appear that this years competition was all about teamwork and a warm and fuzzy "everybody wins" scoring system, I'd like to restate my claim that I really think it was more about putting an end to the violence. Basically, the only way to do that was to force everyone to work together. Violence is inherently part of almost any head to head competition. I know I can't think of a way to keep head to head while stopping robots from pinning, bashing, etc. So I think this is a sort of "chicken and the egg" kind of thing. My belief is that the non-violence stance lead to a game with lots of teamwork, but it could be the other way around.
: And on a more philosophical note, I'd like to comment on a reply to an earlier post of mine. Bill Beaty noted that while people feel bad about cheering for another team's failure, the don't feel bad if they're directly causing that team to fail. I think this points out the whole problem that people have with this year's competition. People just don't feel right about beating another team unless they directly take a hand in it. I imagine this is just some weird quirk of most people, but it sure seems to explain most people's problems with the competition. All the complaints seem to boil down to the fact that we're just plain not competing directly against other teams, and it just doesn't seem right. I'm hoping that this is just a bout of growing pains, and that we'll all eventually embrace the new kind of competition. Like I said before, I know that I enjoy not having to design a robot like a tank to have any hope of winning. And I know that a sport without direct competition can succeed. There's all kinds of examples. Golf, Bowling, Drag Racing, almost all of the olympics, junkyard wars.... :^) So I know it can be done, the only question is if we're brave enough to make the switch.
:
: Told ya I can be long winded. I think I just like to hear myself talk. Or type, as it were....

[archiver]

Posted by Ryan McElroy at 04/15/2001 12:05 AM EST


Student on team #492, Titans, from International School and KPCB.


In Reply to: More thoughts..
Posted by Kevin Sevcik on 04/11/2001 10:49 AM EST:



I think you are wrong concerning the cheering at other's failures subject: When the failure is due directly to another robot, then what has really happened is that one team did well while another did not as well. Therefore, cheering is justified. But when failure is due only to an error, it is very lackluster, and cheering can only be taken in a hurtful way.

On another note, it is very possible to have head to head competition without violence. RoboCup (Robot soccer), for example: Robots are not allowed to run into each other, or it is a penalty.

However, I'm not sure about FIRST's thinking on the future of the competition. On one hand, they want to grow it into a nationally recognized sporting event, as Dean said at nationals, and as is evident in getting National Beverage to put the FIRST logo on one of its products. On the other hand, they seem unwilling to do what makes the really successful sports really successful: and that is violence. Its not all-out violence, but what makes sports successful is controlled violence.

Take baseball, for example. Its not violent, right? Wrong. Pitchers throw a hard ball at almost 100mph very close to the batter, who swings a big peice of wood to try to accelerate the ball in the oppisite direction to 200mph+. Its very violent, but its a controlled violence. No one likes to see a batter hit, for example. Football is the same way: No one wants an injured player, but everyone loves how physical the game is.

I think that if FIRST is to be successful as a *sport*, it needs an element of head to head competition. Probably, it'll need to turn into more of a sport as well, with more frequent meetings between fewer teams. I think that this is a long way off, if it ever heappens, but its something to think about.

~Ryan

[archiver]

Posted by Jason Iannuzzi at 04/11/2001 3:38 PM EST


Engineer on team #11, Marauders, from Mt. Olive HS. and BASF, Rame Hart, CCM.


In Reply to: Why I don't like this year's game
Posted by Chris Hibner on 04/11/2001 10:00 AM EST:



>I think the goal of trying to teach teamwork is >noble, but I think all of the teams learn that lesson >long before the robot ships.

Exactly!!!! I've been thinking this since day one. I'm glad I'm not alone.

[archiver]

Posted by Ken Patton at 04/11/2001 4:54 PM EST


Engineer on team #65, The Huskie Brigade, from Pontiac Northern High School and GM Powertrain.


In Reply to: i didnt like this years game....please read
Posted by Travis Covington on 04/10/2001 2:05 AM EST:



Complaints, in no particular order:

1. The correlation between robot capability and ranking was not very good. Many "less capable" machines had high rank due to good pairings, and many "more capable" machines had low rank due to "bad" pairings or bad luck that was not their fault. Granted, there will always be some of this, but there was more of it this year than in any other year I've been in FIRST.

2. You had a pretty darn good idea who was going to win before nationals even started. (Way to go Bill,Brian, et al. You guys were awesome.) This was not the case in previous years.

3. Alliance meetings were not always the warm fuzzy events that they ideally could have been. Ever had an ally tell you they were going to do "X" whether you liked it or not? Ever had to tell an ally that they should do "Y" because someone else was better than them? Nobody loses, huh? I'll bet some teams didn't feel that way after an alliance meeting... Better to let teams play more of their own game.

4. Defense isn't a bad thing. I agree that there should be limits to prevent the boring defensive elimination tournaments we had in some previous years, but eliminating head to head action takes excitement out of the game, imho.

5. Sometimes the eliminations were anticlimactic. If an alliance failed to beat their opponent's score, the round just ended on a negative note. This game would never make it on TV.

6. The idea of teamwork triumphing over individual effort did not really come through. There may have been some matchup that could beat the Beast from Hammond, but they probably never got to play together because they were in different divisions, or were already matched up automatically as seeds 5-8.

Ken