What happened in Curie???

[martin417]

How about keeping track of the points scored by each robot, and using that as part of the seeding formula? (maybe instead of the score of the other team?) that way, the teams that score well will get a boost. This may penalize those teams that specialize in defense, but that could be a good thing. As I pointed out after last year, one does not get ahead in life by preventing others from achieving their goal, but being the best at achieving yours.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by martin417

How about keeping track of the points scored by each robot, and using that as part of the seeding formula? (maybe instead of the score of the other team?) that way, the teams that score well will get a boost. This may penalize those teams that specialize in defense, but that could be a good thing. As I pointed out after last year, one does not get ahead in life by preventing others from achieving their goal, but being the best at achieving yours.

I disagree. Being a good offensive team doesn't meet the goals of FIRST. Strategy has to be a big part, and each team's individual score doesn't show that. Teams should be rewarded for playing good defense.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Tottanka

I disagree. Being a good offensive team doesn't meet the goals of FIRST. Strategy has to be a big part, and each team's individual score doesn't show that. Teams should be rewarded for playing good defense.

FIRST is supposed to be not only a competition, but a model for real life. How many people in real life get a promotion at work by preventing a co-worker from doing his job? ( I'm sure it happens, but it is the exception, not the rule).

One of the reasons I liked Overdrive was the limitations on defense. I believe that the GDC can devise a game that stresses goal attainment, while discouraging goal prevention.

[AlexD744]

I know that match selections threw some really great teams low in the rankings. I know 79 was in Curie and they only won 1 match on their first day because of alliance seletion, they were kinda annoyed. They ended up about 60 something. However, they were the first pick of the #8 seed and were on the list of many other teams. I know that the thunder chickens (seeded #7) was about to pick them.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by martin417

FIRST is supposed to be not only a competition, but a model for real life. How many people in real life get a promotion at work by preventing a co-worker from doing his job? ( I'm sure it happens, but it is the exception, not the rule).

One of the reasons I liked Overdrive was the limitations on defense. I believe that the GDC can devise a game that stresses goal attainment, while discouraging goal prevention.

You are comparing it the wrong way. It's not compared to an employee who disables another employee at the same company and thus gets promoted, but to an employee who disables a big part of a rival company, and thus gets a promotion.
FIRST is supposed to be a sport, look at any sport in the world (well, almost any) and you see defense. Basketball, Football, Soccer, Tennis...Whatever you want - defense is there, and is a big part of it.

[mikelowry]

Well think about it a different way then. Im about to apply to college in November. I am going to get in over somebody else because I am more qualified/suited/prepared than they are, not because I stop them from being as qualified/suited/prepared as they could be.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Tottanka

You are comparing it the wrong way. It's not compared to an employee who disables another employee at the same company and thus gets promoted, but to an employee who disables a big part of a rival company, and thus gets a promotion.
FIRST is supposed to be a sport, look at any sport in the world (well, almost any) and you see defense. Basketball, Football, Soccer, Tennis...Whatever you want - defense is there, and is a big part of it.

Disabling a rival company? I can't think of a legal (not to mention ethical) way to do that other than being better at what you do.

Yes, some sports stress defense, some have none (look at golf) I am not saying that defense has no part in first, but I do believe that it shouldn't be the only function of a team.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by martin417

Disabling a rival company? I can't think of a legal (not to mention ethical) way to do that other than being better at what you do.

Yes, some sports stress defense, some have none (look at golf) I am not saying that defense has no part in first, but I do believe that it shouldn't be the only function of a team.

Golf is an individual sports. The whole comparison to companies/collages doesn't work here...i can go on comparing it to survivor of the fittest (those who go to caves survive better than those who hunt lions) or to any other thing that suits my goal.

FIRST should be compared to a sport, and in FIRST a better and more offensive robot is not always a better alliance partner.

Many of the teams can't afford to build good offensive robots, does that mean they are not deserving to play and rank high, even if they have good mechanisms to stop others? Think of the 07' game - ramp bots did'nt score by themselves, they defended and than used others to get points, and still they were a huge part of the game. 08 had 2 balls for 3 teams, the third one chose between laps and D....

I think defense should stay here. If it was about building the best offensive robot it wouldn't have been FIRST.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by martin417

Disabling a rival company? I can't think of a legal (not to mention ethical) way to do that other than being better at what you do.

Disabling a rival company:
1> Such as beating them to the patent office (ala Alexander Graham Bell?)
2> Orgainizing a corporate buyout of a company that has a new product that will out-do your product
etc,etc...

Such things are legal and (usually) ethical.

Originally Posted by martin417

Yes, some sports stress defense, some have none (look at golf) I am not saying that defense has no part in first, but I do believe that it shouldn't be the only function of a team.

Most sports have defense. Defense creates a challange that may not have been accounted for in the design process, and thus requires strategy to overcome. Good teams overcome defense or account for it in their design process.

[Mr. Lim]

Team 188 had one of our most concerted scouting efforts in our team's history this year. We individually tracked every ball shot and missed/scored by every team, separated by both their robot and human players. Here are a few interesting numbers they found on Friday night. These are stats up to Friday night only, and reflects what teams use to construct their preliminary pick lists. Of course things often change Saturday morning, but here goes:

Actual Team Points Scored per Match (Robot and HP Combined)
(teams in bold were involved in the eliminations)

175	45.8
1622	42.8
1771	39.9
188	39.4
79	37.1
254	37
341	36.4
217	35.6
1806	33.2
27	33.2
816	32.5
287	32
329	31.6
399	31.55
141	31.4
68	31.2
190	31
346	31
245	30.8
1	30.4
2039	29.6
271	29
75	28.8
70	27.4

19/24 is by no means cause for panic...

Here are the robots that were selected outside of the top 24 and some notes as to why I would have put them into the eliminations:

1747 - last pick made during alliance selections, shot and scored 10 balls in last match on Friday showing big improvement, exceptional drive team, strategy, and scouting - I asked our own scouts to make note of this team - an absolute pleasure to work with - demonstrated excellent teamwork and communication in our match with them

375 - ranked 5th in standings at end of qualifications

668 - robot scored 27 balls in their first qualifier match, heavy defense played on them the rest of the qualifiers

247 - stats couldn't capture the effectiveness with which 247 pinned other teams and allowed alliance partners to score while pinning the opponent, deadly effective alliance partner

2185 - never shot a single time and never preloaded once and that was a GOOD thing, human player shot 55%, played some of the most impressive defense I've personally come across this year, stopped us from winning GTR a few weeks ago, pinned us for 1:50 during our 2nd qualification match, shut down several of the biggest gunners in Curie during the eliminations, won two regionals this year doing exactly the above

If you want my personal opinion, I thought the teams that participated in the eliminations were top notch. I could make an argument for any of the teams that were not bolded and left out in my list above, but the reasons why the robots below them were chosen are compelling enough. Unfortunately, some of the top scorers will get left out. It's happened to us plenty of times in the past, but you play the game as hard as you can, and hope that the teams in picking positions do their scouting, and if you're doing something that won't show up on the stats, make sure you let the decision-maker on the top teams know exactly what you're doing.

[kapolavery]

to make scouting easier, they should keep track of an individual robots score
then combine it in the end..

[DerDer247]

Well being on the Curie Division Winning Alliance and a scouter for team 247 I have some information on the Alliances.

As i see it our team had been communicating with what teams we wanted, we had managed to make a deal with 217. and got into the 7th seed alliance.

All the teams that made it to Nationals were exellent teams, Lunacy delt 90% skill, and 9% Persperation and 1% luck, as i see it, the amount of matches each team was given means that if a team makes a mistake or does extremelly well doesn't mean its an accurate depiction of the Winning Alliance, Finals at nationals was could not be predicted, it could have turned on a dime, and it did.
With respect to all finalist teams anyone could have won, all teams make mistakes, sometimes the alliance partners compensate for those mistakes sometimes they don't.

It did seem to be an upset with selection and with the final matches of Curie, but alot of teams had their alliance plans set up.

Proof that things can turn on a dime in Nationals is what happend to the ThunderChickens, a great team with a great bot. but with qualifications they unfotunatly lost a few matches, this ranked them really low, and when they rebounded they got to 7th Seed. But in all District Events in Michigan they went to they ended up in 1st or 2nd. Numbers can seem to bring powerhouse teams down, and sometimes the numbers fools the teams.

[fuzzy1718]

Love the idea martin, maybe then some of the teams that just play defense year after year will wake up. (A huge problem in Michigan)

[Shankar M]

These posts often pop up at the end of events, but the answers to the questions never really change. Randomised ranking is part of the FIRST qualification system and it is something that every single team has to deal with.

While it is indeed unfortunate, and often frustrating, to get paired with robots that, are in your view, weak or, worse yet, don't show up (particularly this year), good teams are always able to find ways to win. This weekend, some of FIRST's best teams found ways to seed extremely well (111 and 1114, for example, went undefeated). If you look over their schedules, I'm sure you will find not easy matches; these teams worked extremely hard with what they had and they came out on top.

As for Curie specifically, defense dominated the qualification rounds as teams learned very early that the best way to stop some of the talented scorers in the division was to play a very tough shut down game. This type of strategy saw numerous powerful scorers stymied and left many of them with losses.

We all know that rankings do not really reflect robot performance. Scouting is the only way to discern how well a robot is accomplishing various tasks that your team desires from an alliance partner. I am sure that the teams that seeded in the top 8 were aware of this and chose to select the numerous talented teams that seeded not just outside the top 8, but the top 28 (254 at 34, 1771 at 36, 68 at 51 just to name a few). With such talent available outside the top 28, compared to the robots that ranked from 10 to 28, it is not surprising at all that the alliances ended up as they did.

[ehcualp]

I'm not going to go in the ranking of the robots picked. I would rant on for a whole page on how bad half the decisions were...

Besides the quality of the robots, if anyone else noticed, only 6 of the robots were 4 digit number teams. 18 teams were either double or triple digits. No rookies were picked, 2 2000 teams were picked, and 4 1000 teams were picked. It seemed that the captains didn't even look at younger teams. Experience is no excuse. Some of young teams that were not picked won regionals, or made it to the finals at their regional. These teams obviously know what it takes to win something, and have just as much experience in this game as a lot of veteran teams. And not mention, older teams are replaced every 4 years. Mentors are the only thing to remain a constant in any team, for the most part. A lot of the young teams that made it to championships have mentors that have been on teams before. In this sense, these teams have the same experience as veterans.

I'm disappointed in what Curie turned into. I would hope that it will change for next year, but I doubt it will change at all.