Lunacy Review

[MrForbes]

Perhaps a different take on some points?

1. We have a student who's a soccer player, and hasn't really gotten into technical stuff much at all the previous three years. He got really excited about this game, and learned how to read complicated mechanical drawings, and learned how to fabricate stuff by building a trailer.

2. The limited traction appeared to us to level the playing field enough that we were confident that we could do OK by just using the kit drive parts, and putting most of our design creativity into making a great ball handling mechanism. We didn't even have to put nuts on our axle bolts, or worry about having very little chain wrap on the transmission sprockets. And no problems with tread wearing out!

3. The highly protective bumpers and no expansion rules let us get away with building a relatively flimsy robot up top, as well as trying some "new" technology, desiging and building a stout wood chassis.

4. The double/triple score rule encouraged us to build a robot that could score so well that we could win matches without needing supercells.

5. Although there seemed to be only a few very effective design concepts, as usual there was a wide variety in robot designs, especially at the newer regionals.

6. Having only one way to score (balls in trailers) allowed us to put all our design efforts into one mechanism, unlike 2007 where we split into two design/build groups, neither of which had enough resources do to their job well enough.

7. Batteries lasted a long time.

edit: one more--my mom (74 yrs old) said watching the AZ regional was the most excitement she's seen in a long time!

[Wayne C.]

I really enjoyed the concept of robots chasing each other and trying to score on the opponents goal on their backs. As I posted elsewhere- consider if this game was played on last year's oval track at high speed in one direction. That would be thrilling.

But I think the whole idea of the slippery surface was unnecessary and kind of silly.

Overall watching the rounds where our team wasn't involved were kind of slow and sometimes degenerated into pileups that did nothing.

Lunacy gave the impression of a refrigerator square dance.

Lunacy the first game where having an auto mode got you nothing but not having one got you killed. Very few teams got a winning advantage from having a good auto mode (and yes- I did see a few that scored points in auto)



Overall personal assessment:
Strategy Challenge- C
Design Limitations and Kit parts- D-
Excitement- C-
Refereeing- B+ (happily surprised!!)
Rule Changes for this Game-D (no more leveling rules to handicap good performance)

I look forward to seeing how FIRST improves with next year's game.

WC

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

I really enjoyed the concept of robots chasing each other and trying to score on the opponents goal on their backs. As I posted elsewhere- consider if this game was played on last year's oval track at high speed in one direction. That would be thrilling.

But I think the whole idea of the slippery surface was unnecessary and kind of silly.

Overall watching the rounds where our team wasn't involved were kind of slow and sometimes degenerated into pileups that did nothing.

Lunacy gave the impression of a refrigerator square dance.

Lunacy the first game where having an auto mode got you nothing but not having one got you killed. Very few teams got a winning advantage from having a good auto mode (and yes- I did see a few that scored points in auto)

I agree with this for the most part. mine:

Overall personal assessment:
Strategy Challenge- C
Design Limitations and Kit parts- C-
Excitement- C
Refereeing- A
Rule Changes for this Game-D

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Very few teams got a winning advantage from having a good auto mode (and yes- I did see a few that scored points in auto)

Except two of the 6 teams in the finals. Part of what made Wildstang and Thunderchickens so great was that they could start the match with potentially 40 points ready to dump.

I need to write this down for future seasons. When there appears to be something stupid wrong with a game (HPs outscoring robots, unreliable loading, autonomous that accomplishes nothing) I shouldn't complain about it. I should see it as a challenge to exploit! Building a robot that aims to outscore humans, or coming up with an ingenious autoload system in autonomous, these are clever little exploitations of the restrictions. Very helpful ones at that.

[MrForbes]

It sounds to me like Chris gets it

[Adam Freeman]

It was not just Thunderchickens and Wildstang that used auton to their advantage.

HOT and Truck Town also would prefer to load up our robots in auton. Even 971 was attempting to get to the human player station to get additional balls.

The placement of the robots on the field at the start was not by accident. Our alliance knew that 217 and 68 would be very dangerous if they both started with 20 balls, then trapped 971 in the middle of the field for a 40 ball dump into their trailer (ala the Einstien SF2).

Although both 67 and 111 would prefer to load in auton, I was confident that we could get balls off the floor quickly and disrupt 68 and 217 if we both attempted to block them from loading. Worst case in my mind was that we all loaded in auton, then it would come down to who could pin and dump better.

In F1 67 stopped 68, but 217 avoided 111 and both loaded in auton. In F2 67 kinda stopped 68 and loaded, while both 217 and 111 loaded.

We had many auton modes (12) that could be run anytime, but we never had to use them b/c very few teams tried to stop us from loading +6 balls into our robot before the clock started.

I think it gave us a strategic advatage and pushed our scoring average from ~17 balls/match to +23 balls/match.

I was surprised by how many teams only tried to avoid getting scored on in auton, even at the championships.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by squirrel

Perhaps a different take on some points?
4. The double/triple score rule encouraged us to build a robot that could score so well that we could win matches without needing supercells.

People have been quick and brutal in complaining about <G14>. This shows that it is NOT a penalty, NOT a way to punish teams for doing "too well," it's merely another way to incorporate different strategies into the game and push people beyond their comfort zones (it accomplished that last one very well!).


So I say to the GDC: Kudos for <G14>, thank you for the challenge, thank you for sticking with it in the face of severe backlash, and thanks for not doing it again next year.

(I expect CAGE Match will do away with <G14> - not for any philosophical reasons, but simply to make the event more streamlined and accessible.)

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by Taylor

People have been quick and brutal in complaining about <G14>. This shows that it is NOT a penalty, NOT a way to punish teams for doing "too well," it's merely another way to incorporate different strategies into the game and push people beyond their comfort zones (it accomplished that last one very well!).


So I say to the GDC: Kudos for <G14>, thank you for the challenge, thank you for sticking with it in the face of severe backlash, and thanks for not doing it again next year.

I'm missing the logic. Because people hated it it couldn't possibly be a penalty? It's a good rule because people hated it? And you are certainly correct that it pushed people out of their comfort zones. FIRST isn't all about the robots, but what happens on the field is still a competition. Being worried about doing too well in a competition is absolutely ridiculous. All teams should always put their %100 into a match, and shouldn't be penalized for doing so. Being penalized for having a good robot is out of my comfort zone.