[FTC]: Defense robots and competition

[Andrew Remmers]

Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240

At the Maryland competition we had a defense robot on our alliance and the head ref yelled at us, telling us that.
"This is not the intent of the game, if you want to brake another robot there are competitions for that BUT this is not one of them, try scoring for once instead of preventing it".
So yes every competition has refs with other views of how the game should work but in our case the guy was 100% against defense robots that don't score so that was my experience from the Maryland competition.

I don't think that its the refs decision on weather a defensive robot strategy is the "intent" of the game. That certainly was not very professional of him. You could have probably talked to the FTA or the person running the competition.

I know as a volunteer refs have tended to be clueless this year for where I have volunteered at. They either didn't know the rules, refs didn't see extreme rule breaking and didn't penalize teams for it (our team lost in semi finals because of this), and the list goes on and on. But thats not the point, sometimes you just have to politely talk to the right person and get whatever situation is the problem worked out, I know from a personal experience volunteering that some refs don't even know how to score the game and missed something like 45 points that one alliance scored... I talked to the head ref and this mistake was fixed, It didn't change the outcome of the match but it certainly effected scouting information.

So weather your defensive or offensive, If a ref yells at you they really shouldn't be, YOU decided to build your robot the way you did for a certain reason. From a personal standpoint our teams robot once was pushing all the robots and some carts across the field in a defensive strategy and no one thought it was a "bad" thing as far as I know.


My $.02

Andrew

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240

At the Maryland competition we had a defense robot on our alliance and the head ref yelled at us, telling us that.
"This is not the intent of the game, if you want to brake another robot there are competitions for that BUT this is not one of them, try scoring for once instead of preventing it".

If the robot was not clearly damaging the other (ie trying to tip it, trying to rip off an arm), that sounds like something completely uncalled for. There's no rule saying the refs should punish teams for playing legal defense, and being yelled at for a perfectly legal strategy is just wrong.

I'd pass it off as a new volunteer or something, but you said it was the Head Ref...

[team F.T.C 4240]

He was "yelling" most likely because it was loud and wanted to make shore we herd, but I think the reason he said it was because our alliance partner was ramming the other robots the whole time and not letting them score at all and was trying to make so they couldn't balance wile we scored, it wasn't all there flat though, there scoring mechanism broke or something so we asked them to play defense (but not that hard because we wanted ranking points) but the head ref knew what he was talking about and was knowledgeable about the game and you could tell because he made some really good calls. The Maryland refs where alot better this year.

[normalmutant]

Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240

I think the reason he said it was because our alliance partner was ramming the other robots the whole time and not letting them score at all and was trying to make so they couldn't balance wile we scored, it wasn't all there flat though, there scoring mechanism broke or something so we asked them to play defense (but not that hard because we wanted ranking points)...

Oh, okay. In that case, they still are allowed to play defense, but if you guys were winning by a lot, then it'd be more polite to give them a little chance.
Btw, for those teams out there who don't know this (I'm sure most of you guys do): ramming is not a good idea. You can hurt their robot, but you're more likely to hurt your own robot. It's best to just push.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240

At the Maryland competition we had a defense robot on our alliance and the head ref yelled at us, telling us that.
"This is not the intent of the game, if you want to brake another robot there are competitions for that BUT this is not one of them, try scoring for once instead of preventing it"....

Depending on whether or not you were bashing into the other robot, or simply playing tight defense; I would encourage you to politely but firmly disagree with that ref, and to politely but firmly appeal to the head ref if you feel that the refs opinions/prejusdices result in any non-trivial disadvantages for your team.

[EDIT] I just read the post that says an ally was ramming an opponent - Ramming is not the same as pushing. - When I am ref'ing I definitely tell teams not to repeatedly back up and hit an opponent; and not to take aim from far away, and then charge into an opponent at high speed.[/EDIT]

Some other games that involve physical contact (human-human) make pretty good analogies. If you are swatting basketballs out of the air and doing a legal amount of leaning on the opponent - That's legit. If you are fouling the opponent - that not legit.

Learning to advance persuasive arguments that correctly link facts to defend an assertion, can (should?) be one of the benefits of participating in STEM robotics competitions.

Blake

[Joachim]

Originally Posted by gblake

When I am ref'ing I definitely tell teams not to repeatedly back up and hit an opponent; and not to take aim from far away, and then charge into an opponent at high speed. . . .

Some other games that involve physical contact (human-human) make pretty good analogies. . .

Learning to advance persuasive arguments that correctly link facts to defend an assertion, can (should?) be one of the benefits of participating in STEM robotics competitions.

Blake

The distinction between fouling and tough defense in basketball is notoriously subjective, but it might also be a very good analogy.

Repeatedly backing up and pushing (or "hitting") was the only effective defense played against the team I mentored last year. That was how the defending teams avoided being called for pinning--push (or "ram" if you want to call it that), back up a little then push (or "ram") again, as many as 6 or 7 times in 15-20 seconds, for example.

Unfortunately, our team also learned (from three seasons' experience) to do the same thing, did it twice in one match (with two pushes or "rams" in one set and three in another), and damaged another robot doing it. Result: the team was DQ'd for "excessive force", one hour after the match in question was over. There were no warnings or calls made during the match, nor immediately after when the damaged team complained.

I asked the head of all officials and judges, who gave us the DQ news, why the call was "excessive force" and not "intentional damage", since the second term was in the game manual, the first one not. (Presumably the "intent" of "intentional damage" must be judged by the referees on the field at the time, and not by a committee of all refs reviewing damage in the pits, as happened here.) At first he stood by his position that it was in the game manual, then shifted to say "excessive force" was in the referee manual. When I said "I don't think I've seen the referee manual" he said "you're not supposed to."

From a lowly team's point of view, the game is exactly what the head officials or the FTC affiliate partner of the competition say it is.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Joachim

Unfortunately, our team also learned (from three seasons' experience) to do the same thing, did it twice in one match (with two pushes or "rams" in one set and three in another), and damaged another robot doing it. Result: the team was DQ'd for "excessive force", one hour after the match in question was over. There were no warnings or calls made during the match, nor immediately after when the damaged team complained.

I asked the head of all officials and judges, who gave us the DQ news, why the call was "excessive force" and not "intentional damage", since the second term was in the game manual, the first one not. (Presumably the "intent" of "intentional damage" must be judged by the referees on the field at the time, and not by a committee of all refs reviewing damage in the pits, as happened here.) At first he stood by his position that it was in the game manual, then shifted to say "excessive force" was in the referee manual. When I said "I don't think I've seen the referee manual" he said "you're not supposed to."

I don't have anything to say other than that's just ridiculous. A DQ an hour after a match, referencing a non-existent rule interpretation from a document teams can't read (and thus can't know whether or not they'll break said rule)?

Is this seriously the standard for FTC refereeing?

[Joachim]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Is this seriously the standard for FTC refereeing?

I don't think it's the standard at all, probably more of an aberration.

But it is an example of what has happened before.

I should add that I did write to Ken (Johnson) last season, in more detail than I gave here, not to appeal, but to give information in the hope that similar situations could be avoided in the future. His reply included a mention that the scenario our team experienced would be used (in some way not stated) as an example for training officials in the future.

[team F.T.C 4240]

[quote=gblake;985926]Depending on whether or not you were bashing into the other robot, or simply playing tight defense; I would encourage you to politely but firmly disagree with that ref, and to politely but firmly appeal to the head ref if you feel that the refs opinions/prejusdices result in any non-trivial disadvantages for your team.

[EDIT] I just read the post that says an ally was ramming an opponent - Ramming is not the same as pushing. - When I am ref'ing I definitely tell teams not to repeatedly back up and hit an opponent; and not to take aim from far away, and then charge into an opponent at high speed.[/EDIT]

Well you are right in the sense of not bashing into other robots at high speeds, but that is what our alliance was doing. We pushed the rolling goal to the other side and started to score and both apposing robots where trying to get batons out from the low and high dispensers. Our alliance partner was in the middle ramming one then the other making so they couldn't dispense so that is my guess why he (as in the head ref) said it, also he happened to be reffing our match so it wasn't like someone had to get him or anything. Also our partner showed up at the last minuet so we just said play defense so thats what they did and we really should have made it more clear what we meant by defense. I did agree with the ref then we had a rematch and it went well there on out.

[TRWSHSHLX]

There's a lot of ways to play defense in a match. Some are perfectly legal but some not so much. From last year's experience (Oregon's first qualifier is at the end of January so I haven't really see much actually matches this year), here are some things that might help to understand why teams play defense and whether it's legal or not:

Acceptable defense: (all from what I had witnessed in an actual match before and didn't get penalized)
1. Pushing
2. Pinning for 5 seconds and back away 18 in. (one carpet length would be perfect because it's definitely longer than 18 in, I am not sure if it's two feet or 18 in. but same principle apply)
3. Blocking (Blocking as in preventing one direction of movement of the oppose alliance's robot, not ALL direction)
Defense that will most likely get penalized:
1. excessive ramming (it's pretty obvious and that's the easiest way for judges to DQ you)
2. flipping oppose alliances' robot over (sometimes it's not intentional but the referees will most likely think so. So if a robot and your robot is pushing against each other and the opponent's robot is climbing up the front of your robot, you should back off because if they keep driving straight, the judges will probably think it's intentional)
3. Intentional Entanglement (Reaching / Grabbing other robots hands / parts etc...)
There are probably more things for both lists but that's all I remember for now.

Most teams play defense it's because it's simply easier. It takes way less effort to play defense than playing offense especially when you don't have an efficient scoring mechanism. However, I personally think that ramming and intentionally ramming and breaking other robots is extremely unGP because if the situation is reversed and your robot is the one that's being rammed into, it's not exactly a good feeling. However, good defense strategy should be encouraged to some extend because that's when the judges can differentiate how efficient the robot's drivetrain and scoring mechanisms are compare to other robots. In World's final last year, the Smoking Mirrors shoot all their preloads in merely few seconds (literaly... 2-3 secs) and I don't remember how many they actually made but that showed how efficient their robot was. And for the last 1 minute there was a lot of defense played by both sides but the alliance with better drivetrain and better scoring mechanism wins.

As for the referees, there's nothing you can really do about it after they make a call. So the best thing to do is ask the possible situations that might happen and ask them how they will call / interpret it before the match. Another way is to follow what other people do. If one team's robot played excessive defense and it was allowed then it's perfectly fine to replicate what they do because they didn't call it the first time. And the same principle applies for whatever judges DQed people for.

Defense should be avoided if possible, considering how efficient the scoring mechanism work. In qualifiers it's not a good thing because ranking points will be very low; however, in elimination rounds, the point differential is what matter after all.

Good luck to all the teams out there!
P.S. If I have time I will see if I can post Oregon's last year's state final and there were some excellent examples of defense and good referee calls.