Human players and FIRST games

[mathking]

As several posters pointed out, human - robot interaction is part of the future. Designing technology to work with people is an essential part of the engineering. Our robot in Lunacy could (and did) score on opponents, but we based our strategy on getting a lot of balls to our human player and trying to get other robots as close to him as possible. I don't think I would want that much human scoring every year, but I also don't think it killed inspiration. Certainly it did not for our team. As I said, we planned our robot design and strategy around involving the human player.

As for flinging the tubes this year, yes human players can throw the tubes. But it is NOT going to be nearly as easy as everyone thinks to get tubes to robots in the scoring zone. First off, there will be lots of tubes that hit towers and fall in the middle. Second, there will be tubes that land in the opponents lanes, off-limits to the side that threw the tube. Finally, some number of the tubes are going to either land short or hit the far wall and bounce back out of the scoring zone. In short, if people are throwing tubes during a match there will be a lot of tubes landing in the middle of the field. Which changes strategy.

Remember at the start of the season many people were arguing that picking up off the floor wouldn't be that important? If you are not planning to throw any tubes that may well be true. But if you are planning to throw tubes, picking up off the floor is important. This means that a decision on human player strategy means a decision on engineering design strategy.

One thing that active human player involvement does is level the playing field. Look at some of the videos of really impressive robots that are out there for this year. A number of these (I am not going to throw out team numbers because I am NOT criticizing these teams) robots are beyond the capabilities of most teams involved in FRC competition. They are really marvels of engineering. And will no doubt be very effective. But a simpler robot paired with a human player who is accurate when throwing tubes across the field goes a long way toward a more even competition. And there is nothing wrong with that. The students are not going to be less inspired because their human player helped them win.

At our competition in 2004 their was a team with a really simple robot that basically only herded balls to their human player. But it was effective at getting the balls to the human player and she was really good. We had a really cool, well engineered (over-engineered and too large) mechanical arm and a fantastic winch (it once lifted two robots). From an engineering standpoint our robot was much more "advanced" than theirs. When they beat us (because she outscored our 50 points for hanging) our kids didn't think that was wrong. They thought "Why didn't we realize that such a simple ball gathering technique and a good human player could have made us a much better team?" That was pretty much exactly the sentiment in our plusses and deltas meeting after the competition.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

What is the fun in watching a robot just hang tubes?

What isn't fun about watching a robot hang tubes? I love watching my team do it!

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I can agree the final match didn't come down to human player shots, because 5 of the 6 teams human loaded their robots, but the overall assertion is by no means correct. More than 55% of the points scored in Lunacy were by human players.

If teams on Einstein finals thought robots score better than humans, then that was probably the better strategy. Therefore human players can score all they want but robots will usually win out. Therefore Lunacy was a robot-based game, if with a larger human element than previous years. It can further be supported that the larger human element had little impact on high-level gameplay, especially for teams with the 'right' strategy.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by Basel A

If teams on Einstein finals thought robots score better than humans, then that was probably the better strategy. Therefore human players can score all they want but robots will usually win out. Therefore Lunacy was a robot-based game, if with a larger human element than previous years. It can further be supported that the larger human element had little impact on high-level gameplay, especially for teams with the 'right' strategy.

Of all the thousands of teams in FIRST, if you base how the game was on an elite few, then thats not what the game was. If at regionals, the HPs were scoring most of the points, then that was a HP based game.

[Koko Ed]

BEST YEAR TO BE A HUMAN PLAYER - 2009.You were heavily involved in the game and influenced the outcome of the match more often than not. Avoiding hot shooting human player became and actual strategy point.

WORST YEAR TO BE A HUMAN PLAYER - 2008. More often than not they had nothing to do unless you had a decent autonomous mode and then they just stood there for the rest of the match.. Anyone could push a remote.

MOST DANGEROUS YEAR TO BE A HUMAN PLAYER - 2005. They had to run out to the side of the field with tall robots and there was the occasional robot that toppled into the lane. There were dire predictions on CD that a human player would get taken out by a robot and calls for mandatory helmets for them.

MOST COMPLEX TASK FOR A HUMAN PLAYER - 2006. You had to pay attention when to shoot and when not to shoot balls so your team could best operate during their period. Wasting shots when it wasn't your alliance's scoring period was one of the most inexplicable acts ever by a human player.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

BEST YEAR TO BE A HUMAN PLAYER - 2009.You were heavily involved in the game and influenced the outcome of the match more often than not. Avoiding hot shooting human player became and actual strategy point.

Don't forget 2004.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

Don't forget 2004.

I was thinking of 2004 with it's "cuddly little landmines" but since the target was stationary instead of the challenge of hitting a moving target and getting to make a big difference with the Supercell, 2009 wins out.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I love the human aspect of most games. When I was in high school, I was human player for both 04 and 06. I was also the head programmer so it was really good to be on drive team and see up close were code changes need to be made. I remember several matches were we had our robot either tip over, 04, or break its shooter, 06; being able to human score gave my team the ability to contribute to the alliance. I thought 06 had a good balance between human and robot, teams with the best robots obviously won but the humans still needed to be good at their jobs to allow the robot to perform well.

[pfreivald]

We pulled a basketball player into FIRST in Lunacy, just to be our human player. Ironically, he DIDN'T end up being our human player during the competition (and the kid who did was the best HP at FLR), but he DID end up going to RIT for engineering instead of FLCC for sports management...

Any way you cut it, that was a giant win!

[mathking]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

We pulled a basketball player into FIRST in Lunacy, just to be our human player. Ironically, he DIDN'T end up being our human player during the competition (and the kid who did was the best HP at FLR), but he DID end up going to RIT for engineering instead of FLCC for sports management...

Any way you cut it, that was a giant win!

Excellent!

Our HP was a CC/Track kid (I also coach both of those sports) who is an engineering major at Ohio State now.

In my experience even in years like 2009 it was not so much athletic talent that made good human players as it was the ability to stay focused and think clearly. A lot, I mean a lot, of human players in 2009 just kept shooting whenever they got a ball to shoot. The good ones watched and tried to shoot when robot were near and/or moving toward them rather than far away and/or moving away. I think that such focus will be particularly important this year, as will good communication.

[Joe Ross]

Several human players were injured, including a broken ankle, in the 2003 game. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=19329

[gblake]

In addition to the arguments others have advanced, if you are willing to think of FRC as a slightly misnamed STEM program, then the human player's contributions to the "strategy space" that must be properly analyzed and navigated is a big contribution to the M part of a STEM program.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Of all the thousands of teams in FIRST, if you base how the game was on an elite few, then thats not what the game was. If at regionals, the HPs were scoring most of the points, then that was a HP based game.

You cannot base it only on total scoring! If every single human player played the same, then as an overall all human players didn't make a difference, no net change. Of course they were not exactly the same, but in this case, it was proven that teams who trusted their robots won out.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

MOST DANGEROUS YEAR TO BE A HUMAN PLAYER - 2005. They had to run out to the side of the field with tall robots and there was the occasional robot that toppled into the lane. There were dire predictions on CD that a human player would get taken out by a robot and calls for mandatory helmets for them.

It happened. Our HP got conked on the head by a robot arm - I don't think it was our robot. They didn't stop the match. Worst part was, she had to crawl back to her pad, or our robot couldn't keep running.

That said, I did like that interaction. While the HP was in motion, the robot was immobilized. That put in an element of strategy to HP use.

I prefer games where the HP can assist the robot to score, but cannot score directly. This year it comes close to that, since scoring is so difficult.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

It happened. Our HP got conked on the head by a robot arm - I don't think it was our robot. They didn't stop the match. Worst part was, she had to crawl back to her pad, or our robot couldn't keep running.

That said, I did like that interaction. While the HP was in motion, the robot was immobilized. That put in an element of strategy to HP use.

I prefer games where the HP can assist the robot to score, but cannot score directly. This year it comes close to that, since scoring is so difficult.

I doubt we'll ever see a human player role like 2005.
The potential for disaster was just too great.