paper: Stop the Stop Build

[Tim Sharp]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

excessive cheesecaking was bad for the sport. The typical team in the future will not have a great experience having their hard work (for 6 weeks ;-) being pushed to the side so that a top team can cheesecake the snot out of them.

Dr. Joe J.

I agree. One of the strongest motivational factors that sustains a team (IMO) is the sense of ownership the students have in their machine. Win or lose, being able to watch your robot on the field and knowing that part of it exists due to your hard work and effort is a powerful thing.

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by Tim Sharp

I agree. One of the strongest motivational factors that sustains a team (IMO) is the sense of ownership the students have in their machine. Win or lose, being able to watch your robot on the field and knowing that part of it exists due to your hard work and effort is a powerful thing.

Completely agreed. And it is interesting to bring up cheesecake in the context of the bag discussion, because of a hypothetical scenario that has been bothering me for a while.

Most years, "cheesecaking" consists of relatively minor, relatively low tech additions dreamed up on the spot, in a collaborative effort between teams. Alliances are largely selected on the base competency of the robot a team showed up at the event with, and cheesecake provides minor enhancements. In 2015, we had a game uniquely suited to cheesecaking, largely because of just how completely the vital canburgling task could be completed via a self-contained, sub 30 pound mechanism, developed and brought in entirely by another team, and how few less than elite teams put any effort whatsoever into this task, or developed systems with a prayer of being competitive at it. As a result, we started to see some teams picked more on their willingness to abandon elements of the robot they brought in. And at the end of the season, cheesecake and its possibilities being in people's minds lead to us seeing a new robot built from the ground up at an event, based largely on design work done by another team prior to the event.

The debates over whether or not this was a positive thing have been beaten to death. But one indisputible fact about the experience remains: the harpoon build was a monumentally difficult feat for all teams involved. It required an unprecedented level of coordination, pre-planning, and engineering skill. We've only seen it once, and I don't know that we'll ever see anything quite like it again. If we do, it'll be hard not to be in awe of the teams that pull it off, and the amazing accomplishment will once again overshadow any sourness about the ethics of attempting it. One can say similar things about teams that manage to pull off mid-season full-bot rebuilds under the bag system, and arguments about design convergence.

However, the difficulty of this feat was almost 100% artificially generated, through the bag rules and withholding rules. Getting rid of bag and tag would presumably also erase poundage limits on fabricated items that a team can bring to competition with them.

Which brings up the logical questions: What stops teams, many of whom are already building multiple robots, from bringing in pre-built "Cake-bots," ready to roll as-is with different team numbers slapped on (or Cake-tops that can bolt on top of a kitbot, if FIRST adopts VRC-style definition of a robot)? Would the hypothetical gains in performance of the average team be enough to erase an elite team's motivation to do this? Would the sense of collaboration and involvement by all teams so often quoted regarding past extreme cheesecake endeavours always be maintained? Would we want to stop this at all, or would it be a positive thing to a degree?

EDIT: To be clear, I don't anticipate this ever becoming a widespread thing, nor do I mean to suggest that certain teams are ready and waiting to do this, only held back by the current ruleset. But the door does open up if we aren't careful.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

Which brings up the logical questions: What stops teams, many of whom are already building multiple robots, from bringing in pre-built "Cake-bots," ready to roll as-is with different team numbers slapped on (or Cake-tops that can bolt on top of a kitbot, if FIRST adopts VRC-style definition of a robot)? Would the hypothetical gains in performance of the average team be enough to erase an elite team's motivation to do this? Would we want to stop this at all, or would it be a positive thing to a degree?

Hopefully, ethical sense on the part of both hypothetical teams?

I don't see this as ever becoming widespread as I don't think there are that many teams who would ever consider this as an acceptable way to participate in FRC, especially on the part of the receiving team. Then again, I'm not from an ultra-competitive district, so perhaps the mentality really is that different there. I know our students would be pretty offended if someone suggested that we do that.

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Originally Posted by Joe G. View Post
Which brings up the logical questions: What stops teams, many of whom are already building multiple robots, from bringing in pre-built "Cake-bots," ready to roll as-is with different team numbers slapped on (or Cake-tops that can bolt on top of a kitbot, if FIRST adopts VRC-style definition of a robot)? ...

Hopefully, ethical sense on the part of both hypothetical teams?

I don't see this as ever becoming widespread as I don't think there are that many teams who would ever consider this as an acceptable way to participate in FRC, especially on the part of the receiving team.

From my own competition experience:

• In 2014 your alliance would be seriously improved if your third pick robot could be fitted with a trampoline for quick inbound bounce passes.
• In 2015 it would help to add a ramp or canburgler
• In 2016 (and 2013) a flip out defensive wall could make a huge difference.

Each of these examples were used in competition with great success (I could link to some, but given the "ethical" controversy surrounding cheesecake I won't). When the withholding allowance is removed, I can't see why more teams won't do the same.

That said, cheesecake limits are a separate issue from Bag/Witholding, and should be addressed with separate rules. The GDC tried to put in some rules last year, but they probably went too far. I think it's possible to strike the right balance with something like a separate weight limit, but that's a different conversation.