Aerial Assist and Ill Will

[dubiousSwain]

Originally Posted by Joseph Smith

It is a little sad to me that it comes to this. I know that if my team was a rookie team, or if we lacked the resources to build a highly effective robot, I would be disappointed if we were asked to stay away from the ball and play defense. I wish that the powerhouse teams would try to help the less competitive teams by showing them how to improve their robots and strategies rather then insisting they can't test their systems. Yeah, this is a competition, but it's about inspiring and helping others.

Testing out systems is what the practice field is for

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

Make sure your drivetrain is nails and that your drivers know how to drive it. Defense will be big this year; and like I said, even boxes on wheels can help an alliance gain mucho points just by being able to push a ball in a direction--and they can score it in the lower goal.

That way, if your upper mechanical systems are all utter, catastrophic failures, you can still be a solid addition to an alliance.

(This advice goes for every year of FIRST I've ever seen, by the way. Drivetrain first; then everything else.)

tl;dr

Actually, it is Drivetrain First, Driver Practice Second, then everything else.

A drive team should be able to do the routine maneuvering routinely, and drive that robot wherever they need to with almost trivial ease. It needs to be second-nature. Then they can focus on accomplishing the task that is the reason for the driving, not the driving itself.


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[mitchklong]

I dont worry about motion-only bots, or highly capable bots. I am most concerned with pairings that involve a mediocre throwing bot that is in love with their engineering. If they have invest sweat equity in the a throwing solution that is less than 50% accurate, how do we convince them that we can score more points going for the low goal?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by mitchklong

I am most concerned with pairings that involve a mediocre throwing bot that is in love with their engineering. If they have invest sweat equity in the a throwing solution that is less than 50% accurate, how do we convince them that we can score more points going for the low goal?

You put them on truss launcher duty. You don't have to be accurate to get those points. Win-win--as long as someone can corral the ball after it goes over!

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Chi Meson

Ill will can and should be avoided by both the strong, weak and mediocre teams. I don't see why this year would cause any more than others.

In 2012 it was pretty common for an alliance to have a robot that chased around the same ball for half a match. This reduces the alliance's score by roughly: 1/3*1/2=1/6. That's not good, but the match can still be competitive. On the other hand, since there's only one ball this year chasing it for half a match might reduce the alliance's score by 50%. When that happens this year I would expect the alliance to almost always lose.

[Chi Meson]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

In 2012 it was pretty common for an alliance to have a robot that chased around the same ball for half a match. This reduces the alliance's score by roughly: 1/3*1/2=1/6. That's not good, but the match can still be competitive. On the other hand, since there's only one ball this year chasing it for half a match might reduce the alliance's score by 50%. When that happens this year I would expect the alliance to almost always lose.

If such a situation occurred in Aerial Assist (where an ineffective team deliberately hogged a ball for half the match just to prove that their design and/or driving was poor), that would be the case of the weaker team bringing "Ill Will" upon the game. Such an attitude is just as offensive as a strong team eschewing any interaction from a weak team simply to avoid the possibility of that weak team from disturbing the scoring drive.

As I implied before, the truly great team will be able to use anything that moves to their advantage. If a team has built a weak-bot, they should acknowledge that, and do the best they can with it. If they can't shoot, and their alliance partner knows it, they should be prepared to take the advice of the de facto leader of the alliance.

This is a zone game. In any qual match-up, a non-shooting robot can be an effective zone 1 or 2 bot. For example, Bot 1 bumps the ball into the white zone. Bot 2 bumps the ball twice (herding) in the white zone, Bot 3 takes the ball and scores.

If, on the other hand, the above Bot 1 thinks it deserves to keep the ball, and sloshes it around for 90 seconds without doing anything, that team is rejecting the spirit and written intent of the game. Well before that point, a strong-bot would and should intercept the ball and score it. If that team can't do so, then it is not as strong as they think they might be.

In any case, this will be a huge year for scouting, I think everyone saw that very early. The standings will have almost no bearing on the effectiveness of the robots being picked; an alliance will need to find robots that are strong for each zone. If a hack-bot causes a strong team to lose in the quals, knocking them out of the top 8, or even back into the 20's,,, well you know the rest.

Our team has clawed it's way past the middle, but we are still in awe of the superteams out there. We still find them inspiring. Stay gracious everyone!

[sircedric4]

I am glad we have started this thread early because I have also been worried about the single game piece in the game causing a ridiculous amount of behind the scenes human anger and drama. FIRST seems to think this game is played by robots and is not taking into account the human nature teleoperating them.

For instance, lets take a suboptimal team's perspective. We have spent minimum $9000 to compete in this regional. We have spent the same six weeks of late nights, hard work and stress as any other team out there and here comes a team that tells us to play defense only. Sure my mechanism is slow and janky but it does allow us to score once a round. My student's parents are out in the crowd and I want to show off what I have been putting the late nights working on off. To be able to win I cant do that. 50% of the teams at the regional are in this situation. In the past there were other game pieces to play, now there aren't.

I dont even want to start the things that teams will do as the seeding starts to close and they start to realize that they can break up traditional power house teams by simply throwing a game by goofing around with the one game piece. Ill will everywhere indeed.

I predict that one of the lessons learned in the First game design handbook after this year will be no more games with a single game piece. Humans are competitive and they are also justified in their desire to play the ball after sinking so many resources into their robot. The behind the scenes is going to be more high strung then usual this year and that is saying something considering how high strung it is to begin with.

[Chi Meson]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

For instance, lets take a suboptimal team's perspective. We have spent minimum $9000 to compete in this regional. We have spent the same six weeks of late nights, hard work and stress as any other team out there and here comes a team that tells us to play defense only. Sure my mechanism is slow and janky but it does allow us to score once a round. My student's parents are out in the crowd and I want to show off what I have been putting the late nights working on off. To be able to win I cant do that. 50% of the teams at the regional are in this situation. In the past there were other game pieces to play, now there aren't.

You make a good point and I can understand your position, but I would encourage all teams that would be in this situation to realize that the point of the game is not just to shoot. This game is about passing between robots. If a team spent 6 weeks to make a sub par shooting device, then they have not spent the build season wisely.

A pass/receive mechanism is much simpler, and ultimately worth more points. Any robot that spends their build season focused on a 50% successful catching mechanism should see eliminations, repeatedly.

I would venture to say that all strong teams will be looking to maximize the the capabilities of all their alliance partners.

Maybe I'm just too optimistic

[Canon reeves]

One thing that indefinitely plagues our team, and many others, is ambition. While not inherently bad in and off itself, to much can cap logistics and can lead to a team trying to do it all, especially the lower class teams, like my own. many people fail to see the big picture in first competitions, I have been a voice of reason within my team so that when my team says lets shoot and feed well when we have no experience except for one very poor year that ended up being simply a robot that could drive. I believe while yes teams will try to do it all, and many fail, soon they will realize strategic advantages. If you have three box on wheel robots against three high end teams, they can still make a difference, no they won't win, but there is only one ball? I think as a regional progresses the maturity of the newer teams will too, teams will soon learn that they can't win if they don't work together, and the teams that believe they have something to prove and don't care of their alliances agendas, they will fall behind and eventually learn. So while in the beginning there will be some negative things happen, over all I believe by the end of the season the people of FIRST will have a new attitude towards working together, one for the better. Maybe I'm wrong, but thats just how I see it.

[rsegrest]

In describing this game to a fellow teacher who has followed FIRST and our games for the past 5 years his first comment was, 'Hmm, finally getting back to gracious professionalism and teamwork are they?'

This game is all about team work between alliance partners. I agree with BedHed and the other posters regarding this game being all about strategy. We are one of those 'mid-level' teams who usually make it into the top 12 - 15 at our regional and into quals but never seem to make it to finals. We know that we are our own limitator in terms of design, ideas, etc. We fully recognize the importance of strategy in all our games both on the field and off and it is because of that willingness to do what is necessary for the alliance that we have both hurt ourselves and helped ourselves over the years (hurt because we forfeited ranking points to play a particular role for an alliance strategy and helped because teams knew that we would do whatever was best for a strategy regardless of what we 'wanted to show off').

I think that is what the GDC is really shooting for this year without calling it co-opertition. This game is all about working together to complete a goal and serves to (hopefully) teach our rookies as well as remind some of our veterans how to effectively strategize with other teams.

As far as 'ill will', let me state that we are not perfect, either my team or myself, but after 7 years of FIRST I believe that the game is the game and how you handle your emotions about match outcomes is an indicator not of how much you care about FIRST and your robot but instead an indicator of your emotional maturity and ability to see yourself and your robot rationally and realistically. And as far as this game goes...alliance strategy has never been more important.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Chi Meson

If, on the other hand, the above Bot 1 thinks it deserves to keep the ball, and sloshes it around for 90 seconds without doing anything, that team is rejecting the spirit and written intent of the game. Well before that point, a strong-bot would and should intercept the ball and score it. If that team can't do so, then it is not as strong as they think they might be.

When a robot was chasing the same ball for half a match in 2012 it wasn't because it was planned that way. The driver just couldn't get the intake to work quite right, and always thought that if he just tried for a couple more seconds he would get it.

Similarly, I expect that this year there will be teams failing to pick up the ball for extended periods of time, and not because the drivers want to do poorly. Sure, you could go steal the ball from your partner, but don't expect them to like it. If they didn't think that they were going to get the ball they wouldn't still be trying to pick it up.

[DavisC]

On the side about Showing off a team's robot:
If it is between Winning - ranking 15th and losing -ranking 25th, if the match allows our team to show off the full potential of the robot, we will take the loss (not trying to be mean here).

As captain and head of drive team it isn't even my decision, I present the situation to the team in the Pits and allowed people to talk in front of everyone (sorta a debate) and the team essentially votes on our strategy, it becomes evident they want to be in the finals (who doesn't?).

Last Year, we lost our last match to show off our climbing to the 3rd tier even though 1 of our alliance partners was in the top few seeds and wanted us to drive around on defense only and go for 10 point hang.
We were specifically chosen for the finals just because of our 30 point hang. (our alliance said after choosing us, from the start, make that 30 point hang happen).

[Oblarg]

There are some valid concerns in this thread, and I do hope the alliance-dependent nature of the game doesn't bring out an uglier side to some of the participants. I think we'll have to wait and see.

However, a lot of posts here to the tune of "less-capable teams ought to just get out of the way" really irk me. FIRST is about inspiration. How "inspired" do you think members of those teams would feel reading some of the posts earlier in this thread? If you are on a successful team, then that is a great thing and you should take full advantage of it. But the program does not only exist to serve you and your interests. I find it extremely disheartening to see an attitude of dismissal (or even outright scorn) towards teams that arguably have the most to gain from FRC.

[cadandcookies]

From a team member's perspective, I am very glad that I won't be on the drive team this year, because dealing with sticky situations like those proposed in this thread sounds like it could lead to some pretty hard dilemmas.

From someone that likes watching human behavior, I think it's going to be super interesting to see how teams adapt to the emphasis on cooperation and the conflicts that will inevitable occur at least a few times this year. I'll probably hang out in the pits for the sole reason of watching pre-match strategy sessions

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

However, a lot of posts here to the tune of "less-capable teams ought to just get out of the way" really irk me. FIRST is about inspiration. How "inspired" do you think members of those teams would feel reading some of the posts earlier in this thread? If you are on a successful team, then that is a great thing and you should take full advantage of it. But the program does not only exist to serve you and your interests. I find it extremely disheartening to see an attitude of dismissal (or even outright scorn) towards teams that arguably have the most to gain from FRC.

I do not think anyone in this thread feels that teams building robots that can't score many points should stop participating in FRC. Instead, they feel that these teams should build the best robot they can with their skills at this point in time. Most of the time, this ideal robot is much more limited in scope than the robot these teams bring to the event.

You can always point back to Karthik's "it is better to be a 10 at one thing than a 5 at two things." There are absolutely teams in FRC with very little build space, very few tools, and very little knowledge of how FRC works. For those teams, the best thing for the team is to build a solid kitbot with maybe a very simple manipulator, teach everyone on your team that basic level of skill, and drive the snot out of it. Then they can come back the following year and build upon those skills to do something better.

1778 has mostly rookie members. This week we were teaching kids the difference between a regular wrench and an allen key, and I think that's awesome. We aren't shooting. We're gonna be great at picking up off the floor and passing, and maybe catch if we have time left over. Would it be cool to have a whiz-bang shooter? Of course. Could we build a shooter? Sure. But we'd much rather be a 10 at one thing than a 5 at two things. It is much more important to us that we train the kids so next year so our team can be prepared to build an even better robot while we mentors have even more opportunities to sit around and drink coffee. We also recognize the importance of driver practice.

FRC for a four year student is a marathon disguises as four sprints. I'd much rather win the marathon than a sprint.