paper: Spanking the Children

[billylo]

Thanks Jim. This puts thing in perspective (in relation to past games.)

I am summarizing data in support of your pledge for a change. Will share it shortly.

Billy.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by jblay

This was a truly awesome read and I agree 100%. This game is on the tip of being so good, but it is so bad because of these penalties.

And the worst part is that it hurts the young teams. The experienced teams make sure they are aware of the penalties and risks and that their partners are aware, but a young team with a great robot doesn't have the experience to make sure these things don't happen nor should they. This should not be what wins and losses a team events.

I think it's incumbent that the more experienced teams train the less experienced teams. In both our regionals, the penalties fell significantly over the 2 days because as teams played with our drive coach, he trained their human players on what to do. By the end of quals, almost all of the teams had been through his mill. In elims, there were very few penalties. Over 6 matches, we only had 2 technical fouls added to our score, and one was when a robot was tipped over by a hard hit--a tech foul in any year. And we only had one tech foul against us for a herding call. (I also have a problem with the disparate definition of "possession" for offense vs defense.)

[Jim Giacchi]

I agree with this paper and have a couple of things to add.

Number one complaint is that I don't even understand why you are all talking about this.... everybody who has been in FIRST remembers that they eliminated penalties in a big Kickoff webcast presentation. Dean said there will be no more penalties....
For those of you who don't remember what I am referring to, At kickoff in 2012?maybe...(Help an old man's memory out someone, all the years blur together). they came out and announced, no more penalties! Cheering and excultation commenced, till we read the rules and figured out that all they had done was changed penalty to foul.... and the end result was FIRST reconized that penalties were killing the game and then proceeded to fix the problem by smoke, mirrors, and completely ignoring the problem existed.

Honestly I may be a but more jaded, but just eliminate penalties for anything other then destroying (intentionally) another robot. Let the robots play the game, it will be a LOT simpler and more fun to watch. If you need fouls to keep a game fair, you are doing it wrong.

Oh and bumpers are silly, build a frame for contact, if it breaks, you did not build it strong enough. I was opposed to them when they first came out and I have never grown fond of them, especially since they are a pain to make. Frankly, I miss the nice crunch sounds from before bumpers. (I've been doing this since 2000)
Jim

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Jim Giacchi

....
Oh and bumpers are silly, build a frame for contact, if it breaks, you did not build it strong enough. I was opposed to them when they first came out and I have never grown fond of them, especially since they are a pain to make. Frankly, I miss the nice crunch sounds from before bumpers. (I've been doing this since 2000)
Jim

I agree with the need to build a strong frame. But I haven't been able to convince the school board to build hallway walls strong enough to handle robot impacts. Bumpers to me have always been about protecting the world from the robot, rather than the robot from the world. (They also do a great job of eliminating "wedge-bots".)

But if you really like the sound of crunching metal, here's a great off-season event to get away from all those silly penalties and bumpers! http://www.botsiq.org/manage.aboutbbiq.php

Jason

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

I agree with the need to build a strong frame. But I haven't been able to convince the school board to build hallway walls strong enough to handle robot impacts. Bumpers to me have always been about protecting the world from the robot, rather than the robot from the world. (They also do a great job of eliminating "wedge-bots".)

But if you really like the sound of crunching metal, here's a great off-season event to get away from all those silly penalties and bumpers! http://www.botsiq.org/manage.aboutbbiq.php

Jason

Bumpers have always been about protecting the field from the robots. With the increase in power fields were getting pretty beat up. Still do to an extent (see 125 running our intake underneath the diamond plate at RI after a hit)

[Chadfrom308]

Originally Posted by Jay Meldrum

Very interesting read. Cool to read some of the history behind the penalties in past FIRST games.

I would agree with you on the 50 point penalties this year. They pretty much end the match for any team that gets one.

In Waterford, we received 50 points due to the other alliance ingesting our ball. This happened when someone on our alliance was trying to pick up the ball and pushed into the opposing teams intake. The crowd was very upset when they were given this penalty because it was clear they did not try to intake the ball, it was pushed up into them, even though the team that pushed it into them was trying to pick it up themselves.

Though the rules are very clear on this; G12..."A BALL that becomes unintentionally lodged on a ROBOT will be considered POSSESSED by the ROBOT. It is important to design your ROBOT so that it is impossible to inadvertently or intentionally POSSESS an opponent’s BALL."

This does make a very difficult design constraint for teams.

This happened to us. We were lined up for a shot against the 1pt goal and the other alliance tried to hit/block us when there was a ball in between us and they ended up pushing our ball out of the robot and forcing (not on purpose or not even accidentally) their ball into our robot.

They said it was called because of our intake roller was on, even though it needed to be on to give us the best shot and keep our ball in.

They said to us exactly what the rules said.

Though the rules are very clear on this; G12..."A BALL that becomes unintentionally lodged on a ROBOT will be considered POSSESSED by the ROBOT. It is important to design your ROBOT so that it is impossible to inadvertently or intentionally POSSESS an opponent’s BALL."

But the problem with that is if you make it hard to take in the opponent's ball, you make it hard to take in your ball.

This was also the game decider for that match (which would've been awesome because it was against 67)

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by Chadfrom308

This happened to us. We were lined up for a shot against the 1pt goal and the other alliance tried to hit/block us when there was a ball in between us and they ended up pushing our ball out of the robot and forcing (not on purpose or not even accidentally) their ball into our robot.

Howell District - Match 56 @ 1:20 ish:

http://youtu.be/rXeaA72u3x8?t=1m20s

-Clinton-

[fox46]

Excellent writeup Jim. As someone who came into FIRST in 2002, I agreed with your analysis of each game.

I really can't understand the single ball rule this year. I think it the biggest downfall of the game and is the seed that encourages all of the negative gameplay we have seen thus far including the impact of massive penalties. What did GDC think the other four robots were going to do when they weren't in possession of the ball? Sit down together with a bowl of popcorn while they watched their respective balls get scored?

IMO the game would have been much more fun and exciting with a maximum of three balls per alliance on the field at a time. Each robot would have its very own ball to play with and they would all be happy. Instead we end up with "Ball? I don't have a ball- well this sucks... Oh look! That one has a ball! I'll go and hit him then..."

Furthermore, with three balls in play alliances would be able to score many more points and the fouls would have less impact on match outcomes. Robots who were incapable of scoring the ball could still contribute equally as an assister/feeder for scoring robots.

GDC - You screwed up. That's okay though, we all do it, but please take action to make this right. Failure to do so will foster far more resentment toward this game than admitting a mistake was made and fixing it. Please reduce the severity of the penalties or give the other robots a ball to play with.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by fox46

GDC - You screwed up. That's okay though, we all do it, but please take action to make this right. Failure to do so will foster far more resentment toward this game than admitting a mistake was made and fixing it. Please reduce the severity of the penalties or give the other robots a ball to play with.

I will preface this with I do not like this game, but I think you are wrong. If this game were to play how the GDC thought it was going to play out, all 6 robots wouldn't have to move and the cycle times would be fast and no defense would really be played.

Inbound(red or blue zone) > truss toss > catch(white zone) > pass to 3rd robot in(red or blue zone) > score in top goal

Robot wouldn't have to move and you could have <10 sec cycle time and at 60 points a cycle that puts the 50 point tech foul well balanced.

However they should have known that the game was NEVER going to play like that and adjusted the game accordingly during the design and rule making process.

[Steve W]

I hope that something comes from your paper. Great job!!!!

[Taylor]

Let's talk about soccer.
I know we played it in 2010, but I think there are a lot of parallels to the current game.
There are essentially TWENTY players who are actively trying to get posession of a single ball - or prevent others from doing so. There are debilitating and, to the untrained observer, confusing and contradictory penalties. The game is simple to explain, but very difficult to master. There are no shortage of silly and archaic rules (what do you mean, we're not allowed to pick up a ball?) yet it is the single most popular game in the world.
Because the game strategies have evolved and matured.
Because the players decided that there are efficient and elegant ways to beat the physical gameplay, and have implemented them successfully.

The rules are full of little blue boxes that essentially say, "Hey, teams, if you do these things, you'll be penalized. Try not to do them." We all get the same set of rules at the same time*. The onus is on the teams to avoid these penalties, not on the GDC for creating them.

*Yes, I realize there are game updates and Q&A rulings. But these are public, and all teams are playing under the same rules at a given time/location.

[mathking]

I will preface this by saying this game has really grown on me. I found the matches at Crossroads by and large to be very exciting. I think Taylor's parallel to soccer is apt. I don't think the GDC was anticipating no defense. I think they said at kickoff and in the rules that we should expect vigorous game play. I have only been to one regional, but have watched (online) over a hundred other matches watching the teams of friends and 1014 alums compete. The parents and teachers who have been to a competition and/or watched online almost all have said they understand the flow of the game more than in any previous year except 2012. What I see is a game that cannot be dominated by a good robot. I think this is a good thing. This is a game when three pretty good robots, some of which can't do everything, can legitimately be powerhouses as alliances.

That said, the penalties seem out of proportion to the final scores. But actually not by that much. Just a cursory examination of data from a few regional competitions for a few seasons (mostly Pittsburgh, Buckeye and Queen City, because those are the regional competitions we have attended and for which I have data) shows me that there have been other years where where many matches were "decided by penalties." The quotations marks are because it is probably not as simple as comparing final scores with penalty points. Because this year has been much better than years past with getting the penalty scores posted during the match there are many fewer surprise reversals after a match is done. That alone has been a serious improvement. I remember many times in the past having a match end and then waiting for all the fouls to be tallied to see who won.

As Jim and others have pointed out, there are just too many 50 point technical fouls. I think that most of the contact inside the frame perimeter technical fouls could and should be just fouls. If you design a game where the robots pretty much have to expand outside their frame perimeters to gather balls you shouldn't call technical fouls when there is non-intentional contact. As for making it never advantageous to intentionally draw a foul, you can make all fouls deemed intentional technical fouls. Take the pinning rules. You could easily say that teams that don't back off in time get a foul. If they continue the pin for more than 3 or more than 5 more seconds, or through to the end of the match, it is a technical foul in addition.

As I have said in a couple of other threads, the other thing that would improve game play is having dedicated scorekeepers and let the other refs concentrate on fouls. But to do this they would really need to start at the beginning of the season so that each scorekeeper had a pad. Ideally one scorekeeper for each team could just watch for possessions and scores by that team. But you could probably get away this year with one scorekeeper watching each alliance.

I still think that with some easy to implement changes this could be one of my two favorite games, because the game play itself is so important.

[excel2474]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Let's talk about soccer.
I know we played it in 2010, but I think there are a lot of parallels to the current game.
There are essentially TWENTY players who are actively trying to get posession of a single ball - or prevent others from doing so. There are debilitating and, to the untrained observer, confusing and contradictory penalties. The game is simple to explain, but very difficult to master. There are no shortage of silly and archaic rules (what do you mean, we're not allowed to pick up a ball?) yet it is the single most popular game in the world.
Because the game strategies have evolved and matured.
Because the players decided that there are efficient and elegant ways to beat the physical gameplay, and have implemented them successfully.

The rules are full of little blue boxes that essentially say, "Hey, teams, if you do these things, you'll be penalized. Try not to do them." We all get the same set of rules at the same time*. The onus is on the teams to avoid these penalties, not on the GDC for creating them.

*Yes, I realize there are game updates and Q&A rulings. But these are public, and all teams are playing under the same rules at a given time/location.

The difference is that a single robotics team doesn't build a "soccer team"; we build a "soccer player". In the qualifying matches, your alliance is random. If you get randomly partnered with robots that DON'T build robots around these rules, you can get really screwed.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by excel2474

. If you get randomly partnered with robots that DON'T build robots around these rules, you can get really screwed.

Welcome to FIRST.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by excel2474

The difference is that a single robotics team doesn't build a "soccer team"; we build a "soccer player". In the qualifying matches, your alliance is random. If you get randomly partnered with robots that DON'T build robots around these rules, you can get really screwed.

So don't complain about them - educate them as to the proper way to play the game. They all passed inspection, so they're not incurring penalties just by being on the field.
These teams you've been assigned - they are not "random robots" - they're your ALLIANCE PARTNERS. In every sense of the words. Treat them as such.