Terrifying Karthik

[Joe Johnson]

Enough time has passed. I think we can have a discussion about this now.

It is going to be a bit meta but I think we can handle it.

Background:

In the thread/poll Low Bar, 90% of teams said they planned on being able to go under the low bar. To which, the enigmatic Karthik said this "The results of this poll are terrifying."

When a deep strategist like Karthik speaks such things, there are a LOT of folks asking themselves questions

• What am I missing that I too am not terrified?
• Should I be terrified?
• Is this something that only scares folk whose footfalls are routine upon the Carpets of Einstein or do mere mortals have something to fear as well?
• Do these robots make me look fat?

As far as I know, Karthik has made no more public statements about his fears.

THIS CANNOT STAND!

What do YOU think Karthik is terrified of?

Tell us what you think in a reply to this thread

Best contributor to the thread (as of Wednesday at Midnight): 12 Cans of Mt. Dew coming your way to support you during the home stretch of the build season.

It is not just one response but the entire contribution from a CD user that is being judged. Of course, Karthik is not eligible**

Cheers,
Dr. Joe J.

*as judged by yours truly. I'm buying the Dew, I'm making the call.

**but he can feel free to help me sort the wheat from the chaff -- I won't turn him away. I still get final call on the winner.

[bobjones227]

Karthik is afraid that the small low bar robots will eventually rise up and form one super bot, so that they can commence conquest of the planet.

[Basel A]

Most low bar robots will have very low points of release on their shooters. Many low robots could be blocked simply by a robot that is at the height limit. The idea that many or most teams could be blocked by 2013-style pool noodle blockers is pretty terrifying in my opinion.

[Jcarbon]

Originally Posted by Basel A

The idea that our team could be blocked by 2013-style pool noodle blockers is pretty terrifying in my opinion.

FTFY Basel

But more seriously, I think a factor is how easy it is to underestimate the amount of design and planning a short robot requires. I know I didn't realize how hard the packaging would be, and I'm very impressed with my team's efforts to CAD and lay out everything so it fits. With a little less planning, a team could be in big trouble by the end of the season.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Depending on where bumpers are mounted, a robot designed to go over the Rock wall may be able to go over a short robot. Anyone know off the top of their head how penalties might work for that.

[Keefe2471]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

I'm pretty surprised, and just a little worried, by how many teams are responding "yes" to this poll. I say all this as part of a team that, after much deliberation, decided to go for it, but I'm worried that there are a lot of teams out there who are not fully thinking through the rather dramatic implications of designing for the low bar, and the actual strategic value of it to the average team.

I think that there are a lot of FRC game tasks, or even just general robot characteristics, which teams do not attempt or prioritize every year simply because somebody told them "trying to do everything is bad, simple is good" rather than out of a tangible, well thought out reason that it's going to be difficult for the team to pull off, or because of a valid trade-off which improves performance elsewhere. Shifters, for example. I have a hard time seeing how choosing one bulletproof, battle-proven COTs gearbox over another bulletproof, battle-proven COTs gearbox makes a robot appreciably simpler, or quicker to put together. Last year, the classic case was canburglers. The vast majority of FIRST teams dismissed this task as "too hard," only to have teams that didn't see it this way rapidly retrofit their robots to steal cans during lunch. This year, I expect to see teams fail to meet their potential in this way in regards to scaling. It's an easy task to dismiss, but also an easy thing to add after the fact (look at the WCP MCC, for example). The common thread is, it can be achieved through an "auxiliary" mechanism, something that can just be slapped on top of a robot without affecting the rest of it that much. And it's pretty close to a "binary" task; unlike something like shooting where there will be a huge spectrum of performance with gains to be made by optimization at every level, you either scale or you don't, and there isn't much to be gained by spending a huge amount of time optimizing how quickly you can do it. I would argue that some of the defenses also fall under the category of tasks more teams will avoid based on philosophy than sound engineering analysis.

The low bar is not one of these tasks. It is the opposite of these tasks.

The ability to do the low bar is immensely integral to a robot's design. It affects every single element of it, and disqualifies a number of otherwise viable designs and approaches.

The low bar takes practically every archetypical design from the previous game to which you could effectively say "build team XYZ's robot from that year," Rebound Rumble, and throws them out the window.

The low bar will make your electronics team cry.

The low bar has a direct and dramatic impact on the effectiveness of every single subsystem of your robot. Instead of releasing boulders from four feet up, you're either releasing them from one foot, or adding in systems you didn't need without the low bar to make up the difference. Same with hanging, your reach distance changed dramatically.

The low bar also has its advantages. It's one more defense that you're guaranteed to be able to breach, taking the number of other defenses to design for down from 8 to 6, and possibly eliminating some of the ones which require dedicated mechanisms to achieve. It's also the most direct path to/from the secret passage, probably the fastest defense to cross, and provides you with an optimal cycle time.

I'm worried, however, that a lot of teams are overestimating the degree to which they'll be able to take advantage of this.

By doing the low bar, you have made being an accurate high goal shooter quite a bit harder. You have also made your shots easier to defend if you stick to a low release point. Teams doing the low bar are betting on being able to make up the difference through an increased cycle rate. The number of extra shots a team can expect to miss by building for the low bar is hard to estimate, but likely not trivial, and I would argue that for many teams and the rate at which we've seen that defenses like the rock wall and rough terrain can be crossed, it may be more effective to cycle over these with a taller robot. They are also betting on consistently being effective enough to take priority over their alliance partners in use of the low bar. If as many teams want to use it as people say there will be, there's going to be a traffic jam through the thing.

By doing the low bar, many teams are completely neglecting the possibility of scaling. These teams are demanding an extra two high goal boulders a match from their low bar cross, minimum.

For teams that have chosen to neglect the high goal, the picture is even more stark. A team would need to run five extra cycles per match to make up the difference from a scale, a task which becomes dramatically easier if you allow your robot to be tall. I would bet that most teams won't even average five a match, let alone five extra cycles due purely to low bar efficiency gains.

Many teams are designing to be "breaching specialists," crossing all 9 defense styles. This gives them an extra five points per match (and no change in RP), when compared to crossing 8. Scaling, or even a single high goal shot, does the same or better.

And that's all neglecting alliance partners. The low bar is weird, in that it can be reasonably expected that both the best and worst teams in FRC will be able to do it. For the best teams, the advantage in cycle time is clear, and it's integral to their strategies. For the teams that struggle to put a kitbot on the field, taking away an effective way to score points that you're given from the start would be a poor idea. For a team in the middle, it's a reasonable assumption that their partners will be able to take care of it, and may be actively hogging it for their own cycles.

I also think Dr. Joe is right. But teams should consider, which will be the more effective robots? The ones which were designed for five weeks to do the low bar, and then hastily had a few tall bits added? Or the ones which were designed from the beginning to take full advantage of their height?

Unless you expect to be able to take full advantage of the low bar's efficiency gains, it may be in many team's best interests to walk away from the extreme design tradeoffs that the low bar forces.

I would nominate this opinion from the original thread. It was before Karthik's response, but I think sums up the various reasons that poll is interesting to people attempting to guess what the Meta game will evolve into.

[New Lightning]

The thing to fear with 90% attempting for the low bar, is that a lack of diversity in robot design will lead to a finite amount of strategies and possible alliances that can be made in order to be effective.

[safiq10]

Karthik is afraid of how many under the bar robots will have shooters that will be mutombo'ed.

[IronicDeadBird]

90% of robots are going to have a low profile on a field that already has hard lines of sight and bad visibility for drivers.
Don't worry though the refs will see everything better due to better LOS and positioning so when you ask.
"Why are we getting a foul?"
The answer could easily be...
"Cause we are caught in the secret passage and making contact with a robot we can't see due to poor lines of sight."
or
"Cause you are making contact with a robot traversing a defense and you shouldn't be doing that."
What about the spy?
The one spy who will obviously not be invested first and foremost in just watching his or her own team, and even with good awareness communication from station to spybox involves two people who have eyes on the field suddenly deciding they want to look somewhere besides where everything is going on for second hand information from someone who may not even be looking at what you need to know.
90% of robots are planning on using the same point for transportation. Remember those movie scenes where 90% of people are stuck in a disaster and everyone goes "Now would be a very good time to take the quickest way out of town nobody else will be doing that right now". Oh also some people will be taking that one exit because in some instances they cannot physically take any other street due to defensive counter picks, it is the same as before except its one of the movies where everyone on an island is facing a disaster and they all converge on the one bridge to make a run for it.
Its a major bottleneck on scoring that could easily destroy teams score cycle times, which can easily be blockaded. If 90% of teams can only go under the low bar then in a majority of matches you could park a robot on each side of the low bar and your opponent couldn't move you out of the way because no robot is going to be designed to pull a robot away from a defense.
Actually no... My guess is maybe just maybe.
Maybe Karthik just hates limbo.

[AdamStockton]

I think that the one strategic component that sparked Karthik's concerning response to this poll is the "trade-off".

A team's strategy that involves going under the low bar places a significant design and size constraint on the team's robot. The team essentially needs to design and build a robot that is ~15" tall or less in order to meet their objective of going under the low bar. This is a significant challenge, even for some of the best teams in FRC.

Most teams will end up making significant trade-offs and compromises when it comes to their robots functionality in order to accomplish their goal of going under the low bar. Where some of those teams could have had an excellent shooter, climber, or other defense manipulator(s), they might have had to reduce the effectiveness or eliminated the capability in order to go for the low bar.

A robot that can breach the outer works by itself (regardless of what defenses are on the field) would require the capability of crossing maximum of 8 different defenses. Being able to go under the low bar only reduces that requirement to 7 defenses (including the low bar).

I think that Karthik is terrified that most teams that choose to go under the low bar will have made so many design trade-offs that they won't be able to do much of anything else on the field. A team might have been better off with a robot that can shoot and/or climb rather than one that can only go under the low bar.

Teams that are designing for the low bar might actually end up lowering the bar for themselves in the process.

[Woolly]

One of the reasons the low bar is popular is because it's in a consistent position, which means that a lot of teams will end up programming just for running under the low bar in auto and then at least trying to shoot a goal. Not only that, but due to the nature of the other defenses, the low bar has the least chance of causing an alignment issues for a shot in autonomous.

Unfortunately not all 3 robots can start there, so successful autonomous shots will be rare compared to previous years. Maybe something like 1 successful shot for every 4-6 matches at some events.
However, we may see some robots that can do 2-3 ball autos under the low bar using the balls that their alliance robots start with. That's a little bit more feasible than multi-ball auto routines that run to the center line for ammo, though for regional play it may prove to be just as effective in securing a point differential coming out of auto.

[DesignComp]

Karthik is afraid of the day he can't agasabapathy.

[Collin Fultz]

Karthik is clearly thinking with his MC hat on. He's terrified that with so many low bots, he's bound to trip over one as he moves from the Red side of the field to the Blue.

Wait...what?

Originally Posted by DesignComp

Karthik is afraid of the day he can't agasabapathy.

Winner. Shut it down.

[Taylor]

You're forgetting that Karthik was born in Ohio. You know, the state that's round on the ends and hi in the middle? Which is great for defeating the Portcullis, but not very helpful with the low bar.

The part that terrifies me is the combination of the perceived narrow positions around the batter and the low height of robots. If teams build an army of narrow, short robots, we'll see lots of tortugaing, but not on the Outerworks.
Hopefully teams will remember the lessons of 2010 and not get stuffed in the low goals.

[pfreivald]

Where did the term "Tortuga" come from (in this context)?