Week 1 Impressions of Rack 'N Roll

[BBnum3]

Originally Posted by Hieb

I'll respectfully disagree with this, at least the boring part. Maybe it's because I'm a soccer fan and can enjoy 1-1 tie more than a 100 point win, but I saw some very exciting matches today, including one we lost 13-15. Just because teams aren't consistently scoring 100+ points doesn't mean it's a boring game.

I'm a huge soccer fan as well (see the sig) and I understand what you're saying. One of the most exciting matches I've ever seen was a 0-0 draw. There's a difference between two extremely evenly matched alliances duking it out and two struggling alliances failing to score. I should make a distinction that not all low scoring matches are boring, and that it depends on the type of match being played. Anyway, I think the matches will get more exciting as everyone figures out the best way to play the game.

[Joel J]

I'm going to wait until the end of the elimination rounds tommorow before I say anything. That is, I'm hoping that things will pick up little bit tommorow.

[av11d]

I like the game. I think the elims are going to be a LOT of fun. That's when spoilers will matter.

The main problem I see with this year's game is the lack of an "easy" way to score a point or two. Like if there was something to do that could score you one point that would be cool. It'd mix the scores up a little at least. There are too many ties right now. I know 75 has 3 ties already with 1 qualifying match left. Ties = Pretty boring.

[sovierr]

Originally Posted by Hieb

I'll respectfully disagree with this, at least the boring part. Maybe it's because I'm a soccer fan and can enjoy 1-1 tie more than a 100 point win, but I saw some very exciting matches today, including one we lost 13-15. Just because teams aren't consistently scoring 100+ points doesn't mean it's a boring game.

I guess there is a difference between low scoring due to good defence or low scoring due to poor offense. The former can be quite exciting, while the latter is sure to be a snooze fest!

[Gene F]

I like this years game! I agree that some of the low scoring was not what I expected but this is the first weekend of competition. The quarter-final matches at VCU between #2 and #7 are what would expect to see more of as the weeks progress.

Scores were 48 to 68
92 to 32
and 100 to 62.

Each alliance had a good defensive ramp, each had two robots that could score. Both scoring robots could also get onto the ramps reliably. What's left... scoring on the rack makes the difference. Which means offence, defence and counter defence all come into play. This makes for some very exciting and fun to watch matches as the members of the alliance switch roles throughout the match. What decided the matches was the rack. Both alliances knew that winning the rack was paramont to winning the match to the extent that they risked (and at times lost) not having enough time to get on the ramp reliably.

As teams become more confident in their ability to score offensively, defence will fade a bit but will remain a major part of the game.

[Priyadarshy]

yeah those three matches showed how important the rack was and the ramp 612 removed their ramp for the tournament to improve visibility and it paid off but the rack is crucial the ramp WAS the outcome in qualification matches but in the tournament it was a whole new game

[Nawaid Ladak]

That last QF match at VCU was probally the best match i saw so far this weekend.
I think of this as football.

There are three parts to the game

Offense
Defense
Special Teams

there will be alliances such as

The Indianapolis Colts: The best defense is a god offense, never back down and keep on filling the rack (sort of like the winning alliance at NJ)

the Baltimore Ravens: Defense is going to be key, you stop your opponent from doing anything on the rack, with minimal offense, you are sure to win the match

The Chicago Bears: Special Teams, in this game the special teams are pretty much the the autonomous and ramp part of the game, couple that with the spoilers and you fill the missing peace to a great alliance partner. someone who can play some of both offense and defense

so what do we learn from this

To succeed in this years game you must have, A KISS B have alliance partners who specialize in your weaknesses, for example if your a defensive robot, then be sure to have a team who can ramp and or atonomus, plus a team who can score,

that i think will determine the championship this year

Another thing i noticed, and i think this is for every year. defense is disregarded at regionals, we all want to see offense, like a famous saying goes "offense brings the crowds, but defense wins games" or in this case, regionals.

Teams in the top 8, (most likely offensive matchines) will need to do A LOT of scouting and choosing, because one wrong move, could cost your team a trip to Atlanta in April.

[meatmanek]

Originally Posted by platypus

6. Autonomous is a bust, which is kind of sad but completely unsurprising. One keeper was scored today. Just one. As a software guy, I know that it's not an easy autonomous to write this year. Last year, you could use the light to align a shooter and fire from the starting position. This year, you have to move while tracking the light, and move a manipulator to the proper height. This is not easy, and there really isn't much incentive to make it work. Since spoilers aren't used, keepers are basically ringers (and even if spoilers were used, it wouldn't matter very often as spoilers would break the row on the ringer next to the keeper). That's 2 whole points for your trouble, which is why teams just aren't bothering. (My team for one instead focused on an advanced teleoperated control system with preset postitions recorded into EEPROM, and relegated autonomous to that bottom part of the software todo list that never sees a share of the limited integration time.)

I have to agree that autonomous isn't worth as much as it could be. At St. Louis, maybe one or two spoilers were placed ever. I thought we would be spending most of our time working on autonomous, when in fact we spent most of our time working on perfecting our teleoperated code. We do plan to write an autonomous mode, but we think it will mostly be for show.

This year, more than ever, a sophisticated teleoperated mode is incredibly useful, particularly on 868's robot. Our tube handling system has 3 separate controllable parts, and a simple switch-on-the-OI system would make the job of the operator incredibly complex. Fortunately for me, depending on the job at hand, there are only a few distinct setups that the system should have. (The grabber should never be open when the arm is up in the air unless you're trying to take off a spoiler, or you've hit the rack)

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Here are some stats from the regionals so far: (gotta love Excel)
NJ Regional:
Average Score per Match: 22.027 points
Average Non-Zero Score per Match: 29.369 points
Standard Deviation: 38.422 points
Five Highest Scores: 260, 236, 128, 98, 76

VCU:
Average Score per Match: 15.731 points
Average Non-Zero Score per Match: 21.521 points
Standard Deviation: 19.558 points
Five Highest Scores: 108, 84, 64, 64, 62

STL:
Average Score per Match: 19.490 points
Average Non-Zero Score per Match: 23.116 points
Standard Deviation: 26.733 points
Five Highest Scores: 128, 128, 128, 100, 66

PNW: (only limited data set of only 16 matches available)
Average Score per Match: 18.031 points
Average Non-Zero Score per Match: 22.192 points
Standard Deviation: 19.435 points
Five Highest Scores: 77, 60, 45, 34, 32

Here are some additional stats. With the standard deviation being so high, the average isn't as much of a tell tale stat as the median.

New Jersey
Median Winning Score: 23
Median Losing Score: 4
Overal Median Score: 8

VCU
Median Winning Score: 22
Median Losing Score: 2
Overal Median Score: 8

St. Louis
Median Winning Score: 30
Median Losing Score: 2
Overal Median Score: 7

I'm known for having very low scoring predictions, but even I envisioned the bar being higher than this. It will be interesting to see how these trends play out as the season goes further along.

[MarsBOtkid]

Battle of the ramps.

[Beta Version]

I for one, actually really like the game this year. I think, yes it may be low scoring, but I think it's much more spectator friendly. In every other game in the past three years I've seen, I have never been able to follow who was winning. I'd just sit there bored until the screen showed who had one. This year, you can really follow who is winning and get excited during the matches.

However, I do think there was a lack of autonomous incentive, and its painful to see so few robots (including are's) not participate in one of the collest parts of the game. Autonomous could have been better.

[Dan Petrovic]

I don't find this game boring at all.

It is definately one of the most edge-of-your-seat games I have seen. A lot of the time, no one was completely trounced, but then again. A lot of the time they were.

Autonomous isn't a very big bonus, but it is certainly exciting to watch a robot (or two... it happened!) score in autonomous.

The stragety of the finalist team was to score in autonomous, play defense and let one robot to the scoring.

One of the most exciting matches was a semi-final match, I believe, when an alliance won 2 to 0. What made this so intense was that it was original 2 -2 because of such rough defense (It's New England, what do yo expect?). The fact that a team was outside of the 6x6 box ended the match there.

I like this game. It's quite exciting.

[Tomasz Bania]

To clarify a few posts that i've seen and from what i've heard (Haven't been to a regional yet this year) FIRST no longer uses HATCH's algorithm. I've heard some complaints about hatch from last year, but I thought that for the most part it was decent.

Anyways...

This years game is slightly more interesting than I thought it would be. I thought it would be a complete failiure. Autonomous is fairly pointless this year. The Telooperated period is pretty good as it is a little more competitive than i thought it would be. End game is basically a battle for the ramp. This years game is focused on 2 things: Ringers and Ramps. Nothing else in this years game has any real need. Keepers are fairly useless and Spoilers are more of an accessory rather than an important part of this years game. Just my thought...

[WaterFreak]

Having spent 3 days watching matches & fixing robots, I am BLOODY exhausted!!!!!

Guess I have to agree on a couple of things....

#1 The Autononomous should have had a higher encentive, make it worth the effort it would really take to get it working. In MOST of the matches I saw, basically nothing happened in autononomous time. Even in the finals, only 2 of the 6 robots made any attempt to hang a ringer. Perhaps if a hung rung counted as a full vertical row or double points for any row it was part of, perhaps that would have triggered more effort into it.

#2 Ramping was a pretty huge thing, at least in the qualifying rounds. Come the playoffs, the teams that did well were ones with 2 good scoring robots & 1 ramper, with the ramper playing defense for the first portion of the match.

#3 The top row was pretty much not in play, all three days. Again, this could have used some incentive as the risk to attempt to hang rings on the top is pretty big.

#4 The spoilers ended up almost never being used. Seems that most teams were focused on attempting to score and not paying much attention to what the other team was doing.

#5 Lastly, seems the "best" thing to have done was pick ONE of the two things (ramps or scoring) and focused on them. Most of the robots that I saw that tried to do both suffered from compromise disease and ended up really doing neither one with much effeciency. The teams that won in NJ had 2 goods scorers (no ramps) and 1 ramper (that really only played defense). The finals was somewhat of a letdown, IMHO, both matches were pretty one-sided.

While this is NOT my favorite game, it is also NOT my LEAST favorite game. They always present challenges for teams to attempt to solve and expand the mind, think it has achieved that.

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

Not only looking at the final scores, but also looking at how the bots played, I'm a bit disappointed, especially because of the way the game is being played so slow.

It's like watching a match between 2 very poor alliances virtually every single match in Triple Play.


Sure, there were lots of teams that compromised. But something has to be done about match pairing. What should happen is that everyone should have either played with or against everyone else. And based on what happened, it did not necessarily happen.

But I think the real fault is the failure of the game to have any kind of loading zone. It would at least save half of the confusion of this game (with projectiles being thrown everywhere).

A bot that can be dominant in this game is...truthfully speaking...going to have to go through match play like there's no tomorrow and score as many as possible. Speed more than brute force is going to win this game.