For about an hour now I have been reading posts from the AZ regional…to my dismay a great many of them voice concerns about “fixing matches” and ruining the spirit of FIRST. There has also been mention of this happening (although more obscurely, and less frequesntly) at annapolis. Is it happening at every regional? If so is FIRST planning to let it continue through nationals or are they going to do something about it? I am also worried because if this happened at AZ, which is a 37 robot regional, what is going to happen at one of the largest (67 robots) regionals (Great Lakes) this weekend? I know that this regional has several high quality teams that believe in FIRST (ie Teams 47, 71, 65, 67, 68, just to name a few). What do those of you attending this regional think? I think we should all come to an agreement, before the first match begins, not to do it. Let me know what you think!
Views expressed above are the views of one individual, and are not necessarily the views held by Team 66 as a whole.
I agree that something should be done about it, and I believe that the petitions provided by us and team 68 at the AZ regional were effective. It should be made clear to every team before the competition begins, however, that most teams do not want to tolerate it.
Make sure all of the teams understands the implications of what this collusion incurs.
To be honest, a lot of teams don’t see what is wrong with coming to a compromise. That really depends on the person or the team. One of the great things about FIRST is that it can be whatever you make of it…and I don’t see a reason for that to change. There a lot of things that might affect your standings at a regional - agreements between opposing alliances, bad referee calls, random robot parts breaking, etc. That’s part of the fun. Getting past all of that and still winning, or getting past all of that and knowing that you did the right thing, is what a team should aim for. It’s like a Disney movie. There’s always a bad guy in the way, but the good guys always come out on top - win or lose.
The teams that you listed at the Great Lakes Regional are mostly teams that have been involved with FIRST for an extended amount of time. They know the meaning of ‘gracious professionalism’ inside and out, and I don’t think any of them would agree to a gameplan if it didn’t fall within the standards that FIRST upholds.
Ya, thats why I named them, they are teams that i know (or at least hope i know) would never be involved in fixing matches because they have been involved in first so long
Lets put this into a different context. Suppose two NFL football teams knows that they will make the playoffs if they each tie in their final game against each other. Is it right for the two teams to discuss, and decide that they will play the game, and predetermine that it ends in a tie? First, this is against the bylaws of the NFL. Second, (in my opinion) this is completely unethical, and unfair to all of the teams who played fairly. The game should be played, and the team that wins should be allowed to go to the playoffs. If the game happens to end in a tie without any form of collusion, then it would be fair.
This fixing of matches is unfair to all the teams who spent time building a robot that plays the game correctly. The teams that have the best robots, the best strategy, and the best driving ability are no longer the teams that win.
Not only this, but it is not fun to watch a game that is fixed. There is no element of surprise, or anything to attract interest.
Good luck to all of those teams out there who play the game to the best of their ability.
I agree with all of you about the “fixing” that is occuring. It is totally against the spirit of FIRST and Gracious Professionalism.
There are laws against price fixing in the real world, and I think it is totally unacceptable in FIRST, even if it is an agreement to not knock down boxes.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on that, and I hope that in future regionals, and at Houston, that teams who get an offer to “fix” a match would let officials know immediately.
*Originally posted by Alex1072 *
**The NFL does not give you twice the opossing team’s score if you win. This rule encourages cooperation between opposing teams. **
It might encourage interaction between teams, but that doesn’t mean that FIRST is encouraging plans made to help each other into the top eight.
Of course, this is debatable. But the elimination matches are there to encourage kids to think about strategy and competition while working on their engineering skills (i.e. the robot). The robots that usually win regionals, invitations, and nationals are the teams that are very hard to beat, and that have a good strategy and good design going for them…not the teams that helped each other along the way.
You shouldn’t need to sign a contract saying, “hey, if you don’t cheat the system for points, neither will I.” I think that goes with the reason that FIRST even exists.
try again, carpe cerevisi=seize the beer…but back to the post…how many teams would actually be willing to sign an agreement on thursday afternoon at Great Lakes to help deter this fixing? Also, are there any teams at other regionals this week that would be willing to help curve this? Leave your name and team number (for GL) and ill be sure to come see you thursday morning
I think that the fixing that these people are trying to make go down is fully and completly against what first or any other sport itself is about. I can see why teams would want to win first is a competition and the goal of a competition is in the end to win. Yet still though to win, you should win fair and square without the fixing which in my opinion is infact cheating. After reading about this i discussed it with other members of my team and they all agree with me on this topic.
I don’t believe this is “cheating” the system. I would agree that it is an unintentional part of the game, but I think it is a valid strategy. The only reason I’ll opt against agreeing not to wreck stacks, is that there seams to be a general concensus that it is unfair. I do not agree with this, but I will go along with it. (I do believe it is unfair to make agreements like this when other teams are purposefully not doing it.)
I think this only serves to make the games more interesting. There is nothing stoping the teams with the better robots from applying this as well. The way I saw the game played out at the Sacramento regional, the bins played an almost negligible role in the outcome of the game. All of them were shoved into the gray zones, and matches were decided by who had more robots on the HDPE. The score in our QF match was: 51 - 6. With the other team having both robots on the HDPE. I don’t think that makes for an interesting game. Agreeing not to destroy stacks encourages a higher scoring game that is imo equally competitive.
What I found surprising in AZ was the team that was first involved in the “fixing” had a very capable robot and a good driving skills. They did stop making agreements and scored a very respectable 166 pts in the first qual match on Sat a.m. They certainly would have made it into the elimination round (if not as a seed, then an early pick).
The price for being No. 1 seed might have been a bit higher than they thought…
You know what fixing means? Fixing means you make sure certain partner of yours loses in qualifying matches to help my ranking, and I’ll pick u as my alliance partner. That’s what fixing is, and I COMPLETELY agree that it is against the FIRST spirit.
But just making an agreement of leaving each other’s stacks alone and competing for the rest of the boxes is not. Maybe I’m not from a 6 or 7 year old team, but I’ve been in this competition for long enough to realize what FIRST spirit is, I think.
Making an agreement is just a strategy that maintains the sense of uncertainty and competetiveness in the competition. And again, why would FIRST make your score your score + 2 X loser’s score if they didn’t want the cooperation? Making agreements is just taking that cooperation to another level.
think about it
at the larger regionals, and especially at nationals there is no garuntee that you will compete against every team. these agreements may occur betwen two consenting aliances. In the next match there may be one alliance that wants to “fix” the match, and another that refuses. this gives the teams in the “fixed” match a great advantage over the alliances involved in the match that was not “fixed.” This is why this practice needs to be regulated (and by regulated i mean eliminated)…you are not going to come to a 100% consensus that this practice should continue, so as long as it does some teams will have a large advantage over others. this is why it should cease.
*Originally posted by Alex1072 *
**The NFL does not give you twice the opossing team’s score if you win. This rule encourages cooperation between opposing teams. **
One match at UTC ended in a tie (fairly, I presume, I was a volunteer onstage all day, I didn’t hear anything otherwise) and I guess the scoring is the same- two times the loosers score plus your own score… in the event of a tie, double the “loosers” score, and add your own score- both teams end up with 3 times their score in QP’s… that may encourage some teams to try to work something out, but I do believe it discourages the spirit of what FIRST stands for: a fair and even competition in which the best robots can win.
agreements aren’t necessarily bad (theres too much black and white going on here without enough grey…)
when we found that other teams were doing it we decided we should do as well because if we cant beat them on our own grounds well then why not go at them with their own strategy?
anyhow, one deal that was made was when one of the alliances only had one robot because the other robotic team didnt have their robot functioning (something broke was what i heard).
so when they and we realized we could take advantage of this situation we came to a compromise which was, since they knew they couldn’t get many point on a two to one match, they decided that getting as many points as possible would be great while the two robot alliance could enjoy a big boost in their average of points…
is this not one of the good aspects to stacking pacts?