Possible Rule change for Flordia? (Please) and the reason for more seeding rounds.

FIRST General Forum
#1

Posted by Mike King, Other on team #88, TJ², from Bridgewater Raynham and Johnson & Johnson Professional.

Posted on 3/21/99 2:29 PM MST

I’ve got two messages, but i’m putting them together because they are closely related.

First a little backround:
I want to recognize the Navy team, (“Das Goat”). They got a very bad run of luck. When we (Team #88 TJ²) were allied with them on Friday, we popped a fuse during power check. They had to play the match without our robot.
Then things went downhill from there. Saturday, Navy was allied with team 219, who (for reasons unknown to me, keep in mind there might a good reason) packed up and went home on friday. Then by another unbelieveable run of bad luck, they were allied again with team 219 in a later match.

Here’s the worse part. If your alliance partner is a complete no-show, FIRST rules allow for no replacement of the human player. That means the 3 floppies in the player station, are effectivly out of play.

That the facts, now here’s what I want.
Change the rule for florida, to allow you to have a human player. I don’t really care about not having an alliances robot on the field, but having 3 floppies locked away from you from the begining of the match is very brutal. There are numerous ways of filling that player station, from a second human player from your team, someone picked by FIRST, maybe even one of the FIRST Crew members.
I think this is one of the situations that FIRST never even thought of, hence they didn’t have a rule dealing with it.

As for the Reason for more seeding rounds, I think you can see why, The Navy team was without an alliance robot 3 times, and without an alliance 2 times. I didn’t catch the rest of their matches, but if there were only 4 matches… well I know you can see where this is leading.

Thoughts?

Mike

#2

Posted by Jay Booth, Student on team #140 from Tyngsboro High School and Brooks Automation / New England Prototype.

Posted on 3/21/99 3:25 PM MST

In Reply to: Possible Rule change for Flordia? (Please) and the reason for more seeding rounds. posted by Mike King on 3/21/99 2:29 PM MST:

I agree that if at all possible we should have more seeding rounds for all the reasons here and those in the giagantic thread I didn’t even finish about the issue. However, FIRST seems to be under the impression we’ll have too many teams and not enough time. I’m sure by this point it is really hard to reschedule to competition to allow for more time. So my solution is instead of putting the top 8 into the finals with a pick, have an extra round of finals and put the top 16 in with their draft choice. It uses significantly less time than giving each team another 4 qualifying rounds and makes the better teams much more represented. With 16 teams picking, many teams that were put in bad situations like the one you described, yet still showed that they had an excellent robot, will be picked. Hopefully. Anyhow that’s my 2 cents worth.

: I’ve got two messages, but i’m putting them together because they are closely related.

: First a little backround:
: I want to recognize the Navy team, (“Das Goat”). They got a very bad run of luck. When we (Team #88 TJ²) were allied with them on Friday, we popped a fuse during power check. They had to play the match without our robot.
: Then things went downhill from there. Saturday, Navy was allied with team 219, who (for reasons unknown to me, keep in mind there might a good reason) packed up and went home on friday. Then by another unbelieveable run of bad luck, they were allied again with team 219 in a later match.

: Here’s the worse part. If your alliance partner is a complete no-show, FIRST rules allow for no replacement of the human player. That means the 3 floppies in the player station, are effectivly out of play.

: That the facts, now here’s what I want.
: Change the rule for florida, to allow you to have a human player. I don’t really care about not having an alliances robot on the field, but having 3 floppies locked away from you from the begining of the match is very brutal. There are numerous ways of filling that player station, from a second human player from your team, someone picked by FIRST, maybe even one of the FIRST Crew members.
: I think this is one of the situations that FIRST never even thought of, hence they didn’t have a rule dealing with it.

: As for the Reason for more seeding rounds, I think you can see why, The Navy team was without an alliance robot 3 times, and without an alliance 2 times. I didn’t catch the rest of their matches, but if there were only 4 matches… well I know you can see where this is leading.

: Thoughts?

: Mike

#3

Posted by Jason, Coach on team #252/254, Bay Bombers/Cheesy Poofs, from Broadway High and NASA Ames.

Posted on 3/21/99 3:39 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Possible Rule change for Flordia? (Please) and the reason for more seeding rounds. posted by Jay Booth on 3/21/99 3:25 PM MST:

I’ve posted it before, but I agree. Let the top 16 teams pick allies in Florida.

Also, I know it’s too late, and might even be a dumb idea, but what about letting a few teams which only competed in regionals actually send their robots to EPCOT - NOT as entrants, but as fill-ins for teams which do not have a robot show up at the field for a match. That way at least random teams are not getting automatically knocked out of top 16 contention just because of a bad luck of the draw in pairings. Teams have worked too hard & too long to travel all the way to Florida to have only 4 mathces and then not even get a fair chance in one of those matches if your allie can not compete.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Regardless, I’m sure everyone will have a great time in Orlando. We are looking forward to it VERY much.

Jason

#4

Posted by Dodd Stacy, Engineer on team #95, Lebanon Robotics Team, from Lebanon High School and CRREL/CREARE.

Posted on 3/21/99 5:26 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Possible Rule change for Flordia? (Please) and the reason for more seeding rounds. posted by Jason on 3/21/99 3:39 PM MST:

I suggested in an earlier thread that teams in the staging lines be allowed to step up to the on-deck position if one of the scheduled teams doesn’t show for a match. Reading the concerns about possibly having only 4 Qualifying matches per team suggests a slight twist on this idea, but doesn’t require FIRST to do much of anything. I propose that any team in Florida who desires a CHANCE at additional Qualifying matches can stage up in an “on-call” area (on a first come, first served basis) and be prepared to take the place of any team who can’t answer the on-deck call for their scheduled Qualifying match. The no-show’s ally doesn’t get the shaft, the opponents don’t get a walk, and the stand-in team gets this reward for their readiness and willingness to stand on-call: they get to replace their worst score from their 4 (or however many) scheduled Qualifying matches with their score from the stand-in match, assuming that one is higher. A team that leaves the “on-call” staging line for a scheduled match should probably have to return to the end of the line (if they so chose) after the scheduled match.

Something like this would prevent what happened to the Navy team. It would maintain the highest levels of competition in Qualifying. It would improve the opportunity for well prepared teams to seed well. And I don’t see how this is any additional work for FIRST, other than a little change in book keeping.

Comments? Other ideas?

Dodd

#5

Posted by Jerry Eckert, Engineer on team #140 from Tyngsboro, MA High School and New England Prototype/Brooks Automation.

Posted on 3/21/99 5:32 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Possible Rule change for Flordia? (Please) and the reason for more seeding rounds. posted by Jay Booth on 3/21/99 3:25 PM MST:

: I agree that if at all possible we should have more seeding rounds for all the reasons here and those in the giagantic thread I didn’t even finish about the issue. However, FIRST seems to be under the impression we’ll have too many teams and not enough time. I’m sure by this point it is really hard to reschedule to competition to allow for more time. So my solution is instead of putting the top 8 into the finals with a pick, have an extra round of finals and put the top 16 in with their draft choice. It uses significantly less time than giving each team another 4 qualifying rounds and makes the better teams much more represented. With 16 teams picking, many teams that were put in bad situations like the one you described, yet still showed that they had an excellent robot, will be picked. Hopefully. Anyhow that’s my 2 cents worth.

Hi Jay! Long time, no see… :slight_smile:

If I remember correctly, there are going to be approximately 200 teams participating at
Disney. Allowing 16 more teams into the finals won’t be of any benefit to the vast
majority of the participants.

The best idea I’ve seen so far (which happens to be one I also thought of while at Hartford
this weekend) is to overlap matches with scoring of the previous match. I think a very
conservative estimate is that you could have 50% more qualifying matches without changing the
competition schedule.

- Jerry
#6

Posted by Jeff Burch, Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Delco Electronics Systems.

Posted on 3/22/99 10:11 AM MST

In Reply to: Possible Rule change for Flordia? (Please) and the reason for more seeding rounds. posted by Mike King on 3/21/99 2:29 PM MST:

I Think Mike’s got an excellent point. As he states, FIRST probably did not anticipate
the situation where a team (including human player) would be a complete no show.

Some rule somewhere absolutely must change so that floppies are never inaccessible to a team! Solutions include having other teams stand in as has been suggested elsewhere or, as Mike suggests, having a human player assigned by FIRST for the missing team. Access to the three floppies in your allies human player station is a must!

I hope FIRST responds, it’s not too late!

Jeff Burch

#7

Posted by Jerry Eckert, Engineer on team #140 from Tyngsboro, MA High School and New England Prototype/Brooks Automation.

Posted on 3/22/99 10:31 AM MST

In Reply to: Definite Rule Change Needed for Florida!!! posted by Jeff Burch on 3/22/99 10:11 AM MST:

If they want to make the change REALLY simple, just give the all six floppies to the
remaining human player. Whatever minor advantage that gives the team is more than offset
by having only one robot on the floor.

- Jerry

: I Think Mike’s got an excellent point. As he states, FIRST probably did not anticipate
: the situation where a team (including human player) would be a complete no show.

: Some rule somewhere absolutely must change so that floppies are never inaccessible to a team! Solutions include having other teams stand in as has been suggested elsewhere or, as Mike suggests, having a human player assigned by FIRST for the missing team. Access to the three floppies in your allies human player station is a must!

: I hope FIRST responds, it’s not too late!

:
: Jeff Burch

#8