Rookie Team impressions from Kettering

FIRST General Forum
1

We are back from the rookie competition at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, and I was asked to pass along my impressions of the competition.

As co-leader of the MiGHT Robotics team, I found the event to be wonderful. There were some nasty technical difficulties in the beginning, but the arena electronics problems were completely unprecedented in the history of FIRST, so live and learn.

I thought the event, the announcer, the referees, and the teams that came just to help out were really great and created a very positive impression for rookie teams.

If I were going to complain, it wouldn’t be about the event, it would be that certain aspects of the game were completely wrong for the teams and spectators. Games should not be decided by the referees after the game is over. I can’t think of any sport that consistently forces referees to decide the outcome of matches. Spectators want to be in the moment, and waiting to find out who “really” won after the match, based on penalties, is a big negative. Also, the penalties seemed overly harsh and capricious. In real sporting events, teams are penalized for doing things that give them an advantage. Accidentally “breaking the plane” of a line you have crossed conferred no advantage, and was penalized very harshly in a game where it is difficult to score. It would be like if the NFL had a one touchdown penalty for an offensive linemen stepping back with his right foot first instead of his left.

Imagine how the team (and particularly the individual driver) felt who lost his or her team and alliance the final match by “breaking the plane”. Why in the world is that a TEN POINT penalty!

So, I thought the event was great, but I think the rules of the game should be more balanced and reasonable, and referees should only very rarely be reversing the outcome of games. For the record, our team had very few penalties, so this isn’t just grumbling.

We had a great time and learned a tremendous amount, so thank you to all those who worked so hard to put on an invaluable event just for us rookies!

John Hooper
MiGHT Robotics

2

Apparently, you were not in Portland a few years ago. :slight_smile:

-dave

3

I also don’t think he was around in 2005, when the slightest contact with a robot on the other alliance while they were in a certain area was 30 points. That one swung more than one match.

4

i was there, and we didn’t have a problem with the breaking the plane issue. Its just part of the game, watch for the flags during the match, and you will get an idea of what the out come will be.

5

It seems to me that something like an intentional ram or interference should be a bigger penalty than plane breaking, but oh well. It is what it is.

Hopefully we won’t have to spend 2.5 hours on the field while everyone else is working on their robots at regionals, though. :slight_smile:

6

Being a rookie, all I know is what I was told. This problem was with the arena electronics not being able to communicate with all of the robots. At first, some robots could not be shut down, then some of them in certain positions could not move at all.

If this is a common problem, I am surprised they don’t bring backup systems. Rock stars don’t stop concerts for a few hours to fiddle around with their sound systems.

Having huge penalties for easily made mistakes that give a team no advantage only serves to make the rules more important than the competition, the robots, and the spectators. If the purpose of FIRST is to promote engineering and technology like a sport, hoping to tap into the same excitement that people feel for sports, then the rules should be reasonable and not interfere with the game.

Even if your team didn’t have a problem with the rule, the game is played in alliance with two other teams, and either one of them could knock out your entire score in less than ten seconds. I think the actual intent of the rule was to stop teams from going backwards to grab balls or score. It wasn’t really the intent of the rule to obliterate a lot of good work just because a robot, while trying to race around a track, over-corrected coming out of a turn.

Also, you can tell spectators to watch for flags and mentally adjust the scores while they are watching, but there is a good reason why sports aren’t played this way: people don’t like it. People don’t want to watch two race cars blast down the final stretch and see one outmuscle the other, only to have it decided five minutes later that actually both of those cars lost because of penalties that happened dozens of laps before, and really the third place car won.

Sure, make the rules any way you like: but if the purpose is to promote your cause and draw in the public, these rules don’t work.

7

The problem was with the transmitters. They do pack extra transmitters, but there was only one spare left for this event and two transmitters failed. The FTA (official FIRST Tech guru) was trying to fix the system instead of work around it. This is not a common occurence and is usually resolved within an hour. In this case we had to get spare transmitters shipped next-day to fix the system (delivered during lunch Saturday), so when the Qualifying matches commenced, they were on a jury-rigged system.

Seperately, the inspectors mentioned that most teams were glad for the shutdown, because though it was boring for the spectators, the pit crews used this valuable time to greatly upgrade their robots, which resulted in a more exciting competition than what would’ve happened otherwise. Just a point that a waste of time for some was very valuable to others.

The result of all of the penalties being called was more disciplined drivers. As the competition went on, the referees threw fewer and fewer penalties (The finals didn’t have any penalties thrown). It’s a learning curve that teams work through, and this group of very green teams performed spectacularly in handling the learning curve and other challanges the game presented.

These rookie teams ran the spectrum from decent to spectacular. The rookie hurdlers made for a very exciting elimination round. I think this is the first regional where I can honestly say that there wasn’t one useless team. Every team did what it was designed to do very well and efficiently. There weren’t any lame ducks on this pond. These teams performed better than many veteran teams that I see.

I wasn’t there, but I saw the webcast and recall two Portlands that had massive delays (one was '04, I think the other was '06). This delay was much worse. At least Mark Leon could keep the crowd somewhat engaged during the shutdown.

8

Our robot, and five others, were kept on the track for hours, so the long delay was both boring to the spectators and a disadvantage to our team and others.

The result of all of the penalties being called was more disciplined drivers. As the competition went on, the referees threw fewer and fewer penalties (The finals didn’t have any penalties thrown). It’s a learning curve that teams work through, and this group of very green teams performed spectacularly in handling the learning curve and other challanges the game presented.

As I saw it, the referees mercifully relaxed the “breaking the plane” rule quite a bit, which was clearly the right thing to do. We did instruct our drivers to never back up, even if a robot had them blocked in, unless they were absolutely certain they were nowhere near a line. This didn’t improve the game, it just meant that people sat stuck at the ends of the track a lot, afraid to back up and go around.

I don’t know why anyone wants to argue for a penalty that is obviously far too severe and damages the flow of the game.

I am giving feedback and making suggestions in an attempt to improve the competitions and further the stated goals of FIRST. I am a middle-aged software engineer who is donating a lot of time and money to participate in FIRST because I believe it is a good idea.

Robots can be greatly improved in a few hours, and competitions and competition rules can be improved over time as well – but not if you spin negatives into positives and live in delusion.

9

What was the up-side for the six on the field and six more in the que during the 3++ hour delay? Do you think maybe the pits should have been closed until all teams had access?

I saw just about as many infractions later on as I saw early, but not as many being called. I assumed it was because the refs had gotten too tired to catch every last one.

10

Oops, double post.

11

John, before you think poorly of the penalties this year (a little late, I know), there was a rule in 2005 that was far, far worse.

Starting at the beginning here: There were 8 triangular “loading zones” on the field, 4 per alliance. Teams “in” the zones were protected, much like a hurdler is this year. This was due to safety issues.

Problem #1: the definition of “in the zone” changed repeatedly. Eventually, it was “anything touching the zone is in” and stayed that way. I think this was somewhere around Week 1, maybe a little later.

Problem #2: any contact with a robot retrieving scoring objects in the zone was a 30-point penalty.

Oh, and scores were lower that year, comparatively.

This meant that contacting a robot in the loading zone was almost a sure guarantee of losing the match.

It’s better this year, though not by much. At least the refs don’t have to decide whether to give 30 points or 10 points in penalties (yes, there were two different point values in 2005! 30 points as above, and 10 points for anything else).

I’m not trying to put a positive light on this, just show that there have been worse penalties in the past.

12

If that is true, Eric, then all the more reason for FIRST to be responsive in improving the rules. Maybe I have been naive in taking the stated goals of FIRST seriously. There is no doubt that Draconian penalties for slight acccidental infractions that in no way confer an advantage to your team ruins the competition for spectators, and they certainly don’t make the participants happy either … well, except for the teams that are lucky enough to escape these penalties and lucky enough to be in alliance with teams who manage to avoid such penalties.

Maybe every team should spin a big dial after matches as well, and have huge random numbers arbitrarily added to or deducted from their scores.:slight_smile:

13

John,
The problem, as I see it, is this - where do you draw the line? The rule states that you must move counterclockwise around the track and once you completely enter a zone you cannot cross back. Consider the following two scenarios:

  1. Robot A rounds a corner, crosses the line and accidentally crosses back briefly before moving on.

  2. Robot B rounds a corner, crosses the line and turns to pick up a ball on the line causing them to briefly cross back before moving on.

Both robots did the same thing, but in one case it was a big advantage and in the other case it was a mistake. The refs shouldn’t have to decide the intent of the robot recrossing the line - that would/could be too subjective causing more arguments.

Consider a high-sticking pentalty in hockey. It doesn’t matter the intent of the player high-sticking, just that they can’t do it. A large number of high-sticking pentalties are accidents, but you need to be in control of your stick. Robot drivers need to be in control of their robot.

I’m not saying I like or dislike the rule, but I understand why it is called the way it is.

Just my $0.02

14

Two points here…

  1. In retrospect, we should have cleared the field earlier and had those teams come back out when the work-around was put in place. We kept trying to fix it, and kept thinking that the next action was going to make things all better. I agree that this was unfair to the teams on the field. I am sorry that we did not clear the field earlier.

  2. No, the referees did not relax G22 as the competition went on. We worked hard to be consistent through the entire event. Clearly, drivers got better. As the head referee, I spoke with many drivers as Saturday’s matches proceeded, telling them that they were getting considerably better. The day ended with the final 2 matches being penalty-free, if I recall correctly.

From my perspective, this rookie event was great. This event prepared all of these teams to compete at a high level at their official FIRST events during the upcoming weeks.

Andy Baker

15

Craig,

I agree that sometimes “intention” rules can lead to subjective and inconsistent rulings that are also unpopular. However, they are often used in sports like soccer and football for flagrant or unsportmanlike actions, carrying a much higher penalty for the same action. I personally didn’t see a robot “breaking the plane” in an attempt to get a ball. Every case appeared to be accidental. If it had been a 2 point penalty, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome of many games.

16

is there any video of the competition?? I am interested in a team that went to the competition!

thanks

17

True except for the fact that with a 2pt penalty a team may have been more willing to take a penalty to go back to get a ball or stop a team from setting a ball on the overpass at the end. I saw a few instances where a team wanted to get a ball that rolled into the previous zone and they thought better of going to get it due to the penalty.

I don’t know if there is an easy answer here - just playing a little devil’s advocate :smiley:

18

Well, if they intentionally broke the rule to get a ball or stop a team from scoring, that would be the proper 10-point penalty. Like in football, where accidentally grabbing the facemask and immediately letting go is a 5-yard penalty, but intentionally grabbing the face mask and hanging on is a personal foul, 15-yard penalty.

Anyway, many veterans of these competitions have let me know privately that FIRST does not alter rules just because they work against the entire purpose of FIRST. The important thing, apparently, is not to try to improve the rules to make the game more exciting and playable, but to grimly discipline young people into cautiously driving around a track like grannies, fearing above all making a mistake.

My bad, carry on.

19

being from a rookie team that got well screwed over from both a ram that tipped an alliance mebers bot and a questionable plane breaking i think both should be swayed in the oppisite direction breaking the plane a little and getting a ten point penalty is just stupid and haveing one of your allaince’s bots flipped and the other team gettign no penalty is just ridiculous but hey what are you gonna do besides give them hell in regional see you at Great Lakes

20

LOL I live with a techie and I’ve heard the “I’ve almost got it” so many times, I know to prepare not to see him for hours! Sometimes days.

Perhaps the solution here is to let wives write the official FIRST rule for how technical problems are to be handled during competition. My suggestion would be to set a 15 minute time limit for the technical gurus to fix the problem, then the field is cleared and a one hour break begins.

Kimberly