i could see people who want to climb 30 on the practice field avoiding it in fear that their robot will fall if the climber isn’t perfect or was added for championship.
Well, this looks useless.
This is my point exactly. You can’t do this stuff with 6 teams operating as a practice match.
I too agree the practice field wasn’t the best managed at several events. At Pine Tree when we were testing our climber there were two other robots testing their shooters on the either side of the pryamid. Not the safest setup but all teams on the field were asked prior if we we could share a slot and we agreed.
Champs would be best setup with the following:
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Two full practice fields for tethered operation (two for each division just like we always have had).
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Several carpeted practice spaces that could include the following setup (One set of goals with pyramid spaced to field specs and next to it a stand alone pyramid for climb testing).
Now I am all for radio practice matches those are good and if FIRST/the community saw a need for these I would recommend one full practice field for tethered testing and one full practice field for full practice matches (run one match at a time for quick turn over of teams) AND increase the number of option 2 above so more teams can do tethered testing.
The reasons Brandon has mentioned are the reasons we need tethered field testing. The purpose is to diagnose while operating. If not how will you know what to fix or where your problems lie. Most of the time we have issues in a regular match we say, “Straight to the practice field/pit to test this” not, “Lets get right back in line for another match”.
Yet again FIRST blows it big time. Pure genius move. Obviously nobody at FIRST understands why teams use the practice fields. It’s got nothing to do with practicing driving and everything to do with debugging.
If this was a safety issue they should have said “due to the unsafe nature of having multiple robots and people interacting on the practice field, we have decided…”. Instead it just makes it sound like they did it for the hell of it.
They’ve allowed people on the practice field with their robots for a very long time. It’s hard to believe it only became a safety concern now.
One of the things that bugs me is that way FMS and the robot interface is different than the practice field without FMS. I had a number of teams at events this year that we could identify a problem but would be unable to replicate it on the practice field. I got the CSAs involved and we would eventually hammer it out. It sucked not being able to run a test match with FMS outside of qual rounds to try and identify the cause/test potential solutions. It’s frustrating. This will help with that, but I suspect that most of the teams that made it to Championship will have had those problems knocked out at prior events.
Wetzel
Can’t agree with this more. I’d be totally okay with this change if they were open with their reasoning (and the reasons were good)
This game is actually very dangerous with most teams firing discs at extremely high speed as well as climbing multiple levels. Safety could have played into the decision. We aren’t shooting poof balls or just climbing to one level our robots this year can cause injuries!
If safety was a factor I hope FIRST would tell us that so it sits better not, “I think this is a better idea lets give it a try.”
This is just awful. I was really looking forward to the managed, allotted time blocks that the 2012 Championships offered, at least in writing. How well did this work in practice last year? I’d much rather have one and only one solid guaranteed 15 minute debugging session than try to wait in line, feel rushed, hope someone doesn’t overstay their welcome, or have to pop out for a match.
Just trying to understand if someone knows more on the reasoning of the change.
Then they should have disallowed people being on the practice field with the robots after week 1 regionals. They can’t possibly only have figured out now that frisbees are unsafe.
I feel like this practice field arrangement will result in fewer teams getting their 7 disc auto working for championship, that didn’t have it before championship. It’s a shame that this looks like it will change how the game evolves at championship.
I went to 6 events this year and at no time were people on the field whilst robots were active.
Edit: I was referring the full field above. The practice field was often a mess and required constant supervision.
Wetzel
Very true, however how many regional events had a full field for tethered practice in 2013? If 2013 practice field rules were the same as previous years, how many teams would be on the field at once? I don’t know about you but at every regional I have been to in 10 years the practice field has been small and not a full field so FIRST wouldn’t have seen this until they started planning the 2013 practice field rules.
The safety side does make sense when you have teams like 67, 1519, 987, 610, and other FCS cranking away full court shots and others want to test too. I personally would not want to be on the field testing while those teams are.
If safety was their reasoning it makes sense. I agree it would be nice to know that reasoning.
Took 'em 7 weeks to conclude there’d be a barrage of HP lobbed discs at the end of the match.
On the field at all, or on the goal side? If the concern was teams interfering with each other, why not just improve on the regional model of putting each team in a requested position? If they orchestrate it as well as in the past, having 6 teams on a full field (3 at each pyramid, or 2 FCSs + 3 pyramid + 1 driving) wouldn’t present the safety issues that regionals trying to squeeze 3-4 teams onto a 1/3 field do.
Other than the FCS option, Worlds is less dangerous than the events I’ve attended: the field is more open (no pillar in the middle :rolleyes:), no tethers running everywhere, only 3 teams per pyramid.
If they really did do it for the purpose of allowing teams to play ‘real’ practice matches (ie practice driving) then why not allow both on the field but not at the same time. Every other 15 minute slot could be tethered and teams can sign up for whichever one they want. Maybe to regulate it say that one of the flex slots must be in a driving practice and the other in a tethered practice.
I think that, on a 6 team field, there really are major safety issues. Full court shooting comes to mind. There would have to be safety regulations for the tethered field time where other people are on the field requiring hard hats and disallowing shooting from beyond x distance. Additionally, climbing and shooting could be difficult together: if one team wants to climb the back horizontal bars of the pyramid and the other wants to shoot from the back, they could intersect. To solve this, practice zones would have to be reserved and designed so that robots could not interfere with each other or endanger the people on the field.
Sure, lots of problems exist but they all seem solvable.
If I had to guess, I would say the reasoning behind this change is a direct response to the issues on Einstein 2012. They are hoping that running full practice matches with FMS will allow teams and CSAs to identify and debug control system problems by providing conditions identical to the real field. Potentially transferring delays from the competition fields to the practice fields.
It’s not a good reason, and the logic seems flawed to me, but I think it’s the most reasonable explanation for why they chose this new format.
I’m all for solving FMS issues on the practice field, but does that required running structured matches? Regardless, it’d be nice if FIRST would publish their rationale for making tuning autonomous and climbing routines that much more difficult.
When it comes to making sure their robots are perfect teams don’t always engage in the wisest behaviors. The practice fields tend to be a Wild West where teams seem to forget their common sense and GP and climb over each other for time on every available scrap of carpet.
Anyone else notice that there is no mention of changing point values for the pyramid? It would appear that they will not be changed. I would think they would have put this in this Update if they were going to do it.