RECF “rep” is very different than RECF Region Support Manager - and regardless - first point of contact moving forward post-event…
Please respect professional way forward is to behave professionally - and that means being able to have difficult conversations with people you might perceive not to be on same wavelength about VRC - that post event conversation is helpful for teams and make sure to have your adult team representative present (that being the person who registered your team, who is not a HS student, and 18+).
This whole controversy at this event seems quite silly. Every team should’ve came into the season expecting at least some defense. Just because a region can’t handle some defense, doesn’t mean that another robot’s strategy (that is working phenomenally) should be illegalized. Change Up is a game where it is intended to be an offensive game, but team’s should expect defense. This part of the game manual is pretty much a copy-paste from ITZ, where 62a used a purely defensive strategy and robot design to demolish science division (rip science division drivetrains). 1721G’s strategy should not be stopped, but should be encouraged to see more diverse strategies in this year’s game, not just the typical hood-bot. Good luck YY and 1721G with this whole thing.
I wish more teams had this mentality. Instead of settling with a design and hoping that refs make decisions in their favor, fixing the original problem leaves teams with a more robust design, while promoting the design process. During a few of 1721G’s matches, they played more aggressive defense on teams with good build quality because they knew the teams could handle defense without falling apart, which just punishes teams for being good.
It might not be your intention, but it does come across condescending.
@Foster mentioned valid points for considerations for in LRT context.
I’d have thought it should trigger healthy discussion rather than just putting up a full defensive wall and brushed off the points raised.
Foster is correct that the robot would not do well in LRT. It was not designed for LRT. In person, it is consistently one of the best robots at every tournament it goes to, often single-handedly winning 2v1s against elite teams. My point was that 1721G’s matches being low scoring does not make them bad. In reality, these low scores are evidence of how good they are. My apologies if this came off as rude.
To be fair, think for an in-person worlds, i might even have a team that will go defensive as well.
Not that it will do well in qualifying matches (as any defensive bot will need to rely on their alliance to score), but the defensive ability will be useful for this season in-person game.
If anything, for an in-person worlds, I might just suggest to somehow improving its scoring ability… even if it is by a bit more.
This robot is Change Up’s version of 62A, with limited scoring but an amazing capability for defense. On paper, the low scores may come off as evidence of a bad robot. But in reality, this plays exactly to their strengths. And underestimating its scoring ability would be a mistake. This robot has 2 motor intakes and a 6 motor drive with no shooting mechanism yet completes the home row in autonomous singlehandedly more than 80% of the time. This robot will inherently not do well in qualifications matches(remember 62A ranked 56th in qualifications, was picked by the 1st seed, and then went on to win the entire division at 2018 worlds), as it is an eliminations robot. My entire point is that this robot is not bad by any means and can definitely be considered one of the best in the world. However, questionable calls that limit its defense-playing ability severely limit how fun these tournaments turn out to be. What would have happened if referees had told teams that 62A could not move across the field at full speed to hit another robot at Worlds? Would they have been the first seed? Would they win the Science division? Would they be remembered as the legends that they are? This hard position against defense really worries me, as it prevents unique designs and innovation, which, if we’re being serious, is what VEX is really about. This is not meant to be a reply to Meng btw, just a general statement.
Well… as someone that has been around for ages (in VRC limited history), 62 is a legend not because of their ITZ design.
Their chain-bar stacker in Skyrise was the reason of their coming-to-fame.
Great team and great guys.
But I do understand your frustration with the perceived biasness against defensive bot. I put perceived because I don’t think there is any way to collect definite data regarding this.
And trust me - after taking part in a few REC-organised LRTs, I can start to understand the frustrations and unhappiness that some students have against the rulings, etc.
But what @lacsap is trying to drive at is about approaching these sort of issues via the proper channel. Nothing wrong with that too.
After addressing some concerns raised in a private thread, I think this thread has become sidetracked from the original topic. I think this person’s words are a good summary of why this post exists, and they can share their identity if they would like.
The only other thing I’m going to say about the post is that YY stated that they already talked to their RSM, and probably intended this post to not only get the attention of EP’s and the RECF, but also create a community discussion about this issue. I would’ve never expected Sarah, Grant, Meng, or Jess to contribute to this discussion if it was just being left in VTOW or in DM’s.
No disrespect was intended towards @Foster or @lacsap , in fact, from all my experiences with Foster in person, he is indeed a very nice individual, even allowing us to use the practice fields after the competition to film a reveal. I have never interacted with lacsap but have likewise heard good things about his events.
However, I think it’s important to be able to respectfully disagree with some of their points, even if it’s not completely on topic. The discussion about our strategy has already happened, and is not really productive. As for advocating the official channels of communication with the RECF, I reiterate that the representative/RSM was contacted during the competition and this post is more so to raise awareness about the situation and ask for the opinions of the community.
Agreed, I think the main issue is that vex has basically made 2 completely different games this year due to COVID. One just normal in person change up and the other lrs and lrt with these people build robots that are just meant to be light and fast and don’t have to worry about defense(like my sister team 319a has their drive motors out side of their drive) this leads to people like yy(1721g) and even myself (319k) building defense heavy bots to counter the so called “speed meta” from bots made to not touch other bots. From people that have insanely light and fast drives like 2011 or others they say “just go fast score fast” or something along those lines. This shows that they have no intent in countering defense. Also with lrs being a thing this leads to people being to max skills with out having to deal with the tolerances of vex fields, most of the top prog runs will never work on another field, even a friend of mine had the issue at states where his 126 on his field was nowhere close to getting 126 on his schools field. Even just this shows that there are teams that build just for the purpose of dominating at home or in a certain region and have confidence that they will win everything and just get their mentors to whine whenever an obstacle they did not account for gets in their way. Some ways you can even minimize damage for defense is having non jointed intakes, this allows for no pivot abs a stronger joint, you can also use steel or more cross bracing, even having side skirts helps avoid this. Also one of the big issues is motor power, the v5 motor is 2x the power of v4 and can run a drive on 600 rpm. Over all if this keeps being an issue just do what frc did, inforced bumpers, you will lose more people but you won’t have the issues, also more and more teams are moving to battle bots because it can be cheaper and more fun than vex. Overall I think vex should incourage stronger designs, people don’t want cars that just go so fast you don’t have to worry about getting in a wreck do they? Why do people want robots that just go so fast they don’t get touched. Thx for reading and gl Yy
As someone who might know something about this game’s inception… this type of design was always planned for from day one.
We aren’t here to teach snowflake engineering principles; while this opinion is unpopular with many, you must teach how to plan for real world interactions rather than hypotheticals on paper.
The best designers and teams will have the foresight and agility to counter any strategy thrown towards them. Rise to the challenge; don’t complain.
Welcome back Chuck!! Hope things are going well for you!
When most of the US based design process really started in the fall Worlds was no longer going to be in person, so the concept of defensive bots wasn’t really there. They are still not in person. So being prepared against physical contact isn’t a thing, in this years real world
While playing defense is fine, damaging your opponent makes little sense, they could very well be your partner in the next match. Having them in the pit doing a repair or limping around the field is not a benefit. With smaller in person events (we had 16 teams) and fast cycle times it’s possible to be on a field every other/third match.
I’ll submit that both part of that strategy can happen without damaging the other robots. From the original post it was the damage that started the controversy. Nobody likes to see damage and you know Chuck from your days as an EP, damaged robots don’t make anyone happy.
