Just curious, where did they say that Bo3 is never coming back? Would really like to know.
In my honest opinion, adding and reworking rules already makes it harder for seasoned refs to adapt to the new system. It puts a high emphasis on training the refs, which is not properly done in what I would say is the majority of competitions (Coming from anecdotal evidence, so take this info whatever way you want). I feel as though keeping a simple system that has less problems than Bo1 is the best way to go, in my opinion. I would have liked to see tests done for this Bo1 format at tournaments other than Worlds as well, simply just to see the local affect of this system. Or, who knows, maybe VEX did. VEX kinda has a thing about not showing data anyways (This part could be interpreted as uncivil, so just gonna put this disclaimer here that I mean this in with the upmost respect)
The 2018/2019 rules are clear and while there might be some slim chance that the rules are reversed next year it is probably best for most of you students that have 2-3 years remaining in this activity to adjust to the reality that b01 is permanent for you.
We should really be allowed to start with why they made the decision in the first place. I’m sure this has been discussed, in one way or another, for years… And we’re just left guessing.
I’m not defending Bo1 I am simply saying all evidence points to that it is not going anywhere and it’s time to move on.
Paul has not made any indication he is willing to reverse the decision, they have repeatedly said they prefer the change so I have made peace with any gripe I have with it and have chose to simply adjust to the new changes.
I personally don’t care, although the shorter elim rounds were better from a spectators standpoint, and my kids weren’t passionate about it either way, but they were tired seniors.
I do not feel strongly either way. However, I don’t think we’re giving Vex, RECF and the GDC enough credit if we don’t assume that they had long, protracted “merit-based discussions” about this change. I wouldn’t be surprised if people didn’t punch holes in the walls, throw chairs, and call each others’ mommas ugly during the decision process (kidding, of course). I imagine that this decision was not made on a whim. And I also imagine that - after going through all that pain - they don’t wish to or feel the need to open up the discussion again. As Coldedge says, the decision is made, it it probably best to move forward and assume Bo1 is here for the foreseeable future.
I’m pretty sure that nobody assumes that they made this decision on a whim (I could be wrong about that tho). That’s why I was simply asking to see the data used to make a decision like this. If an official at VEX says that that information is confidential then simply a “road map” by VEX would suffice. Just something telling us the plans they are working on or ideas currently being debated would calm the community down and make people finalize their opinion of the VEX Robotics Competition.
You all are lucky enough that Paul even chose to take his time to type out a response to all the hate.
In life you have to deal with rules and regulations, and this is just a new barrier that every competitor has to face. Not just forum users, every competitor. VEX is literally telling forum users to stop the hate and move on by locking the original post, so you are only hurting yourselves. It is only a matter of time until people start getting accounts locked, and from the looks of it that time may come soon.
When an operating system changes and a new format is introduced, is everyone satisfied?
No, but are you going to keep complaining until it’s changed to something better?
Look at Windows. 7 was great, 8 got a lot of complaints, and then 10 took the best of both and everyone is happy again.
VEX did a similar thing with VEX U. First we started with 2 robots, then went to 1 robot, and now we are at 2 robots again.
The point is they aren’t going to change something until it is shown in full effect, and one piece of data (worlds 2018) is not enough to show that Bo1 screws a lot of teams over. Neither do the various online polls that people keep making when they haven’t even competed in an official tournament yet.
As for the skills challenge changes, we did that to ourselves. People were cheating just to get a spot at worlds when so many other people worked so much harder and still didn’t get in. If you cheat in college, you pretty much get kicked out, so be happy that VEX just chose to implement a system that has no benefit to people who cheated before. At the South Texas Regional this year, a starstruck robot qualified for worlds when so many other people had put in so much more time, effort, and money. So to sum it up, you guys did this to yourselves. You swapped the license plate, you took away another team’s hard work just to keep a strong name, and now you see the punishment for it. It’s not about winning, it’s about the experience. All you get for winning awards at worlds are a trophy and banner at most, so don’t think it will lead you straight to fame and fortune because that is not the purpose of VEX.
There are so many teams that don’t post on the forums who may be in favor of the new changes, so consider that as well. You are all assuming that Bo1 has brought pain to EVERY team when really you are just following a common trend of people disliking it. It may work out very well at qualifying tournaments, worlds is stressful no matter what so don’t use Bo1 as an excuse for not getting as far as you wanted to.
Here is what DRow said when he locked the other thread:
Based on this, and the fact that Paul Copioli once said he delayed responding to help foster discussion about the changes, I assume that VEX is okay with discussion about Bo1 and the Skills changes (and might even want some calm, civil discussion about them), but wants everyone to remain civil, and to avoid making personal attacks at all costs.
If people concentrate on protesting Bo1 at the expense of their performance this season, or if they leave VEX without thinking it through, that is their loss.
However, if someone truly feels that they couldn’t possibly enjoy VEX without the guarantee of getting a second chance if they have a fluke loss, or without the assurance that they can qualify for Worlds regardless of the size of their region (or their ability to attend Signature Events), I strongly believe that they have the right to encourage VEX to reconsider these changes.
When a high-quality team leaves VEX, that is a loss to the whole VEX community.
Throughout all these changes be it VEXU 2->1 1->2 robots, BO3 → BO1, combining driver/programming skills, and global skills worlds slots elimination there’s a common theme. No consultation with all the stakeholders. That’s the issue here in a nutshell ladies and gentlemen. VEX/IFI, RECF and GDC seem to be the only stakeholders consulted about major changes meanwhile the most important stakeholders, teams and volunteers, are simply told to like it or lump it.
Thank you asking my opinion and I hope that I won’t get slammed a third time in as many days by expressing it. I am fortunate to have work with and led many excellent teams in my life and understand what it takes to be exceptional in the domain of technology and engineering. It takes commitment to see things through on short deadlines. Along the way, many skills are developed, and, sometimes, rewarded by recognition. Seeing this in VRC is why I chose to put time and effort running a robotics program and host events.
I believe Bo1 will favor strong teams in the long run. These are teams who will weigh consistency in their robots and risk taking in their game strategy and have stronger interpersonal communication skills that allow them to work effectively with alliance partners. A strong alliance that is effectively working collaboratively has a great chance of outplaying more technically designed robots where the alliance partners do not have effective interpersonal communication and collaboration skills. I believe it will increase the quality of competitions for all in the long run.
Bo3 seems inferior to me, having to unnecessarily rely on a “do over” instead getting it right every time. Yes this would have benefited teams in the past, but in the long run winning every match in elimination to make it to the top is pretty sweet accomplishment to determine “the best of the best”.
I admire all those who participate in the program who work hard day in, day out. Your commitment in improving every day is exemplary. The improvement in quality of robots over the years has been improving dramatically.
I do not believe you will be able to get all the stakeholders input - the population is WAY to big.
I can say the GDC has input from Teams, EPs, Volunteers, etc. before making big decisions about the game. RECF makes its decisions qualifying criteria as well. The RECF and VEX have a pretty global footprint in the front lines.
What they don’t do and probably won’t is vet every decision on VEX forum.
Just a quick note, all of these comments are meant to be completely civil and by no means offensive.
First of all, no human gains nothing but praise. You should always be used to gaining some sort of criticism, but a lot of times that criticism can help shape an even better approach to solve a problem. The employees of VEX, especially Paul, do what they do because they are passionate about their task of getting students involved in learning STEM concepts today so that they become better engineers or mathematicians or scientists tomorrow. Paul was one of the founders of VRC, and he clearly did so because of this passion. There are so many risks in doing what he chose to do that there is no point to argue against these facts. VEX employees are similar to teachers. They are not billionaires, even though they may have the potential to be, but they do what they do because they have a passion to help create a brighter kid no matter what the reward is. It is never about the money.
The feedback that led Windows to create an overall better program was feedback that was given OVER TIME. It wasn’t based on feedback given in a week, it was based on feedback given over years.
I never said that anyone quite because of the VEX U rule, but there was criticism towards it since it was one of the few things that made VEX U unique (well, not as much anymore). You would be surprised at how many new doors 2 robots per team could have opened up during starstruck and in the zone.
Worlds is the most competitive event of the entire season, so Bo1 is just stacking onto a wide variety of factors that make it challenging to move on through the brackets. We have not seen Bo1 in action at any official qualifying tournaments or state championships, so its not a fair base of judgement.
Your data about worlds is contradicting itself. Your saying that the new system screwed over a lot of top teams, but if these top teams really were “top” teams, then they should have been prepared and good enough to win whatever match they ended up losing because of the new system.
There have been so many public polls about Bo1 that I am absolutely certain not every member that contributed competed at or attended worlds.
You can’t prove that only American and Chinese teams were submitting fake scores or were swapping license plates. I know for a fact that VEX wouldn’t say any specific places either, so you seem to be going off of public opinions and rumors for that assumption.
Only 3 (now 2) qualification spots involve winning: the tournament champions. I would say around 70% of teams that qualified for worlds qualified through awards (such as design and excellence) or through skills (which some people were being dishonest about). Now, they are letting pretty much every award offered in vex qualify you because they are looking for the well-rounded teams that may not always be winners, but clearly show that they have a passion for robotics and have discovered the practical side of it. This is very similar to the college application process, which every high school student has to go through at some point.
You said that Bo1 screwed over a lot of the top teams. That right there is a clear excuse for not moving on at worlds. If 8825S did not get as far as winning worlds, then I wouldn’t doubt it if they thought that Bo1 was the reason why. You feel so satisfied after winning worlds that there really is not reason to argue against something that didn’t impact your overall performance.
To end, I will give an example of how Bo1 applies to real life.
The iPhone is the most popular cell phone in the world, and as such Apple is one of the richest companies in the world.
Lets say that the day Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone and presented it to the public in the convention center that they used, it stopped working. The screen was not detecting his finger, the home button wasn’t working, and all of this was happening in front of millions of people.
Is he going to go to the microphone and say: “we are having some technical difficulties, come back tomorrow and I promise it will blow your mind!”
No, because as an innovator, engineer, or entrepreneur, you must learn that you can leave nothing up to chance.
Enlighten me. Which teams, EPs and volunteers were consulted prior to some recent big decisions? How many?
Obviously you can’t reach everyone and quite honestly a pretty large number of teams probably don’t care either way. All registered teams receive RECF Team Update emails so soliciting feedback from those interested in providing it wouldn’t be that much of a challenge. You can argue the VEX Forum is populated by those who are interested.
Even though Bo1 makes it easier for events beyond a team’s control to harm them, it also changes which controllable skills students should focus on - from performing well most of the time to performing well every time, and from collaborating just well enough to win 67% of the time to collaborating well every time.
Also, being more consistent in the elimination rounds makes you less likely to give your partners a fluke loss in the qualification rounds.
This is your only point I would say I disagree with. Even though Bo1 rewards consistency in some ways, I still believe it’s more important to be the best most of the time (regardless of your luck) than it is to be great every time while never running into bad luck.
I agree. My team (especially my dad, our head coach) was very excited when we won every match we were in at an event last November (although we haven’t won a tournament since then).
Yes! Graduations made last year the first time since 2013 that 4154A wasn't winning almost every tournament in Miami. (Although 10101R and then 77788J did win all but two tournaments. ;))
On a more serious note:
When a student graduates but still likes the direction VEX is headed, they may stay involved in VEX by competing in VEX U, or mentoring a VRC or VEX IQ team.
When a team graduates but is disillusioned with VEX, they may just leave the VEX community entirely. Based on what I’ve heard, this is what happened with 8825S and some of the other teams who left after Bo1 and the Skills changes.
ok more than just sometimes… but when I do get it right - sweet!