As many have already noted the VRC Nothing but Net programming and robot skills challenges have some “issues”. Last season VRC skills challenges didn’t permit teams to use all 14 Skyrise sections and Q&A revealed this was because the GDC didn’t want them doing something boring like just building Skyrises and potentially winning. It seems we have this exact situation in NbN.
Perhaps there was some under estimation of how quickly teams would launch match load balls in NbN skills? It does seem like there’s only 1 way to approach the challenge and that’s legally shoot 64 balls into goals. Maybe a few teams will go beyond this a little but personally I don’t see it being common because it’s not physically possible to load the balls that fast.
It’s about mid-season and although less than ideal for a rule change I think the GDC should take team opinions on board along with the results of this poll.
Yes there are teams with scores in the global rankings but just how many would be affected by doing something like truncating the current maximum score to 160 points (assumes perfect 32 ball shoot from 1 tile). Answer? 22 Robot skills teams and 10 Programming skills teams. I’d be willing to bet these teams aren’t done with their season yet too nor would their scores be wiped out. This would also remove the issues where 64 balls have been accidentally launched from 1 tile.
I don’t really have a problem with skills be as simple as shooting 32 balls from each tile. However, I would worry if this causes a sort of score ceiling whereby we have a bunch of scores (>30) of right around 320 and extremely few above that ceiling.
Then, getting into the top 30 could come down to accumulating a bunch of attempts and getting lucky with slightly better accuracy in one of them.
I do not think that any changes should be made to the game skills challenge as it would be unfair to other teams who have already competed and scored high in the skills challenge. I believe that by the end of the season teams will be scoring all of the driver loads before time runs out and the teams what have truly perfected the robot will be able to score a couple of pyramids also which will put them above the other scores.
Truncating the scores would also not be a good solution because there would be no way to prove that teams with high scores scored only driver loads and did not score balls on the field (although it is unlikely that this is the case).
As for the scores where all balls were launched from 1 start tile, I think that should be left up to the event partners as well as the RECF regional representatives to correct and ensure that the scores are recorded accurately and following the rules.
As of now, I think that the skills challenge should be left alone because it is too far into the season to make a change that is this large and I do not believe that the GDC would choose to change the skills challenge half way through the season.
As pointed out above, using the perfect 32 balls scored from 1 tile metric, there are only a small number of teams which could view this as unfair and it would be great to hear an opinion from 1 or more of them. Absolutely there will be some good teams near season end. It does seem however that scoring 64 balls accurately before attempting to score field balls would be a kind of gateway making for a pretty boring skills run.
Of course no solution is going to be good. The floor is open if anyone’s got a better idea. Once again it’s a small number of teams and they’re not being eliminated. They’d all still be at the top of the rankings, just a little compressed.
The suggested change and score truncation affects about 30 teams. All of those teams are US based and no doubt have several more competitions to attend at which I’d be pretty confident they’ll be out to score high again.
The only issue for us, as a team at least hoping for a top ranking, is that the robots have been designed with this skill setup in mind. We don’t care what the skill set is, anything is fine, just as long as it is consistent (which is the issue at hand).
If we change it now, though, we would have to redesign the robots to some degree. They are unique for this skill set (we haven’t seen any yet like them) and it may take time.
We have about 2 tourneys a month until State in mid-Feb. So it’s not a lot of time for re-design and test since e would be doing it on the fly.
I don’t think that loading balls will be a score ceiling for teams. It’s fairly easy for 2 people to load balls into some robot designs at a speed of more than 2 balls per second. One thing that I personally don’t like is the use of the VEX bags though; it’s extremely hard for me to reach in and grab those last few balls quickly enough.
I can easily see teams finishing through the preloads and continuing onto the field balls before the time is up. Our season has barely started yet and in the Bay Area I can see at least 5 teams who could do so. I’m sure that in the next 3 months teams will increase their score a lot.
I just want to note that last year, at the end of November, a 4 skyrise autonomous was the most anybody had (5225A). By the end of the year it was shown that a 7 skyrise autonomous was possible (62).
Skyrise - build the 7 skyrise sections as fast as you can and if you have time, dump a few more cubes in.
Toss up - throw the big balls over and hit the other balls off the barrier. And if you have time, stash a few bucky balls.
Sack attack - Collect sacks from the edge of pile, come back to starting tile, reposition and dump into trough.
Gateway - ermm… reposition as fast as you can.
So for this season Nothing but Net - shoot off all the matchloads and if you have time try shooting a few more from the field.
So really, this year rules isn’t worse off or very different from previous years… in fact, with the no-repositioning rule, there is definitely a need to use sensors for the programming skills.
That may be true for programming skills but take a look at the highest robot skill runs from SA, Toss Up and Gateway and it is a very different story. Those routines were optimized through countless hours of practice, whereas this year more than 90% of the run is spent sitting still watching two people load your robot.
By end Feb, I really dont think it will just be shooting off the matchloads for robot skill thats all.
In fact, I am not even sure if that will be good enough to be in top 20.
I really can see teams going out to grab the bonus balls in the field rather than just going over to the other side to shoot the matchloads.
Robots with real good intakes that can take the whole stack of balls in will definitely be trying this route.
I don’t doubt that teams will be able to finish the matchloads with time to spare, but I don’t think they will be able to accomplish a whole lot after. Doing both sides is unnecessary, and frankly it’s pretty boring. I don’t see how anyone could argue that having access to both sides is a better format; the real question is if it’s worth changing at this point in the season.
It is really not necessary, and maybe not even be the best approach to get the highest points.
Assuming a team can shoot all 32 balls in (from the other side), that will yield a max of 160 points.
Think this can be achieved by going out to the field to grab 5 stacks (ok… plus 2 more green balls) or shooting off 22 balls. And that means any team going for this approach will shave off timing for shooting 10 balls less.
I agree with you - it can’t be better.
But what I am trying to say is that - it is not much worse off than previous years.
If RECF is really intending to change the rules, the timing will be crucial.
If my memory is still serving me well (think someone will need to help me in recalling), I remember the rules changed for Gateway only kicked in after the top 30 skills ranking deadline was over, i.e., the rules only affected the skills runs during World, and not the qualifications (for World).
Good summary. I can’t see how teams could claim they’ve optimised their robot designs so much it would now disadvantage them only have 1 side in skills because during match play they only have 1 side anyhow. As it stands there is little incentive for teams to plan/program motion paths.
I have to strongly disagree that this year isn’t far worse than previous ones and I think it’s bad enough to warrant a change. Creativity and route optimization are essential aspects of the skills challenges, which there is next to no room for in the current rules.](“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKdAsVVm53Q”)
