On that, I can emphatically disagree - 9791C got entangled because they had an exposed intake roller and did not consider the risk of that. As a result, they lost and deserved to. My teams are used to my saying “build better robots”. Engineering is meticulous - just because you had a good run does not mean you have it all figured out… yet! Bo3 is just another parameter which you have no control if it is there or not. So you need to be on your A game all the time if you are in first to win situation.
Locke Monsters are a great group of teams… Keep at it!
Since we’re reviving this thread, I’m gonna chime in.
I hate BO1 more than almost anything else in my life. So yes, I am 100% biased. I hate it, and it’s that simple.
Now here is why I hate it:
VEX is about teaching students and having them learn about teamwork, engineering, programming, documentation, etc… Please argue with me if you disagree.
The more confident I am that the best robot will win, the more effort I will put in to be the best robot.
The more effort I put into the robot, the more I will learn.
The more I learn, the more the goal of VEX is achieved.
So why is BO3 not the obvious choice? I am not talking about local competitions. Local competitions can be BO1. Even if you lose, you can just go to another one, so you already have your multiple chances. I can’t go to another state championship. So where is my second chance on a random V5 white screen crash?
The points that were made about EP’s being able to host more events if the events are shorter is logical. But not when it comes to large events. You only have to host one. Not multiple. So I’m failing to see why BO3 is a problem at large events.
And here’s where we get into the fundamental difference in belief that seems to correlate really strongly to a bo1 or bo3 preference. Suppose Robot A is a really solid consistent robot that performs similarly in almost all matches, and Robot B is an insanely fast robot that has serious issues and scores almost nothing 10% of the time. @RandomKidOnAVexTeam would argue Robot B is the better robot because they have a crazy fast robot that is able to beat almost everyone when it’s on it’s A game (see what I did there? : ) while @lacsap would argue Robot A is the better robot because it is more consistent and doesn’t have an Achilles heal that could cause problems in critical matches.
And this explains why a lot of mentors and EPs are in favor of, or at least more ok with, bo1. Most adults who are not alums are engineers or engineering / physics teachers. They’re professionals. @lacsap has a degree from MIT. And when you’re trying to put a rover on Mars, you only get one shot. Failure really isn’t an option.
On the other hand, a lot of students are in this program are doing their first real engineering project when they build and program their first vex robots, and expecting total consistency seems a bit unrealistic. And on top of that, we all know that vex’s parts, volunteers, and systems are far from perfect. When a rover is landing on Mars, the programmers are probably really nervous, but you can bet they’re not nervous because their ultrasonic sensor might randomly start returning a value of -1 for no reason. It’s a lot to ask students to be more consistent than the parts and event staff they’re offered.
When deciding between these fundamentally different schools of thought, I think the thing to consider is whether the kind of consistency that bo1 requires is actually feasible. In my opinion, the answer is no, and I could make a separate post about why I feel that way if it becomes a topic of debate later in this thread. But assuming the answer is no, bo1 is simply unfair, because the kind of consistency that it requires to ensure the “best” team wins is impossible, and there’s a ton of luck involved. Now if the answer is yes, we can have a legitimate discussion about whether Robot A or B is more fun to build and code, more educational, etc., decide which one should be the rest robot and should be rewarded by a fair system, and base our feelings on that, but I don’t think we ever need to get to that point.
my opinion has always been bo1 at local events and bo3 at states/worlds events where if you mess up that’s it. I think this is perfectly reasonable, but I don’t really care all that much. which is probably because I never went to state/worlds and I never actually got bo1’d. whenever I lose, which seems to be quite often, It always seems right because my opponents were always better than me. So that doesn’t make me the most qualified person to voice my opinion, but adding a few hours onto a state or worlds event that only happens once a year in order to better the experience of those participating seems reasonable. But I really don’t think we need to go into this again tbh…
Anyways though, VEX is listening. And to be frank considering all of the posts made favoring BO3 or BO1, at this point it’s now becoming repetitive and the reasons are the same exact reasons which was discussed in multitudes of messages in the past. I think VEX has heard our voices, and at this point I think further discussion would not be beneficial in any way, shape, or form. By continuing this discussion, I fear the potential that it may spur another hostile conversation, as it did many times previously. And for that reason, If you agree with my opinion @DRow do you mind locking this thread?
You’re again assuming a lot. There are less than 10 mentors / coaches on this forum that are really outspoken, and there are tens of thousands of robotic teams out there. I’m actually excited about doing divisions this year as much as possible so I can bring BO3 back… a little…
And there is a “best robot” competition, it’s robot skills. That is the best robot in the world, and it has always been and will probably always be #BO3. (Except for WORLDS for the top three…)
No competition settles that. When the Patriots win the Super Bowl, there isn’t universal agreement that they are the best team… Quite the opposite. No competition can possibly settle that question. I like BO3, but the team that wins the competition won it as the rules dictate it should be played… And the tournament champion is the tournament champion.
That’s totally fair, I don’t pretend to have perfect insight into every coach’s or mentor’s opinions. This is just the trend I’ve noticed on the forums and it might not be true at all. It certainly makes sense though.
In theory, yeah. But I think there are some gaping issues with skills that would need to be addressed to really make that true. A lot of teams don’t have the time or resources to make a programming skills routine, a lot of amazing robots don’t have amazing coders and are therefore way stronger in driver control than in auton (for skills you need both, for matches driver control periods are way longer), and a the world skills ranking was conveniently eliminated a few weeks after bo1 was introduced. It doesn’t feel like vex / the recf are doing a whole lot to reward the top robots.
I would argue that part of the reason Skills doesn’t seem to matter as much is because teams tend to think of it as less important - partly for the reasons you outlined above, and partly because Skills has sometimes had different metas than the tournament (case in point: ITZ).
If teams collectively decided that Skills was the best way to find the best robot, then they would focus on Skills more, and Skills scores would be more meaningful.
As for the World Skills Ranking:
The World Skills Ranking still exists just as much as it did before, but teams may not be trying as hard to get a good score now that being in the top 35 doesn’t qualify you for Worlds, and because teams have to fit in their Skills runs in between matches (or in a time set aside for Skills if the event provides it) and can’t go to Skills Only events.
This year there seems to be a consistent limit of three Driver Skills runs and three Programming Skills runs per tournament, which will create balance between regions with lots of Skills runs per team (like Orlando) and regions with fewer (like Miami). This helps make Skills matter more than it did last year, in my opinion.
You make a really good point about people collectively believing that skills isn’t as important as the tournament. That definitely plays a role, maybe even a bigger role than the extra resources and time skills requires, in a lot of teams’ decisions not to pursue a high skills score.
But does that belief stem from metas and re-shapable opinions, or from how qualification spots are allocated? Since skills isn’t useful in many regions for qualifying to states and worlds, a lot of teams don’t worry about running skills. Especially with world skills finals being bo1, I feel like vex just isn’t making skills a priority.
No matter what your system is, so so teams will end up at worlds and amazing teams will fall through the cracks. But a good system should seek to prevent this. If skills, the most skill based, unbiased representation of how strong a team is, is going to be diminished in importance, the elimination format needs to favor stronger teams even more, not the other way around. And that would point to bo3.
I do think that the football analogy isn’t the best… You can have a really bad play in football (pick 6) and still have a great chance at winning the game if you are the superior team. But if you entangle or tip once… You’re done.
Well that’s just the game! This is just a function on time, if you have the resources to build the best bot in the world you don’t need additional resources to program other than time. My 6th graders got 11th in skills at WORLDS this year using ROBOTC Graphical. It was tough but those kids in their first year competing really put in the time and effort and it paid off. They didn’t get a trophy but they had an amazing time.
Florida dramatically increased their regional event capacity last year… and I think a lot more skills would have been done had teams knows how far down the skills list we had to go. Of the 300ish VRC teams in FL only about 120 ever ran skills at all… Even with the new double qualification rules… Hopefully we will increase capacity even more and continue to encourage kids to put their time into it.
True, but that’s something that states can work on by ensuring more teams get pulled of the list for the regional tournament.
True, true, true… And this is even more “interesting” in IQ… Have you heard of the STEM award???
I’d like to throw my 2 cents in here. I don’t have a hard-set opinion, though I did like reading through this thread and I saw a lot of arguments that I hadn’t considered at all before. I’m going to try to cover most facets of the conversation.
This is a very important point that I had 100% missed. While I agree that the “old” system incentivized throwing matches to a degree, and witnessed that firsthand more than once, that was the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority of second picks at local tournaments were very excited mid- or low-tier tiems who just got an amazing second chance.
I don’t see this as regaining the benefit of 3-team alliances at all, because there is no incentive or requirement for them to play. I’d be interested if anyone can come up with a way to balance this with limiting the number of eliminations matches required (i.e. BO1 or something like it).
I like this. To be honest, it sounds quite similar to the mindset we had on 5225, and it eventually pays off; if you put enough time and effort into catching every mistake and designing, building and programming the best robot you can, then you will get the most out of the program, and as a bonus you will have the best possible chance of winning (save for driver practice, etc). The tournament should be a means to becoming a good engineer, not the other way around.
I’m not familiar with the particular match in question, but I do generally agree that second chances for design failures and driver error is hard to justify. Unforunately, it’s very difficult to separate team design failures from product failures such as radio disconnects (discussion for another day), and no matter how you set up the competition, whether or not a given robot’s weak points will be tested is very much up to chance.
Technical interjection - error handling is precisely a scenario that real-world engineers need to learn how to deal with, and sensor data is very much no exception (ha). The ultrasonic sensor works by the Cortex/Brain sending out a signal on one wire, waiting for a signal back on the other, and recording the timing; the ultrasonic converts the first signal to a sound wave, then the echo to the second signal. At a certain point, you have to say “ok, I’ve waited long enough that there’s no way my signal is ever going to echo loud enough for my sensor to detect” - this, from my understanding is what generates the -1 value. It means “I don’t know how far away the wall is right now.” With physical systems, sometimes that’s just the case.
On a related point, one thing that I think the community, especially classroom users (i.e. non-competitors) and newcomers to VRC, could benefit from is better documentation and tutorials; this can be both official material from VEX, and unofficial material provided by the community.
At a high level, yes I agree this solves the general “problem” of a team’s entire season hinging on individual matches that must be won, but I think a more nuanced discussion is needed. BO1 and BO3 aren’t strictly the only options, nor is that the only variable; number of teams per alliance, method of alliance selection, number of rounds of eliminations, alternate means of qualification… all of these are relevant, and all have been adjusted alongside the introduction of BO1.
Balancing a way to determine the best team with the resources required of teams to do so is a hard problem, and I honestly don’t know where to start for a solution. It’s analogous to grades in school; are your grades a measurement of your intellect, effort, or family resources/support? A combination? Which do we want it to be? We can ask the same philosophical-sounding questions about VRC.
This is a fair point. Perhaps changing the qualification criteria so that for larger tournaments, more than just the skills champion will qualify, in the same way that more than just the tournament champion alliance will qualify. This will incentivise more teams to put effort into an aspect of the competition that is more under teams’ control, without creating an incentive for “skills-only bots” in the way that top 35 did; you’d be risking a lot to give up game.
I don’t entirely disagree, but I do want to point out that skills isn’t a perfect measure of a team’s ability; due to the nature of the challenge, there’s a much lesser focus on adaptability than in the regular game.
Hopefully I’ve contributed to a productive conversation on this topic.
I’ll admit to not reading most of this thread and not really wanting to get involved in BO1 or global skills discussions anymore.
What I will impart is the 7682E experience from last season. Semi-finals match lost by 1 point. Referee admits afterwards to not calling a very long trap/pin soon enough. BO1, you’re out. Nothing to do with robot reliability, field issues, operator failure or whatever. And that was the difference between going to worlds and not going to worlds. No one on the team was particularly pleased and we’re definitely not into complaining about volunteers so that was that.
And on the flip side we started FRC 7498 last season, with BO3 matches, and had a great time. You know what? There were a handful of matches that went to tiebreakers and it was just awesome. Being able to fight back and hearing the crowd getting worked up totally makes BO3 worth the supposed additional time cost at events (yeah I’m ignoring all the other [BS] reasons RECF gave for shoving this change down everyone’s throats).
I run 3 teams. VRC, FTC and FRC. We love BO3 and hate BO1. This from first hand experience during the same respective seasons. Honestly RECF need to focus on the participant experience a little more. One and done just isn’t fun. No one asked for it.
Honestly RECF need to focus on the participant experience a little more. One and done just isn’t fun. No one asked for it.
My teams liked it, they thought it was tons of fun. EP’s the regions I have worked and now back volunteering like it a lot. Coaches like it a lot even high performers. These are opinions, but going as far as saying the RECF need(s*) to focus on the participant experience is taking it to far. The RECF sends staff members all over the world every week (and most weekends) away from family’s to build a program to get kids involved in robotics. If they did not care, they would be at home with families working a nice 9-5. The staff sacrifice so much time trying to make this program great for students volunteers and the crowd alike. I do not care what your opinion of BO1 is, but saying that crap is just to far. Since I am now where I currently sit, I am hoping that I never have to deal with people with that mindset in my region. Attacking the company would be like a parent attacking you saying you need to give your students a better experience even after you ran three programs this season. You do not want to hear it.
If you feel strongly enough and think you should represent your region you will already know your RSM and should work with them to get to the EP summit. If you are able to go then voice your opinion in front of the other people who volunteer every week and weekend to put on an amazing experience for students.
(yeah I’m ignoring all the other [BS] reasons RECF gave for shoving this change down everyone’s throats).
I will agree with almost all of the reasons they gave and just because you do not agree with almost of them backed by thoughtful decisions does not make it BS, it just means you disagree and do not want to explain it.
I was at the EP summit last year. The messaging from RECF was very clear.
Absolutely some will love BO1 and if that’s your thing great. What I will tell you, from first hand experience of both, is that BO3 wins every time and in every scenario.
I was there to and great if you do not like BO1 that is up to you, but going after the company that has events like the EP summit then coming out here and saying they do not care, what example is being set. They could just not do the EP summit, they could charge for it, but no they spend the money, resources, and time to have the community come to speak and learn.
What I will tell you, from first hand experience of both, is that BO3 wins every time and in every scenario.
What a great opinion to be had about it, good for you.
I’ll reiterate what my initial thread response said. Not really interested in getting involved in the discussion anymore. Just sharing a real BO1 vs BO3 experience for the readers.
Since you were at the EP summit you’ll recall there was no discussion about BO1, just statements that everyone needs to get used to it because it’s here to stay. Reminds me of 2018 worlds when they sprang it on everyone a few weeks prior. Fun times eh?
Since you were at the EP summit you’ll recall there was no discussion about BO1, just statements that everyone needs to get used to it because it’s here to stay.
Which is why I find this thread humorous, people have valid points and I do not see enough of the community wanting it to be changed to ever see them go back in the near future.
@nnolte@536Mentor points should have been enough for this discussion alone to stop, but here we are. They are what mentors of these children should be and for the most part all mentors are. I hope I can be as great of mentors to the teams I work with as they are to their own students.
Reminds me of 2018 worlds when they sprang it on everyone a few weeks prior. Fun times eh?
Actually it was fun times it made my life and the rest of the worlds staff a little bit less on edge by making a reasonable obtainable schedule for the first time in ever. RECF did not just make this decision over night or lightly for that matter. Staff already are there for 10 days~ I was there for 13, making a schedule of finals easier is just one less thing to worry about.
Also they did nothing wrong about doing this as they clearly stated in G18 The Game Design Committee reserves the right to make changes to this manual in the April
5th, 2018 release specifically for the VEX Robotics World Championship.
(For those wondering it was released on the 2nd of April)
Absolutely they did something wrong. Changing a functional rule in game play because teams are saturating scores is one thing for Worlds. Changing the tournament format from Bo3 to Bo1 is a completely different thing. They have every right to do this as a season starts, but very little right to do it after people have paid their money and made plans to go. The management of expectations from RECF/VEX is sometimes very poor. I am sick and tired of hearing how they need to get everything done quickly at Worlds. They push the whole event through like cattle. I would rather see them have less matches and take a deep breath than listen to everyone clap themselves on the back for “being ahead of schedule” that day. Dan Mantz is certainly someone that is listening and wants the right things done so I am hoping that he is working on a compromise.
For a team(s) that have been attending worlds regularly (despite being in a tough region), I would definitely list 7682 as a victim of both Bo1 and the removal of worlds qualifications via global skills ranking.
Eliminated due to an uncalled pinned, and then not able to use their usually good skills scores for worlds qualifications - that’s a double whammy.
But as many of us here have agreed - there is no turning back… we just got to move on.
@wdr_mentor From one small region to another slightly bigger region - I definitely can understand how you feel.
