Favorite FIRST Game [Archive]

=Martin=Taylor=

07-05-2006, 22:40

Joe Matt

07-05-2006, 22:44

In order, my favorite three from the past 5 years of involvement....

1.) AIM HIGH
By far the most amazing game, it had it all, and didn't involve PVC goals on casters! ;) It was different! Periods! Shooting above the player stations!

2.) Stack Attack
Boxes are fun, plus we won two regionals.

3.) Triple Play
No balls, three robots, cool ideas. Really neat.

I can say that I did not care for Raising the Bar, it was a rehash of previous years, and frankly, seeing more balls and PVC goals made me roll my eyes.

aallen88

07-05-2006, 22:45

FAVORITE GAME EVER---

RAISING THE BAR.

For me it was the most exciting to watch. Robots climbing up ramps and trying to hang, capping 2x balls on goals, HP's throwing balls in those goals. It was a chance for the HP's to make some really big plays.

I didn't really enjoy Stack Attack because I felt like it ended up being king of the hill wins all.

Triple Play I enjoyed, not as much going on though.

I really did like Aim High this year. At first I didn't think so, but once you got a hang of the game, it was quite exciting and "different".

But Raising the Bar was still my absolute favorite!

Freddy Schurr

07-05-2006, 22:46

Raising the Bar was the best game by far . Old school: 2 Robots on the field competing and many possibilities to win a match

Stack Attack was also a good game.

Cory

07-05-2006, 22:47

Out of the ones I've competed in: 2004/2002

Out of all the games I've seen a decent amount of: 2004/2000/1999

aallen88

07-05-2006, 22:49

Raising the Bar was the best game by far . Old school: 2 Robots on the field competing and many possibilities to win a match

I agree--there were a lot of different ways of scoring, so there were a lot of completely different designed robots.

Woahhhh I just realized it used to be only 2 v 2. I can't believe I completely forgot about that. That scares me a bit...

Jeff Waegelin

07-05-2006, 22:51

Koko Ed

07-05-2006, 22:54

My favorite is the 2004 with it's diverse scoring and robot diversity.

Jessica Boucher

07-05-2006, 22:54

ChuckDickerson

07-05-2006, 22:55

Raising the Bar

Lots of different options to score and didn't need a real time scoring system like this year.

Andy Baker

07-05-2006, 22:57

My favorite was 1999, but that was probably due to the way our robot was tooled to play the game. Seeing 4 robots on the "puck", all with baskets 10 feet in the air was pretty cool.

With the development of FIRST robot technology, game strategy, and drivetrain improvements, that game would be amazing to see again.

Come to think of it... any game from 1995-2000 would be neat to see played with today's robots.

Andy B.

=Martin=Taylor=

07-05-2006, 22:59

2000 hooked me. It's still my favorite.

As a side note, according to a demographic profile of ChiefDelphi forum members in the past year (4/05-4/06), the average rookie year is 2002. This may skew things towards the later years.

I know. koko Ed suggested that I include all the games so as to let people talk about what the old games were like. Personaly I'm quite interested; someone has already voted for Torriod Terror, which I know absolutly nothing about.

Billfred

07-05-2006, 23:09

I'm somewhat intrigued by the 1993 game, Rug Rage. Simple game, easy to understand, and it's the most water that FIRST has ever had on the field.

And I'm sure I'll be bludgeoned by many people (or more than I have already) for saying it, but I'd love a crack at Diabolical Dynamics (2001). The notion of having to work together with your alliance partners, instead of just three robots doing their thing, just feels like fun to me.

Aim High was a hoot as well, but I have to give my nod to FIRST Frenzy. Three ways to gain points (balls, 2X ball, bar), lots of action, fun to watch, and you could tell who's winning. It remains my favorite.

Andy Baker

07-05-2006, 23:21

... but I'd love a crack at Diabolical Dynamics (2001). The notion of having to work together with your alliance partners, instead of just three robots doing their thing, just feels like fun to me.

It was... interesting. Many things have changed since them, not just the game. Get this:

This was back when teams did not know who their alliance partners were for the upcoming qualification matches. For instance, you knew that you were in match 61 or 62, but not exactly which one. So, this meant that you had to scout and pre-plan with 7 other teams for that match, not just 3.

The field quers would bring 8 teams into a corral, and then they would look at their secret match sheet and pull 4 of you ahead for the upcoming match. At that point, you had about 4-5 minutes to plan the entire match.

This was back when 2 coaches were allowed for each team.

Needless to say, this 4-5 minute strategy planning session did not always go as teams wanted it to. On the field, only 1 team could physically balance the bridge... but all 4 teams might have wished to show that they could do it.

There was much debate. Stronger personalities (and louder people) were heard, and salesmanship had to be put forth in order for your team to get the chance for the balance job. Many of these strategy planning sessions got to be arguements, since the pressure was on.

So... at the end of the year, people complained "too many coaches were on the drive teams!"... and "no more adult coaches!" Also, other people complained "why can't you just tell us who our alliance partners are on Friday morning?" In 2002, both changes happened, as only 1 coach was permitted in the box, and we all knew our qualification lineups on Friday morning. Since then, these strategy meetings have gone much smoother. The most important improvement was not the omission of the 2nd coach, but rather the information about which teams you are partnered with.

Andy B.

abeD

07-05-2006, 23:29

Yea I agree, at least in qualification matches strategy sessions would usually evolve to a "I know you can do it but we can do it better!!" type of dilema.

As for my favorite game, I would have to go with 2004, so many ways to score, so many sweet robot designs (the variety was incredible), and it was also my "peak" (senior year of high school) in FIRST.

On a more sentimental note 2002 because that was my last year going to nat's at epcot and I'll remember that for a long time.

Katie Reynolds

07-05-2006, 23:33

Though I wasn't really involved in FIRST then, both 1999 and 2000 looked like awesome games. I'd love to see them (or something similar) repeated now!

As for games I've been around for, 2002 has my vote for everything. It was a great game, difficult but not impossible, had a lot to do, and was very viewer-friendly! :)

Joe Matt

07-05-2006, 23:36

It was... interesting. Many things have changed since them, not just the game. Get this:

This was back when teams did not know who their alliance partners were for the upcoming qualification matches. For instance, you knew that you were in match 61 or 62, but not exactly which one. So, this meant that you had to scout and pre-plan with 7 other teams for that match, not just 3.

The field quers would bring 8 teams into a corral, and then they would look at their secret match sheet and pull 4 of you ahead for the upcoming match. At that point, you had about 4-5 minutes to plan the entire match.

This was back when 2 coaches were allowed for each team.

Needless to say, this 4-5 minute strategy planning session did not always go as teams wanted it to. On the field, only 1 team could physically balance the bridge... but all 4 teams might have wished to show that they could do it.

There was much debate. Stronger personalities (and louder people) were heard, and salesmanship had to be put forth in order for your team to get the chance for the balance job. Many of these strategy planning sessions got to be arguements, since the pressure was on.

So... at the end of the year, people complained "too many coaches were on the drive teams!"... and "no more adult coaches!" Also, other people complained "why can't you just tell us who our alliance partners are on Friday morning?" In 2002, both changes happened, as only 1 coach was permitted in the box, and we all knew our qualification lineups on Friday morning. Since then, these strategy meetings have gone much smoother. The most important improvement was not the omission of the 2nd coach, but rather the information about which teams you are partnered with.

Andy B.

Baker, don't forget my personal favorite from 2001, the 30 second matches!

Joe J.

07-05-2006, 23:45

Aim High... robots got to shoot balls for goodness sake!

But beyond that it allowed for the sometimes under appreciated area of game play: defense!
Aim High takes the best autonomous in my opinion, not only was there two different ways to score some big points and the 10 point bonus but defensive autonomous modes added a whole other level of strategy (sure there were defensive auto modes before but not many or as valuable).
As for viewer friendly Aim High was fairly easy to catch on to and under stand.
I think the GDC was dead on with this years game, and the manual which had the fewest rule changes I've seen in my 4 years in FIRST.

I voted Aim High but Triple Play is still a close second. I liked it because it was so simple and accessible for teams to play, I was at all three Michigan regionals last year and can't remember seeing a single robot with out an arm (or stacking device). The game was easy to follow though keeping track of score was sometimes confusing. I loved the autonomous mode's goal but capping the Vision Tetra was quite rare.

I did like FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar. Loved the robots hanging ten feet up part. Yes there were a lot of different ways to play but that may have provided times when there was too much going on to follow clearly.

I like the theory behind Stack Attack, competitive box stacking that seemed fun. But sadly at GLR and WMR not much of that happened :( . It seemed to me that this was the ultimate "box on wheels" game (not to insult anyones design) but most of the game time seemed to be focused on pushing boxes out of the scoring zones.

Karthik

08-05-2006, 00:31

It's all about 1999, by far the most dynamic game in FIRST history. You had this 6" high (iirc) octagon on caster wheels, with a couple of metal poles sicking up, known as the "puck" that could be dragged around the field. Alliances were awarded multipliers if the puck was on a certain side of the field. But to make things even cooler, you were awarded multipliers if your robot was on the puck. Wait, it gets better. The definition of being on the puck was to be touching it, and be 2" off the ground. So some teams would grab the pole, and lift themselves off the ground.

I've only talked about multipliers, how did teams score points? Well the scoring objects were these disc shaped pillows known as "floppies". You had one point for every floppy of your colour not touching the ground, and 3 points for each floppy of your colour that was at least 8' off the ground at the end of the match,

So picture this, you have robots pulling the puck. You have robots climbing the puck. You have tug of wars for the puck. Teams pushing teams off the puck. To make it even cooler, at the end of the match, you have all these baskets of floppies being raised over 8' in the air, while teams are being pushed! It was a phenomenal game. The best ever.

George1902

08-05-2006, 01:17

I couldn't have said it better, Karthik. 1999 was an outstanding game.
Well the scoring objects were these disc shaped pillows known as "floppies".Also known as "landmines" by drivetrain enthusiasts. =-]

travis48elite

08-05-2006, 07:05

My favorite game would have to be without a doubt 2004's Rising The Bar. During the game the human player had to shot these huge playground balls into these stationary and moveable goals. Near the end of the game robots had to climb onto a platform then hang from a 10ft high bar. My secound favorite would have to be AIM HIGH that game was so funny you have to litteraly take for cover if a robot is pushed in into another direction. That was something that I saw alot at the earlier regionals.

gren737

08-05-2006, 08:38

alright, i so voted for hexagon havoc....the games were much simpler then, but i have to admit that was a really fun game to play, 2 size balls, 1 central goal, and the bigger ball was the max dimensions of the robot.

it was the first year for a human player

there were no rules about pinning (i think our team pinnning another for 1:30 might have been the reason for the 10 second pinning rule announced in 1997)

there was also intentional flipping...there were robots with forklifts on the front that would drive up to you and tip you over.

also it was 1vs1vs1. no alliances, to make it to the finals meant you needed an amazing robot. i like alliances, but i also somewhat miss seeing robots that were made to play by themselves and not rely on another robot to help them.

plus you could flip over the goal and the "goal lines" still extended straight up in the orientation of the goal, we won the "best play of the day" at rumble at the rock by flipped the goal towards our human player and loading him up with balls, which all counted when the scoring was done, it was awesome!

second favorite FIRST frenzy, then torroid terror, then i dunnoo it's a tossup between aim high and triple play

Tetraman

08-05-2006, 09:14

All time favorite was Tripple Play. But I will agree that the best was raiseing the bar. Thhere was more to it so there was more to think about and robots were different. I also liked Co-Operation. But I had a blast as the Tetra human player, so I'm one sided.

the_short1

08-05-2006, 09:25

triple play all the way. I loved the tic tac toe style game, where it really matered to defend your home/middle row against line theifs, it also had lots of posibilities for manuvering a tetra.. i loved it.

Tim Baird

08-05-2006, 10:21

2000, for sure. I only saw one off-season event that year, but that game was amazing. It had fairly simple scoring, it was pretty well balanced, exciting to watch, and had a great "finishing move" with the original hanging bar. All together, it made for a great game to watch, and a great game to play.
I agree whole-heartedly. Aside from my obvious personal attachment to that year, I loved that game because of its simplicity. 2v2, balls all over the place, and the constant stealing/restealing of the black balls added a whole other dimension to the game. I also loved that it was easy (atleast from the drivers' station) to see the current score. It made predicting the outcome simpler and allowed for teams to better coordinate the final score so as to help the loser but to also boost the QPs (that year you received 3 times the losers score).

AmyPrib

08-05-2006, 12:57

Hands down.... 2004.

I have watched video from every year of FIRST, I have seen all the games. Didn't experience all of them, but have watched them. Very edge of your seat type of action, with the 2x capping, or the hanging on the bar, or shooting those balls into the goal at the buzzer... whooo!

The amount of diversity in robot design and strategy was simply amazing. Your robot could do EVERYthing, or it could do ONE thing extremely well, and you were STILL a top contender. I think that would definitely be an interesting game these days with 3v3. With 3 main tasks, you could have a robot alliance each with a unique functionality.

The automode was good - not too weak, not too overbearing. I don't recall much of a trend of winning automode leading to winning the match, or vice versa. There was a choice of things to do, terrain variety (small/big steps), so many different designs for manipulating 2x or small balls, as well as different designs for hanging..... And the all-in-one robots were just awesome.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty specatator friendly, and pretty visual as to who was winning.

The only drawback was the amount of human player interaction. Many people thought it was too much - and it may have been just a bit too much. But, it was insanely exciting to watch, on video and in person. So to go from that to 2005 where there was essentially one task, and lack of robot diversity was sorta disappointing..

Anywho.. 2004..

Jeff Rodriguez

08-05-2006, 13:11

I've been involved since '99 and I'd say that 2006 Aim High is the best.
Very easy for spectators to watch (more shots, more points).
Easy to tell who's winning (real time score).
Exciting (balls flying, robots pushing, robots tipping).

2000 was also and exciting game with robots flying across the field as fast as they could to grab the black ball.

Tim Baird

08-05-2006, 13:23

2000 was also and exciting game with robots flying across the field as fast as they could to grab the black ball.
Playing against you guys in 2000 (Rage) was so annoying. You'd start off in your high speed, zip diagonally across the field and take our black ball before we even got there. Such a good strategy!

Ken Loyd

08-05-2006, 14:37

Come to think of it... any game from 1995-2000 would be neat to see played with today's robots.

Andy B.[/QUOTE]

Andy, once again you have hit upon a great idea. I enjoyed the "puck" game as well. I am not sure if we were ever able to pick up a floppy from the floor but we could climb the side pole like a weed.

Playing the old games would be great. I think we may still have the puck in the back of our storage room (missing some pieces.)

Ken

Lil' Lavery

08-05-2006, 15:04

Aim High, but it was basically a tie with FIRST Frenzy. Both of those games were quick paced, exceptionally exciting, and had lots of action. Tough defense, balls flying through the air, scrambles for "king of the hill points" (in the form of the bar in 2004 and the ramp this year), etc.
I liked the wide open field design in 2006 more though, and that's what gave it a slight edge. More room to maneuver, fewer bottlenecks, etc.

I'm surprised so many people have said 2003, Stack Attack. From the general consensus of other areas in the forums it seemed like nobody liked that game. Too much defense, and a lack of reliable and quick stackers seemed to plague its public perception.

I don't really like the 2001 or 2002 games. 2001 was confusing for spectators, hard to score quickly, and lacked an opponent (4 v 0, eww). Plus the elimination ranking system was actually biased to the #1 seed that year. It was 5 teams per alliance, with 2 teams automatically paired (1&5, 2&6, 3&7, 4&8), with the 1st alliance getting the first pick in each round of the selection "draft". 2002 was a bit chaotic for my taste. The zones could get confusing, especially if you were not familiar with the game.

2005 had it's charm. It has the most obvious strategy of any game (but many games have vast layers of underlying strategy that many people do not recognize), but tended to be not as exciting as other games. Defense was very limited, and there was no autonomous interaction. I really liked the move to 3 v 3 instead of 2 v 2 though.

I'm not really familiar with any game before 2000, and my interaction with the 2000 game was limited, although from the bits I can remember, it was exciting.

GoSparx

08-05-2006, 15:10

What has been your favorite FIRST game?
Which game did you think was...

>Most fun to watch
>Most fun to play/operate
>Had the best autonomous mode
>Sufficiently challenging (not unfair to rookie teams)
>Had the best challenge (pushing boxes, shooting balls)
>Generated a wide variety of diverse designs

I don't want to know what game your team did best at, I'm just curious to know which game was everyones favorite.

I've seen four years of FIRST games (Stack Attack, Raising the Bar, Triple Play, Aim High), all of which were good, but some were definitely better than others. My personal favorites have been Stack Attack and Aim High, both of which were exiting to watch and offered large open playing fields, allowing robots to zoom about unobstructed.

Also, what made that game great? Why did you like it.

By far, FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar was the best. You got to see totally different robots and the best part is, you got to see totally different robots that could all win. Usually this year, if you couldnt score the the center goal, you werent going to win. In Raising the Bar, you saw tons of different robots. Ball herders, ball dumpers, climbers, hangers of all different sorts, moveable goal grabbers etc. It was a great and fun game to watch.

Jon K.

08-05-2006, 19:00

My favorites are 2000 Co-Opertition FIRST (I wasn't on a team, and I was amazed by the robots, I was a dissalusioned 7th grader going to my first FIRST competition and fell in love.)

2002, it was a fun game, a lot of great robots were involved in the game that year, and traction was crazy. Plus it was one of the easier games to explain...

2005, it was just a unique challenge

2006, Again another unique challenge and it put most teams on a semi level playing field making for an interesting year.

George A.

08-05-2006, 20:40

I love the 2002 game...it was simplicity and complicated all at the same time. Easy to tell who was winning.

2001 was neat because I love seeing a high score...and an allaince getting a score of 700 something was pretty much as high as you can get w/o it being a glitch.

2003 & 2004 hold a special place in my heart because in 2003 I had the same design as 111 (who won the CHampionships...great minds think alike) and in 2004 my team won our first regional.

But overall I have to say 2002...HP could score balls, robots could score balls...tethers into end zone (Go Mini-MORT) and then you have the tug of wars for the goals....so exciting to watch.

spears312

08-05-2006, 22:27

I think Raising the Bar was probably the best game I have seen first hand. That was my freshmen year and the high level of diversity in the robots that year due to all the different ways to score has really been unparalleled the last two years.

Bongle

09-05-2006, 20:50

It may just be because I've seen 3 competitions worth and really gotten familiar with the game, but Aim High is pretty awesome. The real time scoring was really only screwed up in about 3% of matches that I saw.

Could anyone that remembers games earlier than 2003 please create wikipedia pages about them? I've been trying to get all the old games into wikipedia, but since I've only been around since 2003, I don't know tactics for any game earlier than that. I also don't have pictures for them.

Edit: If you don't want to update wikipedia, please email me some pictures of games in progress at artartartartort@hotmail.com

Richard Wallace

09-05-2006, 21:27

I voted Hexagon Havoc for sentimental reasons. That was the game my rookie year. It was an important year for several reasons:

1) Although my first team (the Arch Rivals) only lasted through 1997, several other 1996 rookies have gone on to become FIRST legends. One of my favorite '96 rookies was the Baxter Bomb Squad. Their pit was right next to ours, out in that sweltering hot tent in the Epcot parking lot. Another favorite '96 rookie was the Beatty Beast -- they got off to a fast start in FIRST by seeding #1 in their rookie year, and of course the rest is history.

2) As mentioned earlier, the human players made their debut in 1996.

3) Alliance-forming, although not officially sanctioned, first appeared in 1996 as an attempt to stop powerful robots. It was neither universally applauded nor reviled, and the differing viewpoints persist to this day.

4) Capping also made its first appearance. There was no bonus for capping the goal with one of the 30 inch balls, but capping effectively closed the goal to further scoring and was widely applauded as a crowd-pleasing cool play.

5) There weren't as many rules, and this left the door open to some creative play tactics -- as described in the earlier post. My own team's creative tactic was to deposit a part of our robot in the lower section of the goal, thereby making some goal space inaccessible to other teams. We had a special ball depositing mechanism that allowed us to access the blocked area.

Dan Petrovic

09-05-2006, 21:29

I like the theory behind Stack Attack, competitive box stacking that seemed fun. But sadly at GLR and WMR not much of that happened :( . It seemed to me that this was the ultimate "box on wheels" game (not to insult anyones design) but most of the game time seemed to be focused on pushing boxes out of the scoring zones.

Our robot was the ultimate "box on wheels". We never won any regionals but we won 3 out 4 mini-competitions we went to, including Battlecry, the IRI of New England. That's why Stack Attack was one of my favorites out of the games from 2002 on. However, since watching a video of Stack Attack recently, I realized that it was kind of a boring game. Autonomous was the most interesting part. What's cooler than a robot flying up a ramp at full speed into a wall of boxes?

I didn't like Raising the Bar because there wasn't much strategy involved. Usually the strategy was... hang. Throw your 6 balls into the goals, cap it and hang.

Triple Play is my favorite. I really like the games that took a bit of extra thinking. Aim High is one of those. Triple Play took a lot of thinking on your toes and it was very back-and-forth with rows and such. I liked the idea of extra points scored based on your strategy. Also, if you are behind, you can come back with a row. Aim High, you can't really do that. Also, our robot performed well... and stuff, but that's another story.

Aim High is wicked cool. Nothing is cooler than something shooting another something. It has to be the most impressive game thus far. What's more impressive than arbitrarily moving your robot, pushing a button, and having your camera re-aim your shooter dead on? So that the next person who came along and pulls that trigger will score. It's a really fun game to watch, but the design phase was painful. At least it was for us.

Nuttyman54

09-05-2006, 22:16

I'd have to say either FIRST Frenzy or Diabolical Dynamics. Both games had many ways to play and so many different robots. Aim High would be next, just from the sheer awsomeness of shooting balls and multiple periods. Also, making autonomous really count was a GREAT addition.

=Martin=Taylor=

10-05-2006, 00:01

Also, making autonomous really count was a GREAT addition.

I agree. After all, robots are supposed to be autonomous. I hope they make autonomous mode important again next year.

Ryan Dognaux

10-05-2006, 11:31

FIRST Frenzy was my favorite game. It just seemed like it was a culmination of elements from many previous years games - like the best part of each game combined into one mega game. It was great.

But coming close was Stack Attack. What could be better than seeing robots autonomously (a first that year) racing up the ramp and driving through a huge wall of containers.

Triple Play was good too, but my least favorite of the games I've been involved with is Zone Zeal (2002). By the end of the year, it seemed like it was just a huge pushing match.

Daniel_LaFleur

10-05-2006, 13:26

Stack attack was my favorite. I really enjoyed seeing our robot open up wide and knock 4-5 stacks down at one time :D

After that, its Aim High....who doesent like being able to shoot things :)

UCGL_Guy

10-05-2006, 16:53

For me 05's triple play provided the most enjoyment.
good interaction and back and forth on the scores. Only real downside was the penalties were a little out of line.
A close second was our rookie year of 2000 - I can still recall 25 controlling the bar at nationals and being impressed they could do that with only 120 pounds - AAAhhh the bewilderment of being a rookie.
Third would be 01 - I actually liked the strategy involved with getting four teams to work together.
4th probably 06 with Aim High - had good viewer appeal
5th let's see o4's game - lot's of fun and interaction - at times too much.
6th would have to be Stack attack it was cool to see those containers go flying.
Aah yes and then Zone Zeal - very complex weird game did not like at all.

I really like the sounds of the Hockey Puck game. Maybe it could be resurrected in some format or another.

Jake177

10-05-2006, 16:55

Could anyone that remembers games earlier than 2003 please create wikipedia pages about them? I've been trying to get all the old games into wikipedia, but since I've only been around since 2003, I don't know tactics for any game earlier than that. I also don't have pictures for them.

My old high school's team has pretty good summaries of all the games up to 2005
http://www.swindsor.k12.ct.us/Highschool/bobcats/history.shtml

My favorite game was 2004, with 2001 in a close second. I may be a little biased because my high school team did very well in both of these games. I really enjoyed the diverse robot designs that they yielded. With the diversity of designs came a diversity of strategies, which made every match different and exciting.

Elyse Holguin

11-05-2006, 02:17

oh phoo. i voted zone zeal (which is still #2 for me) but then decided raising the bar was way more fun to watch. and build for.

NoodleKnight

11-05-2006, 02:43

I had 4 favorites, actually. 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006. 2002, I only watched this through videos, but it had a lot of robotic tug-of-war/pushing, which spawned a lot of interesting drivetrain designs. 2003, just like 2002, it called for a lot of pushing, my first year on my team, overall fun experience. 2004, the game had a lot of objectives, and to watch a robot that could complete all of them (like 254) was really exciting. 2006, it had an open field and you had to shoot balls, lots of robot pushing/shoving mixed in with flying balls (it's always humorous to see the balls get miss-fired into the crowd or elsewhere), always fun to watch/compete -- so Aim High gets my vote.

Doug G

11-05-2006, 03:05

Aim High seemed to have the best mix of what everyone likes...

Great and meaningful autonomous play
Robot vs Robot action (though some of us don't want it to turn out like that other competition - it still provides some appeal)
You could tell who was winning for the most part
You could easily explain the jist of the game to the casual observer
Balls flying everywhere is always great fun.

The 2004 and 2005 games come in tied for second...
In the 2004 game, First Frenzy, there were a great variety of robots and the human players actually scored significantly, but the lack of robot interaction and auto modes really sucked. In the regionals we attended, the robots that could hang did well and in the end, most everyone just wanted to see robots hang on a bar.

The 2005 game involved so much strategy it was great - but the audience rarely knew who one - expecially with those darn penalties. Auto mode sounded neat - but really made no difference in many of the matches.

I've been involved since 2001, and so 2001, 2002, and 2003 just don't seem to compare much to the last 3 years.

Bongle

11-05-2006, 09:00

My old high school's team has pretty good summaries of all the games up to 2005
http://www.swindsor.k12.ct.us/Highschool/bobcats/history.shtml

My favorite game was 2004, with 2001 in a close second. I may be a little biased because my high school team did very well in both of these games. I really enjoyed the diverse robot designs that they yielded. With the diversity of designs came a diversity of strategies, which made every match different and exciting.
Alright, I used that as a copy-paste source for all the other pages. Now every single game has a page! They still all need introductions and pictures though.

Mark Pierce

11-05-2006, 12:52

There are things I liked and disliked about each game, so it's hard to pick one. Here's my decision chart, in order by category (kind of):

>Most fun to watch -Triple Play, Co-opertition, Aim High, Zone Zeal
>Most fun to play/operate - Triple Play, Double Trouble, Diabolical Dynamics
>Had the best autonomous mode -Aim High, First Frenzy
>Sufficiently challenging - Double Trouble, Aim High, Stack Attack, Zone Zeal
>Had the best challenge - Double Trouble, Aim High, Triple Play, Diabolical Dynamics
>Generated a wide variety of diverse designs - Co-opertition, Double Trouble, First Frenzy, Diabolical Dynamics

Note that these are all since I started. I saw a little of three earlier games as a spectator, but can't really judge them. I voted for 1999, although not as spectator friendly, it had a lot of cool features on a small field. From an engineering and drivers standpoint it was great, from a scorers and audience level, not as good. With all those who haven't seen it, I figured it deserved the vote.

pyroslev

11-05-2006, 15:08

Raising the Bar has to be my favorite. The task were so numerous and diversified (a combination year as I put it when I'm talking to others) that Super Robots were hard to find. Aim High was the second on my list due to the complexity and lack of friendliness to the uninformed. (I had to explain it so many times.)

dk5sm5luigi

11-05-2006, 22:44

Toroid Terror was my favorite year. Having to find a way to manipulate a tube and change its orientation to score was very interesting. Also having to pick out the proper color to score. I personally liked all the games when the scoring objects were Red, White, or Blue based on which station you had. It made the field have a look that you don't see anymore. Also 1997 was the second year of Rumble at the Rock and that competition was just awesome.

For those interested in seeing the rules from old games you can go to http://www.first-a-holics.com/competitions/

techtiger1

12-05-2006, 08:57

2004 raising the bar gets my vote for my favorite game. I like the playing field, the different robots, ball grabbers, hangers and the many different mechanisms teams used. I think that none of the other games compare 2003 was who could built the best drive train and that was about it, 05 well 05 was way too easy. Finally, 2006 was the opposite of 05 too many things going on, maybe a bit too relent on technology, and just very complex. Just my opinion on the subject, I think that the game design committee does a great job every year I was just voicing my opinion on some things.

my two and a half cents,
Drew

Ian Mackenzie

12-05-2006, 21:58

1999 by far - there's never been anything quite like the puck. The Chief Delphi vs. Wildstang swerve drive puck tug-of-war at Great Lakes is still one of my favourite matches ever...

Aim High was good, but I think it was a little too simple - there needed to be one more thing to do (like a goal to drag around the field or something). I think two main game tasks is about right; 2004 had too many (still lots of fun, though), and 2005 and 2006 had too few. 2002 would have been fantastic if the balls had been worth 2 points each instead of 1; as it was, picking up balls wasn't all that effective. (Before anybody jumps on me, yes, the very final match at the championship was decided on balls, but that was the exception instead of the rule.)

Bill Beatty

13-05-2006, 10:53

2001 for sure

No penalties. No rough play. No tipping. No pinning. No high hitting. No disqualifications. No box with wheels canceling out a well designed robot. Rookie teams could participate at whatever level they wanted.

Only one referee needed and he didn't have anything to do except count the score at the end. Many subtle aspects too numerous to go into here.

Mr. Bill