Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

As long as we take a break from alliteration next year. It was cool in rebound rumble and ultimate ascent, got old with aerial assist (I still get the latter two mixed up every time I try to say one of them), and Recycle Rush was enough for me. They took a break from it for a few years 2008-2011.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

If I had to guess the game next year: It'll involve mass game piece control (many smaller balls), elevated scoring of some sort, scoring in high volumes (large "dumps" rather than a few precise shots). Scoring from range will be an option but not really required or necessarily even a good idea. It'll certainly be a game with opponent interaction to some extent.

I personally really think that rules restricting the number of game pieces the robot can carry are generally not a great idea and that problems with starvation strategies, etc. should be dealt with in the game design, not patched with a rule later on. There are some exceptions (2013 really needed the four disk rule) but I generally think letting the teams figure out their limits works better.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

I agree with most of what you said, but every game since 2010 has had elevated scoring of some sort (if you count the recycling containers this year).

And I hope there's defense...seriously.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

I am hoping for lots of small spherical game pieces.

I want the field to look like a mixture of a rugby match and a popcorn popper.

Whiffle balls would be excellent. They are cheap, not very dangerous if they "go rogue" and head for the stands/refs, easy for all teams to get extras and easy to see from the stands.

Scoring could be done by simple sensors. Don't you love saying oxymoronic
things like "simple sensors"? Have the balls go through a hopper and then fed into a machine that spits them back out into the middle of the field. Keeping the balls moving would not only be cool to watch it would is more exciting than static game pieces.

As an added challenge you have two different colors of balls and the scoring depends on the bots sorting them and shooting them into the correct goals. This will allow more advanced control systems to play a greater part in the competition without keeping teams with less controls experience from not being able to compete.

This years game was challenging in terms of engineering design, allowed greater variability in robot chassis design, and was most importantly about as exciting as watching paint dry. I was fascinated the first time I went into a freight sorting hub for UPS. I did not at any time think to myself "Wow! I would rather watch this than watch Hockey!" I want defense to return. Place enough obstacles in the field to keep the speeds down (and consequently the amount of damages done). But please oh please let there be at least some sort of defense. Even if it there is no contact at least allow blocking.

Also... It could be an interesting twist to require the bumpers to cover 100% of the perimeter of the robots. At the same time set the lower edge height requirement at about 8 inches. This allows the game pieces to fit underneath. This will encourage the design of pick up mechanisms that are less exposed to being damaged by "exciting defense."

As the game for next year is likely already planned out this has been a fun exercise in what if. :)

On another note: As TheModMaster8 mentioned in another thread - hovercraft style locomotion. I want to build competitive hover-bots.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

They did this in 2010. You're right it was interesting.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

I've kind of been wanting a hockey game for a while now, Its been discussed for at least two years now, and i feel like it could be viable. Think field hockey pucks (so no regolith). There are various ways this could play out, e here is my favorite idea

1. Limited amount of pucks, 4v4 with designated goalies.
This works mostly like normal hockey. Both teams work with their pucks to score the pucks in their goal which is located in a space guarded by the goalie bot. 5 pucks in play at any time, slid into the arena by a human player at one of 6 feeder slots around the field. Three in both alliance section: one behind the goal and two on either side of the field of play. The in-bounding has to happen immediately after a score by the alliance that just scored. Each bot is allowed to posses 1 puck at a time, so potentially the other alliance can steal the in-bounded puck. The goalie bot isn't allowed to move from its zone, and the zone is not a "protected area", but only 1 opposing alliance bot can be there at a time (to prevent mobbing of the goalie and super easy scoring.) A path to the back of the goal would be left unprotected to give access to the in-bounding station there. the goalie bot can intake pucks (only one at a time) and can shoot them across the field or pass to an alliance member within 5 seconds.

Assists could be counted with multipliers that stack through the match for having different robots shoot goals to encourage cooperation and passing, (1.5x each goal for 2 robots each having a goal, 2x for 3, 4x if the goalie and all 3 other robots score. In the endgame we could add the option for coopertition. in the last 20 seconds, 60 or so pucks could be released into each side of the field (its illegal to grab other alliances' endgame pucks) and could be scored in high bins on your side, or in another bin in the middle of the bin for 10 co-op points (+ the score for scored pucks in the bin) extra per alliance that scores in their co-op bin.

The advantages of this are having good amounts of defense possible, both through goalies and other non-goalie robots, but not too much thanks to incentives to scoring and therefore getting close to the goalie and distracting it as opposed to defending entirely, and also the semi-protected status of being in the opposing goalie zone (play goes from to 1v1 in terms of defense in the zone, but with the trade-off of less maneuvering room) FIRST gets its coopertition in two aspects, rookie teams can defend but probably won't be able to wreck a good alliance's scoring, and everyone else gets an endgame and a frozen water game ;P

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

Hockey as an FRC game hasn't been done yet, but hockey pucks have been used in an FTC game. In the 2008-2009 FTC game Face Off!, teams had to move hockey pucks to a goal in the center of the field.

Even though that was a while ago and FTC/FRC share aspects of games, FIRST has never used a game piece twice (or at least not to my knowledge). FRC 2011 Logomotion and FTC 2012-2013 Ring it Up both scored rings on a 3x3 grid of poles, but they were both drastically different games. I could go on with examples, but I think those two games are the most similar.

FIRST could break that boundary and use hockey pucks, but I think that won't happen. If they were to play a hockey-styled game, it would be drastically different than the sport. Look at 2010 and 2012 where they played "soccer" and "basketball".

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

Skee Ball!

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

Water game is probably never going to happen....just something we can make memes for, for years to come...

I'm hoping for a nerf-material football game if we're going back to sports/projectile style game next season.

I wouldn't mind another lifting/manipulation game, not necessarily inner tubes, but something of the nature.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

About scoring points on other bots, I was thinking something along the lines of laser tag where each bot would be allowed to use one safe class 1 laser. The hard part is regulating target placement on each individual robot. Has FIRST ever done a game where they require a certain part to be in a certain place on every robot.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

>25th season
>factor in

>Perfect square


2016 FRC Game: [SPOILER]"Math Attack"

Build a robot that can solve complicated mathematical proofs.[/spoiler]

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

Lunacy wheels.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

I would love to see something like this happen, although that may just be my personal bias as a programmer.

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

This is what I want for next year:

2 fields, 2 robots: robot on one field shoots balls, robot on the other field intakes the balls and passes them over a wall to the other robot. Both robots have to balance an inverted pendulum, and if it falls, the robot gets disabled for 5 seconds. The "balls" contain motors that activate randomly, so they can move around by themselves. Minibots on the field follow lines on the field, and can crash into the robots to make the pendulum fall over. There are 5 types of balls and 4 goals, and each counts negative if scored into the wrong goal. However, one type of ball changes color every 2 seconds, and must be scored at the right time. Did I mention that it is on a lunacy floor?

Re: Not to jinx next year, but...
 

As a tennis player, tennis balls would be a lot of fun to play with in TWO different sports.

I agree with the small ball theory, and could also see football happening.

But because it's FIRST's 25th anniversary, shouldn't we expect something FIRST themed? Logomotion type thing?? Perhaps tetras, balls, and cubes?