Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

I was being a bit overdramatic, but my point stands.
Thank you all for doubting my sense, friends. It's appreciated. :)

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

FVC (yeah, with the V) used softballs in Hangin'-A-Round, the first year as a program. Bright yellow and about 3.75" diameter, I think those would be a great game piece for a pick-and-place game. Limit the robots to ejecting them less than five feet from the frame, and I think they'd stay safe.

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

This years' game involved picking up and dropping off ~60 lbs. The problem with heavy objects is that the game looks less like a sport and more like a bunch of construction equipment.

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

Well, so does Megabot and I'm psyched for that... :cool:

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

Wasn't including this year's game because for the most part it was 3v0 on a cramped field.

If the game object was a 45 lb plate slightly modified from the standard weight lifting, and robots could manipulate 2-3 of them at once...

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

What, you don't want to reserve parking for the team? No intra-team pickup soccer games (see: goalposts)? Not even donate 'em to the school proper for hazard marking after the offseasons?


Trust me, my family has 4 good-sized traffic cones in the garage, along with soccer cones. They're great for sports use if you need something VISIBLE--and they stack, so you get one single stack of all the cones...


*takes tongue out of cheek*

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

Soc em boppers, if you remember what those are.

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

They may be more fun than a pillow fight, but I have no idea how you would use them as a game piece besides using them as beach balls.

Side note: They changed the name to Socker Boppers now...

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

I how been toying with a game that would use a axis (think jack of ball and jacks). It would be 3 sticks/tubes bolted together.

I really like the symmetrical cylinder tube. As Wayne said. Lots of opportunities.

Homer buckets could make for a interesting object.

One parameter that IMO is easy for robot to manipulate. Tetras were great for that.

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

The old FTC rolling goal tubes with some endcaps could be a decent game piece.

http://www.andymark.com/FTC-s/531.htm

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

OMG, I found it! The ball was called Oopee, and it was a giveaway from KFC of all places. The video is 80s-tastic too :)

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

Like a Czech hedgehog? Though, I wouldn't want it as a field barrier.

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces
 

Imagining game object shapes might partially be an exercise in looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Instead, imagining what the robots should be required to do with any object might bear more fruit.

Maybe physical keys need to be inserted in locks, and then (optionally?) moved precisely once in the lock.

Maybe optical patterns need to be read or obeyed or responded to at speeds too quick for humans to satisfy (in order to learn something about the rest of the field).

Maybe opposing robots need to compete to stay ahead in a zero-sum game that involves object orientations/locations, or involves continuously manipulating objects in more than one manner (lift one, twist one, throw one, weigh one, etc.),at several locations around the field?

At the least, combining thinking about what you do with the object, with thinking about the object's properties, is an important part of creating challenges.

Blake
PS: Lots of small objects can approximate a fluid.

Re: Unusual, potential game pieces