Carpet Problems
 

Everyone that went to the IRI Competition was reminded how big a problem carpet damage is. It moves all over, and chances are if you used anything other than a rubber material for traction you tore the carpet at least once. I was curious if anyone had a good idea for a replacement for the troublesome carpet or possibly a new rule to prevent it.

Some Ideas...
 

Although i did notice carpet bunching at the other regionals and nationals, it did seem to happen a lot more at IRI. The reason for this is because our carpet was only a few inches wider then the field on both sides, and longer in length for the player stations. If we would have bought this carpet this year for IRI instead of last year we probably would have made it wider on both sides so we could secure it down more...

One thing i would like to see next year would be some sort of "hard" floor similar to what u see on battlebots maybe. Maybe this floor could be bought in sections/panels and assembled w/o using any glue or nails.

Just a thought.

Flooring
 

I think it would be cool if they did change the surface. They have had carpet for a long time and they need something different. It would also be fun to see how the teams change designs to get traction on a different floor. Hopefully FIRST will keep something like that in mind when they go to create next year's game. :cool:

/me awaits the usual "we want a water playing field" response...

I vote for gravel or some sort of rougher surface.

Flooring
 

Sand would be very challenging. It would also be very hard on your robot, but challenging to see how the teams react to that.

i think the best idea is either concrete (kinda hard though), or some sort of interlocking boards that just plop down and sit there. basically, any kind of hard surface that is more or less impossible to damage. the other idea would be sand/gravel, but many places would not like that, so i doubt that would happen.

I want to see a really slick field, as slick as ice... That should make pushing matches interesting.

Maybe just dump vegtible oil on the gym floors in between matches ;). Hey, it sounds good in my mind.

-Andy A.

Flooring
 

Wild/Unrealistic...but Fun Idea: Robots that jump into a vat of jello or water and have to pick up obstacles!

Realistic: Climbing stairs!

Re: Flooring
 

question... What is a vat? climbing stairs would be interresting. lots of damage could result...

Libby Ritchie, if the robots do climb stairs well, maybe you should take lessons from them. So the next time you go to Dean Kamen's house you won't fall. :D

you don't want anything loose like sand not even rugged bots like battlebots cant handle sand btw stars are pretty easy to traverse with tracks

Rubber Mulch
 

That's right...rubber mulch. It's commonly used for playgrounds...all it's composed of is shredded tires...

I can't really seem it being easy to design something for, but was corn in 1992 easily available for everyone to design a robot to drive on?


http://www.homestead.com/prosites-cl...aygrounds.html




Also there is this...
Interlocking Rubber Flooring

If they used this they could do something cool with the color flooring like making their logo on the playing field. :)

tracks would probably be best for that kinda surface. I think that would be pretty fun to watch.

Hey, thanks for sharing my stupidity with the WORLD, Caleb! I saw a Segway....it's not my fault that my feet couldnt' go as fast as my mind was!

I want Interlocking rubber tile. This stuff is common in weight rooms and gyms.
This allows parts to be replaced if need be, and also allows some room for stress relef.


My other great idea is the carpet, but covered with ducktape.
Is that brilliant or what?
:D


Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/me is listening to
E:\Jack off Jill\Clear Hearts Grey Flowers\Jack Off Jill - 02 - Fear of Dying.mp3

does it really matter what surface we use. All FIRST Robots will be competitive. :D personally i like the carpet. We get to take home pieces of it big and small after the NYC FIRST! Regional takes place. 2001 Most of the carpet came to our school and after 2002 a small portion of it also made it to the robotics room. 2000 we also had a piece of the J&J MidAtlantic Regional carpet:cool: . Besides its much harder to take home a souvenir such as water from a regional/national:p ;) ;)

well, we could always do water, and then when we're done, bottle it and hand it out as souvineers. be the best bottle of water yet! where else can you find nuts and bolts, screws, metal shavings, and best of all, grease! :p

we want a water playing field :D

I would like to see water but not on the whole field. If we were to use the rubber mat idea then we could have water in small sections of the field that teams have the option of crossing. If it spilled just get a towel and dry the mat. Just a thought

Synthetic Ice!

-Joel

heres some ideas:
the pit area flooring at nats
something hard like concrete or wood that cant be 'dug' into
astroturf (heck why not)
dirt, gravel, or any other loose material (would have to be raked after each round but cool none the less)
water would be cool, but why not liquid nitrogen (jk but would be funny)
plastic sheeting (slick and hard to grip especially when waxed)
waxed floor
rubber mats (though these are easily torn)

i mostly would like to see the playing field more uneven (though can make it tough for teams to recreate (maybe make it a surprise surface for each regional, wouldnt that be fun)

Hey how about a playing field where all the carpet is covered in duct tape? :-)

I'm not sure what kind of duct tape you use but any kind I've ever seen would get ripped and peeled up. I do agree that we need something really new for a field. A lot have teams have mastered gaining traction on carpet. Some sort of dirt or sand would be cool but we would bring it back into the pits and it would get everywhere. Gravel would work. As for water, we would have to be required to have a sealed electronics box. This would be very time consuming to make and have access to. Also, teams and FIRST would get tired of constantly replacing electronics. As for surface, I have no idea; rubber tiles, shredded rubber, and gravel all sound good. I would like to see some more obstacles though like steep ramps or hills. Some sort of a pit like a shallow U. Some small stairs. Small drop offs. Possibly ramps that lead up to and down from a second level. Speed bumps. Or howabout moving parts of the field like an elevator or convayer belt. I would go for pretty much anything that would increase the funness of the game but not break adequetely built robots. This would make it hard for teams to host their own competitions off season though... That would have to be worked out.

i'd love to see something that was more of a challenge to drive (like moving objects on fields, that would be awesome :p), and possibly even slightly longer matches. also, if there were moving parts of the field, they would need to be randomly controlled via computer. that way it's different every time, and there's no ref playing favorites. nice, fair, and fun. the second level (if there was one) would have to be shielded (so a robot couldn't fall off) or just very low (so a robot won't shatter when it falls), but preferably the first choice. the competitions could be very interesting, but we need to break from the carpet (even the rookies are getting sick of it! :D).

Did anyone else ever have a problem with moving on a hard surface? Our 2001 robot shook like mad if we tried using our skid-steer driving on something like concrete or asphalt. This year, our robot doesn't do it since we had suspension :)

Carpet is fun. Anyone else ever have the fun task of prying carpet out of the axles? Fun stuff...

Our robot actually moved better on a hard surface. The belting we used for our wheels actually gave us too much traction, and it made it hard for us to turn on carpet. On concrete it turned perfectly, though.

same thing happened to us. on tile floor, our robot worked perfectly. on two layers of carpet (SBPLI) it didn't work until we did some boarderline legal stuff (it was technically legal, as long as we kept our wheels from spinning and tearing carpet). after the season, we took the modifications off, and tried it on asphalt. it shuddered a bit when we turned, but overall worked much better on asphalt than carpet.

while i dont think that sand or pebbles will ever be used, it would be interesting to have a new surface, and i think the the sirface itself should become one of the opstacles. it would be cool if they used miniature speed bumbs or uneven platforms the would make it harder for the robots to get around. and as for stairs, i remember seeing a tri-wheel design that was supposed to be able to climb up just about anything.

im going to second the motion for the rubber mulch, and hey while were at it why not bring the play ground too! Carpet sucks, enough said.

Ashley

wait wait... what if the playing field IS a playground, robots on monkey bars, going down slides... *giggles with excitement*

With other robots running around the maypole and flowers everywhere! Especially daisies because I like daisies. Then we can goooo swwiiiimmiing!!!!!

Err...ahh...enough of that.

A play ground would show a wide variety of robots and ways to play the game. That sounds like alot fun actually.

Hmm....robots swimming not a bad idea for a water field, but anyway I still feel like a new SOLID surface is what FIRST needs. This is because we have to remember that anything loose like rubber mulch would have to be raked after each match or you end up with inconsistent pits (which can lead to tipping) and what team would like to lose a match due to what happened in the round before it.

*shiver* /me feels too happy *shiver*

I can see FIRST doing 3 different things to keep us from damaging the carpet:

1. Make another game like 2001, where contact and traction issues were minimal and incedental.

2. Make us use only Skyway wheels to move our robots around.

3. Or, like many are saying in this thread... change the playing surface.

I've been thinking the same thing. Here are some websites that have a few good alternatives to carpet. I am trying to get some sample of a few of these and have them ready for the upcoming FIRST Forum as suggestions.

Here is a start.

Vynil Tile & flooring
VPI Flooring
http://www.vpiflooring.com/alldata_specifications.html

PVC Interlocking Tile Flooring:
Lock-Tile
500mmx500mm
http://www.lock-tile.com/en/default.html

Plasti-Floor
http://www.plasti-flor.com/index2.htm

Rubber tile flooring
ACTiVA Rubber Flooring Tile (19.6"x19.6")
http://www.rubberflooring.ca/hp/hp.htm

DuKap
http://www.dukap.com.tr/en/default.htm

Synthetic Ice
KwikRink Original - synthetic ice floor
$9.99 per square foot (4' x 8' x 1/2" thick)
http://www.kwikrink.com/pricing.htm

Rubber runway-type
12mm #6035 - 12mm Instant Plyorobic Runway & Flooring
http://www.performbetter.com/catalog...22B3NG9DTK21PF

Some of these are foreign suppliers that may have difficulty getting product to the US quickly... there has got to be more varieties out there.

Andy B.

I like the idea of having a loose surface that rubber mulch would be good. But i think that for the sake of consistancy we really do need a solid floor, i would like to see some variations in the surface though that could be interesting. Maybe like thoes tracks we see dean testing his segway on. Wooden ramp into water out of water into rocks...

ok, how about a solid surface with one of the following...

1) a raised surface that contains a different, non-solid surface, and has completely different objectives for scoring than the normal, solid field, or

2) a section that contains a large amount of points but much be accessed by going through a pit filled with some non-solid surface.


this would make the game interesting and different, and show us many new drive trains. a combo field would be interesting too. any thoughts on something like that?

Just remember the discussion and examples on this thread.

Heh heh heh heh ....

But then, what do I know .....


-dave

-------------------------------------

Duck season! Rabbit season!
Duck season!! Rabbit season!!...

Ya know those bear skin rugs? How about using several of those for the floor? It would result in hours of furry fun!

I just happen to have a 30 foot by 60 foot "Sport Court" in my back yard. This is a plastic interlocking tile (10" by 10" each). At $1 - $2 per tile, you can see that you would have a pretty expensive practice field that you better be able to LOCK UP in the off season!

If anyone in the Manchester, NH area wants to try their robot on it, give a yell. I have found that it is much more "slippery" for a robot.

By the way Dean has a very large surface of this stuff at his house.

Various surfaces
 

Another thought -

Consider a field with multiple surfaces. If this thought was applied to this year's field, it could be like this:

Robot Starting Zone: PVC plastic interlocking tiles
Goal Scoring zones: 1/4" thick aluminum sheet (or that fake ice material)
Middle zone: Rubber sheet (or "Sport Court" - like stuff)

That would definitely be interesting. The name of the game could be "Traction Action".

Andy B.

Heck with skyway wheels....Synthetic Ice Floors would be awesome for a playing field surface....its like a hockey rink but not as slippery...make some stationary goals out there and I think you would have a winner there....I remember skating on those for when I started learning how to Ice Skate...Plus after nationals is over we could get in a good game of Ice Hockey :D

Re: Various surfaces
 

I think this is an outstanding idea.

A playing field with more then on surface would be fun to play on. Hopefully it would be made so you won't have too much trouble getting the robot on and off the field in a short time.

Re: Various surfaces
 

On that note...y not recycle? For example I’m sure many teams have seen in the past how much saw dust is left over after or during the season, so why not make a part of the playing field out of sawdust (this is only an idea, please do not use this.... picture robots and saw dust)

With that said picture the possibilities for the field, and there would be no need to spend extra money on playing field hazards because they would be a bi product of the playing pieces.

Re: Re: Various surfaces
 

if the whole field was saw dust then we could throw out the too much grease rules. Because everyone knows how to clean a grease spill....:D

How about a "ball pit" like you see in the kiddie playgrounds. You know a soft surface covered in a layer of hollow plastic balls. Should be interesting. We might replace the hollow balls with tennis balls or something if they prove to fragile. I can only imagine the chaos that would result from that. It'd be pretty easy to dig in and resist movement, so the game would have to be designed with to discourage that. The purpose of the game could actually have something to do with manipulating the playing feild...and yes I'm only half joking. A pit of much smaller balls could even give us the experience of water without the inevitable release of magic smoke.

Now that my insane idea is finished, I'd just like to point out that whatever you suggest, remember it has to protect the floor underneath it very well, as some first regionals are held on gymnasium floors (which are easily damage by robots).

Insane indeed. How deep were you thinking these balls would be. I see the only means of propulsion as driving on the floor beneath the balls, a walking robot, or tank treads with much surface area to "float" atop the balls.

I would like to see how far this idea gets. Does anyone have a game plan to add to this field idea.


I have always wanted to fill an empty swimming pool with those playplace balls but I'm sure it would cost a fortune.