Stairs... not likely. It's too big an obstacle for alot of teams.
Perhaps a small wall w/ a beam over it to lift up and over, kinda like 2000...
Though I'm still not sure.
Basically, I think First will find another common-day object, and based on what you can do with it, frame another zone-scoring like game.
You never know, they may have something incredibly different up their sleeves.
I should post my game idea, "Column Crisis" up here...
I didn't get to submit it to First due to time issues...
Anyway....
I doubt stairs... It'd be fun though!
I hope that if they do have another field obstacle, that it will be solid, rather than the mesh from this year...mainly for a few (crazy) ideas I've come up with...
:D

2004 - 3 vs 3 on an octogon field. that would be completely new and then you should be able to have a 4 team alliance for finals, allow more teams to play or just have 3 team allainces and if one team breaks down....they break down and you deal with it. having 3 teams would allow them to put a much harder task in the game and would probably encourage teams to make really big 'wing' robots like the ones that started showing up last year, and more frequently this year. as for the actual game its self, they deffinately have to have some type of moving field object, maybe similar to the huge puck of 99. i don't particularly like the ramp because it gives too much of a disadvantage to the teams driving on the opponents side

intresting idea

i think that doing it as a 3 on 3 with each alliance only having 2 active bots at a time woud be cool, or perhaps 1 active bot at a time. It would make for an interesting game.

I think that FIRST should go back to what they did in 2001 for alliance parings. They grouped 12 bots together for a group of 3 matches, and you didn't find out which 3 you were with until 2 minutes before. It made strategy interesting. I dont like knowing exactly who my alliance partner/ opposing alliance is at the start of the day. It takes some of the fun out of it, and the surprise.

I like the idea of capture the flag. Here's the way I would set it up. Divide the field in two zones. Matches would be 2v2. Human players would be given an object at the beginning of the match, and would be allowed to place it anywhere on the field (Two objects per alliance). This object should be awkward to manipulate (think something that you can't just push and effectively move it). There could be a autonomous period at the beginning of the match, say 10 seconds. The match lasts two minutes, or however long it takes for a robot to capture both objects.. Whichever team gets both objects on their side of the field first wins. During play, if your robot gets "tagged" on the other side of the field, you are disabled for some period of time (5-10 seconds). At the end of two minutes, if neither team captures both objects, then whoever has more, wins, and if they have the same number, the team who got "tagged" the least. There would be also be a multiplier at time intervals for capturing both objects, like 2001. For QP's, the winner gets a set number of points for each object (100) times the multiplier (if any), minus a penalty (5 pts) for each time a member of their team was "tagged." Losers would get a set number of points for each object divided my the other teams multiplier plus a bonus for the # of times they tagged the other team.

This game would accomplish a few things. First, it would eliminate this "battle-bots" style that we are beginning to see grow each year. It would also force teams to design an effective way to manipulate this object. We would also move from the "brute force" aspect of the game. So...what do you guys think?

I would like to see variable autonomous times.

Here goes:
The human player determines the amount of autonomous time somehow, maybe by hitting switches, in addition to their ordinary job.
Or the drive team could just have a switch to turn autonomous off, take your pick.
Minimum = 15 seconds.
No multiplier points are given for this amount of time. Any time less than 30 is given this auton point multiplier

Double auton = 30 seconds
Doubles your points at the end of the match. Any time less than 45 is given this point multiplier.

Triple auton = 45 seconds
Triples your points. Any time greater than or equal to 45 gets this multiplier.

edit\
please read this, Dave Lavery!
Autonomous is fun!
end edit\

What if FIRST went w/ a larger field next year.. and it was 3 vs. 3? Now that would be interesting...

I'd like to see the thing that they did in 2001, where if you stopped the clock w/ enough time on it, you'd get a multiplier.

Hmm .. stairs would be interesting, but unlikely. I don't think the ramps are going to go away completely, or the bars, but I doubt they'll be in next year's game.

I don't know.... seems like just the opposite to me. One of the problems this year was that the boxes were TOO hard to manipulate and that resulted in lots of time involved in getting a stack as opposed to half a second to knock it down... if you want to use an object that's difficult to manipulate, I'm just afraid that people will do just the OPPOSITE of what you want them to do, like in this game. Although this seems like fun, I think the game you describe would EMPHASIZE the brute-force aspect. This year, I think the game was designed so that teams would go for the stacking aspect - just the opposite happened - teams went for the easiest push-shove designs. Personally, I think in a Capture-the-flag type game, the winning bots would be the ones that are the most physically powerful, or atleast that's how I'd design a bot.

I don't know to tell you the truth. Unlike alot of people I've talked to, I liked this years game alot. Granted, the full potential of the game was not maxed out, however I still like the concepts behind it. As for going back to all four teams working together like in '01, I'm against that as well. Those matches weren't really exciting as as someone mentioned, the teams were more like going to work than competing. As for the match 'riggings', what are you gonna do about it? Granted, I also think its a stupid thing to do, but how are you going to tell people 'don't do that, its not right'.

I would love to see the bins return next year and for FIRST to maintain the 2 vs 2 format for alliances, or even go crazy next year and try for a 3 v 3 type game. Maybe bins with the balancing ramp from '01...... :D

You know that would be an interesting game. If somehow first could find a way to incorporate the 2001's game and this years. With the one minor change being it will be 2 vs 2 and not 4 all together on the alliances. If not that then maybe they could take something from each year, the puck for example, the balancing of the goals, the bins and much more and put them all together in one game. Yet I think that would be to much and to complicated. I personally loved this years game, it was a nice change away from the goals and all the balls.

I would love to see FIRST try a relay race with four lanes each for alliances of four teams through an obstacle course having to carry a bowling pin throughout.

2 vs 0 vs 2 vs 0
 

I think a lot of folks missed many of the subtleties of the 2001 game. It was my favorite game and maybe someday I will write a white paper with my thoughts on it.

How about splitting the field in half and have two alliances 2 vs 0 going on simultaneously and competing with each other. It could be a complex problem requiring good cooperation between the 2 robots and maybe have a sliding time factor figuring in the scoring. It would be sort of head to head but the two alliances do not come into contact with each other. I haven't thought this trough, but I throw it out there as a brainstorm idea.

Regards

FIRST has come into liking the "walking" like robots, where they would beable to walk up stairs, and also look at many teams have made "homemade segways" so what if we were required to build a robot that needed gyros or only 2 wheels? Also dont really count on a whole new field, we may get a new device in the middle or somewheres on theres like the ramp was this year. the field has been reused for a few years now due to the outside and everything total cost of more then $1 million for all the fields that FIRST builds.

~Dez

a few rumors-

comment from Dave Lavery-- stairs

comments to us for our contest submission- clowns


Does this mean clowns on stairs?

Hmmmmm.....

How about this thrown into the works make autonomous mode the last 15 seconds of the game lol.... I bet i can hear the programers moaning now. It would make you start using the refeltive tape that first has been trying to put into the game.

this year was great. there was massive amounts of excitement and i got into it really excessively...in a fun way.

my parents said it was awesome and it was easy to follow once you got the rules down pat...2 minutes is enough time....and they usually never got very excited about games or anything. they would just sit their quitely and cheer politely. NOT FOR ROBOTICS!
they were screaming their heads off and even ready to go after the refs a few times....i have never seen them get that parenting rage thing when their kids don't do well....i had to hold them back and they were about to send a letter to certain people before i stopped them and got them to cool down....


yes this style is great fun and very competitive. you get into it really well.