Or perhaps this year's game will be held in these in a parking lot instead of tents?

;)

Gotta love the rumor mill....

I will say in public that I doubt the drum guess.

Now that I have said that I do think we will have something that rolls (we're due)

I always liked those 3 ft balls from the 4v0 days.

But to add fuel to the idea of stacking. What if there was zone only your alliance was allowed to go in to stack (no intentional knock downs) Big drums would take time. If there are other ways to score then you decide which is better. Go for the 55 gal drum for 50 points or the 25 One gallon paint cans at 2 points each. Put the paint cans on shelves, like at Home depot......

I agree with Rich Wong. We need another 300 + thread somewhere

Later

Bring on the Clowns
 

Does anybody remember the last thread like this, someone spoke of inflatable punching clowns as scoring pieces. The problem with this is that a whole bunch of them would be expensive, so why not go to discount inflatable sites. Very interesting I do believe.

Here's another off the wall idea though...
In the FIRST email blast that was being referred to, (BTW, I don't remember seeing that one come across... :rolleyes: ) Notice the "red and blue totes just waiting to be filled". That doesn't necessarily mean the kit totes...
I liked the bins in 2003 ok, but I couldn't see using them 2 years in a row...
Actually, as far as the drum idea goes, You can find some smaller, plastic drums (kinda like the ones used in racing) that aren't very heavy at all.
Another note about the Blast email in question, When was it sent?
The 5 game committees did not meet and present until 9/1/03, and I doubt that FIRST would blast info on the game too early...
BTW Dave... you wouldn't happen to be attempting to side track us with those nice, shiny looking military inflatables, would you? :D
Actually, from some very reliable sources within FIRST (names won't be mentioned) It sounds like we know this much:

-2v2
-Auto mode
-Same Size/Shape field

KOTH is still up in the air, but I think it's fairly likely that it might make...some form of return...
I think the playing field surface will probably remain carpet, from what I've heard.
As far as field obstacles go, if you read the forum feedback form, FIRST states that they would try to keep the Field obstacle designs simpler and smaller for team reproduction purposes. This may mean that field obstacles will be in the 2004 game...
I wish I had gotten a little more information on the game design process this year. I would guess that FIRST gave a set of base guidelines to each of the 5 game committees, like field size/shape, 2v2, auto included, maybe KOTH included... or 2 basic scoring methods, etc.
The list could go on...
I actually had a prediction list that I put up in another thread...can't find it at the moment. But it had percentages of game attributes that were likely. 90% of the information came from my sources....
I think just determining a scoring object can tell us a good deal about the game. But doing that's the difficult part.
Ok, to finish off this post, here are some links to different kinds of plastic drums!

http://www.bestcontainers.com/plasti...ead-drums.html

http://www.bestcontainers.com/plasti...in-colors.html
(Note the Red and Blue colored drums....drool...)

http://www.labsafety.com/store/produ...&parent_id=904
(More red + blue drums...)

http://www.maxicontainer.com/plastic...stic_drums.htm

Oh, and BTW, Plastic Drums aren't always in a roll-like shape either. You can find rectangular, cube, and a few other shaped drums...

Keep your eyes out guys...

Re: Bring on the Clowns
 

YES. My advisor submitted the game idea to FIRST called 'Send In The Clowns'. A quick CD search yields ---

Is anybody else getting scared yet? This isn't the first time we've gotten a clue about next year's game having similarities to 'Send In The Clowns'.

I'm getting really scared......
Yet strangely excited...

*hops in to DeLorean* I just hope Dean doesn't have something to prevent me from time travelling to January....

I don't know how likely a moonwalk surface would be. How quickly do you think that or any other inflatable item would pop?

I mean, think about it, if any part of the robot has a sharp edge, bye bye inflatable stuff.

You make it sound as if the Stack Attack bins were all that durable. Cracking one of those is nearly as easy as popping an inflatable clown, in most cases..

I disagree, I think you'd probably be more likely to pop 20-30 inflatable items in a 2 minute round, whereas, you MIGHT only break 4 or 5, maximum 10 sterilite bins in a round.

...if a bin cracked, for the most part, it could still be used. A clown with a deep intestinal laceration isn't going to be of much use after a few moments.

Also -- those barrels are expensive.

Very true, unless of course FIRST wanted to go buy $5000 worth of duct tape to patch holes.

Bins didn't normall crack if you hit them, unless they were against another surface or being shoved under the bar. MOST items will crack if being shoved under a bar or pushed up against lexan or plywood or what have you. I don't thing much would change with inflatable game pieces.

what if they used custom made clowns with a kevlar outter layer

That's a pretty feasible solution for the popping, I suppose.

feasible to stop popping, but feasible as far as costs are concerned?