Next Year....
 

So anybody come up with any ideas for next years game or am i just getting a little ahead of myself?

Re: Next Year....
 

There is no such thing as ahead in FIRST, if anything its behind...

I think it would be cool to do somthing besides balls again. I liked the idea of rubbermaid bins from last year, way to many competitions have had to do something with manipulating balls.

Re: Next Year....
 

I wonder if they'll ever bring back the floppies. As long as I've been involved in FIRST the floppies have been the most challenging to pick up. The totes were a good idea too. If they really want to make it interesting they could have a pile of Tupperware in the middle of the field and give the robots two minutes to locate a matching lid! :p :D Just think of trying to write an autonomous mode for that! :ahh:

Re: Next Year....
 

I saw in another thread, someone posted the possibilities of having the team colors controlled by the arena. It was mentioned how strategically interesting thing would get if halfway through a match, the alliances flip-flopped. One team would switch from red to blue and vice-versa.

Re: Next Year....
 

It definitely should not include dodge balls to allow the world supply to regenerate or whatever dodge balls do to multiply. :)

Re: Next Year....
 

Now that we have an absoulute way to determine where on the field we are, move the autonomous period to the end of the match.

-Bill

P.S. What are floppies?

Re: Next Year....
 

The floppies were stuffed round disk shaped objects. Basically like round pillows. They were the main part of the game in '99. Your robot had to pick them up and raise as many of them as possible up about 8' (don't recall exact height) in the air to score points. They didn't hold they're shape, think of throwing a pillow around and how it could land, and how much fun (difficulty) it was to pick them up.

Re: Next Year....
 

Floppies were used as scoring devices in 1999 and are round cloth things that are somewhat hard to describe. They are about 2.5-3' in diameter and the middle is sewn together to make it flat, however, around the sewn together part the rest of it is stuffed with something. It isn't stuffed with much making them very floppy (hence the name). If anyone has corrections or additions to that description, please add. I have handled one of them in the recent past (my brother has one somewhere), but I was not around when they were used in the FIRST game.
edit: I woudl agree that they are sort of like pillows, but they are not as stuffed as most pillows are. They were very floppy and as he said don't hold their shape.

As for future years...I would like to see pyramid or cylindrical shaped pieces. a device to pick up something pyramidal in shape would need to be a little more complex than most of the arms that pick up the balls.

Re: Next Year....
 

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Re: Next Year....
 

For instance, this year there were two types of objects to pick up: small balls, and large balls. What if you had to manipulate 2 completely different kids of objects? Like bowling pins and frisbies.

It would be cool if during autonomous you could either:
1. trigger the release of fribees on the playing field.
2. Use your IR sensor to find a "mobile bowling pin stash" and attempt to collect the pins. The stash has been randomly placed on the field at the begining of a match. The mobile stash is very similar to the puck in the Floppie year.

The object of the game is to collect the most bowling pins and raise them 8 ft in the air. Robots may also collect friesbees and bring them to the human player. From there the human player would throw them at a 3 foot diamteter hole-goal on the opposite side of the field, located inbetween the 2 allliances.

If you're on the puck at the end of the game, you also receive some type of bonus. Any frisbees in your goal also receives points, Bowling pins in the air at the end of the match also receive points.

EDIT: To mix things up.... if a human player scores a frisbee, a random robot of the opposing alliance is disabled for 10 seconds. Frisbees are no longer used as points.

Re: Next Year....
 

Frisbees... hell yea Mike. That would be just about the coolest thing ever. The problem is that they would be the small crappy ones that get blown away with a gust of wind... It would still be fun though.

-Aaron

Re: Next Year....
 

Water game anyone? ...just kidding.

I think we'll be seeing something vertical again next year. Hopefully some large moving object will return such as the 99' puck or the 01' bridge. I would like to see the 14.75" field divider take another year off since we've had too much of that recently, however it is fun when there is a step under it similar to the 3" step in 01'. I think we should see another non-uniform game object (but not totes) since there are many many good models now for picking up small balls and large balls due to thier frequent appearances. A completely new object (soda bottles? maybe we could see that game preview photo with the mysterious road cone come in) would be a good idea.
One thing I would like to see is the entire driving area go back to carpet or go to a completely new surface all together. Maybe a surface where metal would be allowed to contact it.

I'm sure sometime soon Dave will post his official "so how about you design the 2005 game" thread.

In my oppinion, changes are always good in FIRST games.

Re: Next Year....
 

well, using hints and observations from this year, heres some stuff i think next years game will involve.

Remember how Dave said that we need to get used to the IR sensors and learn how to use them? Also look at how FIRST has finally introduced an automated field.

Perhaps next year, there might be an active field element. In other words, something that moves around the field on it's own power, controlled by the arena controllers, like the EDU-RCs that controlled the bal dumps this year.

Why do I think this? IR is the only way (in FIRST at least) to track a moving target. Yuo can't track a line, wall, or use dead reckoning to find something constanly changing position.

I think an active field element would make next years game so awesome.

I also like the idea of frisbees.

another thing to ponder over. This years game uses elements of the past 5 or 6 games. Perhaps this was intentional, building up to something next year that is completely different using nothing any of us have ever seen in a FIRST game before.

Re: Next Year....
 

I did a bit of reading on some of the older games...personally, I'd love to see a return to an inch and a half of corn for a field.

But more realistically for FIRST purposes, I'd like to see a few things. Like a really challenging field for drivers. Who knows? We might even see a suspension on a FIRST robot!

And I agree that it'd be pimp to do something besides balls. Perhaps some kind of capture the flag element? Or even cooler, make it so that some parts of the field are impossible to see from the driver's station. Make the human player into a HP/spotter where they can see, and you've added yet another level to the game.

Or, if balls must remain an option, I think you'd see some good action if they were really small balls...like tennis balls or smaller. Get a ton of 'em on a FIRST Frenzy-sized field, and you've got a lot of action. (You've also got field reset's worst nightmare, but that's another story.)

And there's always pink lawn flamingos...

Re: Next Year....
 

They should do something balace -ey. Like Diabolical Dynamics 2001. I also liked the three color system of alliances.

I'd like a game 5 minutes long. FIRST MEGAFRENZY!!! balances, bars, slippery ramp, balls, 2x multiplier totes (yes, put 8" balls in the totes themselves (opening required)), spikey things, pyramid things, floppy things, 4x multiplier 48" balls, 6 autonomous beacons. THis will be super hard, and tax good thinkers. We need to raise the bar. And by the way, 8 teams per match.