Soccer! Good Idea
 

Yup, I think soccer would be so fun. One question is after you score, will there be other balls on the field already? Or will you stop the robots and place another ball mid field and start the match again for ever ball scored :confused: Anyway, the idea would be really fun, if you wanted to make it a little harder make the teams larger 3v3 or even 4v4 if you dare :eek:

hmm, didn't someone post a link to a robotic soccor league in japan a while back somewhere?

RoboCup is being held in Japan this year. They hold an annual soccer comeptition with AIBO robot dogs, walking humanoid robot players, full-size robots, mini-size robots, and simulated robots.

I don't think FIRST should try to go in the whole soccer direction. RoboCup already has the area all staked out. FIRST can come up with nice original games without having to resort to soccer. :)

Perhaps a soccer theme with goals and such, but probably nothing on the scale of RoboCup.

maybe change the game a bit, add 2 goals per side? or put a goal in each corner? More goals would mean it would be more difficult to goal gaurd.

Thanks for asking...

OK I have several ideas I will post seperately to try to keep the posts short.
1) 4 v 1 (???)
Four robots working together with one robot acting as a spoiler. If the tasks are complicated enough a good defensive robot could be useful.
Pros
* 6 robots would win (4 plus one plus a back up)
* I liked 2001..it was like bowling (OK I had to learn to like it)
*there is still a competitive force on the field, especially during finals.
Cons
*Apparently no one else likes to bowl (:-)
* unbalanced play. One good defensive robot could change the game (hmm is that a pro?)
*5 robots on the field, not all on the same team. Could be confusing to the uninformed


In closing on this post.
Football takes abit to explain and many people watch it. As is hockey (For those of you that would say hockey is easy to explain include icing, penalties, pulling a goalie etc) in your explaination.
My point is, make the explanation of the rules around 4th when worrying about whats important.
A game that will challenge teams is more important

OK one more closing post. Love all the autonomous ideas I agree!!(15 seconds)
To further test our limits
Change the weight of the robot, to say..100 pounds?
Rookies won't know any better and veterens will have to learn how to think
*inside* the box.

More soon. Again thanks for asking

Ultimate Frsbee Style Competition
 

The main idea that has been posted on this thread is the idea of frisbees. It is not that frisbees are that important or revolutionary, but that they fly effectively. There were a few teams this year that launched soccer balls, but soccer balls aren't that aerodynamic. With the addition of frisbees there would be more of a three dimensional aspect to the game, which is much more interesting. Another way to add this three dimensional aspect is to add multiple layers to the field.

Say you have your floor, and then four or five feet above that you have a level of lexan or some other clear material so that you could still see what was going on below this platform. The scoring of the frisbees could all be on this second level so that robots could merely launch the frisbees to the second level.

Another factor that was missing from last years game was that two similar robots could work together effectively. I f there was a rule such as robots were not allowed to carry frisbees from the floor to the platform, two types of robots would most likely evolve.
A. A robot that would stay on the floor and collect frisbees, then launch them up to the goal on the second level.
B. Robots that would climb up to the second level and catch frisbees and put them in their goal.
When these two types would work together, they would be awesome, but two of one type would not do nearly as well.

Scoring
The goals would be similar to frisbee golf goals where there is a basket to hold the frisbees at the bottom and chains hanging from the top to absorb the impact of the frisbees and slow them down. Each team could have its own goal on the top platform and there would be retro-reflective tape on the goals so that robots could autonomously aim the frisbees at the goal. Robots could also get points for being completely on the platform (i.e. no part of their robot touching the ground.) This would simplify the game in that there would be no zones, which i found to be the hardest part to explain to new recruits.

Some "general concepts" I'd like to see considered for next year:

1) Qualification vs Final rounds should have the SAME rules. We had in essence two different games this year. Some teams said "to heck with QPs, let's show everyone we can simply CREAM opponents and get ourselves PICKED for the Finals". Example fix for this game: "FPs" could have been accumulated like QPs (starting from zero at the start of the Finals), and places awarded to the top scorers.

2) I'd like to see more teams involved in the Elimination Finals. SEED them with QPs, but let's get more involved in it.

3) A "Rock Paper Scissors" (A/B/C) game strategically where any team scoring with strategy A will beat those doing B, but are vulnerable and can lose to those doing C (etc. around the ring).

This year, "whomever owned the goals owned the game". The game should not be that "swampable". With an A/B/C game, AND alliances, if you are doing "A", then your alliance partner MUST do "B" *very well* to defend YOU against an opponent doing "C". No one solo strategy should be able to swamp the game. This forces more dependency on your partner(s).

4) Active devices or goals on the field. Examples: A goal with a rotating windmill shutter in front of it, or the opening swinging back and forth. You'll have to contend not only with the goal, but the time/phase as well. This might give opponents time to DO something about a machine ABOUT to score. Another: Make a scoring device that robots have to "toggle" to expose YOUR scoring hole.

5) Baskets or goals that COUNT and return the object(s) randomly to the playfield or the other team. This makes it more like many other sports like basketball, soccer, hockey etc. where total object possession time becomes important.

6) Make the need to (or reward) a hand off of an object between alliance partners. Machines often cooperate in industry and have to do object handoffs.

Example: AS LONG AS THERE ARE AT LEAST TWO ALLIANCE ROBOTS RUNNING: A robot that collects the object from the floor may NOT score with it. A robot that scores MUST have had the object handed to it by another robot. (Use at least three robots per alliance to minimize the chances of only one robot running per alliance.) If only one robot is active in an alliance, it may both collect and score. Objects may be handed, tossed, rolled, shot, etc. between robots, but if the object comes to rest on the arena floor before the receiving robot captures it, the receiving robot will have to hand it to another for scoring.

Comments?

- Keith

Keith had some really good ideas, and so did a lot of other people. I know that I am really very late, but I just found out about the thread today, and have now read every post on it, so give me a break. :) I do not have an organized game, but lots and lots of ideas to incorporate into the decision-making process.

:( The Negative Stuff (Keep it out of the game!)

• I don't think that tie-breakers are in the spirit of FIRST. FIRST is meant to exemplify the business world, where different business or teams don't need to beat each other, but only to succeed. Yes, 2001 was boring. Having two alliances play really well and get the exact same score should mean that they get the exact same QP. Neither one has exhibited dominance. I think Andrew's ideas on this topic were good, including this: have 2x the score for ties, 3x and 1x for normal matches.

• Zones are easy to understand, but not to explain. Avoid them if at all possible. If you must have them, put large volumes of colored tape around them, and keep their purposes clear and distinct. For instance, I think having two zones where balls counted, and one where goals counted, was taking it too far.

• The problems arising from the 2002 goal stuff:
- Being able to take control of a goal, and then hold it no matter what other robots did, was bad.
- Wrestling matches took too much time, too little thought, and had very little action on the common occasion of nearly evenly-matched robots. Seeing one win could be impressive, but the normal results were very boring, at least to me.
- The supremacy of goals over balls ruined the advantages of diversity.

• The proposed "Red and Blue divisions" would not be good, I don't think. There's a lot of value in being allied with a team one match, and against them the next. It keeps people friendly, believe it or not, because there's no one to think of as a solid "enemy". I can see some teams only lending tools to their own division and the like. Nobody in particular, but its important to make it hard for people to slip into the trap of this kind of destructive competition.


:) The Positive Stuff (Pile it on!)

• One way to make the games easy to understand is to make them similar, in easily perceived ways, to existing popular games. Someone pointed out that football is a pain to learn, and said that we shouldn't worry about being easy to understand either. The problem is that many people devote their lives to football. They learn the rules while they're learning to walk, and then they can follow games for the rest of their lives. This won't work for FIRST. Since the rules must be learned within a weekend, they must be much simpler. Any large bundle of rules will be hard to get across, so making a basic set similar to an existing game is very useful. A whole bundle of rules can be communicated at once: "It's like soccer, but this and that are different..." Speaking of which, that Robsoccer idea was kind of cool, but make the field more interesting than a soccer field.

• Building would be a really cool thing for robots to do. Wacky Warehouse was really neat. How about building defensive structures of some sort, or building things that the robot had to climb on after completing?

• I think that having an active score display is a really good idea. It points to having the score easily determined by computer. Thus, the actual FIRST field must have built-in sensors:

- The weight idea is good. Robots can pile weights on a raised scale, and the score will be determined very easily. For practice, teams can simply use a raised platform. The size of the platform compared to the size of the weights will make piling and building important, because otherwise, they'll fall off. Problems: do robots count? What if a robot pushes down on the scale? :(

- Have a painted red platform at the blue end of the field, and vice versa. When robot lands on it, red score increases, due to pressure switch or scale in platform. Can be climbed onto. Blue will guard. Maybe being on it for longer produces more points. Possible accessible by bars that must be hung from, a zipline style piece, or the like. These could be useful for evading the defensive robots, and the interplay between defense and offense in guarding such a platform could get very fascinating. Imagine something like a spider going along the bars, being blocked by a robot hanging from them, dropping down, and trying to reach the platform before the other robot got down to block. Lots of speed and agility! The platforms could also have lights that flash while points are being awarded, so that the audience can see what's going on.

- Make it so that items are scored by being inserted through some sort of slipping door, so that they can will be sensed and counted as they go through. This makes color-coding difficult, but I think it's cooler, personally.


• Have a loose rope at one end of the field hook to some strong attachment point, then go through tubing to a gate that scoring pieces must pass through. One robot must pull rope to open gate, while another scores pieces. This makes cooperation important at a different level. I have a picture here, which is fancier than it should be, and really is not meant to endorse the use of balls:


• Not using balls sounds pretty cool. They're getting a bit old.

- Frisbies would be neat, but the protective cage could be a logistic problem. How about large foam discs that couldn't do much damage, but could move like frisbies?

- Is anyone familiar with the "scooters" that consist of a platform about a square foot in size, with a caster at each corner, and a hole in the middle for easy organization on a post? These could be good ball alternatives. They could make play like hockey: shove a bunch off towards a slot that accepts them into a holding area and counts them by switching technology. Lifting might even be discouraged, although not necessarily.

- Building with Rubbermaid or the like would be awesome.

- I like color-coded balls, with one color that gives points to both sides, but it conflicts with my auto-scoring ideas to some extent.

• Keep the field borders the same. They were made from aluminum this year. Be nice!

• Encourage climbing and hanging. Stairs would be really cool. I'm tempted to have a tower with a button at the top, but it would probably be too dangerous.

• I liked the idea of a PVC maze, which could be navigated, limbo'd, or climbed over.

• It is true that hills and chokepoints make play more interesting. Having robots start nearer the middle could also be interesting.

• Maybe each alliance should have one robot start on the ground, the other on a 2' or 3' platform running the fields length. Make it advantageous to pass items back and forth. I'm pirating ideas here, I know, but the point is to strengthen them and get them out there, no?

• Advantage for robots being able to climb on top of each other? That could be pretty cool, or so hard that everyone ignores it. Maybe suggest that everyone's frame be IPS or Bosch, so that they know what they'll likely need to grab onto.

• That "practical goals" initiative with stairs and doorknobs was pretty cool. How about emptying a trash can?

I'm so glad I'm not trying to unify all this into one game. I've put out more ideas than would fit!

Thanks for listening!

Ian Krieg

Like I said earlier, I really like field obstacles, they just make it more interesting.

Its also more impressive to say "we built a robot that puts a 3 foot diamater ball on top of a 7-foot goal. This year the best we could do was "Our robot can lift about 400 pounds".

How about Bowling?
 

Designing a robot to pick up and place bowling pins would be a different challenge!

Game Setup: 18 bowling pins are set up on each side of the center of the field, and four bowling balls are set up on the side of the field as shown in the diagram below. One bowling pin (four total) will be wrapped with retro-reflective tape at its neck and will be placed at the apex of each team’s scoring zones. See attached file for field diagram.

The Game: Robots have to set up bowling pins in their triangular scoring zones, and then roll one or two bowling balls at each scoring zone to knock down the pins. When rolling the balls, the robots must not touch or cross over their foul line. The game pits two robots on each alliance.

Scoring: 10 points for each pin set in a vertical orientation in a triangular scoring zone, plus
10 points for each pin knocked over by a bowling ball, plus
50 point bonus for each strike (all ten pins in a scoring zone knocked over by a single ball), and
25 point bonus for each spare (all ten pins in a scoring zone knocked over by two balls)

Disadvantages: No role for the human player. No robot-vs-robot contact, or alliance-vs-alliance interaction. It is essentially a game of robot skill.

Advantages: Most everyone knows the rules of bowling. It is a made-for-TV event, but without the violence of Battlebots. FIRST has never used bowling pins or balls with the weight of bowling balls. Would be a good challenge for robot design. NO QP’s, only raw scores determine seeding for elimination rounds.

Re. the Schedule...
 

There's been at least a little discussion in this thread of possibly changing the schedule to allow more teams to compete in the elimination matches. While I'm all for more teams being able to compete longer into the competition, I think the only way we're going to see that is if the alliance size increases(to 3v3 or 4v4, maybe?). Here's why...

-At some sites, they did not have many more teams competing than the current 24 required for elims. You would be hard pressed to increase this number much more without somehow(?) guaranteeing that at least X teams would be at a regional event.

-There was a time when everyone advanced to the elims. However, with the growth of FIRST(and the realization a few years ago that eventually everyone was not going to be able to go to EPCOT,) they moved away from this. I believe that this moving away from "all teams advance" was to prepare us for the time when not all teams would be able to attend the championship.

-I've heard before of cutting practice time in half and starting qualifying on Thursday afternoon as a way to give everyone more play time. While from a team's perspective(including my own when I was on that side of things full-time), this is a no-brainer way to get more qualifying time in, on the event side of things, it's not quite that easy. At every regional I was at, and even at nationals, there were still teams registering and getting inspected up until the last minute on Thursday night, with some inspections not being completed until the pit area opened on Friday. With the current pseudo-random match pairings system, there is no real way to say, "OK, these teams have been inspected, so let's have them start qualifying tonight, and everyone else starts in the morning." Not to mention the logistical nightmare of such a setup if it did exist.

Just my thoughts, seeing things from both sides of the coin...

The scoring seems to be of some concern. It appears that the goal of the scoring is to keep one alliance from stomping the other. Yet the current scoring allows for zero points to the winner by some teams leaving a zone to reduce the points to the winner. I believe this is due to the disparity in 3x rule. One simple fix is to give the winner the total of both teams’ score while the loser gets only their own. This will keep the scoring close and reward a team that consistently wins while not hurting a team that loses occasionally too much. Ties can be handled either with tiebreakers as in 2002 or with both teams getting the total score.

As for the difference between the qualifying and elimination matches, it is not all that bad. It opens up more strategies as seen in the last couple of years with team 111 in 2001 building a helper bot to control the bridge and help the team with very little scoring power on their own. And this year with team 71 building a robot that was so-so for the qualifying and great for the finals. It opens up a level of strategy that relies heavily upon your alliance and / or on the ability to get picked in the finals. Not everyone can build a robot that will consistently be in the top 8 and therefore build robots that will assist other stronger robots in hopes of getting picked by the top 8. I believe that this shows a lot of what FIRST is all about, teamwork and sportsmanship. However, if it is necessary to eliminate the two styles, then just make it 3 rounds with the highest QP at the end winner.

As for game strategies, remember no one was undefeatable. Every robot out there could have been defeated in some way. Having the strongest robot is not always the winning robot. The speed/torque thing is less important than the strategies. I like the 2 vs 2 as this makes for a more exciting game and any more like 2 vs 2 vs 2 would be too confusing for spectators and teams to watch. We need to keep this game simple so that small teams have a chance of winning as much as the larger well equipped teams do. I like the autonomous aspects for programming, however, the controller would have to over hauled to allow more storage and faster processing to do anything close to tracking or identifying an object. We are already at the limits of memory and processing with just controlling the steering and simple effectors used in 2002.

I like adding time as an element for scoring as in 2001. This can still be accomplished in a 2 vs 2 game as when any two kill switches from either side are hit the game ends and the score is added up. This adds a lot of strategy to a simple game. Either wait in order for more QP or stop while you’re ahead with a lower QP.

I like the idea of moving things and lifting them to score. Balancing was a nice challenge while not out of the grasp of any team. However, trying to balance while opponents are trying to keep you from balancing will be very hard and not likely to be achieved. I also like the idea of changing the score at the last moment of a game. This keeps the score high as both teams think they are ahead until the last thing that changes the score like the hanging on the bar in 2000.
:)

More ideas for game structure, some good, some not so good

1. At the end of Qualifying, top N teams (by accumulation of QPs) choose alliance partners

Alliances are reranked based on total QPs for alliance. This ranking is used for seeding the brackets.

Why? Aside from adding another widget that teams have to consider in alliance selection, it will make it more likely that the Elimination Game is the same as the Qualifying Game. There will be a "cost" associated with picking a team with low QPs.

I don't think this is a very good idea, but it might lead to one.

2. Fouls: Referees really only had the options of dropping the "big one" (disqualification) or letting stuff go.

If refs can call fouls, which either:
a. penalize the team by some points or
b. disable the fouling team's robot for some number of seconds (call this the penalty box option)
c. disabling operator control of a robot (which might encourage autonomy)

alliances will not be "wiped out" if one partner commits an offense.

Refs would have a lot more control over the game.

For instance, "Gratuitous Bashing" might result in a one point per bash penalty.

"Unnecessary Pinning" might result in a 5 second disable, which would potentially allow the pinned robot to get free.

Likewise, "Malicious Carpet Bunching" might require a 10 second disable. "Unnecessary Extreme Malicious Carpet Bunching" would, of course, result in a disable and disqualify.

I realize this might require too much referee training and would require some extra effort for the controls people and the score keepers. It might also require some funky ninja hand signals to be worked out between the refs and the teams (that could be an entire appendix in the rules book).

But, think of all the fun this would generate in naming the fouls!

Andrew
Team 356

my design
 

OK

My design is kind of challenging. There are ten platforms on the field on either side (five on the top five on the bottom). The games will still be 2min. And will again have 2 teams per alliance. The teams each start in thier own home zone and want to get to the opposing home zone to score 10 points each. On the way, they need to score more pionts by; 1) moving their own colors plasic bin goal in to the middle +10 or can move the others in to your home zone (not on the platforms) -10 for the other team, 2) by getting the small, orange discs into your goal +10/disc, or putting yellow discs in the opposing alliances goal -10/disc for the other alliance. The goal is to out score the other alliance. The finals would be run the same way as this years, the alliances will have 3 teams and each will play in at least one of the 3 games but NO teams can run all 3 times. I have enclosed a pic too.

I hope you will like the idea cause it came to me on math class one day.

-Ryan

My ideas...
 

Okay, so here's my idea. It's sortof ripped off and built on a bunch of other ideas from other posts, but whatever.

I tried to make it simple but good

It will be a 2 v 2 game with three minutes and two periods, sort of...a one minute, then a break, and then a two-minute period.

The field is set up with robots on the ground in their zone (there are only two zones and an enclosure) and a "pen" in the middle - octagonal, maybe, made of a barrier similar to the one in 2001 - the wood bar across the bottom and the metal one above it). Inside the enclosure will be a bunch of building blocks - the ones from your childhood, with squares and wedges and pillars and crazy arches and stuff - with the only difference being easier to build and stack and much bigger (the cubes could be 7'' cubed). During the first minute, alliances can cross the middle line and it is a scramble to pick up and gather as many blocks as possible and bring them to your zone. You can get blocks from the other side if you steal them, and you can begin building, but it might be knocked over by the other team. Now, as i was coming up with this game, i thought that it would just be shameless destruction - it's much easier to bowl over a structure than it is to create it. So that's why there's the second period - no robot can cross over the line, and both teams are trying to build their structures.

Points can be given to teams on how high their structure is overall, how many blocks are off of the ground and unsupported and how many blocks are underneath a certain block.

If the period thing is too boring (it would only be building) then it could be one period, and points could be deducted from the alliance that knocks down a tower - it could add interesting strategy - "if we knock it over we'll win but get more points, but if we leave it we'll lose and possible get more points".

There is no part for the human player that i see - throwing blocks at other towers would just be mean, man, MEAN.

I also like the idea of finals played the way they are and quals giving the added score of both teams to the winners and the loser's score to the "non-winners".

And if it's just blocks in the zone it's a point apiece (so rookies can do something)

Other modifications to make it more complex:
2nd level cubes - 2' up on both sides of the home zone to build upon - double score (this is another good task for rookies)

Pillars 5' or 7' high to build on

sharpened stakes in pits with cobras to feed food blocks for quadruple the points (just kidding....i better end this post soon)

so that's that.

Lauren

First off, thank you to everyone that has posted their concepts, comments, concerns, conundrums, counsel, complaints, consists, considerations, and other things that start with "c". They are most appreciated, and every one of them has been read, reviewed, and passed along to the appropriate game designers. If you have more ideas, we still want to hear them – keep 'em coming!

Also, I want to ask for a little help in answering a question that has me stumped. Several of the posts have suggested having a game design that will allow real time display of scores to the audiences as the game progresses. It is suggested this will pull the audience into the game a little more, and get them more involved. But coming up with a reliable, accurate way to do this that does not interrupt the flow of the game may be problematic.

Consider this: sports that keep running scores during the course of the game stop the game after each score to confirm that the points are valid and appropriate. Only after the score/goal is verified are the points posted and the game proceeds. For example, in basketball, football, fencing, lacrosse, and soccer the game is stopped when a goal is scored. The points are posted and the game clock restarted only after the score is confirmed. Tennis, baseball, golf, gymnastics, and archery don’t have to worry about a clock. Things like skiing, racing, and swimming worry only about the clock and don’t worry about an accurate real-time display of points.

I have been trying to think of a counter-example where this is not true, to form an existence proof that the idea of accurate real-time running scores during a timed match is something that is achievable. So here is the question: can anyone think of a sport or game or event that has a fixed amount of game time (i.e. there is a game clock) and a running score, where the game is NOT stopped after each score? The only ones that I could come up with that were even close were boxing and full-contact karate; points are accumulated during the course of the fight, but not displayed to the audience or participants until the bout is over, so this is still an imperfect example. Can anyone come up with a better one?

-dave lavery
FIRST Executive Advisory Board

p.s. I recognize that one way around this is to not require that the score displayed during the play of the game be 100% accurate, and all scores are subject to verification by the judges after the round ends. But that can end up causing more problems than it solves when displayed scores are revised by the judges and the audience is confused, etc.

p.p.s I really liked Lauren’s idea of "sharpened stakes in pits with cobras to feed food blocks for quadruple the points." LMAO! :D

Dance Dance Revoultion has a time limit AND a constantly updating score....

How that is implemented onto a FIRST game I'm not sure, unless you make the game location sensitive or have few scoreing pieces....
hmmmmmmm

Or you could just have the robots play DDR.
:D


Wetzel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How's that work?
I don't know, I just come up with the ideas.

Real Time Scoring Example
 

For probably one of the best examples, look at the CDI...for the past 2 years(maybe longer, I've only been involved with it for 2 yrs), they've used a real time scoring system which very clearly says on the screen that it is an unofficial score, with the official score coming only after the referees have verified the positions of everything on the field. As a referee at the CDI for the past 2 years, I can say that in a large number of cases, the score did not have to be adjusted between the unofficial and official tallies, and if it did, it was for only a few points.

To use another example, at the two regionals where I ran the scoring system this year, I was doing a form of "pseudo-realtime" scoring, where based on my viewpoint, I would try to input the scores into the form on the scoring system as they happened. In most cases, the only thing I would need to adjust once the referees turned in their scoring sheet was the number of balls in the goals(the hardest thing to count from the sidelines)...

A correction
 

How about wrestling? The referee is out on the mat, right next to the participants, and signals scoring in real time. The score is then put on the board for all to see.

The difference between that and boxing is that the ref in a wrestling match is the absolute authority over whether a wrestler has scored or not, while a boxing match is scored by a panel of independant judges, who, in order to maintain objectivity, must be ignorant of each other's score.

That said, there's really too much going on in FIRST matches to have a single ref able to keep track of it all. The best plan would be to display an unofficial running score, like what was done on Einstien at nationals.

Basketball!!!!!!!!!
 

I still think that Basketball is the answer, or at least a derivative of it.

In Basketball, the game doesn't have to be stopped. In a regular game, many points can be scored if there are no fouls or rule violations (travelling, double-dribble, etc.) If FIRST can reasonably penalize fouls and rule violations quickly, fairly, and consistently while not stopping the clock, then basketball would be a great FIRST game.

I still think that Basketball would be a very successful FIRST game. Sure, it would have to be tweaked a bit to fit the FIRST format of playing many rounds, but those details can be worked out. The positives involved are SOOO big that they would outweigh some of the difficulties of the details. I'd like the bring up these positives again:

1. Field setup is easy. Every HS gym has a basketball goal or two... all they need is carpet. Sure, the competition sites may need a more protective layer under the carpet, but that can be done.

2. Media and fan friendly. Basketball is arguably the best sport to watch on television. Most people understand it, and it is easy to explain.

3. Design diversity and teamwork. Robots can still do different functions while playing basketball... they can play defense, shoot long shots, dunk, block, and pass. Would the ultimate robot do all of these things well, or just one extremely well? I don't know. Since it's not obvious, many robots would have different designs. Also, this game would make us work together in order to win. The passing robot would get the ball to the dunking robot, for example.

4. School and American culture acceptance would be easily attainable. Imagine a demonstration during a halftime show of a robot team versus a human team... it would be very entertaining. The audience would understand the game easily and start rooting for a side to win. If the robots are good enough to win, it would be downright scary.

5. Embrace the sporting world, don't twart it. Sure, heroes should not be sports figures and it's the entire professional sports business has gotten way out of hand. However, bashing and ridiculing athletics doesn't convert too many people over to the FIRST program. Accepting the fact that the American sports culture is not going away is what FIRST needs to do... they need to make an attempt at playing one of their games.

I really think that this could be huge. I really think that FIRST robots should play basketball.

Andy B.

ps... and I used to wrestle in high school... sheesh!

Air Hockey, though not a commonly broadcast sport, does include realtime scoring, if not entirely reliable. With the worlds geniuses at our back ;), I am sure that we can improve on them to make them reliable enough. I think the easiest thing to sense would be the scooters I mentioned in my last post, sliding through some sort of slot. The slot could include the necessary scoring equipment.

One way to sense the scooters would be a pair of limit switches. The scooter would hold down A, then A and B, then just B, and finally none. This sequence would signify a score. Teams would be advised not to insert scooters in too close of a sequence.

We might also use scooters with a border of a particular material, for which a proximity sensor is available. This material could be forbidden for robots, ensuring that scores would not be faked by robot appendages. The scooters could, again, have to pass through two sequential sensors to be counted, but this could allow more to pass through.

Maybe we could use optical sensors, and have a circular pattern radiating from the center of each scooter, allowing it to be reliably read no matter how it was oriented upon entry. The ringcode could be designed to prevent the repeated entry and removal of scooters, and could be distributed by FIRST to game hosts in the form of large stickers.

Perhaps, whatever sensors were used, the scooter could be sent into the "goal" and land on a conveyor, which the robot could not access, and which would bring the scooters under the sensors in an orderly fashion, preventing tampering.

I don't know if these are feasible, but they seem like possibilities.

My two and a quarter cents
 

It seems with FIRST the possibilites are endless but here are my Ideas:

1. Have random types of balls on the field i.e( Footballs, Tennis balls, and or Bocchi balls.

2. Go to a 1 V 1 V 1 much like the A/B/C game mentioned in eariler posts.

3. Have a field shaped like Paperclip and or change the rectangle to some else that will grab peoples attention.

What about something with PingPong balls? Instead of having these big robots that push or lift giant ojbects... why not make it so that there are hundreds of little pingpong balls (perhaps different colors?) And have the robots maybe life them up and put them in a rain-gutter type deal that would be about 5' in the air on the sides? Just thought it would be fun!

I'm not so hot about the A,B,C game setup. Coordinating with an alliance partner is one of the most unique aspects of the FIRST competition. In a free-for-all game setup, there will be lots of "unofficial alliances" being formed. Teams that know eachother will gang up on the third team. Also, high ranked teams will be ganged up on to knock them down. It would start to resemble the strategic aspects of "Survivor" more so than a FIRST competition (back-stabbing, "flying under the radar", informal agreements and such). The cut-throat, lying, manipulating teams would make it to the top. Also, eliminations would be rather tricky to configure, and the whole idea of draft-picking would be eliminated. 2v2 is exciting, and it works.
~Hubicki~

Curling has both real time score + time clock + score can change drastically on the last shot.

Robotic curling could involve robots shoving around a bunch of stones into a circle with concentric lines drawn. The stone closest to the center scores for the team. So, if team A has one stone closest to the center, it wins with one point. If it has two stones closer than Team B, then it scores 2 points. Etc.

Robots can lift, slide, ricochet, hold onto stones, etc. They would be disallowed from touching stones in the scoring circle and could only initiate a shot with one of their stones.


Andrew
Team 356

I was thinking about the problems of this year's game and all of the answers came to me in a dream (I know, dreaming about FIRST :rolleyes: ). Each of the scoring aspects this game represented a different type of robot design (drive design mostly). The goals represented the high torque robots that could shove their way through anything. The ball robots (in general, but not all) tended to be faster and more maneuverable to scoop up all of those balls. The robot zone scoring aspect represented fastbots and tethers :eek:. And then I thought about that ultimatum of the goal aspect. The three goal win, cancelled out everything. This ultimatum is what caused High torque robots to do so well in eliminations. This also caused the complete neglect of balls in many elimination matches (especially Nationals). And since goal handlers were often uber-torque robots, that swung the game completely favor of them. Of course you already know this...
But the source of the problem was the ultimatum. In next years' game, no ultimatum should exist that allows the neglect of a scoring aspect. This should create a new FIRST-game general aspect. The rock-paper-scissors aspect. Scoring method B often cancells out scoring method A, C cancells out B, etc. If the scoring is balanced evenly amongst these three aspects, there would be no ultimatum that neglects any of these three aspects.
Let's considered Zone-Zeal modified to a Rock-Paper-Scissors format. Goals should stay 10 points each. Lets up balls to 2 points each in a goal (because they are naturally cancelled by goals) and 1 point each if a robot has it picked up off of the ground. Finally, we'll up the robot scoring to 15 points each (also, we enforce the strict zone interpretation to make tethers less favorable). Now lets consider similar situations in this years game, a robot forces three goals into their zone and holds them there and the other robot stays back. This would normally be an automatic win (40, 20), but now, the other alliance picks up 16 balls and gets back to their zone, it's (45, 46) and the ball handling team wins. However, if balls are simply being picked up and not being put into goals, in fear of the goals being stolen, then the other team just then piles balls in the goals for the double value and wins. Balls in goals are cancelled out by goals being shifted from zone to zone. And simply the use of goals is shut out by the simply picked up balls and the robot zone. This balances out the game for ball-handlers and goal handlers.
I think that the rock-paper-scissors general format will result in very interesting and infinitely effective games. Especially, if each aspect is almost radically different. The strategy will be infinite and it would be impossible to say that any one aspect is "better" than another.
~Hubicki~

_________________________________________________
Shoot, I rambled again...

LONG LIVE ULTIMATE FRISBEE!!!
 

I know that I have posted on frisbees being an object in the 2003 game but I still think that using frisbees would rock. Imagine how hard it would be to have a robot pick up frisbees. The launching mechanism would have to be two horizontal wheels spinning in opposite directions and (maybe) a vertical wheel. In order to have an accurate shot we can the neglected sensor system to aim properly. In terms of field dimensions and specs, I have no ideas.

I have a dog (Mouse for those of you who met him at Nationals) who has an interesting technique for picking up frisbees. He runs up and whams on the edge of the frisbee. The thing flips up into the air (like a tiddly-wink) and he catches it in his mouth. Not bad for a three legged dog.

So, I suspect that robots picking up frisbees will not be as hard as you imagine.
Andrew
Team 356

MOE dog
 

Interesting solution. Here's another: Have the frisbees lying on the ground. Use a system like my launcher ( or maybe even the launcher that can move up and down) and have it drive over the frisbee and suck it up into a storage container.

I don’t want to sound negative but I don’t think having mutable levels of playing field or Frisbees will ever happen.

Concerning the multiple levels

I don’t think that this will happen for two reasons. First building The second level will require lots of material to make it sturdy enough for the robots. This will cost allot to build for the completions and for teams to build and practice on. It also poses a safety issue of robots falling off and breaking.

And concerning the Frisbees

I’m not opposed to using something besides balls but I don’t think the Frisbees will be used. First I don’t believe that there are any standard sizes of Frisbees so if a team wants to buy more it may be hard for them to find the exact same ones. I personally feel that balls are the best way to go. Instead of changing the 'playable units' I think it would be better to change how they are scored. Maybe a goal with and opening in it just big enough for one ball at a time. Or even a goal that is blocked off so that the robots are kept 3 feet away from it. This encourages launching the balls or having long arms to place the balls in the goal.

I think we should not use balls again next year. Teams are getting used to handling/picking up balls. Ball collection systems will begin looking similar to previous years. Teams who manipulated balls will have advanced knowledge over rookies and 'non-ball' handling teams, giving them an unfair advantage. The mechanics of ball collection remain static despite their usage in the game. If balls are implemented, teams will simply look at robot designs in previous years. Yes, the designs will be better, but not by the teams own inginuity. Also, FIRST seems to like keeping teams on their toes. Using other devices would be most beneficial.
In regards to frisbees, FIRST can use a cetain brand of frisbees for uniformities sake. Plus, teams will given a frisbee or too in the kit. We need some kind of obscure, yet recognizable playing mechanism. Frisbees or footballs would both accomplish this. They can be handles an easy way (dumping them), or a harder way (launching them). Launching them would be a good FIRST challenge in itself because of the spin needed to keep them aloft and in a straight path. These mechanisms would be extaordinarily effective in a FIRST game.

~Hubicki~
_____________________________________
Shoot, I rambled again.

Let's think outside the box a little here. Most of the items suggested for manipulation are from sports. How about mellons or eggs or another "not so tough" friut or vegetable. That might have some interesting repercussions for the robot.

Just a thought.

So wrong. Frisbees are standardized. Sports Authority, for example carries three classes of frisbees. Ultimate-class frisbees are 175 grams. Freestyle-class frisbees are 160 grams. There are also general-play frisbees at 145 grams.

Wrightlife.com has a list of the standard disc classes:
Frisbee is much more standardized than you think. Colleges have Ulitmate Frisbee leagues. I even know people in New Jersey who have an ultimate frisbee league for high schools in the area, much like football or lacross leagues.

[edit]For more info, try these sites:
http://www.wfdf.org/
http://www.pdga.com/
http://www.platypusdisc.com/resource_pages/links.htm
[/edit]

Sucking could only be used if FIRST relaxed the "custom pneumatics" rule. Two years ago they prohibited suction systems from picking up the big balls.

Unfortunately, teams with large engineering staffs will have a huge advantage over teams with a small engineering staff if FIRST goes with a completely new challenge. Further, a totally new challenge will result in one or two "good" solutions and a bunch of "good ideas, poorly implemented."

IMHO, staying with balls (not necessarily the exact same balls as either this year or last year) actually levels the playing field, since non-ball handling teams can look at what worked for ball handling teams the previous year. Granted, my team picked up balls in 2000 and 2002, so I have a slight bias on this issue.

Although I would love to manipulate frisbees or footballs, I would also love to iterate one more time and have a professional quality pick-up and shooter for round balls. JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING TO THROW!

Andrew, Team 356

something odd
 

has anyone considered hula hoops?

Clairification
 

If you read my launcher idea it consisted of three wheels, two on the sides where the sides of the frisbee would be and one on top as a guide of some sort. Having a launcher like that could also be built with a reverse function that would reverse the direction of the wheels "sucking" up the frisbee. This is my quote that caused the confusion. Sorry, I should have been more specific and said that you reverse the wheels and it launches the frisbee into a container. And another thing about the legal sizes of frisbees: they are classified by their weight in grams. If FIRST were to use a company that mass produced frisbees it would be easier to obtain the exact one. (I.E. using Puma Campo balls this year instead of those horrific oblong balls used 2 years ago) If any one in the Philadelphia area enjoys playing in a frisbee league, try this site www.pada.org/pada.

P.S. Another interesting idea gleaned off of Andrew's post. After the season you get a real good (depending on how well you built it) Frisbee launcher!! SWEET!!!

Regarding sucking up frisbees, it doesn't need to be so difficult. the floppys in 1999 had a velcro center so it could be picked up more easily. How about attaching a piece of velcro on one side of the frisbee so that the average team can handle them. Just a thought of course.
~Hubicki~

2003 Game
 

Heres my idea
First, the field is the same dimension as it has been since 2000. Across the middle of the field is the 2001 midlfield barrier and see-saw bridge. There are 4 teams in alliances of 2 (red, blue, like in 2002). Along the sides of the field are 2ft diameter donut shaped rings ("donuts"). These donuts are color coded. 10 for the red, 10 for the blue. The blue donuts start out on the red half of the field (red zone) and the red donuts start in the blue half of the field (blue zone). There are also 5 of these donuts in the alliance station fo rthe human players (that should add some challenge to being a human player :D ) 5ft out from the alliance station wall (alliance stations are same dimensions as 2002, but centered along the shorter sides of the field) is a 6ft tall pole to put the donuts on (like ring toss almost, robotic style). Halfway in between the bridge and each alliance station are 2 flags. The red flag is on the red side, the blue flag on the blue side.

Scoring is simple
-5 points per you color donut on a pole (which pole doesnt matter)
-10 points for each robot on your side at end of the match ( to be considered on your side some part of the robot must be TOUCHING the carpet on your side of the field. (robots on the bridge in other words, dont count as on your side unless part of them is touching the carpet on your side)
-15 points for capturing your opponents flag (capturing means that it is FULLY on your side of the field)
The match ends when the 2 minutes are up or when a flag is captured, whichever comes first

Click on the attached file below to see a picture of the field for this game i designed

Ryan350tantrum's game idea picture of field
 

Heres a picture of the field for the game i described in my last post. Click on the attached file to see a picture

Game idea...
 

Instead of just presenting a game idea first, one should detail the requirements of a "good" first game. My criteria:

-"vigorous interaction" between robots
-opportunity for a wide variety of robot types
-scoring can be explained in 3 sentences
-same size as last few years' field
-exciting for entire length of match
-offensive and defensive aspects
-reasonable field cost
-TV friendly!

Before reading further, please look at the .jpg 3-D rendering of the field. It'll make the rest of this email make tons more sense.

My ideal game would combine elements of the 2000 game, which was the most exciting in my mind, with many totally new ones. One of the best features of that game was the potential to steal balls. This year, it was just too difficult to remove balls or goals from an opponent's grasp. The "robot slam dunk" bar-grabbing aspect was great, except that some robots would lock onto the bar and could not be removed, with 1:00 left in the game or so. Games in general are more exciting when the outcome can be changed suddenly, in the last few seconds. Think about it, when a basketball game has a minute left, and one team is down by 15 pts, it ceases to be exciting. But when a final basket can put the team ahead, you watch until the end of it. Also, height adds an element of risk to the game that would increase interest to your standard tv/audience viewer. For a robot, three feet is a significant drop, one that adds significant risk.

The game, to be called "Football-fumblin' Fever" (FFF), can have its scoring described to any viewing audience in three sentences:
1. For QP's, a losing alliance gets its own points, a non-loser (win or tie) gets the sum of its own and its opponents' points.
2. An alliance get +1 pts for its own-colored footballs, +3 pts for its opponent's-colored footballs, -3 for black footballs, and +5 any yellow footballs in its own bin.
3. "King of the hill" (a robot entirely on the raised yellow platform) at the end of a match gets +20 pts.

Here’s a description of the game in words, if the render is not clear. Same size field as past few years. 2v2, robots start on diagonal sides of field. Large fixed lexan bins on each side. The footballs are standard NFL size, with a piece of retroreflective tape attached around the center. The playing surface is mostly carpet, except for the ramps, which are a more slick surface, such as acrylic, linoleum, etc. The yellow bars are thick iron, and are supported at the base so that they can hold up 260 lbs (I would really love to see pipe-traversing robots! It’d be an incredibly interesting and useful ability). Five black balls are held by the human players. Seven each of the red and blue are on the field, and three yellow balls are in each trough. The yellow king of the hill square is raised 1” off the neighboring surfaces for ease of scoring. The yellow-square to yellow football ramps are pretty steep, while the full-field-width ramps are a shallower angle. As many rules as possible have been removed to simplify the game. For example, interaction with any surface should be allowed, provided it does not damage the surface. One addition: for the first 5 seconds of the match no human contact with the robot is allowed, to promote autonomous behaviors. Footballs are used in this description, but traffic cones are also a GREAT idea. Heavier 2-foot cones could replace the yellow balls, and smaller 1-foot ones could replace the other footballs.

I can immediately think of a huge number of robot types: “ape” robots, speed-demon football collectors, football thieves, blockers, chasm-crossers, bully robots, football shooters.

A note to Dave Lavery’s question: you could put scales in each bin. With an accurate scale and limited number of differently-weighted footballs on the field, the bin contents could be established reasonably easy. Red and blue balls would weigh differently, but that’d be ok. Real-time scoring (though not final) would be great! It’d really make the FIRST game more attractive to viewers.

A note about using real-world tasks in the game: what a great idea! Examples on how to modify this game: instead of the field-width ramps, stairs could be used, or maybe each bin could be hinged with a doorknob that has to be turned, and would release all the balls.

A few problems I can think of with this game: one, the finals would be different from QP matches. Four different colors of ball may be excessive, and negative balls may not be “in the spirit of FIRST.” I doubt whether red and blue are even necessary. Also, the three-foot chasm may cause robots to break. To that, I say: too @$%$#in bad!!! Design a robust robot and you won’t have that issue!

The trough area is intentionally blind to operators. Maybe the balls should be in random positions there, to encourage automatic football collection? I think the “area blind to operators but not to robot” approach hold promise for autonomous behaviors, but I can’t think of the best way to implement it.

umm... WOW!
To start off, I really like your idea. It is very very good and the 3D thingy is a cool representation of the field.

A couple suggestions:

-I don't think the 5 second rule is really necessary at the beginning. The brilliantly designed field with blind spots should induce autonomy on its own. Also, I dob't think anything on the field can be randomly placed out of fairness to all teams. Also, teams could just look at the field while they are setting up the robot.

- the 3-foot chasm... ihh... I don't like the idea of robots plumitting and breaking. That could be very frustrating to any team. Its hard to protect a 130 lb (6.02 kg) robot from a 3 foot (.9144m) drop.
V^2 = V0^2 + 2ax
V(final) = 4.233 m/s

Impulse equation:
F*dt = m*dv
F = -4.233 * 6.02 / dt
Recoil Force = 25.48 N / duration of incidental contact in seconds. (i think thats right)

Unless you have absolutely huge bumpers all the way around your robot... ack... I think thats a lot of force on your chassis. So I would avoid that aspect. I'd make it a steeper ramp instead.

-The negative footballs. Putting those in play reduces the potential QPs of the match. Theoretically, using them would hurt both teams, which is bad.

-I'm a little worried about the Bins that the balls go into. How tall are they. If they are more than 4 or 5 feet deep, then robots would have a really hard time stealing the footballs in them. I'd say keep them rather shallow.

Everything else is really good and it would make an excellent game.
~Hubicki~

another thing
 

also, any pits or chasms could be potentially disastrous to the game. To turn the tides of the game, one robot could shove another over the cliff and cause damage. :(

This was the thread that they talked about at the Kick-Off about us designing the play and it was on CD. Here ya go!

Read it again with some words highlighted to see who got their voices heard!

Check It Out Here

Re: The Wacky Warehouse Game
 

I would Have to say that this seems most like the game this year.
Also did you notice the creator of the game this year is also the creator of the thread. Dave your a tricky person. But at least people were able to have some say in the game and that is a good thing.

I hope I don't regret suggesting stacking boxes. :)

haha good guess too bad the date posted gives you away

what are you talking about?
 

How does a date of 05/07/2002 "give me away?" That is when I suggested the game have stacking boxes. GO back and look. It is on page two of this topic.

my bad ziggy i was looking at the post right above mine i did not know you were refering to another one of your posts in this beast of a thread

You missed Brett W's post on the first page about the plastic ice. That has to be what the top of the ramp is, cause it sure is slick.

Re: Don't judge a playing field by its cover
 

This was really considered. We have THREE different surfaces this year :)

Re: The Wacky Warehouse Game
 

Well if we were having a competition to see who got the closest to predicting the game this year I think this guy wins by a long shot!!!

P.S His post was in May:ahh:

I think we just found the next Miss Cleo- or Mr Cleo, in that case

haha yeah thats sort of scary how close that was but one thing. He way overestimated the structural integrity of the rubber maid containers

Yeah, so when you guys decide that you really don't like the game, you can all blame Lucien (Natchez)! :)

- dave

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

Y = AX^2 + B.... ehhh, whatever.

tks
 

This was a good one too. :)


By the way,
hey Dave, thanks for letting people help with the game design.

Re: Re: The Wacky Warehouse Game
 

Exept he didn't really "predict" it, the game was fashoned after his input. And it was GREAT input (I thought so since last jun or whenver).

Greg

Thanks ... but
 

Dave never has liked me very much:(

Thanks BUT if you ever saw my garage, you would realize that it was not too difficult to come up with a game that involved a lot of Rubbermaid containers with dreams of actually stacking them.

I’ll pay big bucks for a robot that includes voice recognition AND can stack Rubbermaid containers. Oh, I don’t need just any ole voice recognition, it has to be able to recognize a VERY deep Southern drawl. Sorry, I don’t need any box-knocker-downer robots … my garage already looks like I have 20 of these.


I tried to steer them toward Rubbermaid (of course, this has NOTHING to do with the 1,000 shares of Rubbermaid stock that I just had to sell because FIRST chose Sterilite). You can spend years trying to destroy a Rubbermaid Tote. Actually, FIRST showed their genius (No, I’m not calling Dave a genius ... I wouldn’t want him to get a big head ... please feel free to make a big hair joke right about now:D) again because by using a more "fragile" Sterilite container, this reduces the John McEnroe/Babe Ruth/Jack Nicklaus/Billy Jean King/Jeff Bagwell/Tiger Woods/Jimmy Connors/Hank Aaron/Greg Norman/Martina Navatilova/Johnny Bench/Nancy Lopez/Anna Kournikova/Barry Bonds (you fill in your favorite tennis player, baseball player, or golfer) strategy for knocking over the tubs. If you swing hard, the containers will break and it IS a safety hazard when a 10 ft PVC or aluminum pipe is traveling at 100 mph. We broke about 8 tubs with one swing of a 10 ft piece of 1" PVC. As an aside, I think that "destruction of tubs" might be this year's "tearing up the carpet" of last year … but this is one for the rules forum.

I'm sure glad that something useful might have come from my two car disaster zone,
Lucien

P.S. Dave & I are good friends ... right now ... maybe not in 6 weeks
P.S.S. Please send all hate mail to my personal email address ...Dave.Lavery@mypersonalemail.com
P.S.S.S. Houston is ready to welcome you with open arms!