I liked the way there was an obstacle in the middle of the field last year (bridge + bar), that allowed different robots to overcome the obstacle diffently (some went under the bar, some just went over the bridge normally, some (well one :)) were an extension to the bridge, etc.). Something to make it more interesting for the drivers might be to have columns in spots so you have to go around them, or have half the field blocked off except by one narrow ramp, or some other sort of devious obstacle that Dean is so good at creating :)

Stephen

I've always liked the idea of having two different mobility modes. I loved the robots in 2000 that could move along the central bar, and I think that sort of thing is a lot of fun to build and watch. It would be neat to have a couple of ramps, maybe a foot high, separated by about 4 feet of space, with a bar about five feet above them (imagine the 2000 field, but cut widthwise across the ramp, move the two halves apart, and rotate the overhead bar 90 degrees). That way, teams could choose to either traverse the bar to get across the gap or somehow climb up and over a one-foot vertical wall. That's probably complex enough, but if you really want to get ambitious you could have a monkey-bar type lattice of metal pipe that robots could climb on.

As for the field surface, I think carpet is pretty good...plywood lends itself to becoming dusty and slippery, and I shudder to think what sand and dirt could do if it got inside the motors, gears, sensors, and speed controllers (and it inevitably will get inside). If FIRST used a surface that allowed more traction, there would probably be a lot more teams that would stall and blow their motors.

-Ian Mackenzie
Woburn Robotics
http://www.team188.com

I want a game with more parts to be played... this year we had goal, ball, and hybred robots- I WANT MORE :)

I think the game should have difficulty levels. A simple task should be at the heart of it, something even the rookiest of teams can do (like push a goal around). Then maybe something most teams will be able to do (balls maybe). Then I want something nearly impossible! For instance, instead of sitting in your endzone for points maybe you should climb stairs or a ladder onto a raised platform.

Imagine this year, goals are worth 20 points when lifted into a foot high platform, of course some sort of ramp would be needed to get them back down (and the goals would be exposed to danger) but wow, the design challenge.

I'm a fan of 2 v 2, otherwise the fields will become to large. I like the playing field and robot sizes now (a bit bigger on the field side wouldn't hurt).


I also like lifting balls onto high goals.

Here is my idea:


same playing field, 10 feet longer (all carpeted, maybe tile or something smooth). The extra 5 feet on each side of the field will be reserved for a platform- a platform with 2 levels, first level is half a foot off the ground, second a foot above that. Robots will start at ground level in front of these platforms. The game is played for 2 mins, ending on top of the first platform is worth 10 points, the second one is worth 25 points.

There are 2 goals same as this year with something on top of the center pvc to allow a 2001 big ball to sit on it. There is 1 line down the middle of the field, each goal entirely on your side of the field is worth 10 points. There are footballs along the sides of the field. Every football in a goal on your side of the field is worth 2 points. There are 4 big balls in the corners, on the high platform 5 feet away from where the robots start. These balls are color coded! Red balls start on the blue side, vice-versa. Each one of these balls your teams color scored on the thing on top of the goal is worth 15 points, each big ball somehow otherwise supported by the goal is worth 5 points.

Qualification points: the winner recieves thier score plus 2 times the losers score.
Elimination: 2 or 3 matches are played, the team with the highest qualification points is the winner.





That game is way to complecated but wouldn't it be fun to play? :)

Greg

My thoughts on designing a new game are all over the place and way too incoherent. So instead of putting an entire game together here's my outline on some specific things that need to be addressed.

Ready for TV
I think this should be FIRST's number one priority. FIRST's goal is to get their message across to as many people as possible. If they really want to change the culture of America they need their product to reach more people. Television is the natural medium for this.

I was watching CNN the other day, and they were showing a story on a FIRST team. It was a great piece, but they never explained this year's game, saying that it was too complicated. This is not good.

Now here's the challenge, designing a game that is simple enough for a TV audience to figure out in 30 seconds, but strategically complicated enough to challenge all the teams. I mean, if FIRST made next year's game a race it'd be easy to understand, but most strategy would be taken out of the game.

What I would like to see is game similar in nature to that of 1999, back when we had the puck and the floppies. From most people I've talked to, it seems that was the game that was easiest for a non-FIRST person to understand. The "king of the hill" idea is simple and very visual.

The Playing Field

After two years of flat fields I think it's time that we change things up a bit. I loved the ramp in 2000, and the puck in '99. I think that it'd be really exciting and challenging if then field had various types of obstacles (such as ramps and ditches). There's been talk about using dirt or water for the playing field. I know this idea sounds exciting, but I don't think it's very feasible. Try getting a rookie team to build a swimming pool to practice in. =)

The Playing Pieces

I think it's time to take a break from balls. Don't remove them from the game completely, rather make them the "easy" pieces. For example make balls worth 1 point, and another piece, say a donut worth 5 pts.

The Scoring System

This goes back to the TV point. The scoring system must be made simple and clear. It would be great if we could finally have a real time scoring system. People just have a hard time adjusting to FIRST's end game scoring system. It goes against what they're used to.

Also, I think it's neccessary to provide more uniformity between qualifying and elimination matches. In both 2000 and 2002, the qualifying and elimnation matches have been two totally different games. This is a result of the "three times your opponents score" rule. Personally, I like this rule. I think it keeps things exciting. Unfortunately it's hard to the two rounds in synch while using it. Seeding the teams based on winning percentage may alleviate this problem. This way you're rewarded in the prelims on what your rewarded for in the elims, winning. All ties would be broken by QP's. Since their would be many teams with the same record, QP's would still be very important.

The Final Picture

OK, here's what I've come up with. I hope it makes sense. The diagram I tossed in should help.

There are two types of scoring pieces in the game. 1 pt. balls (size undetermined) and 10 pt. donuts. The balls are scored by placing them in the 6 ft. high baskets at the corners of the field, while the donuts are scored by placing them over the 6ft. high poles. Each alliance has their own basket and pole which is on the opposite side of the field from their starting position (not mentioned on the diagram).

The donuts are found in a 1 ft. deep ditch in the field.

At the centre of the field there is a 2ft. ramp leading up to a platform. The platform has room for one robot. If a robot finishes the match on top of the platform the alliance's score is tripled. If a robot finishes the match on the ramp, then alliance's score is doubled.

This game is not as simple to understand as I planned. I guess I just completely contradicted by whole simple for TV speech. Whoops. This game has a bunch of problems, mainly the centre platform being to dangerous (i.e. robots falling off), and the ditch being too hard to construct.

Oh well, it's a start.

Comments, Suggestions, Flames... Send them my way.

- Karthik

I opine main focus for next year's game should be speed and precision with opportunities for robot autonomy. This year's game put too much emphasis on traction, remove that emphasis and various other surfaces become viable. Maybe something really slick that allows only minimal traction. Then rules of mass and inertia become important.

The game should be one of scoring objects, such that once objects scored they cannot be unscored. This would put the emphasis on the speed and precision. There should be rules for contact, maybe like contact is regulated in basketball.

Make it spectator friendly.

Rope would be an interesting alternative
 

Sorry Dave, I know that you wanted specific designs for games, but this is my one item to address. I believe that rope would be a wonderful material to incorporate into a FIRST competition. You might have a wire or rope strung across the playing field for robots to climb on (I hesitate to say "zip line" across), ropes for robots to pull on to lift things, or ropes that serve as obstacles that robots must traverse. It is a material that is strong (please include heavy wire in the category of rope), easily and cheaply (relatively) attained, and also has a real world type appeal to it.

~Tom Fairchild~

I like the idea in 2000 of different colored balls for different points, a simple robot could go after just the one ball that is worth much more than say 10 of the regular color, then if you wanted a super harvester you can get all of the regular kind. I have to believe the field will stay flat and carpeted, the same size just because of the investment. I doubt any gym would want any other surface as well as the build areas that many school and buisness use to make the field. I can bet on kee-clamp bars somewhere on the field, I would like a kind of mountain (maybe 2 or 3 ft high) in between with some different angles maybe this is the plywood part without carpeting so your traction is different on different areas of the field. Maybe even some sort of blocking devices that the first robot to them can flip up a block for the other side and force them to take another route across the field. Definately no time multipliers and figure out a way for the 3x loser score to also have some effect on the finals, otherwise next year shouldn't we all build final bots? I thought hanging on the bar was really cool. Whatever the scoring device is, don't make it designed for tug of wars.

Another suggestion
 

A cutthroat-type game would be great - 4 robots on the field at a time, but each one is paired with every other robot for a third of the match. That would make for some interesting strategies.

:( The balls used in 2000 and 2001 are terrible to work with. Most of them are not even round!!

:) The carpet is great, most teams already have it and it is very good to work it. For sure there will be no dirt, ice or any other surface with loose little pieces that may enter your robot, or leave your robot dirty.

:) A very positive thing in 2001 was the possibility of a robot that works only as a helper, helping others to cross or balance on the bridge, but without scoring balls or anything else. Just helping.
The next game could have a very dificult challenge (as difficult as balancing on a bridge holding goals that have big balls on it) in each side of the field (one for red and one for blue) that only an incredible robot would do alone but two robots working together would do it nicely.

:cool: The drivers should stay in the middle of the largest side of the field, not the smallest one (the way it is), so they could be closer to the robot in a bigger part of the game.

:cool: I like the idea of a rope, bar or steel cable where the robots have to hang AND move on it. The robots would have to cross the field just interacting with this long horizontal "wire" without touching the floor. I hope you like my drawing :D

My game:

2 teams of 3 bots on a rectangular piece of metal. Behind the bots is a large basket with nets surrounding it. The object is to get to the center and pick up either a ball or something light and carry it back to your basket. Think about it this way: A drone from starcraft picks up some minerals and brings it back to the nexus. Its similar to this years game except no zones and it is an all out melee. There need to be some sort of hazards on the field either to disable the bots or to hamper their movement. I don't want this becoming a battlebots scenario but with no harmful items, the game gets kind of slow. A thing about the baskets: they can be moved. A bot could pick them up or drag them across the field. In order to score points the basket has to be moved to the opposite end of the field and the balls have to be released by lever on the side of the basket. These balls or other tangeble objects are to be tallied at the end of the 3 minute match. The reason for three bots: a scooper, a defender and a carrier. You can also think of this game as soccer in that the bot has to get by the "goalie" bot to score. Another strategy could be for another team to go and release the lever as the balls are being moved across the field. The scoring is so: 3 points for balls and 5 points for bots starting in their original spot. This spot is designated by a 3' by 3' square with led lights around it. There are no multiplying losers scores and the team score youre team gets is what u get. Also there is the idea of a tether above the arena where a robot could climb across and toss balls into the baskets below. This game is most likely impossible to create but it is a thought for a prototype for next year. This years game was ok, not great and could definitely use some major rules changes. Anyways this is my 2 cents. To post more...

Teedoff101

Re: Enough with balls
 

THAT IDEA RULES! It combines my two most favorite things in the world. HOCKEY AND FRISBEE! There is a sport that is like football and is played with frisbees. It is called Ultimate Frisbee. There is even a world championship for it. Anyway, if the new game had Frisbees, the name could be Frisbee Fury or something like that. One problem though, if robots throw frisbees they would have to put up a mesh netting of some sort because the frisbees could fly into the audience. this would remove human players from the game. How cool would it be though to see robots throwing frisbees. You could have ones that had an arm that pulled back and launched it or one that uses wheels and motors to zip the frisbee across the field.

One of the engineers was talking to eric, and he said the FIRST has thrown around the idea of traffic cones as scoring pieces. They are pretty heavy and kinda hard to pick up. That would be fun.

autonomy would be good
 

I would like to see some sort of autonomy in the game. Something that would add some programming and EE to the heavy concentration in ME that FIRST is now.
I would like to see the robot have to pick up something not round and build something. Perhaps you should have some sort of boxes that can be grabbed and stacked. Robots would have to collect some number of these and build something on the field. I know that teams have been big the last couple of years and real autonomy would be hard to do if robots had to cooperate to build something.
Teams would get points for the number of block they moved to their scoring zone. They would get additional points for building different structures.
You could also have the robot build a structure over an obstruction. For example have one robot from each team start on each side. Each team attempts to build a bridge over a pit. After the bridge is built the robots move items from one side to the other with each team being able to use only their own bridge.
In any case, the rules for qualifing and final rounds should be the same. You should not have a robot that is only so-so in the qualifing rounds be an unstoppable monster (no offence Beast :0)) in the final rounds.

How about a game where the robot has to throw or shoot things into a goal to score. The goal could be set up like a giant skee-ball target. Put a height restriction on the robots so that can't raise up to a goal and just dump balls in. I like the idea of having different scoring modifiers by shooting from different levels. Lastly NO TETHERS means NO TETHERS!!!!!!

just some ideas...
 

With that in mind, I'd like to see a game where there are multiple diverse tasks that score the same points. These tasks could be "exclusive" in that doing one would make doing the other impossible. For example, placing a bowling pin on top of a small table, or moving the small table to a different platform and inverting it before placing it down.

The trick is to balance the tasks in difficulty with the point rewards.

What about having a large visual barrier (or a tunnel, perhaps) in the field with an object on the other side (in the tunnel) that must be retrieved. Then include cameras and sensors in the kit that could that feed information back to the operators? This is a (small) step toward autonomous robots, but doesn't require that much more complexity in terms of programmming.

I also very much like the idea of tasks that can only be performed by both (or two of three, or all three) alliance members contributing. Perhaps two 130 lb pressure switches in different places on the field will release balls, or move some barrier or something like that...


Some things I'd like to avoid:

1. Multipliers. Multipliers for achieving some task will usually lead to huge differentation in scores between teams. I can think of no other event where scores for matches (2001) varied between less than 10 and over 700!

2. A task that is worth 10 times another task (unless it is ten times EASIER). Last year, I never saw a black ball lifted from the field.

3. A task that, if accomplished, dominates the game. For example, this year alliances that were able to control the goals were able to dominate. It didn't matter how good your robot was at moving balls if you had no goal to put them in.

Haven't thought of a complete game yet...

-Mr. Van