Perhaps to get rid of the 'who has the strongest robot' idea, they should go back to having everyone on the same team? Everyone cooperates to achive some large objective...

Team Stack
 

Instead of having teams go up against eachother, lets make them work together eh? Simple idea, you have a large ramped platform but the flat area is only half the size of the large box. The idea is to stack as many boxes as you can, but you cant stack 2 boxes of the same color on top of each other. Other rules such as get back to your endzone may apply as well.

TOP VIEW


SIDE VIEW


EXAMPLE OF SCORING

I would steer away from the whole 1 alliance idea. Watching 2001 matches vs. 2002 matches, 2002 was a whole lot more exciting. And the key factor with 2 v 2 was audience participation and attitude. In 2001, yes you were rooting for the teams, but in the back of your mind, you were hoping that they'd mess up so you could take the lead. And I heard complaints that a game without an opponent was boring. This year, you were rooting for an alliance (most likely the underdog) to do well and beat the big, bad, dominant alliance. The 2 v 2 setup is much too invigorating and just plain cool to pass up. There are other ways to de-emphasize torque that are just as effective. In fact, I think a cooperative match may even de-emphasize torque TOO much, to the point that speedy, maneuverable robots will be the only robots on the field.
~hubicki~

First, the 2001 games where a lot more exciting than 2002.

Then my idea.

Robots powered by hamsters drinking Mountain Dew. Nuff said.

Yeah, I agree. I wasn't around in 2001, but personally, I'd think the idea of a 4-bot alliance is kinda dull. To add some excitement, stay with the 2 v 2 setup. Adds a great element of excitement to the game.

Another thing to add,
In a 4 v 0 competition, the challenge has to be unbelievably difficult to make it challenging for 4 robots to accomplish it (i.e. balancing two goals on a bridge). As the difficulty of a challenge goes up, the harder it is to keep it simple enough for an audience to understand. This was the main issue with 2001. In order to keep all of the robots busy, FIRST made 5 different ways to score. This confused the heck out of my friends when they watched it. If FIRST were to compromise and make 1 or 2 super-hard aspecta for the robots to do, I think robot diversity would decline. And I'm pretty sure Dean implied at kickoff this year that 4 v 0 won't be happening for a while.
~Hubicki~

Another thought on competition structure.

It might be interesting if Day One of competition were the Qualifying (or Seeding) rounds.

Make Day Two of competition a double elimination tournament, but with more seeds than are currently used.

Instead of eight alliances, expand to sixteen alliances. (If you had 48 teams.)

You could actually have twelve alliances, with the bottom four starting out in the "loser's bracket" (with an implicit one loss) and even out the loser's bracket so that it is in step with the "winner's bracket."

Andrew

Robsoccer
 

How about this for next year's game:

The object of the game is to have the robots play a friendly game of soccer. The field will be setup like a soccer field except the goal can be the old ball chutes on the bottom of the alliance stations that were used in former years. There is a zone around them that the robots can not drive in, perhaps closed off by 2x4 pieces of wood. The soccer balls are lined up in the middle. The robots start on opposite sides like this year, and it is still 2 v 2 . When the game is started, the object is to get balls into the ball chute. That is pretty much it.

Despite it's simplicity, this game has a lot of benefits. You can have teams that try to play offense or defense. Since most people have seen soccer, it would be very easy to understand from a spectator viewpoint. You could even have a realtime scoring system which counts the balls as they go into the ball chute to the goal.So-- what do you think?

Hi I haven't posted hear in a while. As long as next years game doesn't have any more balls/goals Im happy. Hear are some of my ideas for differnt games:
Just a little sidenote a few people have been posting about using tracks for robots to ride on well hears a competition that uses that idea.
just read the link
http://www.bestinc.org/2002/games.pl

Hear are my ideas
Minesweeper-mines are in the sand and your job is to build a robot tough enough to destroy(read set the mines off) them. The arena would be nothing but sand and plastic mines in the ground. The robot which sets off the most mines wins. Of course this would require a big amount of sand.
Streetsweeper-build a robot that can sweep the ground up of garbage. Robots have to be able to pick up garbage and deposit them into a bin. The robot that collects the most garbage wins. This would be easy just build a plywood floor and collect as much trash as you can and throw it on the floor. Buy two big bins and place them on both sides of the arena. The arena can be the same size as last time.
Robot soccer-Two robots on each side compete with goals on eacg side of the arena. The object is to get the balls into the goals. One robot on each side plays defense and one robot on each side plays offense.
:edit:
lol someone beat me to this idea hehe its a really cool idea i like it but it should be challenging read below and combine both ideas:p
Wheel-less wonders-Builder a machine that doesn't use wheels but actually walks. You probably could combine this idea with robot soccer. It would be cool except you'd probably need to chage the minimum deminsions for the robot.
:editing again:
ooo I have another good idea that you should think about. You should tape all the reginals and each team gets a copy of the reginals tape that each team went to
:edit yet another idea:
bridging machines-the object is to build a machine that can cross a large ravine buy deploying a bridge to cross. The machine must be able to redeploy the bridge once it crosses the ravine. The arena probably will be raised a little bit and will be made out of wood. The hole should be only as high as the teeter toters from two years ago if i remeber corretly to prevent major damage being done to a robot.
Ill give anyone a cookie if they guess which show I got most of these ideas from.:cool:

I think a multilevel field with stairs, something to pull yourself up on and/or some other technical challenge to get to the upper level would be fun and challenging. I also agree that 2000 was a great game simple objective, fun and unpredictable.

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