Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Okay, okay. This may be a strecth, but check this out. Ok, last year, at the end of kickoff, everyone was climbing on a tetra, right? And now, the robots have to climb each other. Right? Well, at the end of this years kickoff, they were chillin in a body of water. Is this a possible clue for next year? I want responses!

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Whatever you do, DON'T START A WATER GAME THREAD!!!!! (We've had too many of those already, thank you very much. Do a search and you'll fnd plenty.) Also, you're off by a year. (Last year had the big three ducking shots in the center goal.) Not to mention that they don't give hints in the kickoff video--except as to the nature of the game they're releasing.

I don't think it's a clue. If Dave says otherwise, I'll call for a jello/Krispy Kreme game.

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Eh, well... It was a good idea. And I would love a krispy kreme game. First HP to eat all the doughnuts gets to battle with the robot!

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Jason Morrella called that one back in 2002 (and based on how this year's game turned out, he was prescient!)

-dave

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I would love to have a Battlebots year...that would rock so hard!

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but it would be about the furthest thing you could do to get away from the spirit of FIRST. also battlebots has their own competition.

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Our team puts way too much time, effort, money, and love into our bots to get them cut in half by a buzzsaw.

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yeah I know it could never happen and it wouldn't be in the spirit of FIRST. I'm just sayin' it would be fun.

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why would there be a water game if we still have so many problems on land? There is an immense ammount of tasks that are needed to be done on land and we're already going to water? not gonna happen, plus think of the safety issue...imagine that big pool or w/e breaking open. (Happened at a hobby show in November 2005) IMO the end of the kick-off was to throw us off or mess with us ;)

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If you want to get involved in that competition, talk to those that are involved. (See thread about "name our battlebot" about a year and a half or so ago.)

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If you want to learn and be inspired in science and engineering join FIRST, if you want to just destroy things go to a junkyard, battlebots may be exciting but they get destroyed and all you learn is basically that machines are for destroying things. FIRST has an educational base and it's not completly about building robots. FIRST is a sport with robot, Battle bots is like wrestling robots.

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alright, I have been chastised...let's get back on topic.

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What on earth brings about this view on things? I first got involved in robot combat during 8th grade. I joined my highschools FIRST team in my sophomore year of highschool, and without robot combat, I probably wouldn't have cared about any robotics related activities.

It isn't some evil form of robotics, it's another way to get involved and learn.

While the specific goals of each respective event are quite different, they teach many of the same things. Each have their strengths, each have their weaknesses, but they both can, and have been in my case, be valuable educational experiences.

If you'd like to become better informed on the subject you seem to dislike, these links may come in handy.

BattlebotsIQ
Robot Fighting League

For an event near you
The Builders Database

The frightening thing about all this is that from what I've seen in the robot combat community, FIRST is respected and builders are encouraged to mentor or join local FIRST teams. Here, there's an unsettling amount of hatred of the robot combat world.

What I'd really like to see would be some San Francisco area teams getting together with Dave Calkins and getting a FIRST arena setup at RoboGames.

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no water...no brain lol

wow:yikes:

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That would be sick but a bit harder to work with:D

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The absolute hardest part would be the arena. Somewhere near 40 combat ready arenas for middleweight bots would not be cheap, or if you only had enough for the number of events per weekend, you'd have your volunteers near dead from the amount of effort it takes to put them up.

At robogames 2006, it took between 6 and 10 people working probably a solid 10 hours a day to put the arena together, get it properly setup and make sure it was safe. And you can believe me when I say that nothing in the arena is light. Also, some of the parts are like putting a puzzle together without any images on the pieces.

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

whatcha bet the pneumatics are the 'big thing' next year?

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absolutely agree.. so little do i see this used in any robot.

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Thank you... I don't feel quite so blasphemously evil now.

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I agree it would create more problems such as making our robots waterproof so the electronics dont get fried!!!

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Then we would ...STILL not use pneumatics in our robot. I mean, sure pneumatics are good and all, but nothing can beat a good old machine built with motors, gears, and chains. Not to mention Ken will do everything possible to not use pneumatics (dont quote me on that )

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There is no doubt in my mind next years game will have some sort of water involved.

I cant really quote it but they did say something along the lines of this as all three of them were floating on the tubes in water.

"Now we get to think of next years game"

"I have no IDEA what we could do next year"

Being that they said something like that in a sarcastic voice leads me to believe water will be involved in one way or another.

It could be a pool of water that the robots dont really have to be in because I dont think teams can really water proof their whole bots very easily, rookie teams, no.

Possibilities are endless with water. Doesnt mean because its a water game the bots have to be floating or submersed in it.

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Ya being in the pit between matches would really really really be difficult...but battlebots could teach us a lot about durability and building a robust machine.

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The whole climbing-on-tetras --> climbing-on-robots thing seems a little shaky to me, so I feel justified in making my own shaky connection:

At the end of this year's kickoff, Dean and his buddies were in a pool (at this point the good people of CD, who are desperate for a water game-- even though it would be entirely too far beyond the scale of a high school robotics competition-- collectively peed their pants, immediately started to devise an idea for a floating robot, and overlooked the joke completely :D ). But what if "pool" was interpreted differently? Then the robots, far from swimming around an arena and frying their electronics, could be playing billiards (noun: the game of pool), could be placing poker-chip-like game pieces into a pot (noun: a common pool of money) in the middle of the playing field, or could be forming teams and alliances (verb: to pool together) dynamically throughout the game.

On second thought, that doesn't sound shaky at all. :cool:

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Battlebots would be awsome, but I don't think it would go over well in round two.

As for a water game, if your robot begins to leak, you are toast until you are able to switch out the control stuff. So I doubt it.

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

yeah there won't be water or ice because how will we practice on a water or ice field?

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How about underwater battlebots? It's a water game, and it's battlebots.

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I think that the water was to show the tubes for this year

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pooling together, eh? sounds like this year's game. ;)

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http://www.marinetech.org/rov_competition/

Oh yeah?

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Oh wow. I wasn't aware of this program. Very cool! :)

Okay, can I revise my statement? "... desperate for a water game-- even though it would break from the well-established 16-year tradition of a land-based FIRST Robotics Competition, discourage veteran teams accustomed to planar game play, force FIRST to find completely new suppliers for a new water-friendly kit of parts, and potentially make game play slower, less interesting, and less successful in drawing members of the community to FIRST events -- ..."

I don't doubt the ability of high school students in designing successful underwater robots. I just doubt FIRST's ability to add another dimension--and a great many more hazards--to the game.

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Uuh.. yeah: You people up there with the "Water game" idea: that was a joke. They were sitting on inner tubes. The clip was supposed to be about how they came up with this year's game.

I hate to spoil all the fun, though. :) :D

It would be really cool though.

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hmm well i think that the 2009 game would have something to do with squares. (2005- triangles, 2007-circles, 2009 cubes??)(following the first logo....)

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Not this theory again...

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I agree with this. The pattern seems to be: every other year, some random object, but some sort of ball in between.

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They should have a huge arena where you start with your teamates in the first room, then accomplish some task to make it into the second room where you accomplish another task, then finally get into the 3rd room to accomplish another task before the other team does. That would be cool....time would be everything, and teamwork would be vital...

:D

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Check this out!
www.battlebotsiq.com
maybe some of you guys would like to join during offseason

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Who said water was impossible? The logistics would be horrible, but so awsome.:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifkCrB88X4I

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So wait.... They have all of these things planned a year in advance? I am sure that they just do that to screw with all of you..... They just think of stuff to do to make us all confused.

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A 2008 Game Thread? You are SO late to this party: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=35969.

(And to think, I've been waiting nearly two years for this chance. :])

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

My theory is not a pool of water but some sort of barrier. I invision a moat, of sorts, that your alliance has to get across or reach across to get to the scoreing apparatus. A moat could be pretty small and it wouldn't have to be that deepIf the moat was narrow enough, teams would have the option of driving through it, or a robot carried ramp that allows the others to cross and even HOVERCRAFT ROBOTS!!! :ahh: By the way, my theory is based purly on hope and the belief that the competitors on the teams in F.I.R.S.T. are capable of anything.

Also the battlebots idea would be amazing, and it could be modified to be more in the spirit of F.I.R.S.T.

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Since were on this subject....Has anyone heard of any new regionals for 2008 yet? I know last year Old Dominion University in Norfolk was passing
questionaires out during the VCU regional. It would be nice to see a new one
in Virginia or North Carolina

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I know FIRST is adding a Hawaii Regional and a Prague/Czetch Regional.

I wonder if any American teams would go to Prague? That'd be interesting.

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I would love to see one at the new arena at UVa.

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Water game to me sounds very unlikely! Talk about the dangers. Batteries and water just don't mix, and even if they made it possible, wouldn't it become incredibly expensive. But maybe the robot won't be in water, but have to do something with it. ?

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

i overheard a conversation about horseshoes - pick them up from the floor or from the player station and toss them to the pole in the center of the field.
Each horseshoe weights 3 pounds.

The referees will all wear hardhats, modeled after the style A.B. has displayed during the IRI (he is sooo ahead of his time);)

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I wonder if the pole and the shoes will have the same magnetic polarity??? Does it change between periods?

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I think that this year they might have medicine balls. Up until now they have used several varieties of balls, but I do not recall any years that they used weighted balls. This should add a new challenge without being too far out there(AKA: water). Just a thought I had the other day. Also, I am personally tired of water theories, so I thought that it would be best if we set up a seperate thread for water theories. This idea(I believe) is possible, but that does not mean it will happen. Afterall, Iraq could win the war, but it is just not going to happen.

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it would probably be random, and you have to figure out which poles won't repel your horseshoe.

gosh, i sure hope the GDC isn't reading this.

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Instead of the water game that everyone is bananas about, I would like to see a game where the robots aren't allowed to touch certain areas of the floor.

When my brother tried to describe to me 'Raising the Bar', I envisioned some sort of jungle gym, instead of just a 10 ft high bar. However, the idea has never escaped me... instead of robots driving on the ground for the competition, they must somehow grasp onto a jungle gym, or perhaps a ceiling of chain link fence. Perhaps this could be one element of the game, such as the bonus... any team on the chain link fence for the entirety of the game gets a 50 point bonus.

Certainly others could improve upon this idea, or fit a game around it (hint dave).

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That is an awesome idea!

jungle gym first... hmmm...

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I disagree. Alot of the robots I've seen [at UCF and Palmetto] were using pneumatics, either to deploy ramps, control various parts of their arm, etc. I would definately say that pneumatics is a big part of this year's game...

:]

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Something tells me that the '08 game will be very dependent on the game piece. It probably will be complex (somewhat), and have some weight to it, like the tetras. For the past two years teams didn't need to think about lifting something heavy (in '06 we didn't lift at all...). My guess is that it won't include a ball.

I wonder what the bonus points task will be. It would be crazy if two robots needed to come together somehow (like a rampbot driving another robot on top, to hang on a high bar or something like that).

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Robots DON'T swim! They have all the electrical stuff!

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Something about this just really smacks of Ninja Warrior for some strange reason...

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And the electrical diagram will require each bot to have two 20 lbf iron buss bars. :rolleyes:

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The last few years have been circle and triangle games. The last square game was 2003. I think we're due for a square game (Which I never got to do because I was a freshman during the 2004 season and am graduating now).

Also Mark Leon was the announcer at the 3 regionals my team went to this year, and he has been saying how in the past it's always been robot-field element interaction and this has been the first robot-robot interaction. So I'm thinking next year will be like robot-field element-robot interaction, like you have to hand something to another robot or set/stack something on top of them (or have something set/stacked on top of you).

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Yeah, I also thought about the FIRST shapes game peice idea. You can't really know if they'll do a square or another circle. 2006 was circle and so was this year. So it doesn't nessecarly be square. But I'm definte that there will be on of the 3 shapes. I'm looking towards another circle.

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Of course, there is one shape that is all three.

-dave

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Green/Red/Blue lights this year, kind of like the trick they played at Einstein last year (Aim High). I predict a higher game in 08 and think that there will be some more team work, except this time it will not be bots on each other but maybe something else which requires you to cooperate to win the game. Also, THE BONUS WILL BE WORTH LESS whatever it may be.

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Ahhhhhhh why do you say these things Dave, Why???!! :) Now its going to be 8 months of people finding every shape that can be made by mixing the FIRST logo together.

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I'm hoping for a game that involves a ball, cube, and giant stone pyramid. Set it up Egypt style!!

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I'd love to see an auton where we actually have to go pick something up. A single something. Perhaps something we can drag.... In that way, the opposing teams auton's are actually competing. Say three clear plastic "totes" with the green lights inside them, in the middle of the field.

Then we could use the cameras to target them, grab them, and drag them back to our home zone. And the other teams would be doing the same.... TUG OF WAR!!! :)

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It's a square or a 3D combination.

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The only true game that dlavery and kevin is pushing for behind the scenes is putting all the robots on Mars, and let them all play semi-autonomously up there. This way the autonomous period will get more bonus points (the way it should:cool: ), and no repairs after shipping. NASA will have to have better video coverage. Of course, the build period will have to be shortened so we can ship them there in time -- and the shipping costs may have to be upped a little...

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A TRAFFIC CONE!!! That combines a Triangle, Circle, and a Square. Right? So what if we have to pick up traffic cones? LOL

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Of course a game that you move cube shaped pieces around a ten foot pole to build a tetrahedron tall enough to that you could climb and cap the pole with a large ball...hmmmm

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ok ok ok. what we are not understanding about a water game is that water is not a good combo with electricity. If you want to try and put a robot into a bathtube and see the reaction, it is not a good one. But as for the picture of the fish kite that might be a clue from dave but we will have to find out.

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Water robots? Here is your chance:
http://www.h2orobots.org/

click on 2007 to see information and video of last June's competition.
click on 2008 for information about next June's competition.

Note how many ROV's use old FIRST controllers and electronics. This is really a FIRST-like competition underwater.

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[quote=Pavan;617868]Green/Red/Blue lights this year, kind of like the trick they played at Einstein last year (Aim High). QUOTE]
That would be pretty cool. That was our teams rookie year, and my first time at the championship for FRC. We all thought that he was serious. It would have been interesting though.

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

yo dawgs i heard the competition was gonna be gettin a robot to spraypaint a wall

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Anyone know the game series Myst or Uru? (I just beat Myst III again yesterday)

watch, you are going to have to solve puzzles like that with the bots...that would be complicated..unless they could somehow have a powerful on board computer to calculate series and combinations and possibly find the solution to the puzzles in mere seconds.



:]

Re: Possible 2008 Competition?
 

Reported