"Competition format" game suggestions
 

Now that FIRST has officially announced that the game will be returning back to a "competition format" for next year, what type of game would people like to see that follows a competition format?

Personally, I would like to see a game that gives teams more opportunity to develop automated features on their robot. In the past I have felt that there is very little opportunity for the students interested in computer programming and electrical to become involved. I'm not sure how a game could be constructed that allows for more opportunities of this type, but one example would be to have a more hilly terrain where keeping track of the robot's center of mass and orientation would be extremely important. The past two years we've had a ramp/bridge, but I feel there could be a lot more in the game that would allow CS/electrical people to get involved.

Patrick

Re: "Competition format" game suggestions
 

when was the announcement???

I actually wanted it to return to the old days of 1 vs 1 vs 1. Well, in order to get more teams on quickly, you'd probably want to make it with 5 or more teams, instead of 3. But then you have the informal alliances popping up.

I'd still like to see some kind of limitation. Whether that's Justin's idea of cutting down the dimensions or the weight limit, or the idea of removing something usually crucial to the robot (like, maybe, wheels), or, using one of my friend's ideas, and totally limiting vision of the drive crew by having them watch the whole match from a monitor that is showing the view from a camera on the robot. (I really like that last idea, because it would add this awesome aspect of knowing the best place to put the camera as well as focus on driving ability...though the "outside contact" rule would have to be seriously enforced)

I think the reason why I'd like to see limitation so much is because, well, I havent known of any limitations getting smaller throughthe years, and we havent done something to drasically change a lot of these robots.

Plus, wouldnt a smaller kit of parts cut down on costs anyway?

I'm all about a return to the good ol' 2 v 2 alliance system. I hope that's the format that FIRST is looking to return to. 1 on 1 was good...but alliances opened up so many more possibilities.

As for gameplay - I'd like to see something completely and totally new. Something that would level the playing field for veteran and rookie teams alike. One example - a water hazard. No one in FIRST has ever had to deal with a robot that had to worry about water before. Or throw another challenge in front of us....take the old ramp, but instead of carpet, make it wood sprayed down with WD-40 - force a robot to deal with different traction problems. I'm not really sure if it would work, but really, ideally i'd like to see something completely new, not just a few of the older games recycled into 2002.

What about the rest of you?

~ lora

I don't know if that has been done before. It depends if you consider the corn from "Maze Craze" a rocky terrain.

I do like the idea of a water hazard, but you have to remember, even if no team has done something like that, some of the engineers have. This includes all 3 NUWC teams, and probably most of the navy teams.

Well, that's a given. But then we could say we wanted to launch robots into space - and then have to say the NASA teams have an unfair advantage over the rest of us. Or with wheeled robots, are we going to accuse GM or Ford of an advantage over the rest of us with sponsors that specialize in other feilds?

Truth be told, although the NUWC and Navy teams have had engineers used to working in water - I doubt it's in the format quite like a FIRST competition. Think about the odd kits we have - and I doubt many engineers regulary make boats or submersable robots with drill and window motors ;) I think as much as any one change can, something like that would really level the playing field among teams.

~ lora

When did FIRST make the announcement?

Sean (Who personally would like to see a repeat of 1999)

kinda like our engineers from Rolls-Royce. if FIRST were to make a game that involved flying, i doubt that we would have an advantage eventhough our engineers design helecopter and jet engines everyday. there'd be no way that any one of the teams could have an advantage in games like these.

FIRST made this announcement at the team forum. In NH, I think the wording was something to the effect of "Next year we will be returning to a competition format." While that is a very broad announcement, it does rule out a 4vs0 format that we had last year.

Patrick

Thank god.

After watching the junkyard wars on bridging machines i think having a pit to cross would be really kool. The only probnlem with all of our games is that feilds are expensive to build, and first tries too make them inexpensive and easy to make so tems can have them.

Andrew

About dumping 4v0
 

Though competition format coming back is very cool, it does not neccisarily mean that there isnt a 4v? possibility. Why not 2 placebos vs. 4 teams? The placebos would be much better engineered and have had time to test out many options. There could be maybe 6 similar placebo's per field, each with a different function, which would be 30 placebo's with 5 fields. There would be a placebo corral and a Denim-coat juntio... no wait, sorry, couldnt resist that one... But 6 placebos assigned to a field would keep the repair and transfering from field to field down.

Another thing to keep in mind (that I'm probably rehashing) is robot and human saftey. Water creates hazards for both the robot and teams - electrical shocks to teams, and more robots will be more likely to be disabled. And once your electrial system is shot, especially rookie teams, that's pretty much it, unless innovationFIRST was willing to constantly shell out these parts. Though it could be on them to make water-proof connectors and parts...

The WD40 on a ramp, while cool, would also pose saftey hazards to robots and people - people standing on the ramp or going to fetch thier robots and slipping or the robot slipping. That's also a pain to clean up and transport, upkeep, etc.

Instead of WD40, what about rollers on the floor or a ramp? They could be disabled by having a lever pulled by a robot, adding the potential for more automation on robots. And how about secondary levels, or bridges? With combined interactivity between the ground bots and the floor bots somehow (like bridge bots have access to levers that modify the game floor or only they can maneuver the goals or scoring objects.)

And what about scoring objects??? Once in mind keeping robot damage and human damage to a minimum, some ideas I've got follow:

SOFT NERF footballs - people have always wanted footballs, but the danger to the players was rather obvious.

Those punching-clown thingies. Those would be neat and rather entertaining, but would have a high rate of damage done to them.

The moving goals were kinda neat. How about combine them with a puck-style apparatus. You have to drag the goals onto the puck to gain points or multipliers, and the goals were shorter and had a raised center, and a small lip, bearly holding in whatever scoring objects would be used.

Weebles. Teehee. Weebles wobble but they dont fall down. Though they would stay down under a set of treads. Weebles would go great with the above goal.

This one is an odd one that I've come up with, similar to floppies and torrids. Make an 18 inch size frisbee out of NERF foam, and cut a 6 inch hole in the center. The outside rim would be a 2inch thick flat spot, covered in velcro, and the inside would be a slim half-inch thick, making it like a modified donut. The problem with these is it would be hard to make home-made versions.

How about denim clothing??? The robot with the most stylish Dean-Doll at the end of the round gets a bonus. There are three kinds of denim, each worth varying amounts of points, torn denim, blue denim, and almost-bleached white denim. That would go great with a 1on1on1 game. Besides, what team wouldnt love to have a Dress-Me-Up-Dean Doll???

Stick a scoring-tower in me, I'm done. Well, for the next hour anyways... B^P

Whole lotta ideas from Robby
 

Well, those were a lot I'd say. But I think that nerf style footballs would be quite interesting. Didn't quite understand the foam ring one tho. As for how we'd do competition this year. Alliances are good. But I believe that 2v2 has been done before therefore, the gurus would want something new and different. Not sure how they'd do it. But I like the idea of 4v2 placebos. That would be quite challenging and really fun.

Laurel Noel

How about 2 on 2 on 2? It would haver the teamwork of the '99/'00 games, but the competition of the older games.

No Head-to-head-to-head
 

I think that any time you have a game in which there are more than 2 entities (teams or individuals) competing at the same time, informal alliances will result making the game not fair to the better teams. It is only natural that everyone want to bring down the best team thereby moving your own team up in the standings.

It occurred regularly in the 1 on 1 on 1 games in which one of the robots would defend against the good robot while the 3rd robot would try win and get 2nd place for the defensive robot.

If you have only two entities in the match, you have to be very calculating in your tradeoff between offense and defense and "ganging up" on a robot is typically not a good strategy. For instance, in basketball, it is common to double-team a player. But as the saying goes: if someone is being double-teamed, someone else is wide open. In the 2-on-2 game, if one alliance tried to double team a robot, that leaves a lone robot free to score points at will.

Basketball?!?
 

Basketball?!?! Did someone say basketball?

I'm with ya, Chris...

Let's play some HOOPS!!!!

I can see the TechnoKoko-dunk-o-matic now... hmmm...

Andy B.

Well, that's sort of what we did in '00, '98, '96, '94, and the 2 vs. 2 format that we used at this year's Battlecry. I think no matter what you do, it's going to turn out similar to basketball.

Re: Basketball?!?
 

Not to completely knock that, but...
 

There already is a robot-soccer competition. The originality of FIRST really pushes us to think a bit more about what our robots will do and how they will do it. If we just had "play soccer", although I'm sure it would happen in some instances, there wouldnt be as much a variation on concepts for robots. I could write a looooong list of points, but it's late and I'm tired. So please go ahead and whoop my post with a list of points why soccer would be good. :D

More game ideas....
 

If the "announcement" to go back to a competitive game is true- THANK GOD!

I doubt if the staging of the field will change dramatically since FIRST has invested $$ in the arena and it has worked well for the past few years.

Obstacles on the floor might be interesting- 4x4s or strung cables.

My favorite game would be to put a pallet of cinder blocks in the center of the floor. The goal is to build a platform in your end zone. The higher the platform the higher the doubler score. If the robot can get on top of the final structure you get a big bonus. Of course with two pairs of robots working against each other there would be competition for blocks and attacks on the platform while it is being built. It would make for a really exciting game.
Cinder blocks are available everywhere-cheap! Nothing too complex here but a real challenge.

Re: Re: Basketball?!?
 

Rug Rage (1993) was a soccer-like game.

I like the tower-building idea. That would be a game that would be very interesting to design for, play, and watch. It could throw in a whole bundle of added dynamics that affect strategy. Think about it: you could work together and build with your partner, have one bot build while the other scores, just demolish the other team together, or any combo of the three.

Scoring could meet the requisite evilness factor, by all means. You could have height multipliers, points for getting a robot to the top, points for number of bricks, and so on.

It probably won't happen, since there is too much danger involved (robots falling), and falling blocks and bots could do a lot of damage, but it certainly would make for an interesting game. Dean: Are you listening?

It was called "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots".

Along with my Stretch Armstrong, Evil Knevil Stunt Bike, and my Steve Austin Boinic Man Action Figure, that was one of the coolest toys I had as a kid.

Usually, my brothers and I would start socking each other instead of the robots.

Realisically...

You have a good idea there, Carolyn. All robots could be made to have a "button" or trigger that would disable them if touched. It could even make them run at 50% speed for 10 seconds or so... that would be cool.

Or... the playing field could have such a "button". Let's say it's 2v2... If one alliance touches a certain place or trigger on the field, then the other alliance gets hindered somehow, like slowing down or even stopping for 5-10 seconds.

Also... while I'm rambling, we have not played basketball yet. The game I'm thinking of would be 3 on 3, and we would only have to roll out carpet to play it in a high school gym. We would use real basketballs with real 10' high rims. The game would need to be something like "first team to 10 points wins" or something like that. Oh, well... I can dream.

Andy B.

Whoa. I had all of those toys growing up.

My brother and I always laugh about the Bionic Man, how when you push the button on his back to lift the engine it's supposed to make the "bionic sound", but really just sounds stuping like a cricket or something. The "bionic vision" was great too.

My Evil Kneivel bike didn't last long. The ramp that came with the set wasn't big enough for me.

So, did anyone else have the Incredible Domino Rally? That was cool.

Anyway, sorry for being so off-topic. I'll never do it again.

No prob...
 

Off topic, oh well... there's not much else to talk about these days. We can debate about Nationals until we are blue in the face, but FIRST has to work out the solution, no us. So, whether we are talking about how to fix Nationals or what are the coolest toys of the 1970s, it doesn't really matter.

I didn't have the Incredible Domino Rally... just the regular dominos... wow, you were really cool.
Did you have the "Sock-er Boppers" (or something like that)? These were the blow-up plastic things that would go over your hands... they would be worth about 1 day of fun until they would pop from a sharp bop to the head.

Andy B.

I used to have a huge Domino Rally box... I have no idea where it went though. Maybe I can find it when I get home from work and set up a course around the house :) My other favorite toys were model rockets, hot wheels, KNex (sp?), and of course legos.

Now my favorite toys are robots :D

Patrick

And we all know how Dean hates violence.

*thinks back to 1997*

Re: No prob...
 

In fact, we did have those big blow-up plastic punching things. I remember them looking like beach balls on your hands (perhaps a little flatter on the top, though). Later, we got extra-padded boxing gloves for a gift. I knocked my brother out once and that was the end of fighting implements for us. ( that goes to show how different things used to be - these days, who would give their kids a blow-up thing that allows them to punch other people?)

What happened in '97?

My guess is that it was a reference to the banning of tipping of other robots. I don't think that's particularly a violence issue as much as an objective issue. I'd see that as equivalent to tackling a player in basketball instead of trying to steal the ball from. Contact is good, destruction is not. :)

Matt

Actually, he banned it in '98 because some teams took advantage of that old "T5" rule. But it looks really cool if you watch the old tapes, especially of the NH regional.

anybody go back and see where this year's game came from...