an unusual observation
 

has anyone noticed that this forum is unusually quiet for this time of year?

at this time last year we had like two or 3 threads going. Now, we have none.

What happened to the dreaded "water game" rumors and the speculation on unrelated videos and their relation to the next game (if that sentence make sense).

For me, half the fun of the game was speculating and waiting for it before kickoff.

so am I the only one who has noticed this?

or am I just crazy?

Waiting for the first game hint is driving me crazy. lol

anyway, just an observation.

Re: an unusual observation
 

It was fun to speculate about a water game during a drought because we all knew it was quite infeasible. Now many teams have been flooded at least once in the last year.

Plus FTC just kicked off, so alot of us are tied up with working on that.

But don't worry, if the FTC game is any indication then FRC will be a bit complicated indeed, so we can speculate about what crazy game elements will be in FRC. After all, in the first 5 seconds of the FTC animation a robot flipped, showing exactly what FIRST expects from teams :ahh:

Re: an unusual observation
 

And so it begins...

Next thing you know, Dave releases a red herring, and then it gets out of hand.

Re: an unusual observation
 

and then soon we are all the way to Krispy Kremes and Grateful Dead songs

Re: an unusual observation
 

This is actually probably one of the busiest years I've seen these forums during these months.

At least there are actually people (other than mods) talking on here.

I remember back in the day when you would go a couple days without seeing a post, or a new member sign up.

Gone are those days! :cool:

Re: an unusual observation
 

One wouldn't want to keep the red herring in hand, that gets kind of stinky.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Last month (August) there were 25% more page views then August 2007. You can see all kinds of statistics here: http://stats.chiefdelphi.com/


As for rumors, I heard there is going to be a new control system next year...

Re: an unusual observation
 

I personally blame FIRST for a lack of preparedness for national flooding. Had we particapated in a water game hundred's of FIRST teams would have been more prepared with aqua-bots. Did anyone put any ringers to good use?

In all seriousness, this year should be a non ball game. Not likely to be tetras, boxes, innertubes,....hmmmm? I bet the game piece looks like a jax piece.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Seeing as how the new controller and camera have built in OCR, shape recognition and color recognition it will probably be more like large colored jacks each labeled individually with a name.


And just because I like to keep the rumors going, the cRio-9072/3/4 Operating Instructions and Specifications available on ni.com contains the following:

Re: an unusual observation
 

Traffic cones ?

Re: an unusual observation
 

And the speculation begins... :)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Cone heads does have a nice ring to it. <;)

What about horse shoes U?

Re: an unusual observation
 

True. Very true.

Re: an unusual observation
 

No, that would remind us Michiganders of Traffic Construction season. We don't need reminders of that. :mad:

Unless we get to run OVER the traffic cones, then it would be slanted towards Michigan drivers, we would just do what we normally do to them. That or cursing at them, its a sport up here to curse at traffic cones ;)

(As a random aside, apparently the spell checker in OS X recognizes Michigander as a word... sweet!)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Unfortunately for those who don't like traffic cones, a game has been proposed that uses them as the game object...:D

Re: an unusual observation
 

No in CA we call it a cone zone.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Cone Zone with Barrel Bullies.

Object of the game is to find a retrieve cones launched into the playing field and stack them in your home zone. Bonus if you cover your cones with a large traffic barrel.
Format Change:
All bots at a regional play at the same time to truly get that traffic jam level of frustration. Matches extend from the typical 2 minutes to 20 minutes, but there will only be 2 minutes of moving spread out over the 20 minute period.:mad:

Re: an unusual observation
 

Double the bonus if you can stop Albert the Road Barrel from moving your stack...

Re: an unusual observation
 

You'll need at least a few robots designed to wave a traffic flag or lean on a shovel in the end zone to play the cone game. :D

Re: an unusual observation
 

It wouldn't be right to leave out the caution saw horse whose only purpose seems to be to partially block a closed lane, or rather, open lane, adding confusion when it is supposed to add direction and flow. The traffic flag laying on its side could add to the direction/flow/confusion/blockage - then the caution saw horse would serve its purpose, fully.

I think.

Re: an unusual observation
 

so do saw horses wear horse shoes?

Re: an unusual observation
 

though the last few years have seen the main object as a ball, it isn't any less likely to be a ball this year. The ball is a fundamental piece of many internationally acclaimed games and hundreds more unofficial.

On the subject of the game, every year I think, "how can they ever make it better than last year?" and every year, they do. :)

Re: an unusual observation
 

As a matter of fact, that is not the case. Take a good look at the games for the past several years. I can only think of one time there's been two or more "ball" games in a row, and that was 2000-2002. Since then, crates, balls, tetras, balls, pool tubes, balls. Before then, similar pattern.

Analysis indicates that we're due for a non-ball year.

Re: an unusual observation
 

that's a good observation but whether or not there was a ball last year for the game does not affect whether or not there is a ball this year. Its all up to FIRST.

Though, I do hope the pattern stays true. :)

Re: an unusual observation
 

I was thinking frisbees might be fun.
At any rate, I'm hoping for something we have to launch into the air.

EDIT:
We could be required to skip a frisbee-like gamepiece off water. Say each gamepeice has a name printed along the rim, and we have to skip each gamepiece accross the water a number of times before we can let it sink to the bottom of the pool. Points would be allocated for skipping the gamepieces, but most of the points would be in sinking the gamepiece at the appropriate time. The autonomous period at the beginning would be dredging the frisbees out of the bottom of the pool (the pool would only be a meter in depth).

Re: an unusual observation
 

I was remembering that earlier this year, Dave posted a picture of a glass of water on a pair of Mars bars. Twice. That must be a...










...Game Hint!

Re: an unusual observation
 

You wish......it probably had more to do with the discovery of water on Mars!

Re: an unusual observation
 

Aha! Confectionary contest! I like it!

Re: an unusual observation
 

haha!

Well, we'd have to round them up.

(Thought you threw me a curve, didn't ya? :))

Re: an unusual observation
 

There has been a pattern? Awww, crap. Now we have to start the design all over again....


-dave



.

Re: an unusual observation
 

The patterns would be a little easier if they actually gave information on years before 2002. Heck, I'd really like them to create videos for every year's FRC competition, but I know they don't have the time. And besides that, I think they were origionally something more like an actually assembly line, but they found people were more exited about the sports aspect of it.

At any rate, the field stays about the same size, the robots need about the same maneuverability, and have the same constraints. One of my main questions is: Will there be a robocoach this year? (I'm hoping there won't)

Re: an unusual observation
 

I doubt there will.

Also if you look closer at Dave's post it indicates that there is no ball this year.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Pattern?

1992 - Circle - Balls
1993 - Circle - Balls
1994 - Circle - Balls
1995 - Circle - Balls
1996 - Circle - Balls
1997 - Circle - Tubes
1998 - Circle - Balls
1999 - Circle - Floppies
2000 - Circle - Balls
2001 - Circle - Balls
2002 - Circle - Balls
2003 - Square - Bins
2004 - Circle - Balls
2005 - Triangle - Tetras
2006 - Circle - Balls
2007 - Circle - Tubes
2008 - Circle - Balls


There is FIRST wiki, and normal wikipeida both have information on the games. Not videos, but still information. Also, FRC 45 has information from 1992.

Re: an unusual observation
 

I was referencing the more recent pattern...ball...other...ball...other...and so on. I think we should have a non-ball game this year, but simple logic says it could go either way.

Re: an unusual observation
 

by the above analysis, does a cone get classified as a trianlge or a cirlce?

Re: an unusual observation
 

It's triangle, circle, square from the side, top, bottom, respectively.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Perhaps they'll use hemispheres.
I'm starting to wonder who actually manufactures their gamepeices.

Re: an unusual observation
 

I actually figured this years game would look a lot like what the VEX game ended up being with several sizes of boxes.

Re: an unusual observation
 

While I'd doubt they'd choose the traffic cone as an object ... it would be cool.:cool:

And since Dave has decided to post here, I guess it's now officially red herring season :eek:

Let the speculation begin

Re: an unusual observation
 

Now that you mention it, a fish-shaped object would be fun. How about a modification of that game where you have a wooden fish on a stick and have to flip in and guide it through the hole in the stick? To make the robot less jerky, the floor could be made of moving sidewalks (or rather, moving carpets)

EDIT:
as far as boxes go, having to build a staircase might be fun. Heck, we could use a giant slinky as a main gamepiece!

I'm sure this coming year's competition will be quite different from the last, but I'm not sure how they can make it wildly different from the previous years. Unless they put a lazy suzan type table in the center. Ahah! We could shoot balls at targets along the perimeter. Considering they're playing with floor textures in FTC, we might have some slippery spots (and maybe even a hill we have to pass over where it won't work if we don't have enough momentum). Centrifugal force would certainly be fun, but I suppose we can't play with magnets too much if we plan to bring laptops (the cRIO flash memory would be fine as long as the magnets did not induce excessive voltage, which would be fairly unlikely. The only thing we'd have to worry about is eddy currents from all the aluminum in the robots.

Any more ideas for water games? (Let's aim to make Chief Delphi a respected place for finding competition ideas)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Wooden fish, wouldn't it be better to have live fish? (water game!)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Have you ever checked out the FRC Game Design forum here in ChiefDelphi?

This is one of the threads.

Re: an unusual observation
 

I can't believe that these two phrases can be put together.:p

Very nice.

Re: an unusual observation
 

I disagree -- cones are relatively cheap, lightweight, can take a beating, and are usually nice and bright so they can be incorporated into vision recognition. Plus they come in many sizes, and there are even very small sports cones that mark off a soccer or frisbee field. I think they would be pretty difficult to pick up too because some of them are fairly squishy.

What if the game was like Driver's Ed, where the bots could parallel park, change lanes, etc...think of the possibilities that could mimic learning how to drive on the road!

Re: an unusual observation
 

Better (or worse) still, there are different shapes. There are the traditional cones, the pillars, the road barrels (2+ sizes), the flat soccer cones, collapsing cones (which would be really hard to handle due to being super squishy)...

Re: an unusual observation
 

Along with cones, they could have pot-holes filled with water.

Re: an unusual observation
 

I like where this is going. Hopefully someone from FIRST takes a look at this thread.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Cones have been suggested in the Game Design forum already, with a game included.

Oh, and at least one GDC member has seen the thread at least once. He's also changing up his signature again...

... Which simply means that he's (trying to) mess with our heads again.

(For the record, it's now "To the six-you give me my fix." changed from something about "To the five-you keep my hopes alive." I don't put a whole lot on his signature, though on occasion it's accurate.)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Is cursing at Michiganders who party in your hotel parking lot in the middle of the night a sport (probably more like a hazard)?

Re: an unusual observation
 

I still push for the awesome Bumble Ball!

Re: an unusual observation
 

Does that come in 40" size.:)

Re: an unusual observation
 

That would be fascinating and dangerous at the same time.
Let's make one!

Re: an unusual observation
 

I knew this was coming. I just knew it. I could have predicted it. I could have bet a hot fudge sundae on it. Sure as your name is Koko Ed.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Am I that predictable, Jane?

Re: an unusual observation
 

That depends on where in Michigan they are from. ;)

Re: an unusual observation
 

When it comes to bumble balls and FRC game suggestions, yup, yup, you are. Yup. And that you always help out in any way you can at any event you can fit into your schedule. That's predictable, too.

Re: an unusual observation
 

I like order.

Re: an unusual observation
 

"The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful (Russian: Могучая кучка, Moguchaya kuchka), refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia"

"Les Six, a group of six French composers working in Montparnasse in the early 20th century"

Obviously our next task will be to make music with our robots.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Or maybe just have them work in harmony

Re: an unusual observation
 

I like the idea of making tones and chords (with the help of other robots) to accomplish tasks. It's more puzzle-oriented, but it might be fun

Re: an unusual observation
 

And as far as that goes, I'm thinking old pogo sticks might come in handy. If you took a giant ball with spikes like that, and tensioned a large weight in the center correctly, you could make a self-cleaning ball that would crawl over objects! (by self-cleaning, I mean the spikes would retract when they near the top of the ball, and thus scrape off any debris they may have picked up)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Hmmm .... I wonder if the OCR on the cRIO can be tweaked to recognise notes and chords :eek:

Re: an unusual observation
 

Traffic cone trumpeting anyone?

Re: an unusual observation
 

I was along the same lines. Another option is to make random notes of music in the same way that the Boston subway stations around MIT do -- large wind chimes.

Re: an unusual observation
 

*ears perk up* - are there any photos or links that tell about this? It sounds cool.

Re: an unusual observation
 

A little more research and I've found that they're only at Kendall Square. Skip to about 0:58 into this video and you can see what I'm talking about:
Some random dude's 3 minutes of youtube fame

Also, apparently (blog link) there are levers to control the chimes, a gong, and sheet metal.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Or build robots who can make the field play a pre-engineered tune, like the road in California that was grooved to play the William Tell Overture. Here is the link to the news story, videos are on YouTube, but I can't get to them from here! http://cbs2.com/local/William.Tell.Road.2.822008.html

Re: an unusual observation
 

Weird! I guess I was wrong in thinking no-one would actually use that idea. Well, as long as they're not using it for word advertisements, I'm fine. (it looks like if they made the road actually have that sort of clarity and resistance to wear, then it would be much more slippery when wet and would have no flex in earthquakes)

On a different note, using chimes as targets (or actuated by targets) is brilliant! You could even have a marimba-type thing (with a resonating chamber).

Re: an unusual observation
 

How about a giant funnel, like those things that marbles spiral down? (line the rim with chimes and keep the lazy suzan in the center) The gamepieces would be those little blue racquetballs that team 128 was handing out at nationals. Near the base of the chimes there'd be a shield to hold the balls in and keep them from bouncing all over the place; instead letting them roll down the funnel (maybe in a spiral). The goal would be to throw the balls up and hit the chimes (more points for certain interval sequences). Getting hit by your opponents balls (when they're on the ground) would give them points. Firing balls at an opponent would be penalized. As your balls are rolling down the funnel, you should try to pick them up. The "spout" of the funnel is just a recession that makes it more of a pain to collect balls (encouraging teamwork). Since this might require a ceiling, there could be a giant gong (suspended horizontally) in the middle of the ceiling, where you get special points if you hit it. You are also awarded those points if you fire some balls on top of the gong, and someone else knocks them off by firing at the gong.

Now what could Autonomous be? (thus the problem)

Re: an unusual observation
 

We've had robot basketball and nascar..
'07 was kind of like "Tic-tac-toe."

Now comes...Soccer?
Maybe Scrabble?

Yes, robots moving huge tiles under time! It would use shape-recognition, at least for autonomous :rolleyes: .

Re: an unusual observation
 

I'm pretty sure a Brazilian team would win if it was soccer... ;)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Tic-tac-toe was 2005; 2007 was Connect 4. Hmm...board game, sports game, board game, sports game... Uh-oh.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Woot! New patterns are emerging!

Re: an unusual observation
 

Monopoly!
Checkers!
Chess!

Re: an unusual observation
 

We have a stretch of Interstate 295 around Richmond that is so cratered and patched that when you drive over it, it seems to play a tune. It's hard to make out, but I think it's "Don't know whose rear-end is gonna fall off first - mine or the truck's". It's an old blues tune.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Risk! With real bombs - small, but real.

Re: an unusual observation
 

We could have water bombs!

Water Game+Board Game...
Now all we need is a fire game!
I know!

on an allience we would have one fire fighter bot, one bomb droper, and one platform bot that would have to have bombs droped on it butalso do the platform thing that we did in 07, and then for your team to get points your bot has to not be on fire at the end but it and you would also get points for being on the platform but if the other allience drops bombs on the fire fighter bot they get major penaltys and vice versa

this will never happen but atleast it would make robotics less nerdy....
we mght get some outsider fans too....h

Re: an unusual observation
 

Why not go the safer route? Use the robots to play Magic the Gathering. (with giant cards, of course). Autonomous would be building cards into the deck.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Battleship. Sort of a water game. Sort of a board game. Actually that would probably suck as a spectator competition unless it was the Deluxe Talking Battleship.

Re: an unusual observation
 

At this rate we could just play marbles.

But no, I still like that stuff involving tones and intervals. I suppose we could have something where the robots move around the area, find the data ports in the walls (each which has a few kilobytes of memory to store a waveform), and try to assemble a wave sequence to unlock some sort of code. Or they could be given sheet music which they must read and play (and then post in the .abc format. bonus points for making up lyrics to go along with it)

This is only the 80th post, and it's already way past feasible. What was I saying about making FIRST actually consider the ideas in this thread? This stuff might be usable in ten years or so.

How about really fun and funky stuff, like ferrofluid, non-newtonian fluid, or jello?

(and now for my 4th edit)
What about different sized balls, so each makes a "boing" of a different pitch? Some could even be filled with different liquids or gasses (helium in one, nitrogen in another, argon or xenon in a third)

Re: an unusual observation
 

Not the JELLO GAME again! (Dave's other favorite game, second only to water, Mars, or Krispy Kremes...)

Re: an unusual observation
 

The only reason I mentioned jello is because I had an awesome idea a while back of embedding iron shavings in jello. Now that I know of ferrofluid, it's a little moot, but still fun.
How about a textured jelly? Something along the lines of clay or play-do for robots.
Another option is to have (almost) fully elastic balls, that increase in "hardness" as they near the core. This would create a nice splat-bounce effect. (if you put a skin on it, you could do it with cubes too)

Re: an unusual observation
 

The Office quote:

Re: an unusual observation
 

Honestly, what worries me most is that they'll choose a gamepiece that will obstruct the cameras. Anything else is just in good fun.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Idk...I think FIRST is going to try something simple yet difficult because of the new controller and hard economic times; after all they have got to watch their costs too!

Re: an unusual observation
 

Well, the traffic barrels certainly would be fun if they shut off the lights for part of the competition. To reduce worry about all the switching of lights on the lifetime of the bulbs, they could use LEDs (I reccommend the L2K2-MWC4-11-0200 (that's the brightest cool-white luxeon K2 star that they offer), but the neutral-white or warm-white LEDs might be easier on the eyes.
I tested the efficiency of one of the cool-whites as my science project in 9th grade, and found them to be slightly more efficient than the fluorescent I tested (and in this case, much brighter as well).

Re: an unusual observation
 

And then my white sliver deck starts confusing the refs. because of all the chain abilities! :D

Re: an unusual observation
 

...and what would happen to my Artifact deck? I think the judges would have to ban the Affinity mechanic!

Re: an unusual observation
 

I was intending it to be one of those competitions where you don't bring your own cards; you're given a deck to play with (and I believe you get to keep that deck afterwards).
At any rate, it'd make it harder to keep it involved with the community. However, they might focus a little more on the West Coast (say, hold Nationals in Washington State).

Re: an unusual observation
 

This is probably a lame thought but maybe it will be somehow related to a recent movie. Like Ironman or something.

Re: an unusual observation
 

A water game would be crazy fun! Wow...totally expensive though.

Re: an unusual observation
 

Hmm, "FIRST Flotilla"? 40 MPH RC boats in autonomous mode :ahh:

Re: an unusual observation
 

That'd have to have waterfoils, wouldn't they? I don't think a hovercraft would go that fast.
Then again, how do you stop a boat going at 40 mph? You can't swamp it, and you can't make it skip out of the water.

Re: an unusual observation
 

What happened? Did everyone else suddenly find out what the game was going to be or what?

Re: an unusual observation
 

No, just more endless speculation. It gives us something to do while we wait for Kickoff. If you hang around you get used to it. Though we do seem to have a love-hate relationship with the idea of a "water game". It always comes up and is dismissed for a variety of reasons. It would present a number of interesting challenges which makes it so attractive. Of course, the idea of shooting things came up regularly too, and was usually dismissed as well .... until 2006

Re: an unusual observation
 

Well, I can definitely understand shooting things, but why not catching things as well? Talk about challenging!

Re: an unusual observation
 

There you go again, giving the Game Design Committee fiendish ideas. You do realize that at least some of them read CD right?

Re: an unusual observation
 

I always envision members of the GDC kicked back in comphy chairs, snacking on donuts or fruit and sipping their beverage of choice - Diet Coke, steaming coffee, yummy apple cider... and they chuckle as they read through the thread suggestions. Then, they tip back the lid on their Pandora's Box, rummage through it and say, "ah yes, that was a good idea...", smile, tuck the idea back down in the box and continue snacking and sipping, smiling contentedly in their Cheshire Cat way.

But that's just me.

Re: an unusual observation
 

But if you place the ball on TOP of the ring then it will be worth a 60 point bonus !!!

more photos

Re: an unusual observation
 

That would be extremely interesting. I wonder what the game would be.