Re: New Game Progress
 

Perhaps a soccer/Basketball combo with at least two balls. Teams have to pass before scoring. Scoring could be low for a few points, high for more points. Autonomous could require capturing and scoring with the right colored ball.

Of course, if we are using cubes, maybe we build a platform out of the correct color cubes, then climb up on it to score more. The higher, the more points. Autonomous would be putting the right cubes in the right areas.

We should look for a game piece with a low cost per piece. We will need a lot of them.:)

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Well, here's what I think.

In the past years, the FTC game and the FRC game are closely linked. Not *exactly* the same but in the overall concept, the two games are very similar.

So, going along those concepts, I expect to see some terrain on the field. Possibly some ramps and platforms as well.

As far as gaming element is concerned, I'm not that worried about what the gaming element will be. But I doubt that it will be anything "new". Unless it's the fish that Dave posted. :D

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802.11 is the overall specification. 802.11n is a specific specification within the 802.11 specification family of requirements.

and 802.11n has 11 channels, just like 802.11 B/G. It just includes some specific requirements. 3 channels are non-overlapping.

All the robots and the field should be able to run on a single channel, shareing the bandwidth.

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So since this year's FTC game is played with hockey pucks ("Face Off" ) do you suggest a hockey type game will be the theme? Will checking be allowed?

..... well supposedly there are lots of Hockey Moms around these days.

WC :cool:

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I think we may have to use one of the techniques demonstrated at Atlanta this past April when revealing the cRIO. I remember them showing text recognition, and I think you could do color recognition as well... Uno, anyone?

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The cRIO can do color recognition, shape recognition and has software for text recognition.

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I love that concept. Boost offensive robot interplay, while allowing for inventive defensive strategy.

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Text recognition is said to be possible, but it was not demonstrated. They pretended the robot was reading the words in that demo, but it was actually just recognizing the shape of the background that the text was written on. One piece of paper had a rectangle, and the other an ellipse.

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I think a voice controlled system for the bot would be cool

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Voice control would be cool.

I'd like to see a tablet (Pocket PC or Tablet PC) that displays the game field and the location of your robot. From there you'd use a stylus to draw where you want to go and the robot would calculate how to get there and move on it's own (of course using onboard collision avoidance systems :D )

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You mean like Team 111's StangPS with Wilddraw?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=20273
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=19477

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40 had a similar system in 2006 I believe. just drew their auton routes with a stylus on a pocket pc.

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I would like to see a Pirate theme - Arrrrrrrr
(Blue carpet - just to get you in the mood.)
With triangular ramps all over the place - waves.)

The robots would be like pirate ships - out to find burried treasure.
There would be written clues to where the treasure was burried.
Lots of pirate chests (Square or course) - probably numbered or named.

In auto mode - you sail out and read text clues on the field that indicate which number/name of chest has the booty. Grab the correct chest(s) and get it/them back to home base. (If you get the booty, you get 10 points, if you grab the wrong one it is minus 20).

The robots will all have a hopper/box mounted in front to catch cannon balls - circles.
There will be dozens of cannon balls thrown onto the field by human players. The robots pick these up and fire them into the box/hopper of the opposing alliance. You get 20 points for everyone that you can get to stay in the box.

At the end the robots can release teathered landing boats and the score is the length times the width in yards of the final configuration for each robot.

We have grog at the social - whatever that be...

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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Wow. Very nice.

And yes like that except instead of correcting after a collision (through recalculating the angle to the next waypoint) you'd use collision avoidance (possibly SONAR returns?) and recalculate a path around the obstacle.

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Thats what Team Krunch did this year, a mentor from 1902 came up at Mission Mayhem and asked if a turn was done by robocoach, and I told him "No, we have three sonars mounted on our robot."

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What I heard was that text recognition (OCR) is possible, just not in real time. Color, and shape recognition is real time.

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Well you see we did have them this year... remember trying to get pool noodles in the winter for the bumpers....

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This is not neccesarily correct. 802.11 B/G runs on the 2.4ghz band, and 802.11 A runs on the 5ghz band.
802.11 on 2.4ghz only has 11 channels (3 non-overlapping) and 12 channels (no overlapping) on 5ghz.

802.11 N can run on either band, but I believe that the beta teams were instructed to use the 5ghz band.

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So the 2009 game was based around going fishing in New Jersey? :p

Nice.



// My apologies to those (including quite a few of my friends) who hail from Jersey. ;-)

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well if it is an Atlantic red haring it could be indicating any other state on the eastern seaboard








i think theres a pink floyd cover like that picture of new jersey what was it animals? dont seem to remember a fish song though!



based on that im going to assume the game will include some sort of flying pig balloon! or a laser light system!

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To define if something can be done in real time, you have to define what that time limit is.

IMAQ does support OCR, shape, pattern, and color matching along with binary morphology and convolutions. OCR was demonstrated early on, but in Atlanta, there were a limited number of signs, and shape recognition was selected to avoid having to train an entire font to read two words. Using OCR would have been overkill, and probably less accurate as well.

Greg McKaskle

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Oooh! I have an idea!!!! We're gonna play foosball this year!!!

Eh, but in reality, I don't have any serious thoughts on what it will be.

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Perhaps this entry in today's NI News is somehow relevant...http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-11420?metc=mtqgm2.

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Aidan, you do realize that you're going to have to ref the water game at some point, right? And due to the visibility issues, you're probably going to need to be IN the water to make the right call. Are you sure you want to be in the water with a bunch of robots?

Re: New Game Progress
 

This is what I see as having a chance of being relevant. Then again, water is cool so long as I am not working at the event. :D


Wetzel

Re: New Game Progress
 

Although it's been mentioned before, I'll say it again, I think water is extremely unlikely.

1. Water is hard to build, yes, water is hard to build. :D. At regionals, if you're looking at a robot playing field with the 2-D layout of this year, and then you think about going about roughly 6 feet high. That' is a LARGE field. Also a lot of water. FIRST makes challenges, but I don't think they are cruel.

2. About Dave's fish, I have hypothesis about that. it could be that he's just trying to get the hype up about the feared water game or that the field this year will be "bumpy". The fish has scales and is generally bumpy. Expect terrain this year.

With the FTC game having some soft of terrain this year, I wouldn't be surprised to see the FRC game have some sort of terrain as well.

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Maybe the terrain will BE fish. Sushi, anyone? :D

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or well call it super sushi saturday

or maybe mega mackeral movers? having to proccess fish would be interesting

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Eeewwwww ... I hope not.

Consider the stench after a 3 day event under those lights :eek:

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well they could be frozen and every one would have to wear jackets?

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I agree that it could be Dave playing some sort of a mind game with us. I wouldn't be surprised. We still love you though Dave, keep em clues coming.

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Could be?! Try 'most definitely is'. I've learned to stop listening to Dave between April and January. It makes my life a whole lot less stressful.

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I don't go quite that far, I listen to dave and then assume anything that contains the words 'game', 'hint', 'water', or 'jello' are jokes. Other times mr. Lavery can be quite funny and informative. Plus, it is nice to read posts that are usually free from grammatical and spelling errors. (I cant say always, I haven't read all of his posts)

And about the frozen fish, try keeping fish frozen in Hawaii, or Brazil. Yeah though, frozen fish would work GREAT in Michigan, just open the window a crack.

Im still holding out for construction barrels, just cuz I want to see robots do what I want to do whenever I see them. :D

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whats a construction barrel? is that like a 55 gallon drum

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Construction Barrels aka Michigan's State Tree ;)

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oh i call those stationary targets :D

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You know, if a water game's out of the question...

...what about Robo-Quidditch?

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Robot Quidditch and water game is now out of the question. :D.

It's just that.

1. It's hard enough to make regular robots, much less a flying robot. :D.

2. Assuming ur on the ground, the whole passing aspect of the game is totally wack. One robot would hold the ball the entire time.

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It would be a bit tough if your robot was disabled 10 feet off the ground...

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i always epicly fail when guessing the game. also, i just wanted the 141st post;)

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Sorry dude someone beat ya, you where 142

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We can fix that... Albert! Now they're moving targets.:p

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ha! i want to go next year but it costs to much:mad:

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I second this notion, except I can't go because Kettering has classes then. And its like the first week of classes so I shouldnt skip... go figure.

But yes, If there are any doubts that the Construction Barrel is our state tree I can go out and grab a picture of one of our state parks, (I-75) and the forest on it. :(

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so we are smoking fish... awsome

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So we'll be fishing for plastic red herrings?

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I should have read this before before last nights design challenge. Thought we better teach the kids about buoyancy.

These are boats made of modeling clay and then loaded until they sink with BBs.

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Somewhere in North America a water game is being examined.....





more information might be found here: a lot more photos

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I think that we will have to cut down a tree with a herring...

you get terrain in a forest, and there are trees in forests. trees are generally cylindrical shaped.

there are streams and creeks that run through forests, streams and creeks have fish in them...and water, trees need water

so that means that we could have like 55gallon drums full of water stacked on top of each other in some sort of random order and the two alliances will have to separate them and stack them in the correct order, all while trying to keep from knocking them over on other robots and trying not to bust them as to spill water. then have to move the stacked barrels to certain locations on the playing field as marked by blue circles in the playing field carpet.
bonus points could then be awarded during the autonomous period for correctly moving to a stack of barrels with a certain shape on the bottom barrel such as a square, circle, or triangle...or a picture of a shrubbery

then again this could idea could be formulated from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and be completely wrong...but it's worth a shot :cool:

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Whatever the game is, I think it will be a big change from past games. It will be like "Triple Play" when alliences grew from 2 to 3 teams. I expect that kinda of change to acompany the new controllers this year.

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i just hope it has to do with climbing something, im tired of all this ground floor games lol

we need something like 04 or 03 again.

bring back the struggle on king of the hill, nothing made the crowd and game harder than yelling at your robot to push harder to get all four wheels on top in time.

also climbing on top of things is hard, brings a new level of thinking out a drive train and design.

i wouldnt mind a game where we have to climb over rubble, or something that moves, it would really put drivers to the test :)

Re: New Game Progress
 

I think that they are really going to try and test the new system by increasing the number of robots on an alliance to 4, aiding this by decreasing the robot size limit. They will also probably try to put a premium on mobility by using multiple stationary field elements. I also think that they will continue with alliance game-pieces, band I think that they will use a similar scoring system to 2007 where multiple scores in a specific area had an exponential increase in score. It brought out an interesting strategic wrinkle when it came to offense as far as using your own pieces to maximize offensive output or use them to defensively limit your opponent. I am also personally leaning toward cubic game pieces. As far as the end game, who knows? :confused:

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OMG! i just saw the video of th IRI people unveiling the control system and i just got a AMAZING IDEA!

since they really want to bring the camera back and their robot had LED's on all sides tha they might want us to drive in the dark using jut the camera and th crowd would use the robot LED lights to see the robots :yikes:

Re: New Game Progress
 

Agreed u guys read way to much into this i mean i can hardly wait the 1 month 21 days 15 hours 19 min 37 sec until the game is announced but honestly we are never going to guess what first is going to give us thats the point

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3 robots per alliance, two on your own side of a 2 foot wall and one on your opponents side, the other alliance has the the opposite, two on thier side and one on yours. There is a bucket of some sort on each end.
There are 10 to 20 nerf balls around the arena. you have to put the balls in the bucket on your opponets side and or just on there side. you score 3 for each ball in the bucket, and 1 for each one just on the opponents side.

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i LOVE you idea... dont know why.. just seems like it would work =D lol

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What are the chances they would do something like changing the robot deminsions, or the robot weight, or like taking away the cims and giving us some other motor?

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Fairly low on the motor question. Then again, this is the FRC GDC we're talking about.

As for the others: the last changes were in 2005. 2007 had the height/weight classes, which were pretty good. 2005 went from 30" x 36" x 5' to 28" x 38" x 5'. I don't remember when/what the previous change was, or the one before that. We're probably about due for another, but there's just no telling.

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I enjoyed the height/weight classes. But I know there is an OSHA rule about weight(Which I can't find at the moment) so I wouldn't count on an increase in bot weight. Also, height and width are limited by doors. I don't see us getting a major change in size or weight anytime soon.

Instead of the mentioned OSHA rule I suggest another set of guidelines for teens, http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/youth/resta...r_lifting.html and for general http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/elec...vy.html#Weight of Objects

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I seem to remember 75#/person on a 2-person lift having been cited on occasion. With battery and bumpers (15# each), robots are right at 150#, and a 2-person lift means that each is lifting 75#.

Door limitations is correct; I now recall that the previous size was 36" x 36" base, which won't fit through a lot of doors. So they lost 6" on one side. Then they changed it within that. You never know what they'll change next...

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I hope they dont change the size on us, because I have put way to much time into designing a universal chassis, and come Jan 3 I dont want to have to start over, or make any changes.

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This is the type of thing that puts an evil glint in Dave's eye and a smile on his face...

Re: New Game Progress
 

So you mean you spent a lot of time doing the thing that FIRST asks teams not to do? Hmmmm. :rolleyes:

Yeah, Jeff is right....

-dave


.

Re: New Game Progress
 

would that be considered rack and row...

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Oh No.
Dave is smiling.
**Shudders**

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I sense a disturbance in the force. A presence I felt since........

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Let's try not to scare any new CDers

He shudders, because he's thinking about all the evil hints and red herrings, the ones that the WONDERFUL Dave keeps from us, making us feel safe. SAFE. DAVE IS SAFE....

Re: New Game Progress
 

there is no rule that says we cant draw chassis in CAD Programs, we just cant start milling any of the drawings, or building anything yet.:rolleyes:

Re: New Game Progress
 

Dave, that's what we, in the video game world, call getting "pwned".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwned

Re: New Game Progress
 

Yes... and no. From the 2008 rules (the most current available in this case), R27 reads:
and would now be in effect. You are correct, design is not prohibited, especially at vague levels. You could even build the designs, provided that anything you build does not make it onto the final robot.

HOWEVER: Bill's Blog advises against this. Moreover (and more to the point), there is an explanatory note right before <R27> that reads in part: The removed portion is examples of acceptable activities.

So, you are borderline right now. You may or may not have those drawings, but if you don't, you might want to consider not proceeding further. Of course, a proof-of-concept of something like a universal chassis might be worth building as a proof-of-concept, whether or not it was used in competition. While these quotes are not rules, they are from official sources, and should be treated as such.

This is one of those areas that could change a bit, especially with Dave having noticed.

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FIRST has been pretty clear in stating that you should not be preparing any final, detailed, dimensioned designs (or fabricating final parts, etc) before the start of the build season. Both the referenced portion of Section 8.3.4 of the previous rules, and the entry in Bill's Blog give information regarding this intent. But when you state, as you did in your original post, that "I have put way to much time into designing a universal chassis, and come Jan 3 I dont want to have to start over, or make any changes" then you make it unambiguous that is exactly what you are doing. FIRST's intent and those actions are obviously in conflict. Based on the advice from Bill's Blog, you might want to think carefully about just how much time you want to invest in developing a detailed final design that you may not be able to use.

and that's what we, in the engineering world, call a completely unnecessary statement.

-dave



.

Re: New Game Progress
 

I believe Dave has just successfully executed the often elusive pwn-back (I would link to Urban Dictionary here, but that site is definitely on, if not over, the line of things I am comfortable linking to on CD).

Re: New Game Progress
 

The last little bit of exchanges in this thread are a great example of what I sometimes think of as the Dave phenomenon and although cool, I sometimes wonder if his points are getting across to our young and future engineering minds. Dave is well-known in CD for his humor, his hints, and his wit. For many who take the time to read his posts very carefully, he is also known for his intelligent wisdom, his guidance, and his wealth of knowledge. The concern I have in this last exchange is that some folks will get caught up in the pwn/pwn-back and potentially miss the information that he shared in his post regarding design aspects of the robot as well as providing an opportunity to think beyond the gaming world and into the engineering world. Different perspectives, different expectations - if one thinks about it. Dave is very cool and also very fun, but he is also a respected source of knowledge and experience. It an amazing opportunity for the young students involved in FRC to experience.

Sorry, I've been wanting to say this for several years and finally did. I'll stop now. :)

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Thank you Jane, you are right on as always. My post was in no way meant to take anything away from the informative and insightful post Dave made and if even one person gets "caught up in it" and misses what Dave or you wrote then I am sorry.

If you are reading this and you didn't read both Dave and Jane's post, please go back now and do so.

Re: New Game Progress
 

Kevin, thank you for your kind words.
Actually, you created an amazing example for me to point to with the elusive pwn-back - in asking young students to please take the time to think past the thought they have in their head, when reading Dave's posts, that they are a hint or they are funny. Dave's posts can be all or some of that, for sure, but they are often much much more as well. That's all I was asking for folks to think about. We are limited by our own preconceived notions sometimes, missing great opportunities to see great beauty or to learn from the best.

Thank you again. :)
Jane

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[edit] Not to interrupt.....
Eventually the GDC's gonna have a game piece called Red Herring just to mess with all of us on behalf of Dave lol >.<

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I agree with what you are saying. what i meant was that it would be nice if the game really fit with our chassis, but by no means were we trying to gain an unfair advantage.

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well im going to go off the topic of the last few posts and would like to see something in new games, two ideas.

a crossbreed between past games. 03/06 perhaps? points such as the nerf balls being shot or dumped into goals, and king of the hill in the middle ramp. maybe a 02/04 combo, gather balls into a movable goal, and the further your robot is able to bring it up a set amount of steps the more points are gathered, the steps being progressively harder and higher to climb as you go up. maybe even a 05/01.. how many tetra's u stack can outweigh the other teams to cause more points (which are based on a seesaw obviously).

idea number two- 3 alliances of 2 teams. would be interesting what kind of "party" games would be made out of that combo lol

Re: New Game Progress
 

hehehe. Luckily my team decided to hold off building a universal chassis due to the information on Bill's blog. :D.

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4v2.

Back in the dark ages before alliances, the game was 1v1v1. One minor detail, though--the two "weaker" teams would gang up on the "stronger" team most of the time, forcing the "stronger" team to lose. While FIRST couldn't prove collaboration, they decided to require it, and now we have the alliance system. A 2v2v2 would bring that back.

Re: New Game Progress
 

Ok this is what my guess is on the new game this year...

First i predict that we go from 3 teams to 4 teams also, the human players will have a more important role as was proven last year because the ability to control the bot in autonomous. in autonomous mode we will have to recognize a certain color and shape to pick something up and set it somewhere. the game will be a heavy terrain based field (ramps and speed bumps). the game will inculed more than one game piece and will be two different sizes and ( the curve ball) DIFFERENT SHAPES *gasp* :cool:


man dosent that sound cool....:D

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I know it's a bit off-topic, but regarding that pwn/pwn-back bit.

Yeah, we have GP. Yes, there are people of all ages on here. But I'm not going to be a completely different person entirely on CD. I'll keep the foul language and reference to rough-stuff out of here, but a small joke shouldn't be taken that far out of context.

It was my way of [trying] to bring humor into it. Guess I'll keep my mouth shut next time. Or my keyboard unplugged.

Yes, that was humor...

Re: New Game Progress
 

i know that the game used to be 1v1v1. im just saying i think it would be exciting to watch it, and if the so called "weaker teams" do gang up on "stronger teams" then people are being ungraciously unprofessional.

but having 2v2v2 and that happening shouldnt be looked as a negative, it should be part of the game too, revolve a game around that, and see what happens.

we should all have learned by now that they can create any game for any situation and shock us to death. so you never know what will happen.

don't assume i didn't know about previous games and what happened at them.

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On the contrary, I would argue that it is highly professional. If you know that someone else is better than you in a 1-on-1, you get a partner so it is now a 1-on-2 and you have a chance. Nothing prevents your opponent from doing the same thing. (Unless, of course, doing so is against the rules.) This happens in the professional world all the time, does it not?

Whether or not it is gracious is, however, up to interpretation.

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Actually in the last 1v1v1 game, it was not ncessary for the two "weaker" or lower ranked teams to gang up on a stronger or higher ranked opponent. It was enough for them to decide - independently - that there was no way they were going to leave one of "that team's" balls on the rails. Since it was possible for any team to knock off any ball in any position, and it was time consuming to get the ball up in the first place, the highest ranked team just had a bigger target on their back. Going after the balls of the highest ranked team was just good strategy, especially if you couldn't put up balls on your own.

Defending against such action by two robots with a single robot was nigh impossible. While you were keeping one away from your balls, the other would come from the back and take them down, because it was in their best interest to do so. Not necessarily because there was any agreement between any of the teams. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and all that.

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How's this for an idea? Have different robot placements that allow for varying difficulty as far as autonomous scoring goes and the value of the scores in autonomous are contingent upon robot placement at the beginning. Such as a position that only allows the robot to enter the field during the second half of autonomous period but your score multiplier is based on the roll of a d6 dice where 2 sides are 1, two are 2, and the other two are 3. after the robots are placed. It would be an interesting balance of risk, reward, and alliance strategy.

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If i had to guess i'm going to say an uneven playing field with walls (to make you use the camera) and pool noodles as the playing object. Probably ramp in the middle for bonus at the end.

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Wow, Guys these are some pretty awesome game plans. i personally think water is down the drain for the game this year or any year coming soon but some of the other ideas would be sweet to do. Ice in particular would be interesting to see.