Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

Which leads us back to 6v0 as the best way to help the 6 teams involved in the match. Any chance the game will be designed to work best as 6v0?

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

Very low. Remember that the GDC amended the game last year to discourage that strategy. Chances are they looked to solve that problem with this year's challenge.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

Either that or they will realize it and be relieved because the feeling that something unknown was overlooked passed and frustrated due to the oversight.

I've had something similar happen to me before. Before I left on a camping trip I was running around trying to figure out why I felt that I was forgetting something. I found out afterwards that it was my underwear::ouch:: . Its a good thing I was only staying for one night.

It's better to forget one's underwear when in the woods than one's safety glasses when in the shop.::safety::

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

It will be interesting to see what they do. The coopertition bonus tends to move the qualifying rounds toward high offense. The teams that wanted to showcase their defensive skills generally didn't make the playoffs since their seeding scores were low - but defense was important in the playoffs. My thought was that since the qualifying rounds and playoffs played differently anyway (offense vs defense) maybe the GDC will design a game with this in mind.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

Maybe they could add an additional type of match aimed at showing off what the robots can do, at the expense of fewer qualification matches.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

The whole "two kinds of match" thing sounds interesting - the same game with two alternating sets of "extra" rules would really make it challenging!

I can just imagine it: "OK, this match will have walls A B and C up, and walls D E and F removed. Please wait 10 minutes for a field reset."

Actually, just thinking of that...labyrinth? It'd be awesome!

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

I really like the idea of a somewhat changing setup. Yes it could delay reset times substantivity, but if FIRST could find a way to do it fast then I'd be all for it, gives an excellent new challenge as well as forcing robots to use more sensors, epically during Autonomous!

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

I want to see a bigger match up, like 6v6 or 12v12. I think 3v3 is too small. The 3v3 forces individual teams to "fend for themselves". They would have to form alliances, but that alliance ends after the round and chances are you will be put against that team. I personally do not like the competition "model" (I do not know what I shall call it). I think alliances should be made even before the kickoff and have the games be more in depth. So the same alliances are stuck together throughout the competition. So the teams then can make specialized robots while cooperating as a bigger team. So that calls for bigger and deeper games. Now I think that would make things a lot more "fair". Alliances can be set up depending on socioeconomic backgrounds and the amount of experience the teams have. Chances are the veteran teams in richer areas will end up having a better robot.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

I disagree. I feel that, by constantly switching who you're working with, you learn to adapt your strategies to work with others AND to prevent someone who knows your past strategies from using them to stop you.
Also, that would severely limit teams like mine, who go to different competitions every year. Every team in this meta-alliance would have to go to all the same regionals.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

You know, David, back in the day (before my time even), alliances were kept secret until 2 minutes or so before each match. FIRST event people knew, but teams just knew that teams W, X, Y, and Z needed to be at the field at time A. How about we go back to that? Oh, and there were only 2-team alliances, if you were wondering.

A year or so later, they went to the format we know and love today. Something about 2 minutes not being enough, or some such triviality.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

I disagree entirely. Looking 7 miles from my own home, there are quite a few Detroit teams who are doing great, and Detroit as a whole is not in the greatest financial situation. While money can create fancy-looking robots, it does not always create game-winning ideas.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

I said "better robot" not "winning robot" on purpose. I totally understand but you have to see that richer schools have access to better opportunities. It might be the difference between a CNC machine and hand drill. Not saying that you can not produce the same work, but you really can't deny that the CNC machine is a lot more "convenient" than hand drilling everything. Now that itself won't give you a winning robot, but the more prototypes you can pump out, the more practice your team can get. The more money you have, the better and more hardware you can buy.

Just my observation. The richer teams tend to have better robots. Now "better" is subjective, but you get the jist of it.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

A winning robot is the better robot, no matter how it was made or how much it cost.

I wouldn't say the "richer" teams have better robots, mainly because that relies on assuming that certain teams are richer.... and the teams people assume are "richer" are the ones with better robots. Circular logic. I've seen teams with $50,000 budgets miss eliminations at regionals and I've seen teams with $10,000 budgets win it all.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

While it's clear teams with more resources have better chances of excelling in any given year, and I think Kara acknowledges that, I don't think differences in budget necessarily best indicates a team with greater potential for building a better robot. If anything, I'd bet the number of mentors is much more important.

Re: anyone have any ideas about next years game?
 

What if you had an offensive-defensive role? In autonomous, both teams try to score or capture scoring devices. Whoever leads after autonomous becomes offensive for the rest of the match, whoever lags after auto becomes defensive for the rest of the match. Offender gets number of points scored, Defender gets number of points Offender attempted but failed to score (Offender got the scoring device from the human player or other non-defender accessible way, but failed to score it). During auto, only offensive points are counted for the purposes of determining who leads after auto. Multipliers for both teams would be nice, in the form of doing some extra action to get bonuses.

What if there was a bridge, like 2001? Offenders acquire and fill the goals, that is enough to get points. The robot has to actually load the goal, not the HP. If the offender balances the goal(s) on the bridge (with or without them also on it) they get a multiplier. If the defender balances on the bridge, they get a bonus. (due to the nature of bridge-balancing, it would be very hard to balance if a defender is also on and driving around, wrecking havok to the cg of the bridge. This would require a defensive offender, who's purpose is to out-defend the defensive robots (keep them off the bridge while the main robot balances it). The act of balancing an empty goal is OK too, if you are unable to manipulate game pieces, but gets you fewer points.

The issue comes when neither team does anything in auto, or both teams are equal in score.

I think this means that the game includes a movable trailer, and they included a device to latch onto the trailer for us. Probably a simple passive device (gate latch?) which can be used with its faults, improved upon, or redesigned from scratch.