Re: 2012 Game?
 

I just want something easy to explain to anyone coming to watch. It was a little difficult to describe Logomotion compared to breakaway or any other of the sport-themed games.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

I agree 100%. it makes bringing non-robotics people to the competitions so much better. It allows them to get into the game and actually be able to follow what is going on and who has the best chance at winning. It's great seeing non-robotics visitors talking to other kids on the team about the game and not just asking questions

Re: 2012 Game?
 

While I agree that explaining a sport related game is much easier than describing a weird game like Logomotion, I also know that after telling so many people about the game and explaining it, it got pretty easy for me to say and for other people to understand.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

I'm also +1 for the easy-to-explain sports game! I loved Breakaway, and how it was so simple and understandable by its viewers.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Its funny. At the Championship, I was showing a family involved wit FLL around the pits, and had them watch a match while explaining Logomotion to them. When I told them about the minibot race, the dad said "so essentially the minibot is like the Golden Snitch. It gets you a lot points, but doesn't necessarily win you the game." This has been by far the greatest comparison of the minibot race I've ever heard and I'm surprised I never heard it anywhere else.

As for the next game, if there is a lot of action going on, I wouldn't mind explaining what's going on even if the rules are a bit complicated. I think that seeing robots fire projectile game pieces around the field would attract a good portion of the public who don't know what FIRST is.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

tl;dr most of the thread but,

my $.02 is the game needs to be simple. The engineering challenge does not have to presented through a complex challenge. A simple game has the same amount of challenge because efficiency becomes important. Think about a simple race game for example. No balls or human players. The fasted robot to do so many laps would win. Now where is the challenge in that? There are so many things that can make a robot faster. Teams that add fly wheels for "sudo regenerative breaking" would have an advantage. Teams that would have pure autonomous robots would do better because of the lack of human hesitation.

There is a reason why sports are enjoyable to watch and play.

Also, the GDC is already done with this year's game and they are working on next year so I hope some simple games come down the line by the time my younger sibling join...

Re: 2012 Game?
 

+1 to simple games.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

how about something that has to do with rally car racing? maybe an offroad type game? would be hard to do but definitely fun.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

I think gap crossing would be a cool thing to do. A 6-18 inch deep 24+ inch wide gap between two ramps in the middle of the field would certainly pose an interesting challenge. Some robots would be able to get themselves across, others would be capable of helping others cross, the rest could still play, they would have to pass through a bottleneck to get to the other side of the field (like the tunnel in 2010).

Re: 2012 Game?
 

here's another idea:

CURLING!!!

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Fun tidbit of info:

AndyMark released an interesting product today: the 20" Toughbox Nanotube.
Link: http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0949.htm

Why is this important, you ask?
In 2009, for AndyMark to be the provider of those special wheels, they probably would have had to know about them around this time of year. This amount of lead time on a business their size is about right for designing producing so many wheels by kickoff. Ergo, we could postulate that they just came out with a product that foreshadows smaller footprints in 2012.

Of course, this could be a residual product of one of their non-FRC projects and could have nothing to do with the 2012 FRC game. But where's the fun in thinking along those lines?

Re: 2012 Game?
 

I would also wager that balls will be the gamepiece, but other interesting things to play with could be:

Footballs, hockey pucks, batons, small rectangular shapes, etc...

Re: 2012 Game?
 

For this past year, the GDC used another tube game. It was the first year that no current students had played with tubes. Anyone think we are going to have to launch something this year (Overdriveish)? Current seniors have been involved in Lunacy, Breakaway, and Logomotion. I would like to see something sports based or with one game piece and one way of scoring (Lunacy/Breakaway) to keep explinations simple. I also would love something completely new like Breakaway because there was no way to clone an old robot.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Cloning robots. What I disliked most about this season. For me, it just kinda takes the fun away when you see robots that look like the ones from around 5 years back. I also don't like games where every robot looks the same (elevator and roller claw). That takes out half the fun of everything! Don't you like to walk into a regional, or the championships, or a district, and see all of the cool, amazingly unique robots? That's what gets me so pumped up about the competition. But when you walk into a stadium with 62 robots that look just like yours, it makes the competition less fun. I remember in 2010 most all robots I saw were unique, and each one had it's own perks to play with/against. Matches were always different, and each team could be easily recognizable via their robot. Whatever the 2012 game is, I hope it's not as specific as locomotion, and allows unique robots that can still succeed.

tl;dr? I want a simple game.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

And staple guns...
http://xkcd.com/478/