Re: 2012 Game?
 

I must say that for the two years of being in FIRST im hoping for a sports type of game, but i truely cannot wait for the next game. :) I will be completely honest, I doubt there will be another mini bot thing at the end, since 2011 was mini bot related.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

I completely agree with this statement! :)

Re: 2012 Game?
 

I disagree with making a game simple, where would the fun be if it was simple. Its not an every day thing. I mean robotics is important in my life as is yours but i want a difficult game that makes my mind run wild. just a thought.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Do not confuse "Simple to understand" with "Simple to accomplish". Overdrive was very easy for the audience to understand, but handling a 40 inch ball reliably was not so simple. Still, I think each game should have some tasks that are easy to accomplish and some that are more difficult to reflect the various capabilities of the different teams.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

yes, but when its hard to understand it makes it more fun to try to pull what you can out of the rules. such as break away, 469 played with the rules not knowing if they were breaking rules or not. their robot was amazing no doubt, yet the rules were not clear so no other teams thought of it.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Well since the world's gonna end in 2012 :D , we will have to prevent it. Duh

Re: 2012 Game?
 

TRUE DAT!!! :D

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Hockey on a Lunacy field, only using wheels of cheese as pucks (or if you are not cool, some plastic facsimile). My apologies if this has already been mentioned. For some reason, I doubt it. :D

Re: 2012 Game?
 

i like it but im thinking instead of cheese you use white castles!! :)

Re: 2012 Game?
 

when thinking in terms of simplicity, lets not forget that our main goal in FIRST is not to entertain an audience, but rather to learn about engineering through building a robot. So, we wouldn't really want a simple challenge, because the experience gained from that is not nearly as great as it is from a difficult challenge, even if it makes the game hard to understand.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Are you sure about that?

FIRST's vision is "To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders." (From the FIRST website)

FIRST's mission is "to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership."

The robots are just a vehicle--you could do just about any STEM mentor-based program with the same effect. The culture transformation needed is accomplished by getting more people involved with the program. If people are not attracted to the program, they will not get involved. Therefore, we do need to make the games attractive. Part of that is making it so that they are easy to understand, which involves making them simple. The simpler, the better--to a point, as you do need to keep the existing teams challenged.

And, something I've been wanting to say for a while: This whole thread is pointless, as the GDC is already working on the 2013 game. Therefore, we should be discussing the 2014 game.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Well, you do make a good point ,but i must disagree with you.... when you think about FIRST it is about creating the best robot that you can to preform the task that you are given while still learning with others and working together. Which is why im asking this question, Why do we have to make it simple for them to understand? I mean if the rules and game were simplied then that does not give the team any room to think outside the box. like i said before, If breakaway was such a game that the rules were "a 3 on 3 game of soccer where you score the balls and then you hang at the end" 469 wouldnt have done as well as they did. their robot did nothing more then drive around in atonomis and then park itself and score goals the rest of the match.... we wouldnt get thinkers like that if the game was simplier. just a thought.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

You're confusing AUDIENCE simplicity with PARTICIPANT simplicity.

The BEST games are ones that are simple for the audience to understand (3-on-3 game of soccer, hang at the end, goals come back to the middle) but the participants can wow everyone with the "cool/awesome factor" (469, 51, 125 as they redirected--but especially 469). The main way to confuse the audience was the 6v0 that the ranking system encouraged a bit.

Or, to take another example, I'll go to 2002. The game was simple: move three goals, filled as full of soccer balls as possible, into a particular zone of the field (of the 5 zones), then put some part of your robot into a particular non-adjacent zone. There are two legends from that year: FRC71, who raced out to the goals, grabbed all three, and crawled into the proper zone using filecards, and FRC60, who grabbed two goals, got into the zone, lifted them up (you've got to understand, these goals are 30# heavier than even today's robots are while on the field, which have a good 20# on the robots back then), and spun them in a circle whenever someone tried to push a goal.

It's games like that that we need: 30 seconds to explain the basics to some random person off the street, 6 weeks+ championship to show just how innovatively you think to everybody, participant or spectator.

Re: 2012 Game?
 

How hard was it to explain the last games such as logomotion? because i sure didnt have a hard time explaining it... i mean even when they showed it on the news paul didnt have a hard time explaining it to the public...

Re: 2012 Game?
 

Logomotion wasn't that hard. But trying to explain Triple Play (3D tictactoe where every piece scored counts) could take up to a minute if you included the (seldom used) endgame (and trust me, that short description is missing the vision tetras, the rows, and the pieces under the goals); Lunacy's best description would be something like "you're playing basketball on an ice rink where the baskets are on the backs of your opponents, and the bench is shooting too, and at the end there are some moneyballs that have to be activated and scored"; 2004's FIRST Frenzy was a bit tough due to having three separate scoring objectives (dodgeballs, of which there were two values and four places to score, exercise balls used to double the score of the dodgeballs, and hanging your robot on the bar) and having certain things dependent on a time trigger.

A good game should be able to be explained in a short time to the point where it can be followed (preferably without the announcer--half the time, your remote audience isn't going to be seeing what he's looking at), but the awesomeness of the engineering and strategies will continually amaze competitors and unaffiliated spectators alike.