[Ryan_Todd]

I must really like this idea, because I keep coming back!

Here's a few more power-ups / abilities / special events that don't necessarily require AR, while I'm at it:

• Time warp: slows down other bots.
  • Implementation: decrease max speed of motor outputs for the affected bots.
• Hurricane: "pushes" all bots in a given direction.
  • Implementation: Map "wind" vector onto each bot's facing direction, and add that value to motor outputs. Bots facing sideways will "hang on", but bots facing into or out of the "wind" must fight against it or they will be "blown" about. Best if accompanied by appropriate sound effects and wind direction indicator on minimap.
• Magnet and/or repulsion field: localized effects, similar to "hurricane" above but centered around a single bot and limited in range.
• Signal jammer: bots' controls are scrambled.
  • Implementation: either reverse all inputs, or randomly map them to other inputs. Best if accompanied by "static" effect on video and audio feeds.
• Flat tire: dramatically slows down a single drive motor for a limited time or until the problem is "fixed".

And a couple of possible game modes:

• Soccer: a single large ball is placed in the arena, and teams of bots must attempt to score this ball in the opposing team's goal.
  • Best with a fairly open playing field.
• Jewel thief: one team is tasked with guarding a hoard of objects of varying shapes and sizes, and the other team is tasked with stealing them. The win goes to whichever team has the most "treasure" in their possession at the end of the match.
  • Variant: free-for-all. Same as above, but with only one guard and multiple thieves acting independently. Extra fun because thieves may turn on each other during the course of gameplay.
  • Best if bots have magnets on front, and treasure is magnetic.
    • Improvement: bots have electromagnetic coils to momentarily counteract the permanent magnets and release anything they are holding.
  • If many small objects instead of few large ones, then I suggest embedding scales in the floor of each home base to make scoring easier.
• Laser tag: self-explanatory. (Pew! Pew!)
  • Best with omnidirectional bots for peeking around corners.
• Relay: each team has a large, irregularly-shaped object (a football, perhaps) that they must take along a winding path from point A to point B.
  • Option: the two teams could perhaps be walled off from each other, and only allowed to interact indirectly-- for example, by triggering a gate to close and forcing the opposing team to take a longer route.
• King of the Hill: play in special arena with raised platform. Several variants possible:
  • Rack up points whenever you are the only bot on the platform, and the win goes to whoever has the most points when time runs out.
  • After a certain period of time has elapsed, any bot *not* on the platform is eliminated. Match continues until only one bot is left.

And finally, the coup de grâce:

• Sumo bots: see the Lightning Robotics Sumo Bot Competition for inspiration. (You would want to leave out the part where some of our students have equipped their bots with pickaxes and spinning blades of doom, but the rest of the game mechanics would work just fine for your purposes!) As a longtime participant and member of the LRSBC Game Design Committee, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have on the subject.
  • Example A: in our most recent competition, we played an interesting variant of the king-of-the-hill concept. With our traditional "tabletop" playing field several inches off the floor, the quickest way to eliminate an opponent was to push them off the edge of the field and onto the floor. Alternatively, players could (literally) take the high road by instead choosing to dominate the elevated platform at the center of the field; after a certain period of time had elapsed, any robot not on the platform was eliminated. The match would then continue indefinitely until there was only one bot left on the platform; in practice, this "sudden death" period would never last very long, so we could run a huge number of matches in a short period of time (perfect for those growing-pain situations where you've got a long list of people waiting to play).