[Billfred]

BILLFRED'S 2004 IDEA: Clean Out The Backyard!

(Yes, we played this in elementary school. Yes, it steals from a few years. No, I would not want to do field reset for this game.)

The field du jour is of the same dimensions as this year's, perhaps a little shorter. Midfield are two sets of eight-inch steps per side--one step, then another--running about half of the length. The lower step would be lined with footballs. The remainder is a fence, kinda like 2k1. Paint or diamond plate to taste.

Autonomous mode would entail getting to a switch mounted on the fence on either side. Hit it before the other alliance does, and a slew of tennis balls dump onto their side of the field. (I imagine either a leaf blower on steroids or something like 33's system this year stuck inside the steps to hold all this. Just something simple.)

For the remainder of the time, you're trying to remove said tennis balls and footballs from your team's side of the field. Footballs, given their shape, count more than tennis balls--although they're far outnumbered. Assign the point value for a ball on their side, and then a bonus for being on the top step at the end.

Of course, if you really wanted to punish the programmers, you could always have one alliance member start on each side of the field.