[Jack Jones]

"Re: What is missing from this years game?"

In a single acronym - KISS.

What ever happened to that "You design next year's game" post from last fall? Didn't it say to design a game that could be described in 30 seconds or less, and should be easy for the crowd to score?"

OK - time me!
The game begins with a 15 second autonomous period where the robot's software pilots them to find the green thingy tetrahedron (look it up in Websters) and place it on one of the goals across the center of the field, which are also tetrahedrons (well, eight of them are, and the other one is too, but only the top) but are not the same size as the other tetrahedrons. Or, the robot can knock down a tetrahedron (like the others, but not the same as a goal) that's hanging inside another tetrahedron, which is a goal. But the goal is to dislodge the non-goal so that it's not touching the carpet outside the goal. Or, the robot, but just one on each side, can start with a tetrahedron and put it someplace - preferably inside or on top of a goal; but they don't get the bonus they would have had they picked up and scored the green thingy tetrahedron, which they only get if they do it in the first fifteen seconds. The goals are easy to find because they have a yellow triangle under them. Of course, if a player touches a tetrahedron during this fifteen second period - actually 18 or 20 seconds because the crew has to have time to un-hang the tetrahedrons that hadn't been un-hung and to place the bonus tetrahedrons that nobody seems to get - they get a 10 point penalty, which is equal to either 4, or 6, or 8, or 10 scored tetrahedrons, depending on how and where they were scored, unless they were de-scored, when they'd be worth either 3 points and ownership, or nothing at all, depending on how they were de-scored.

The next two minutes really gets complicated, because the auto loader isn't human and the human loader has to stay on his pad until the robot enters the zone (a red or blue triangle, which is like a tetrahedron in two-space). But the robot doesn't enter the zone by entering the zone space, it enters the zone by touching in two-space. Then the human can place a tetrahedron on the robot. If she touches the robot, it gets disabled, which it already was because she left her pad, but now it stays disabled even if she returns to her pad, which she can't because the referee won't let her. If she doesn't touch the ground in the box with both feet, or the robot isn't touching the triangle the team gets a 10 point penalty. She should also get a penalty if she leaves the rectangle, which is not the box because the box is inside the rectangle, but nobody seems to know what the penalty is because the referees don't call it because there's not enough room to stay inside the rectangle and still avoid the ref, cameraman, loose tetrahedrons, and other human players who are also trying to stay inside the rectangle in order to reach the box and place a tetrahedron without touching the robot, which has to be touching the triangle. The same is true for the auto loader except that it doesn't have a pad, it's OK if it touches the robot, and it doesn't have a box nor a rectangle.

The goal is to score more goals than the other team, and/or to make more tic-tac-toes, and/or to get back home. Of course, the real goal is to get fewer penalties than the other guys because some of them count more than, three, or ten, or thirty of the scoring possibilities - depending on where and who it was, and/or how the infraction and/or the goal was either committed, and/or occurred, and/or was scored, or de-scored.

And that's all there is to it!