[Travis Hoffman]

Rejects of the 2006 FIRST Game Design Meetings - Dave Lavery's idea to use past competition field elements to create Ref Trap, a life-sized robotics version of the Milton Bradley board game Mouse Trap, was soundly rejected by the design committee. Everyone acknowledged that having a robot autonomously stack four 2003 bins to trigger a 2001 big ball to roll down an arm of the 1998 scoring platform, pushing the 1999 puck into a 2001 goal that fell over and vaulted Team 190's acrobatic 2004 robot up and over the 2000 hanger bar to kick a PVC tube from a stationary 2004 goal that allowed 11 purple 2004 balls to roll down the 2003 ramp and trigger the 2004 ball corral that allowed another alliance robot (that's two so far) to fall out of the corral and bounce off of the 1997 inner tubes so it could land on the 2001 see-saw which would launch a human player into a 2002 goal (filled with 1999 floppies and minus the center PVC tube - ouch) which would smack into a third robot, arm extended, dislodging the 2005 tetra to trap referees who were lured to the spot underneath the trap by a pile of tasty looking 1992 corn because the regional staff was instructed not to feed them before the competition started would be "hella cool" in theory, but too unfair in practice, for the inconsistent appetites of the volunteer refs from regional to regional would give some teams a decided edge over the rest, as certain refs would be more inclined to venture into the trap area to eat than others. For the refs pictured in this photo of the game mock-up, that was not an issue, as Dave locked them all in his basement for three days with only the aroma wafting from 100 empty Krispy Kreme boxes to keep them company.


*Disclaimer: The laws of physics were not consulted during the construction of this post.