Alright, so I guess it's time to lay down my concept this year, to prove what I posted in the other threads wasn't
totally insane.
Picture a field around the same size as this year's, with five 8' goals around the field, one at each corner, and one more at midfield in the back. Each of these goals are sort of like basketball goals, but have a long tube that ultimately feeds back into the player stations. Additionally, there is a hole in the bottom to feed balls through. In the front of the field are six loading zones, similar to the loading zones of this year, but have a barrier in front of them and a chute to load with, mainly to keep human players from getting hurt again this year.
The hitch with this year's game is that the scoring is in real-time. This is the reason for the tubes--you'd probably be dealing with Banner sensors (knowing that they seemed to work reliably in 2004). Tampering or attempting to trick the system is, of course, a disqualification.
The game pieces are kickballs, 8.5" in diameter. (Why 8.5" balls instead of FIRST Frenzy's 13"? Multiple reasons. First, you can get them at Wal-Mart a lot easier than you can a 13" ball. Next, it means you can't completely re-use your old ball sucker. Finally, it lets you fit more into a certain area, meaning more cuddly landmines, as the one spotlight goes.) Each team starts off with five, for a total of fifteen per alliance. These may remain in the player station, or may be pre-loaded on the robot. An additional thirty are placed in a trough at midfield, bounded by four-by-four lumber. This trough is what the center goal empties into, instead of the player station. (At this point you're thinking, "But Billfred, they're just going to create a loop at that goal!" But that won't happen, trust me. Read on.)
Autonomous mode starts, and red and blue rotating lights turn on at each goal, signifying ownership. Teams then may score balls in the top of the goal, good for ten points, or herd them into the bottom, good for five points. During the human operation, the balls become worth five and three points, respectively. Teams get the option then of scoring five balls by sending them through the bottom, good for twenty-five points, getting them up into the upper part for fifty, or other things I'll explain in a minute.
Here's where strategy comes in, though--scoring a ball in the center goal switches the ownership of the goals. Score another, and it switches back. So if, during autonomous mode, you went and scored a ball in the center goal, your opponents would most likely be scoring for you.
For the remainder of the match, teams are moving balls into the goals, switching now and then to keep things interesting. As the balls are scored, human players are moving them to the loading zones, feeding them down the chute to the robots. Of course, this is a harder task than this year, since you've got to carry three or four playground balls instead of one tetra. But I think they're up for the challenge.
Finally, there has to be some sort of bonus at the end. I imagine this as building the trough long and skinny, only four feet wide on the inside. Park your robot inside, not touching the carpet or four-by-fours, and you get fifteen more points per robot. This is three to five balls, depending on how you score them. Therefore, it's a desirable goal, but it's also able to be stopped.
So that's my concept. I think it's doable, and would be interesting. You can run strategy (the center goal), go pure offense (just keep scoring on the goals), or go defense (block those goals, or switch the goals at the last second), and you've got a finale that's kinda hard (for a 28" by 38" robot, you have ten inches of leeway one way, twenty the other), but not impossible to stop. The added length of the match and the nature of the scoring means you have to design your robots to run functionally non-stop, while retaining a light touch to park your robot at the end.