Keith had some really good ideas, and so did a lot of other people. I know that I am really very late, but I just found out about the thread today, and have now read every post on it, so give me a break.
I do not have an organized game, but lots and lots of ideas to incorporate into the decision-making process.
The Negative Stuff (Keep it out of the game!)
• I don't think that tie-breakers are in the spirit of FIRST. FIRST is meant to exemplify the business world, where different business or teams don't need to beat each other, but only to succeed. Yes, 2001 was boring. Having two alliances play really well and get the exact same score should mean that they get the exact same QP. Neither one has exhibited dominance. I think Andrew's ideas on this topic were good, including this: have 2x the score for ties, 3x and 1x for normal matches.
• Zones are easy to understand, but not to explain. Avoid them if at all possible. If you must have them, put large volumes of colored tape around them, and keep their purposes clear and distinct. For instance, I think having two zones where balls counted, and one where goals counted, was taking it too far.
• The problems arising from the 2002 goal stuff:
- Being able to take control of a goal, and then hold it no matter what other robots did, was bad.
- Wrestling matches took too much time, too little thought, and had very little action on the common occasion of nearly evenly-matched robots. Seeing one win could be impressive, but the normal results were very boring, at least to me.
- The supremacy of goals over balls ruined the advantages of diversity.
• The proposed "Red and Blue divisions" would not be good, I don't think. There's a lot of value in being allied with a team one match, and against them the next. It keeps people friendly, believe it or not, because there's no one to think of as a solid "enemy". I can see some teams only lending tools to their own division and the like. Nobody in particular, but its important to make it hard for people to slip into the trap of this kind of destructive competition.
The Positive Stuff (Pile it on!)
• One way to make the games easy to understand is to make them similar, in easily perceived ways, to existing popular games. Someone pointed out that football is a pain to learn, and said that we shouldn't worry about being easy to understand either. The problem is that many people devote their lives to football. They learn the rules while they're learning to walk, and then they can follow games for the rest of their lives. This won't work for FIRST. Since the rules must be learned within a weekend, they must be much simpler. Any large bundle of rules will be hard to get across, so making a basic set similar to an existing game is very useful. A whole bundle of rules can be communicated at once: "It's like soccer, but this and that are different..." Speaking of which, that Robsoccer idea was kind of cool, but make the field more interesting than a soccer field.
• Building would be a really cool thing for robots to do. Wacky Warehouse was really neat. How about building defensive structures of some sort, or building things that the robot had to climb on after completing?
• I think that having an active score display is a really good idea. It points to having the score easily determined by computer. Thus, the actual FIRST field must have built-in sensors:
- The weight idea is good. Robots can pile weights on a raised scale, and the score will be determined very easily. For practice, teams can simply use a raised platform. The size of the platform compared to the size of the weights will make piling and building important, because otherwise, they'll fall off. Problems: do robots count? What if a robot pushes down on the scale?
- Have a painted red platform at the blue end of the field, and vice versa. When robot lands on it, red score increases, due to pressure switch or scale in platform. Can be climbed onto. Blue will guard. Maybe being on it for longer produces more points. Possible accessible by bars that must be hung from, a zipline style piece, or the like. These could be useful for evading the defensive robots, and the interplay between defense and offense in guarding such a platform could get very fascinating. Imagine something like a spider going along the bars, being blocked by a robot hanging from them, dropping down, and trying to reach the platform before the other robot got down to block. Lots of speed and agility! The platforms could also have lights that flash while points are being awarded, so that the audience can see what's going on.
- Make it so that items are scored by being inserted through some sort of slipping door, so that they can will be sensed and counted as they go through. This makes color-coding difficult, but I think it's cooler, personally.
• Have a loose rope at one end of the field hook to some strong attachment point, then go through tubing to a gate that scoring pieces must pass through. One robot must pull rope to open gate, while another scores pieces. This makes cooperation important at a different level. I have a picture here, which is fancier than it should be, and really is not meant to endorse the use of balls:
• Not using balls sounds pretty cool. They're getting a bit old.
- Frisbies would be neat, but the protective cage could be a logistic problem. How about large foam discs that couldn't do much damage, but could move like frisbies?
- Is anyone familiar with the "scooters" that consist of a platform about a square foot in size, with a caster at each corner, and a hole in the middle for easy organization on a post? These could be good ball alternatives. They could make play like hockey: shove a bunch off towards a slot that accepts them into a holding area and counts them by switching technology. Lifting might even be discouraged, although not necessarily.
- Building with Rubbermaid or the like would be awesome.
- I like color-coded balls, with one color that gives points to both sides, but it conflicts with my auto-scoring ideas to some extent.
• Keep the field borders the same. They were made from aluminum this year. Be nice!
• Encourage climbing and hanging. Stairs would be really cool. I'm tempted to have a tower with a button at the top, but it would probably be too dangerous.
• I liked the idea of a PVC maze, which could be navigated, limbo'd, or climbed over.
• It is true that hills and chokepoints make play more interesting. Having robots start nearer the middle could also be interesting.
• Maybe each alliance should have one robot start on the ground, the other on a 2' or 3' platform running the fields length. Make it advantageous to pass items back and forth. I'm pirating ideas here, I know, but the point is to strengthen them and get them out there, no?
• Advantage for robots being able to climb on top of each other? That could be pretty cool, or so hard that everyone ignores it. Maybe suggest that everyone's frame be IPS or Bosch, so that they know what they'll likely need to grab onto.
• That "practical goals" initiative with stairs and doorknobs was pretty cool. How about emptying a trash can?
I'm so glad I'm not trying to unify all this into one game. I've put out more ideas than would fit!
Thanks for listening!
Ian Krieg