[Taylor_Ratliff]

For the last 6 months, ive been working at Sam's Club pushing carts with the help of one of those automated cart machines, and let me tell you, THEY SUCK! they break down all the time, water gets inside it, the turning radius is horrible.
The job itsself is absolutely back-breaking, most of the time we were pushing them by hand out in 100F heat (TEXAS!).
I think the idea of an automated cart retriever is excellent, and would make a good theme for a FIRST competition. The robots would have to wrangle scattered carts, line them up, and take them back to the garage area all while avioding obstacles that simulate cars/people.

Another thing is that you cant just push the carts, because if you need to stop they all come apart, you have to have something at the front, so this could easily incorporate teamwork like previous FIRST competitions.

I would also like to say I am against having a human player, as it takes away from the actual design of the robot and encourages teams to go get someone out of athletics for the soul purpose of doing the interaction.

For example, in 2004 our team just went and got a 6'8" guy off of the basketball team to do the shooting for us, and he made 138/141 total shots for the whole weekend. The kid didnt know, or care, anything about robotics he was just there to get a few days off school.

any thoughts, comments?