Okay I have some ideas, however, they aren't for the 2009 year (obviously). Anyway:
There will be three poles. The poles are about the height of volleyball poles. At the start of the game, 2 poles (one per alliance) will be knocked down, at random angles at positions as long as it faces correspnding alliances robots. There will be a sensor strrip along the pole. During autonomous the robots get points for setting the pole straight. When straight it will lock into place. If this is done during teleoperated there is no point bonus. The center (third) pole will have a ball on it like a tether ball.
The game peices will be some sort of disk that can be placed around the poles, preferably small. There would be some disks that would be like frisbees. These would start with the human player and they (or a robot) could attempt too shoot these at a goal (like 2006). These goals would be across the wide side of the field, however, I think the wide side should be slightly wider. However, the 2 alliance poles, during teleoperated would be used to activate the ball on the middle pole. Whichever alliance has more disks on their pole is able to use the ball to hit the other robots. When a robot, that does not have possesion of the ball, is hit the human players fall through a trapdoor into a padded pit. (Not very big, unless FIRST would allow that). This would give the most points. There should be some sort of procedure to re-activate a human player. Similarly if a robot hits the ball when they are not in control they activate the trapdoor and points are awarded to the other team. The frisbees would be able to be herded/passed back to the human player, if they are still active. Bonus points at the end would be awarded to a team that could place the ball on top of the middle pole (it would have a small area to hold). This would be difficult strategy wise, because only the alliance in control of the ball can touch it. And if while they are placing the other alliance gained possesion that alliance would receive the points. Maybe new game peices could be introduced by a robot going to to a elevated area with a strange feild surface and activating a sensor. (A little irony because the robot would activate the sensor, instead of the sensor being activated by a feild element.
I think the matches should be extended to a 25 second autonomous and a 2 minute 20 second teleoperated. I beleive this would open up autonomous options. Maybe some robots could fix the pole. Other could start placing game peices (if given the oppurtunity to start with them. Some could herd frisbees, some could do many of these. Maybe really good alliance could plan on moving the ball a lot if they have robots which can score game peices. There are a world of oppurtunities.
Just my $0.02
