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Posted by P.J. Baker at 04/19/2001 3:50 PM EST


Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.


In Reply to: PUSH to Simplify the Game for 2002 ***Attention FIRST ***
Posted by Andy Baker on 04/19/2001 11:31 AM EST:



Without the score multiplication, I would submit that this year’s game is almost right from prime time. Here’s why:

1) Multiple tasks – which leads to many different robot designs
2) Multiple levels of difficulty – adds strategy for viewer to consider
3) Race against the clock – adds excitement

Below are my thoughts on why these are good game features:

1) There were only 4 main tasks in this year’s game (5 if you count stretcher pulling):

- Score Large Balls
- Cross The Field
- Score Small Balls
- Balance the bridge

This is just about the right number to keep things interesting without having too many things to keep track of. It was also easy to tell (except for the small number of cases where the bridge did balance in an awkward position) whether or not the task had been accomplished. This wasn’t the case in ’99 or ’00: Were the floppies more than 8’ high? Is the robot more than 2” off the ground? How many of those 4 tangled robots are actually hanging from the bar?

2) The four tasks basically had 4 different levels of difficulty: Simple: crossing the field (although it was harder than many thought); Easy: filling goals w/small balls from the Human; Moderate: Scoring the Large Balls; Very Difficult: Balancing with both goals. Since we got to decide what level of difficulty to go for, the game had a very interesting strategy component. The strategy part is a little difficult to digest right off the bat, but if we had a series of shows I would imagine that people would grow to appreciate it as much as we do.

3) The race against the clock component of the game was big win this year. It made the matches much more exciting to watch, especially in the elimination rounds. This was much more exciting than the ’99 and ’00 games which were often over once one alliance had established control of the puck or the bar (although it was fun to try and take that control away). Even though the silence when things went wrong was a little disconcerting, the cheers when a big score was put up with only a second or two to spare easily made up for it.


From a random viewer’s point of view, I would guess that the hardest thing to contend with would be the score multipliers. If there were just straight point values for the tasks (i.e. 100 pts. For each balanced goal, 2 points for each second remaining on the clock), I don’t think that the scoring would be too hard to digest. Assuming that it’s a series of shows, this type of scoring would not be too hard for the multi-episode viewer to understand.

As far as 2 v. 2 or 4 working together, I doubt that it matters as much as people would like to think. As long as the matches were exciting, people would be willing to watch.

So, there are three things that I think would be good ideas for the framework of the game:

1) It should consists of multiple tasks – but only 3 or 4
2) The Tasks should have differing levels of difficulity
3) There should be a “race against the clock” element

In addition, I would also suggest that they avoid the use of multipliers in the scoring – they are the main reason that this year’s game was difficult to explain.

I think that a game conceived within this framework would be suitable for TV.

The big problem though, is actually getting it on TV. I’m not sure exactly how to do this, but my first guess would be the following: Allow a TV production crew to help Dean and Woodie develop the game. As long as D & W were willing to stand their ground, the TV folks could help push the game in directions that would make it easier to televise.


That’s it for now. Sorry for being so long winded. Hopefully this will help spark some further discussion.


P.J. Baker
Team #177