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#76
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Here to stay??
I was wondering this is the first year that FIRST has taken a brake from Balls in what...3 seasons or so.... What do they give us, boxes. What was going through my head is, do you think FIRST is going to stay with the boxes for another year or so?? I mean they could, all they would need to do is make the game to suit them. Example, we had the balls going on for a while and each year and game was made for them. It might be alittle bit more complex due to the fact that the boxes are alittle harder to manipulate...well at least to me.
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#77
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The problem with overly complex fields is expense. Teams in the past didn't like having to spend a huge amount o build there field. Also many teams don't have room for a huge field. Thats why about 4 years ago first "standardized" a rectangular field. The size was small enough to fit in many rooms while large enough to still be fun. The field is relatively simple and can be made for little money. Having a hex field would require much more psace for teams to build an area.
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This also brings up another point. All the recent games have been "end scored" rather than scored during the match. The reason is judges must look for penalties and fouls rather than keep track of score. I used to be in the robot-basketball club. But do you really think FIRST wants the headline to read "robots play basketball"? The game would have to be changed amlot to, will there be a shot clock? what about out of bounds? is there goaltending? what will happen to the ball after a shot is made? Trying to mod a sport to play would be a disaster and wouldn't even look like original sport when finsihed. I'll continue this with basketball. We'll stay with a 2v2 game. The field is from 2002. There is a large structure at the center of each human station wall. It has a central opening of 1 foot in diamter and an outring 3 ft in diameter. Both cylindres are 6ft tall. There are 12 balls on each side of the field and another 12 in each human play station. Getting a ball in the inner ring is worth 3pts and in the outer is 1. Anyone who has been around FIRST for a while knows some teams can collect balls as fast as they move(8ft/s). So in a finals match the balls may be all scored quickly. Bots may adapt a goaltending design in whcih they block making it almost impossibel to score on them. The basketball-esk game is endscores(FIRST requirement). But its boring and has the possibility to end withina 30 seconds with some really fast teams out there. Beyond that it barely resembles basketball. Human sports are scored during play and last about an hour while FIRST games are end-scored and last 2 minuts. My conclusion FIRSTifying a human sport is nearly impossible. |
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#78
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My thoughts on the 2004 game:
1) The totes are gone. Did you see how many of those things we burned through at nationals? I saw a bunch of the crew working assembly line style to keep those things plentiful. 2) I would love to see an asymmetrical field. Lets REALLY screw with the programmers heads during auto! 3) While we're on assymetry, what if the field parts actually change position after each match? (i.e. the tunnel changes places with the ball basket or something?) 4) Ok, we've seen circles (balls) and sqaures (well, rectangles in the totes), and so, it seems that the next logical step is triangles! Yessirree, triangles. It would be a huge pain to design something to grasp a triangular prism, so putting them in a box somewhere or something would be big points. 5) I like that if your robot ends in a specific zone you get points for it, its incentive to leave other points undefended. What I dont like is four robots all trying to get onto a platform just barely big enough. I think that was what made this game so physical, more than anything else : fighting for the top of the ramp. So either a larger robot home zone or seperate zones. 6) Several challenges a robot can perform: Lets get more diversity among robots! Granted, several teams come up with unique robots, but overall there are distinct trends in construction. With more than one challenge, robots would be geared towards 2 or 3, and based on how teams prioritize the challenges you would get a much wider range of design. 7) At least one of the challenges should include some kind of fine manipulation: place the prism on the small shelf 6 feet in the air, or something 8) Scoring: Overall, I think that the scoring system this year worked well up until the elimination rounds, and the only problem there was that with only 2 rounds, one round is entirely too important. I would suggest going to 3 rounds. All that said, let me tell you that these came right off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are flaws. bonus points if you can tell me where I'm wrong! |
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#79
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...oh yeah, and clowns on stairs. -dave |
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#80
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Here's my idea for a new game. It incorporates alot of the things that the FIRST community wants in a game (more HP involvement, continued autonomous mode, stairs, different game pieces). I call it:
Capture the Noodle Here's the 30 second explaination. Each alliance has a goal on their side of the field. They get points for the noodles they have in their goal at the end of the match. They also get points for their bot being in their home zone at the end of the match. Finally, an alliance can multiply it's score by raising noodles into the air at the end of the match. Now, how about some details? ------------------------ |...|.......|......|......|...| |...|.......|____|......|...| |R.|..O.....____...O..|B.| |...|.......|......|......|...| |...|.......|......|......|...| ------------------------ That's the best drawing I can do of the field. Time to explain. The two O's are the goals, each only about 3' high. The zones at the far ends are the scoring zones for each alliance. R means red, B means blue. there are two 6" high raised platforms (stairs, if you will) with a 4' alley in between. Human players are in zones positioned like in this year's game. Each alliance starts with 5 of it's noodles in it's goal and with 3 at each HP station. 8 neutral noodles are also scattered on the stairs; 4 are on each. Since the easiest task here will be defending your own noodles, an alliance only gets 1 point for each of their own color noodles in their goal. The neutral noodles should be next easiest to score, so they are worth 2 points each. The toughest noodles to score would be the opponent's, so those are worth 3 points. Each of the alliance's robots is worth 5 points if it is in it's own zone at the end of the match. Finally, you get an (n+1) multiplier for each of your noodles raised 8 feet in the air at the end of the match. If one of your noodles are raised, you get your score doubled. Two noodles raised triples your score. And so on... The QP system will stay the same as this year. There are 15 seconds of autonomy at the beginning of the match followed by 2 full minutes of human control. I see many interesting strategies emerging from this game. Teams who can't climb the stairs easily will have to negotiate a nifty little bottle neck in the middle of the field. I can see situations where a team would raise an opponent's noodles in the air to maximize their QP. And just handling noodles in the first place will pose quite a design challenge for teams. Any and all feedback is welcome as always! Everyone enjoy the off season. Less than 9 months 'till kickoff! |
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#81
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I'd like to see a return to an idea back in 2001. The challenge of moving 2 different objects. True they were both balls but they grippers had to be dual function. How about traffic cones AND noodles. The only issue with cones would be they are surprisingly heavy. The small ones for tag football would be nice though.
Too bad we all have to wait 8 months to find out what gonna happen. |
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#82
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All the really popular human sports: soccer, baseball, football, basketball and even lacrosse involve a single ball, and hockey has a single puck. Why? The ball (or puck) provides a focus for the game. Everyone including the cameraman knows where to look. It is spectator friendly because you don't have to look in 4 areas at once. Everytime I watch a video of a FIRST match, I miss some of the action because you can't see what every robot is doing. So what is the answer? We take a lesson from human sports and start with a single ball or playing object. People will intuitively understand the game, since they are used to a single ball being moved down field. True, one ball doesn't sound too exciting, so that is the challenge. Can we make an exciting FIRST competition with one ball? I don't know, but given all the examples in the sports world, I think it is worth considering. No, a shot clock wouldn't work and neither would "out of bounds". We have to keep the action going, so we would want to have a net that rebounded the ball. To prevent goaltending, the goals could be a little higher than robots were allowed to be in their unfolded formation. After a shot is made, the ball could roll down a shoot to a human player who would throw it back into play within so many seconds. (If QP were equal to the gap between the loser's score and the winner's, both teams would want to get the ball into the goal and also back into play as quickly as possible. See my earlier post on this idea.) Since we are not modeling the game after basketball, let's add a soccer goal to make an alternative way for new teams to score. That goal would also channel the ball to the human player. Let's add a ramp in the middle and a side bar as in this year's game and start with the ball sitting on the ramp. The first 15 seconds would be autonomous again. Robots can pass a ball by "kicking" it or throwing it. Now we take a page from lacrosse: a robot cannot hide a ball inside itself. (In lacrosse, the players have a stick with a net and they aren't allowed to hold the ball in the net with their hands.) Instead they can carry the ball with a cup but it can't be more than (for examples sake) 2 inches deep. Now robot A has to angle its cup to carry the ball quickly, but robot B can bump A or hit A's arm and make the ball fall out. So A passes the ball before B can bump him. A's partner can shoot a shot along the ground for 1 point or go for a basket in the hoop for 3 points. The ball then goes to a human player who throws the ball to B. B tries to get over a midfield ramp to get to the opponent's goals. A is waiting and pushes B back down the ramp. A's partner goes under the bar and A passes the ball to him. Hey, it needs polishing for sure, but one thing for sure, all cameras would be on the ball, and there would be a lot of robot interaction, passing, goal blocking, shot blocking, etc. I think it could be really cool. Last edited by DougHogg : 16-04-2003 at 04:13. |
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#83
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Last edited by Adam Y. : 16-04-2003 at 14:45. |
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#84
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Hmm...
The capture the flag idea is kinda neat... Maybe FIRST should have a part in the kit, like a flag mount. This has to attain to certain regulations, mainly it would have to be on your bot, and must have so many inches of open area around it- yadda yadda. Anyway, to score, the flag would have to be in the mount, and the bot in the zone or something like that. Anyway, I'm basically thinking a part or parts in the kit that actually have to do with the game in some way... I think that having alot of easily manipulatable objects should stick. The trick is, finding the next kind of manipulative object... It probably should be something used in the real world quite well... Hmm... HMMMM.... When I think of a few things, I'll post them here. (Time to take a trip down to walmart...) ![]() |
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#85
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The main problem with having a single ball or object of interest in a game is the fact that there is more than one robot on the field. If all four robots (assuming there are four robots in a game) go for a single object, that just equals collisions. By spacing out the game, as FIRST has always done, it decreases these collisions. In fact, this past year already had something similar to a single object, with the top of the ramp worth so many points per robot, causing a pushing and shoving match. Just imagine what will happen when this 12' x 4' area becomes the size of a soccer ball.
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#86
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Next year's game should use:
-Free AOL CDs as scoring items -Clowns -Stairs -Moving Sidewalks -PVC pipes -Goo-Gone My game idea will be up soon. Trust me. |
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#87
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AOL CD's flying.. and breaking everywhere ![]() |
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#88
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Basically that is what occurs often in beginner soccer games: all the kids rush for the ball. However in games where there is a lot of passing, that doesn't happen, since many players rushing to the ball would leave a lot of opponents open to receive a pass. Maybe there is a way to encourage that aspect in our robotics match. For one thing, robots could pass by hitting the ball or throwing it. We would probably have some robots with ball punchers, and others with ball catapults. The trick would be catching the ball or "trapping" it as per soccer. Not easy to do with a robot. Maybe using sails like Team 60's would help but the robot would have to funnel the ball into a "hand". Like I said, the idea needs work, but it might be possible. |
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#89
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For a 2004 game…
Autonomous mode rules! Stationary goals rule! Scoring objects that don’t fill up the field when randomly dispersed rule! Scoring objects that are uniform when at rest make more teams want to deal with them! Ramps and bridges rule! Limbo Bars rule! Lifting mechanisms rule! Thank God I’m not on the design committee. |
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#90
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For the 2004 game I want:
-Stairs! Please! -Autonomous ending -Balls or inner tubes, no boxes -No massive 'king of the hill' score |
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