Ok, so YOU design the 2003 game...

[Kris Verdeyen]

Let's have a game on a concrete or dirt floor. Carpet was proven this year to be no match for some of our more vigorously traction-oriented teams. Concrete would be a more uniform, cheap surface that almost everyone already has available, but dirt would probably be more fun.

Let's have a game that has more opportunities for autonomous behavior. Use the retroreflective tape again next year (It'll catch on, give it time), but turn the robots on for five seconds before the drivers can touch the controls. That forces innovation in controls to rival the great mechanical designs we've seen over the years.

Let's have a game that uses heavy game pieces. Concrete blocks, bricks, bowling balls, medicine balls, 180lb goals on casters - the game is more interesting if two humans would lose to two robots. (Note - the trouble with the heavy game pieces is that they can tend to make the game slow - fast goal towing robots were the exception to the rule this year.)

Let's have a game where a team can score before time runs out.


So here's my game:

-Three minutes per match.
-Three teams of two robots each on a hexagonal dirt or sand field.
-Ten (or some other non-multiple of three) cinder blocks are stacked in the center. Robots go get the cinder blocks, then bring them to their initial scoring zone.
After one minute, the number of bricks in each scoring zone is tallied, and the zones shift randomly. So the red team's zone is now across the field from where they are now, and the blocks that red worked so hard to score are now counting for blue. The teams then have a minute to move the bricks to their new scoring zone. At the end of that minute, the bricks are scored, and the scoring zone changes again.
-Basically each match has three one minute periods, with no break in between. A robot's goal is going to be different during each period - either getting blocks out of the center, preventing other robots from moving your blocks, or preventing other robots from moving their own blocks.

Ok, so it isn't a complete game, or even that great of a start, but you get the idea - make the game hard, and integrate some way to assure scoring before time expires.