FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice: Progress

[Calvin Hartley]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 12-18-2013 15:37: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...hoice-Progress

FIRST Choice: Progress

Blog Date: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - 15:37

A note from our Kit of Parts team, Kate & Collin:

We’ve had some calls expressing anxiety that we’ll issue the first round of credits in the midst of Christmas celebrations, so we’re going to take this opportunity to give you a general sense of where FIRST Choice is…

AndyMark has been restructuring the FIRST Choice site to one that can meet their standards, our standards, and your standards. That, to us, would be the hat trick. The new framework should be in place at the end of this week, which will be followed by rigorous testing. We expect this to take several more days, and have a buffer in case testing reveals any additional issues. That being said, we commit that we will not open FIRST Choice before 12/28.

[MrBasse]

Hat trick = Hockey game.

Three's keep coming back into play in every message though...

[BigJ]

I can't tell if they are purposely trolling us with all the random sports references now or not.

Blog was posted a minute too soon...

[DonRotolo]

Obviously a game hint: This year's game has something to do with sports. (makes the difference between precision and accuracy somewhat clearer, eh?)

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

Hat trick = Hockey game.

Three's keep coming back into play in every message though...

Guess I will go there, Hockey is played on Ice and ice is made of water.

Water game.

First and last time I ever go there, I promise.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

Guess I will go there, Hockey is played on Ice and ice is made of water.

Water game.

First and last time I ever go there, I promise.

Return of regolith?

[buildmaster5000]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

Return of regolith?

No. Please no. If there was something worse than the MiniBots, that was it.

[rwkling1]

Floor hockey maybe? So it's not a slippery surface, but still hockey

[Steven Donow]

Now let's talk about what the blog was actually trying to say.


I assume FIRST Choice will open the second or the third of January. It also looks like we'll see a total restructuring/reformatting of how FIRST Choice is done, which is kinda disappointing, but FIRST and AM know it needs to be done.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

Now let's talk about what the blog was actually trying to say.


I assume FIRST Choice will open the second or the third of January. It also looks like we'll see a total restructuring/reformatting of how FIRST Choice is done, which is kinda disappointing, but FIRST and AM know it needs to be done.

I don't expect a change in the visible process of FIRST Choice. I expect they're working on correcting the underlying issues with the infrastructure.

/cue obligatory ACA website reference.

[MooreteP]

I call game hint.

Hockey is the emulation this season.
A goalie to block scoring, 2 v. 2 offense and defense.
Pucks (see 1999)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Trouble_(FIRST)

Although the pucks will be much smaller. They may be Roomba's!

Penalty boxes (too difficult) and power plays would be interesting.

Regolith may or may not happen. It wasn't such a bad thing and fit the theme of lower friction on the Moon. I hope not, but we have a bunch of leftover wheels from that game.

[Jon Stratis]

I like the idea of power plays... Instead of an auto period at the start, each robot could randomly be dropped into auto, with limited control ala Overdrive. 2:15 matches, each robot gets dropped in for a different 15 second auto period, with 5 seconds between each auto period and the last 5 seconds for end game.

I hope I'm not giving the GDC diabolical game ideas now!

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I like the idea of power plays... Instead of an auto period at the start, each robot could randomly be dropped into auto, with limited control ala Overdrive. 2:15 matches, each robot gets dropped in for a different 15 second auto period, with 5 seconds between each auto period and the last 5 seconds for end game.

I hope I'm not giving the GDC diabolical game ideas now!

I think something of a similar nature would be very interesting to game strategy, where each robot on the alliance takes turns going through a 40 second 'power play' during teleop where their scoring is boosted a la autonomous mode the past two years. It would require fluid and dynamic match strategies to work with the teams focusing on letting the power play robot score, or focusing their defense on a specific robot on the opposing alliance.

[FrankJ]

Hat trick, three strikes. They are clearly saying there will be 3 robot on each alliance!!!