Outside the Box Ideas for Off Season Events

[JSpurlin]

This will be the 5th year we have held GRITS in Georgia. Each year we add something new and do something different. Here are a couple of ideas you may want to steal - and please feel free to share your ideas, so that we can make our event even better!

We have invited any of the new FRC 2014-2015 teams to GRITS. When the students arrive we pair them up with teams that are competing. We ask the competing teams to help them learn about FIRST. We allow one additional newbie per team to be in the alliance station for a match. Later in the day we ask them to be the human player - and it goes on. Some even allow the newbies to drive the robot. It is truly exciting.

This one we started last year: "Shadow a Ref". We paired students up with refs for 2-3 games. The ref explained the things they were looking for and how they call a foul. We started this for the newbies, but older teams quickly asked to be included. It truly is eye opening seeing what a ref has to do in one of these games.

Hope this gives you some ideas and I hope others will share too!

[Whippet]

We had considered hosting an off-season event where the field was located inside our local shopping mall's ice rink, but we decided against it due mostly to the cost, but also because of the safety concerns and general hatred of low-friction playing surfaces.

[MrTechCenter]

We hold a small tournament within our tournament for female-only drive teams.

[colin340]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

We hold a small tournament within our tournament for female-only drive teams.

not trying to be rube but

Be careful about that it would really tick off many females i know for a fact that 340's co-drive will refuse to attend any event that does that sort of thing.

In her eyes your saying she is not as good of a driver or needs help.

[colin340]

as for cool idea wvrox was mind blowing and so freaking cool, it was crazy to play for scholarships.26 hr made it that much harder. but the logistics are super hard i mean who can ref for 26 hr?????

Do a 15 hr event and set a min number of teams at 32!!!

[Jacob Bendicksen]

BunnyBots (our flagship event) is built to be different than competition season - we even use a different game! Our mentors and alumni create a different game each summer, with the game released on September 1st. This year's game is called Pandemonium - see the Facebook page for the teaser, and stay tuned for the full rules!

[Brandon Zalinsky]

Here's one for an end-of-year offseason:

No-Bumpers-Allowed finals match 2 and 3.

I'm only partly joking.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Brandon Zalinsky

Here's one for an end-of-year offseason:

No-Bumpers-Allowed finals match 2 and 3.

I'm only partly joking.

Yes!

[JamesCH95]

Brain dump:

Limit of 3 battery swaps in eliminations (better conserve that juice!)

Matches where driver's are blind-folded and their drive coach has to tell them what to do.

Matches where alliance partners have to drive each others' robots.

Bonus points (30? 40?) for having all alliance robots in their offensive zone at the end of a match (force a decision of playing defense, or not, in the last 10s).

Sub-on-the-fly: one robot on each alliance must remain in the "bench" area at all times, but this robot can swap with any other robot on their alliance during a match, putting that other robot in the "bench" area. Perhaps works best with 4 robots on each alliance.

Yankee Swap: all teams bring in present of modest value ($50, say), all the items get put into a pile and randomly distributed to other teams.

Just some ideas...

[EricH]

Besides the obvious (mentor matches, whether or not they count towards standings)...

--Obstacle course. Run a randomly-selected/nominated robot through an obstacle course. (Or your own robot.) Get creative with this one.
--Truck pull. Some brave soul volunteers a nice heavy truck or car and acts as brake-person. Fastest to the end of the course (carpeted or not) wins.
--Human-player game. Take FRC game object, run through some semblance of the game with a human or set of humans. Watch out for the Truss!

[Nate Laverdure]

Sportsbook room next to the volunteer lounge. Cocktail bar.

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

Matches where alliance partners have to drive each others' robots.

Bonus points (30? 40?) for having all alliance robots in their offensive zone at the end of a match (force a decision of playing defense, or not, in the last 10s).

Sub-on-the-fly: one robot on each alliance must remain in the "bench" area at all times, but this robot can swap with any other robot on their alliance during a match, putting that other robot in the "bench" area. Perhaps works best with 4 robots on each alliance.

1. That is dangerous as there are a few robots around that can break themselves if they dry fire to much.

2. The secret end game?

3. Is the "bench" area on the field or off? if on the field could be cool like the 2006 game, if off that sounds dangerous

[Steven Donow]

I've always been curious to see how a large event (ie. Battlecry) could handle doing a football (ie. soccer) style tournament-with random draws after each round.

ie. First round, matchups are randomly drawn, then the winners of that get their next matchup based off another random draw as opposed to a bracket-style.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

1. That is dangerous as there are a few robots around that can break themselves if they dry fire to much.

2. The secret end game?

3. Is the "bench" area on the field or off? if on the field could be cool like the 2006 game, if off that sounds dangerous

1. The idea is that the most robust and easy-to-use (i.e. well-designed) robots will do the best. See Apple for a real-life example of this philosophy (they did not invent the personal MP3 player, single-button interface, or tablet, but the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are all ubiquitous because they are robust and easy to use).

2. Ssshhhh, it's a secret...

3. I was picturing on-field. Ostensibly a box slightly larger than two robots. Passes cannot be completed in the bench area.

[coalhot]

Someone really needs to do an offseason event in an outdoor venue one of these days. Ultimate Ascent would have been incredibly interesting in that sort of a situation, but Aerial Assist would also be pretty fun.

(Yes yes, I know it's been suggested and the issues with it. Seeing that the 24 hour event was done though, this would be interesting. Even if it's a one time event.)