Not to jinx next year, but...

[Tim Sharp]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

My fear is that creating a machine that throws a perfect spiral is so easy that there would be no unpredictability to the upper level matches; kind of like this year, in fact. If they do football, it seems to me they'd not do it for the typical low/mid/high target scores.

I think a game could be designed to address the predictability factor. Ultimate Ascent is a good example of that. Some bots could score consistently from full court, but still had to climb to win, while the lower ability teams were still able to contribute in a meaningful way.

As a former coach, I've used football throwing machines numerous times over the years and I can tell you from experience that throwing a spiral is the easy part. Consistently throwing to a tight window is much harder. The machine "drifts" constantly due to the differences in how the wheels initially engage the ball and several other factors where a small difference in input can create a large difference in results.

A further complication would be the NERF balls. I assume they would be used instead of regulation footballs due to the safety factor. The COG of a regulation ball is very different from a NERF ball. The heavier outer rim of the regulation ball makes for a tighter, more controlled spiral and thus better accuracy. The COG of the NERF ( I'm assuming a solid foam ball) is near the center and thus it has to be spun much faster to maintain stability.

The variability is interesting enough IMO to create a worthwhile game. Especially with a few 'twists" thrown in.