Unusual, potential game pieces

[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

Several years ago someone posted a picture of Dave Lavery holding a ~10 inch long piece of 3" sched 40 PVC pipe, capped at both ends. The thing resembled a giant drug capsule, suitable for medicating a blue whale or some similarly massive fictional creature.

I imagined it half full of pea gravel, to make its center of gravity shift while it is being handled so that manipulation by a robot is more challenging.

I have been hoping for a cylindrical game piece for years. Capped and half filled would be an interesting challenge, but I would prefer to see thin walled, hollow tubes. Length, diameter, material, weight, and quantity TBD. The length-to-diameter ratio should be near 1:1. This would make it feasible to acquire the tube by several methods (grasp OD, skewer the bore, etc.) with no obviously "correct" method. Game pieces could lay on their side or stand on end, and the orientation of the robot to the game piece would affect the way the tube reacted during acquisition. There is a broad range of tasks options to challenge teams with different skills, and few robot mechanism ideas from previous games would be useful. Game piece placement options include: (easiest) move it into a defined scoring zone, (easy) place in bin, (moderate) toss it into a bin that is higher than the robot, (harder) hang it on a pin rack with more points for higher pins, or (harder yet) fit the game piece through a round hole with modest clearance to the tube OD for highest points. Color coded tubes? Different size tubes? Moveable goals? Options galore! Tubes could be cheap and readily available (PVC), robust, visible from the stands, wouldn't require inflation, and would fit thru a door.

[Conor Ryan]

Bowling Ball. main rule is you can't let it leave the ground.

American (nerf) Football. Heck, a Rugby ball would be fun too.

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Needs to also look good from the stands, so visible from 100 feet away.

That's not too difficult. A 3" diameter game piece at 100ft is about 9 minutes of arc, which is more than large enough for even people with poor eyesight, (also fits highway sign guidelines for roman characters). That said, bigger pieces (maybe at least 6" diameter) might be easier to focus on.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

I have been hoping for a cylindrical game piece for years. Capped and half filled would be an interesting challenge, but I would prefer to see thin walled, hollow tubes. Length, diameter, material, weight, and quantity TBD. The length-to-diameter ratio should be near 1:1. This would make it feasible to acquire the tube by several methods (grasp OD, skewer the bore, etc.) with no obviously "correct" method. Game pieces could lay on their side or stand on end, and the orientation of the robot to the game piece would affect the way the tube reacted during acquisition. There is a broad range of tasks options to challenge teams with different skills, and few robot mechanism ideas from previous games would be useful. Game piece placement options include: (easiest) move it into a defined scoring zone, (easy) place in bin, (moderate) toss it into a bin that is higher than the robot, (harder) hang it on a pin rack with more points for higher pins, or (harder yet) fit the game piece through a round hole with modest clearance to the tube OD for highest points. Color coded tubes? Different size tubes? Moveable goals? Options galore! Tubes could be cheap and readily available (PVC), robust, visible from the stands, wouldn't require inflation, and would fit thru a door.

Our last mock game meets most of your requirements.

http://spectrum3847.org/PIPEFALL

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

Bowling Ball. main rule is you can't let it leave the ground.

I've always liked the idea of absurdly heavy or light game pieces (i.e. bowling balls or balloons). Really big ones (like 2001's goals) would be cool, as well.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

I've always liked the idea of absurdly heavy or light game pieces (i.e. bowling balls or balloons). Really big ones (like 2001's goals) would be cool, as well.

The big issue with really heavy things is that, given the amount of power in today's kit, there's not much we can't lift in a timely manner.

(Within the limits of sanity, I don't think we're going to be playing Recycle Rush 2 with Fiat 500s)

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

I've always liked the idea of absurdly heavy or light game pieces (i.e. bowling balls or balloons). Really big ones (like 2001's goals) would be cool, as well.

If you want excitement, try deliberately dropping a bowling ball on the gym floor in front of the head basketball coach.

An important but so far thus far overlooked criterion is consistency in how it responds across both batches and time on the field. An object should not handle differently during the final match than the first, nor should they be different for a week 1 event and the Championship.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by ChrisH

If you want excitement, try deliberately dropping a bowling ball on the gym floor in front of the head basketball coach.

An important but so far thus far overlooked criterion is consistency in how it responds across both batches and time on the field. An object should not handle differently during the final match than the first, nor should they be different for a week 1 event and the Championship.

Remember 2012? A LOT of teams were thrown off by new balls once they were replaced for elims matches.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Remember 2012? A LOT of teams were thrown off by new balls once they were replaced for elims matches.

Not to mention the change in balls that occurred at Champs before eliminations. They were not just new, they had a totally different compression characteristic iirc.

[Koko Ed]

I think a game using Roomba's (cute but useless robotic vacuum cleaners).
I even came up with a game for it called Roomba Roundup. Teams gather up Roombas and place them in their corral. Teams can also steal Roombas and place them in their corrals. The team that has the most Roombas in their corrals (they have to be in the corrals) wins the match.

[fargus111111111]

One other criteria in my book is the interest the game piece has outside of the game in things like parades and demonstrations where there is only one or two robots. Kids love to catch a ball/other flying object. A robot stacking totes is not so exciting.

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by fargus111111111

One other criteria in my book is the interest the game piece has outside of the game in things like parades and demonstrations where there is only one or two robots. Kids love to catch a ball/other flying object. A robot stacking totes is not so exciting.

our most used robot for demos is by far 2012 (it was our best robot, but it also demonstrates super well), and before that was 2009's. however, that can't happen every year, or there won't be enough variation in how the game is played (after 3 years of shooters from 2012-14, I was kinda glad that Recycle rush had a different sort of design challenge for my last yer, tbh)

[Scott Kozutsky]

I think that kong dog toys would be great personally. http://www.petsmart.com/dog/toys/kon...pfm%3Dcategory

[Mykey]

The most important question about the new game pieces is going to be do they sink, float or have neutral buoyancy?

[GeeTwo]

Here are a few ideas for things we haven't dealt with yet:
REALLY big balls (diameter more than twice as large as the largest permissible robot), octahedrons, dodecahedrons, isodecahedrons, solid/walled tetrahedrons, ellipsoids (either prolate or oblate), "very light" shapes (e.g. ping pong balls, whiffle balls, open-cell foam), stiff long cylinders (bats, batons, clubs, broomsticks, virges), and of course, familiar objects with irregular shapes: flat broom, mop, weed eater, boom box, brief cases, bungee cords, baloon animals, animal chew toys, books, component parts (e.g. what if we had to replace a laser printer cartridge with a robot?), dumbells, jingle bells, real bell-shaped bells, bottles (pick your size and shape; I'm thinking of 6.25 oz classic coke bottles), aerobies, model cars, teddy bears, Barbie/GI Joes, loaves of french bread, calculators, laptop computers, USB memory sticks (you have to plug them in and read data off of them to know what to do next), I-beams (or lengths of railroad tie), lincoln logs/tinker toys/erector set pieces, shoes (human, horse, or brake), mannequin parts, pillows, lengths of pipe, pipe fittings, skillets, strainters, Anderson Connectors (plug 'em in?), hammers, wrenches, pliers, wheels, and soma cube puzzle pieces.

This was the result of about 10 minutes of brainstorming by one guy, who intentionally didn't run any seam more than about three or four items (I could have gone on with kitchen stuff alone as long as the list above). The GDC won't run out of "new" game pieces anytime soon...

And on the OBTW front:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Like Mini bots and Jar Jar Binks these things never happened in my mind. A significant amount of therapy was required for this, I can suggest a guy.

I completely blocked my memory of having seen Star Trek V until about half an hour into seeing it for (presumably) the second time. Makes mini-bots and Jar Jar seem well-considered by comparison.