Official FIRST Stronghold Teaser!

[TheRozb]

Originally Posted by EricH

You aren't the only one. I've seen it on 2+ spots per page on occasion.

What if (and this is totally crazy) they are designing a mobile game that coincides with the actual FRC competition? It would explain the ads, the style of the video, and FIRST's attempt to have a wider appeal. Just a sort of crazy thought... (PLEASE! I hope I am wrong)

[Shifter]

From the field map:

Lanes up the left side of the field allow a human player to draw back the tent flaps at mid-field that otherwise prevent drivers from seeing the opposing end of the field. Withdrawing both red and blue curtains for the majority of the match raises the yellow flag and increases co-op points. As long as the flaps stay “closed”, the drivers must rely on hand signals from their human player or cameras mounted to their robot when trying to score in goals at the far end of the field.

Three moveable goals start on the driver’s right on the near side of the field. Lines on the field map show where two of the goals have been dragged to the left side of the field for protection. Note that the human player on right side wall loaded game pieces into one of the goals on it’s way by. North/south lines track game pieces being thrown by a human player toward the relocated goals.

From the flags:

Shapes on the red and blue flags represent round balls (or maybe hex balls) being scored in one of three, three-compartment hexagonal floor goals. Game pieces are red, blue and yellow. Most balls in a goal (somehow) raises a flag of that color – red flag counts red balls in the goal for the red alliance; blue flag counts blue balls in the goal for the blue alliance; yellow flag scores total of all balls in the goal (red, blue and yellow) for both alliances.

[Nevada Reno]

again this is a hard competition, so i think it is capture the flag.

[bmire3206]

Originally Posted by Mr. Rip

I think everyone should start working on TreBotchets.

don't you mean trebuchets or are we shooting minibots

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by LlNUX

So my theory is that this year is that FIRST is gonna enforce teams to use vision tracking or cameras. Teams would have to enter the opposing alliance Stronghold to retrieve flags from it however I think there will be some kind of wall preventing humans from seeing the robot inside the stronghold so our robots are gonna need cameras to be controlled and retrieve the flags. As for an end game I think there is gonna be 2 towers on the middle of the field in which teams can rise their flags to gain extra points. That is at least how I imagine the game from the teaser shown.

I hope not as that would add yet another technical hurdle too far for less resourced or experienced teams. The stacking plus capping task was too much this year and contributed to a spreading disparity in the ability to teams to contribute to their alliances. Using cameras to drive is similarly difficult.

[Citrus Dad]

By the way, didn't you notice on the field blueprint that there is a tree standing next to a pond in the middle of each zone? Water game!!!

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I hope not as that would add yet another technical hurdle too far for less resourced or experienced teams. The stacking plus capping task was too much this year and contributed to a spreading disparity in the ability to teams to contribute to their alliances. Using cameras to drive is similarly difficult.

The issue with Recycle Rush wasn't that capping was hard, it was. It was that capping was so overvalued that it became the only way to win. If scored recycling containers were worth 6 points plus 1 point per level the matches last year would have looked significantly different.

Which is to say, having a difficult engineering challenge as part of scoring is a great idea, but the harder the challenge is, the less it should impact the score of a match.

The hot goals in 2014 would be an example of a good pairing of technical challenge and scoring. It's a nice bonus, but a good team didn't need it to win.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I hope not as that would add yet another technical hurdle too far for less resourced or experienced teams. The stacking plus capping task was too much this year and contributed to a spreading disparity in the ability to teams to contribute to their alliances. Using cameras to drive is similarly difficult.

Using cameras for tele-operation is not nearly as hard as you're saying it is. I'd wager that a majority of teams already have a camera display on their driver station dashboard. If the cameras are provided in the KoP, almost any team should be able to handle that challenge. That's not to say there won't be teams getting help in the pits (with either software or camera positioning), but it's not really a difficult technical challenge.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

By the way, didn't you notice on the field blueprint that there is a tree standing next to a pond in the middle of each zone? Water game!!!

While I'm not the first to say this, it's been a while. The longer I look at those blueprints and how they fit into the video, the more I'm convinced that they are the design for Gripper, not the field.

[Electronica1]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

By the way, didn't you notice on the field blueprint that there is a tree standing next to a pond in the middle of each zone? Water game!!!

Sounds more like golf. The bp on it could also be golf clubs. Wouldn't make a ton of sense for the game name though.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by LlNUX

So my theory is that this year is that FIRST is gonna enforce teams to use vision tracking or cameras.

The day an FRC game requires the use of a camera is the day that a huge number of low-resource teams are completely screwed.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

The day an FRC game requires the use of a camera is the day that a huge number of low-resource teams are completely screwed.

Or, more to the point: teams that don't have time and programming resources for it. Particularly the programming resources. Think you (reader) don't know any of those teams? You're probably wrong.

As I recall, one of the game design requirements has historically been that ALL resource levels need to be able to play the game.

[Roborunner230]

Originally Posted by Justin Montois

Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green tents in the intro.

They are also in the final logo. They were not accidentally placed there.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

The day an FRC game requires the use of a camera is the day that a huge number of low-resource teams are completely screwed.

Originally Posted by EricH

Or, more to the point: teams that don't have time and programming resources for it. Particularly the programming resources. Think you (reader) don't know any of those teams? You're probably wrong.

As I recall, one of the game design requirements has historically been that ALL resource levels need to be able to play the game.

http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/...an-axis-camera

http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/...smartdashboard

If the camera and appropriate guidance is provided in the kit, it wouldn't be an issue. Will there still be teams that show up to events without it working? Of course, we have teams that show up with robots that can't drive as it is. But this is an issue that can be worked through in the pits on practice day, not some unmountable obstacle.

To be clear, I'm not endorsing any theories that cameras will be required to play this game. But getting video feedback to your driver's station is not difficult or resource intensive.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

To be clear, I'm not endorsing any theories that cameras will be required to play this game. But getting video feedback to your driver's station is not difficult or resource intensive.

Getting it to work reliably through competition certainly is.

Last year, we spent more time at competition debugging fritz-y webcams than anything else on the robot. Eventually we had to give up and continue without camera feedback.