Preferred Scoring Element

[CMBrandon]

What would you rather have as a scoring element in a FTC/VEX competition?

1- Balls (Wiffle, Ping Pong, etc)
2- Hockey Pucks
3- PVC Baton


Is one inherently more difficult to work with?

[marshall]

$100 bills

[dirtbikerxz]

1 BALLS
I would imagine the baton is harder to work with.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Balls of any kind are generally easy to work with because they are the same no matter which side you approach it from and there have been so many ball type robot games in the past that people know what to do with them (in fact FTC used wiffle balls for the last two years I believe, and VEX used foam balls this past year). That being said every ball game I've ever played has been fun because there are usually many ways to approach it.

Never used hockey pucks as a game piece before, and it would be entirely dependent on what you would need to do with them. I think shooting them into goals like a giant air hockey match would be pretty cool. Keep in mind that an NHL hockey puck probably won't slide well on carpet or foam tiles.

I've had PVC batons as a game piece for savage soccer (a vex robot competition held by WPI) and they were a pretty fun game piece to play with. You could collect them off the floor or out of some dispensers, and you had to score them onto ledges up in the air. You can see the game here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=swi6DPQl0qs

Any of the game pieces you listed could make for a great game, it's really about what you have teams do with them.

Edit: to actually answer your question, balls are probably the easiest for both a game design and a team getting into robotics. If you're looking for more challenging games, I would then look into the other two.

[CMBrandon]

Originally Posted by marshall

$100 bills

If you only knew what we were planning...

[marshall]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

If you only knew what we were planning...

Did I mention that Cooler Master makes great products?

[troy_dietz]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

2- Hockey Pucks

It's too bad you didn't do this right after the 2009 season. There would have been more than enough regolith to go around. (Both from competitions and team practice fields)

[AlexanderTheOK]

Actually paper would be an interesting game object. Intakes would be even more of a pain than in 2013.

[gblake]

Can't answer without more info

Game items can be
Hard to manipulate because of shape
Hard to manipulate because of flexibility
Hard to manipulate because of weight
Hard to manipulate because of weight distribution
Hard to manipulate because of terrain around them
Hard to manipulate because of where they need to go
Hard to detect because of camouflage
Numerous or scarce
Etc.

With all of those possibilities, plus a few more, in a game designer's bag of tricks, choosing a favorite game piece turns into a 100% YMMV situation.

If you let a little of your cat sneak out of the bag, you might get some better answers. Know what I mean?

Blake

[CMBrandon]

Originally Posted by gblake

Can't answer without more info

Game items can be
Hard to manipulate because of shape
Hard to manipulate because of flexibility
Hard to manipulate because of weight
Hard to manipulate because of weight distribution
Hard to manipulate because of terrain around them
Hard to manipulate because of where they need to go
Hard to detect because of camouflage
Numerous or scarce
Etc.

With all of those possibilities, plus a few more, in a game designer's bag of tricks, choosing a favorite game piece turns into a 100% YMMV situation.

If you let a little of your cat sneak out of the bag, you might get some better answers. Know what I mean?

Blake

I know all that has a lot to do with it but at this stage I am looking for more of a best case scenario type of opinion.

[scott.smith]

Balls. The tried and true game piece.

[Bob Steele]

eggs or light bulbs

[MattRain]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

What would you rather have as a scoring element in a FTC/VEX competition?

1- Balls (Wiffle, Ping Pong, etc)
2- Hockey Pucks
3- PVC Baton


Is one inherently more difficult to work with?

I was a student on FTC 2844 (mentor now) during the years that we had these elements. Speaking in regards to the past FTC games and how they were played, out of the three elements, the Batons were the hardest. Once they hit the ground, there were usually left there. Taking them out of a rack like Get-Over-It was semi-easy with the system we had created though.

During FaceOff (Hockey pucks), if the pucks did hit the ground, my team come up with a quick and easy grabber to pick them up.

Wiffle balls are by far the easiest game elements around, and have been used in 3 different past FTC games. With a hard shell, it was easy to travel around in them. The Golf-ball sized Wiffle balls were annoying at first, but easy to work around.. driving past/over them, discarding them out the back of the robot... (Hotshot, Cascade Effect, Res-Q)

Racquetballs were easy, but also a nuisance during Bowled Over since they would squish.

Ping Pong balls would last a matter of seconds in an FTC arena with the way teams drive and build now.

The yellow blocks have been fun to work with over the past few years. Creates a new challenge that my students have been able to adapt to pretty easily. (Block Party, Res-Q).

As for next season's piece...

[cbale2000]

Can't speak for FTC/VEX, but imo some of the best FRC games have been games where there were a LOT of balls on the field AND no limit to how many a robot could hold at one time (see 2006, 2009, etc).

[gblake]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

I know all that has a lot to do with it but at this stage I am looking for more of a best case scenario type of opinion.

My whole point was that there is no best case scenario, separated from the rest of a game/challenge's contents.
YMMV.