[FRC Blog] The 2017 FRC Season Teaser and More!

[Richard Wallace]

• So in Frank's picture, the 2001 Discovery crew is headed for Jupiter. That's in the movie; in the book they headed for Saturn. This is fiction, albeit excellent fiction.
  
• Real discoveries are still being made by exploration rovers on Mars.
  
• I wouldn't want to replay Lunacy -- the Moon is a harsh mistress!
  
• Venus is hot, caustic, and generally not a place to go unless you breathe carbon dioxide and drink sulfuric acid.
  
• Mercury? Well, deep underground you might commune with a Harmonium, ala Sirens of Titan. More fiction.
  
• Neptune and beyond, things get too distant and dark.

-----

All things considered, I think Mars is the best extraterrestrial setting for an FRC game theme. Maybe Phobos, home the Leather Godesses? (Yeah, I had that game back in the days of 5.25" floppies.)

[ctt956]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

• So in Frank's picture, the 2001 Discovery crew is headed for Jupiter. That's in the movie; in the book they headed for Saturn. This is fiction, albeit excellent fiction.
  
• Real discoveries are still being made by exploration rovers on Mars.
  
• I wouldn't want to replay Lunacy -- the Moon is a harsh mistress!
  
• Venus is hot, caustic, and generally not a place to go unless you breathe carbon dioxide and drink sulfuric acid.
  
• Mercury? Well, deep underground you might commune with a Harmonium, ala Sirens of Titan. More fiction.
  
• Neptune and beyond, things get too distant and dark.

-----

All things considered, I think Mars is the best extraterrestrial setting for an FRC game theme. Maybe Phobos, home the Leather Godesses? (Yeah, I had that game back in the days of 5.25" floppies.)

Jupiter -- Maybe a bigger field? Saturn; maybe more ring-shaped tubes? Or ice?!

[WinterPoet]

A teammate of mine has suggested it will be a water game, but instead of water it's gonna be stomach acid.

All jokes (I mean very valid theories) aside, I'm definitely a fan of the strangely shaped objects theory. As far as theme, which most people agree will be reflected in the objects, I'm more a fan of the space theory than football. Mostly because . . .

A) sports will not exactly resonate with a lot of the FIRST community. I'm not saying there aren't sports fans in FIRST, especially since I'm a bit of a hockey nut, but the same simply can't be said for all of FRC. I know most of my friends in robotics don't care about sports at all.

and

B) There's been a lot happening in space lately. NASA's had a couple of exciting announcements lately, and while FIRST plans this in advance and certainly didn't randomly decide on a space theme because NASA was in the news, we've known about the Juno mission since 2011. If they were going to do something football, I feel like it would have made more sense to do it last year when SuperBowl 50 happened.

Of course, there''s a tiny part of me that is just screaming that it's not going to be space or sports, but like, a food-related game where competitors have to grocery shop and then cook a meal for Dean all via robot and in the normal time. Because, y'know, FIRST can't make it easy for us.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

If they decide to do a space theme such as Mars, I think it would be pretty cool if instead of using regolith, they put omni wheels in the kit and require that only omni wheels may touch the ground to simulate reduced gravity. Would still fit the theme but also allow drivers to maintain control of the robots. I wasn't around during Lunacy but it sounds pretty awful from what I here.

[Hitchhiker 42]

The game will be held under the night sky. One of the challenges will involve a telescope.