Official FIRST STEAMWORKS Teaser and DLC Pack 1!

[mrail]

Wow. Let's not let our imagination run away. Steam is hot, water is a conductor, coal is hot and dirty, drones may be unsafe, minibot would have to be hardwired as they would be controlled by the RoboRio.

Based on the safety inspections in the previous years, FRC would not ask us to play with fire, steam, coal or anything that could cause physical harm to anyone.

I like the idea of gathering enough fake coal in a boiler like target and when enough coal is gathered, the balloon takes flight.

Maybe the football shape is important. Throwing a spherical ball is somewhat easy. Throwing a football straight requires a spin on it's long axis that is perpendicular to the direction thrown. That would be a nice challenge...

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by mrail

Maybe the football shape is important. Throwing a spherical ball is somewhat easy. Throwing a football straight requires a spin on it's long axis that is perpendicular to the direction thrown. That would be a nice challenge...

https://www.amazon.com/First-Pitch-Q.../dp/B00Y59ZBQ0

[Type]

Most teams can't even have a robot that drives half the time, having something in the area that could lose control and cause damage to people probably won't happen. That's just my opinion but I just think a flying game won't happen for another couple years maybe, I could be wrong though. And what if this year you have to almost dig for coal, like there is a big area and you have to scoop it out and the more power. The endgame could be to reach a certain amount to be able to get your blimp going. Ramps could be included for the coal to sit, so 2 ramps, low part facing each other to keep the coal in place. Just an idea

[Drakxii]

Originally Posted by Type

Most teams can't even have a robot that drives half the time, having something in the area that could lose control and cause damage to people probably won't happen. That's just my opinion but I just think a flying game won't happen for another couple years maybe, I could be wrong though. And what if this year you have to almost dig for coal, like there is a big area and you have to scoop it out and the more power. The endgame could be to reach a certain amount to be able to get your blimp going. Ramps could be included for the coal to sit, so 2 ramps, low part facing each other to keep the coal in place. Just an idea

Like a giant ball pit but instead of colorful balls, there are brown(dirt/rocks), black(coal)? The teams would sort through the balls and then deliver the black ones?

[Type]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

Like a giant ball pit but instead of colorful balls, there are brown(dirt/rocks), black(coal)? The teams would sort through the balls and then deliver the black ones?

It's possible to see something like that, however can get the most resources wins, maybe some items are worth more but then that just seems too easy. Some teams would just make a very tall robot and get all the coal in one trip

[BotDesigner]

Originally Posted by Type

Some teams would just make a very tall robot and get all the coal in one trip

FIRST could prevent this with a low-bar or a tunnel, but I sure hope that that is not the plan.

[Type]

Originally Posted by BotDesigner

FIRST could prevent this with a low-bar or a tunnel, but I sure hope that that is not the plan.

They could, make a similar field to BreakAway I think it was, make it almost impossible to carry over, and then have a short passage to go under also.

[Type]

I was thinking about it and what if take flight was metaphorical? What did something like 2012 and have you balance, or lift up? Take flight could be a metaphor for like lift. This would also be able to include the possible ramps I've heard people talk about.

[346CADmen]

Hmmm? A tie in from Disney?
The Disney Gallery Presents Mechanical Kingdoms-look it up.

[SpaceBiz]

I personally doubt the blimp will be a game piece because of the trouble FIRST went through last year to remove game elements from the logo. Coal is the most likely of any prediction so far to be a game piece.

[JR0405]

Is there anything at Disney that relates to this? I thought I read an old blog post that said the GDC goes to Disney early on for inspiration.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

I think it will be about collecting coal and water(game pieces) and depositing them into an engine(Coal below and water way up above). Though it's a wild guess, I think it would be neat if there were two piles of water and coal along with buckets filled with game pieces with a rule saying you can only move and score game pieces using the buckets. Thinking the endgame has something to do with minibots and a blimp.

[CurlyFries]

Here is my thought on the teaser: the Stronghold teaser last year was pretty vague (as was this year's), and the biggest thing that carried over from the teaser to the game was the image of the flag on top of the tower and that flag changing. In the game this was manifested as a simple, visual scorekeeping device mostly for the audience's benefit. FIRST is trying to reach out to the general public with these teasers, so they are going to use the most visual element of the game in the teaser so people recognize it when they go to events.

What was the most visual and central part of the teaser? The blimp. My best theory right now for the blimp is that it will play a similar role as the flag did last year: a visual representation of a goal completed (aka a field element and not a gamepiece or robot). This representation might be a blimp on the field "flying" after being fueled or something like that.

With that said, I do have another theory about the blimp for you conspiring guessmakers out there. I noticed in the image attached below that the main blimp wasn't the only flying machine. In fact, there are five: two different blimps, a Da Vinci looking plane, and two of the same sub-looking plane (yellow circles). I therefore determined that the flying machines must be, yes, minibots. And no, minibots will not be flying around crashing into stuff. I imagine it would be more of "attach your minibot to this zipline" or something that would IMITATE flying.

I still mostly think that the blimp will be a field element used to mark an accomplished goal, but there is still the minibot possibility. The only thing wrong with "flying"/zipline minibots is that the assumed minibot in the workshop scene clearly has tank tracks meant for the ground. Also I just thought it was kind of interesting that FIRST used the same exact image twice in the picture, except flipped (purple circles).

This was a lot longer than I thought it would be, I apologize for my spewing of fanatical guessmaking.

[Ringo5tarr]

I have made statements in the past that I expect this year's game to be similar to logomotion or rack and roll and I still stand by that statement, I also agree with CurlyFries on how the Blimp will act like the flag from last year, however the idea currently bouncing around seems to be that you will "power" the blimp by playing "coal" in a scoring area, I disagree, while the teaser is most likely still missing some crucial information (e.g. the tower and boulders from last year) I think gears will be the game pieces, large foam ones, scoring would be done by putting them on pegs, and those would either A. act as the counterweight to raise the blimp, or B. robots would have to precisely place them so that gears could interact with each other and a robot could turn one gear to turn another on the opposite end and raise the blimp. But these are just my thoughts, Like I said, the teaser is probably missing something

[ahartnet]

The tower was actually pretty prominent in last years teaser. It's just that it was overshadowed by the flag.

If the FRC community had queued in better to the tower (rather than say the flag or phrase about "kingdom"), I think boulders could have become a reasonable game piece, as that is a common visual for tower defending.

It makes me wonder which thing that isn't so prominent that we're missing. What could the blimp be intended to distract us from?