Next Years Game?

[BoyWithCape195]

Well my first comment is how about a differnt starting posistion. Not RIGHT in front on the drivers but maybe up on a ramp? And if the same old boring starting possitions stay, maybe one side consists of a red and a blue, two opponents on the same side and visa versa for the other side.

Now that I got that out, how about a task that a robot can do, to give their team an advantage, for example: A button that if pressed (one time per match) the opposite team gets a blind sheild for 15 seconds. Maybe there could be mutiple tasks and your alliance can only pick one to use against the opponet, if they can reach it (maybe very hard to get?) I think that that would be a GREAT idea. It would involve alot of challange, a big race to do what ever the task is, and ALOT of strategy. (maybe have to do it in auto or else it doesnt do anything like this years.) Well those are my ideas...what do you think?

[Marc P.]

Though I wasn't around in '99, I like the idea of a mobile "puck" robots can climb on to, but moves around the field. Something like the mobile goals from this year (with only 3 casters), but take off the PVC pipes, and you have a good time watching robots try to climb on to something that can move. However, to score points, the mobile goal, and riding robot, would have to be in a scoring zone in the center of the field, away from walls and any objects that can brace the goal for a steady mounting. This way, unless a robot can climb on without moving the goal, an alliance robot would have to tow the goal into scoring position, as well as push opposing robots out of scoring position.

I'll try to come up with a complete game tomorrow, but I think that would be pretty cool.

[Ryan Albright]

The thing i want to see the most changed is the playing surface, carpet is getting boring give us something new. We have learned over the years what is good on carpet for traction,torque, and speed and most teams dont change that year to year and giving us a new surface next year would throw a curveball to every team

[Brandon Holley]

An awesome game idea to me, would be one that involved a pit of balls. Something you would see in a mcdonalds area. Imagine building a bot that had to do stuff like that. Forget a pushing match, your robot may hardly be able to move. Just have a 5 x 10 pit in the middle of the field. In the middle fo the pit have a solid platform. Whichever team was on top at the end wins or something like that would be cool, at least i think it would. Also I think that reaching something VERY high would be cool. Imagine a robot extending 20-30 feet in the air to grab a ring hanging from the ceiling.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by AJunx

Regarding autonomous mode at the end of the match:

I think everyone needs to keep in mind that FIRST is about inspiring young people to become involved with science and engineering. Surely some teams, those with great resources and highly skilled programmers, would be able to create robots designed to succesfully maneuver in an autonomous mode held at the end of the match. However, you must try to imagine how hard this would be for rookie teams.
As it was this year, I saw plenty of teams at the richmond regional and nationals that for one reason or another did not take part in the autonomous portion of the match. (I could be wrong, but I think 2 of the teams in the national finals did not move during the autonomous period) Undoubtedly, some of these teams were unable to succesfully program their robots to work during autonomous mode. I would have to guess that the percentage of rookie teams nationwide that were unable to make good use of the autonomous period was also fairly high compared with established teams.
Now imagine that the autonomous period is moved to the end of the match. Teams that were unable to make a succesful autonomous mode for their robot at the beginning of the match would now be utterly (to put it bluntly) screwed. Also, how boring would matches be if during the last 30 seconds, only one or two of the robots was still doing something productive? (It would be like when a couple of robots get tipped over midway through the match and can't recover.)
We put up with some robots not doing something at the beginning of the match because autonomous mode provides an extra facet to the engineering challenge of the competition. At the same time, this extra facet is not so extreme as to discourage rookie teams from competing. In my humble opinion, to place the autonomous mode at the end of the match would create an obstacle so great that many prospective teams would choose not to take part in the competition. Moving the autonomous period to the end of the match would therefore go against FIRST's goal of expanding interest in science and engineering to more young people across the country. For this reason I am firmly against moving the autonomous period to the end of the match.

-Andrew

I completely understand where you're coming from, but i disagree. I feel this could be even easier than in the beginning. Imagine if it was at the end of this years competition. Instead of starting all the way back in front of the players station, a robot could just climb towards the end of the match, and the autonomous would just be to extend a hook and hang. By being able to maneuver ur robot to a better position to do an autonomous would be easier for most if not all teams. Granted auto at the end wouldnt work with this years game, but at the end would be easier.

[Jay W.]

ahh..FIRST Withdrawel sucks...but I'm looking forward to what on earth FIRST will pull out of their heads next year. I hope they don't go with boxes again...didn't really work that well. But the games I've seen with balls have always been exciting and challenging. It might be neat to have something besides carpet, but they need to stick with something that would be easy for teams to purchase. Autonomous has to stay, it puts a twist on every match...

[Ryan M.]

Originally Posted by MrToast

Ooooohhh, that would be interesting! Teams would have to spend time driving their robots into a certain position for the autonomous.

Or your robot would have to track it's position and then plot it's own courses to get where it wants to go. Autonomous at the end would be fun.

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by Jay W.

I hope they don't go with boxes again...didn't really work that well. But the games I've seen with balls have always been exciting and challenging.

i think stack attack was the best game ever in FIRST, i loved that game! the boxes made great scoring objects, and the robot placement bonus was the best setup i've seen, way more exciting than hanging on a bar

[Paradox1350]

Autonomous will be harder next year. Longer? Hopefully not (Unless they make hte matches longer.) I say this because all of the excitement is in the humans driving.

So autonomous will be harder. What will it entail? I believe something LIKE infared, but it would have ot be revamped. Why? Because a lot of teams had trouble even with good programming. There was too much interference.

A water match WOULD be fun. But just a minor leak and BAM you could fry your bot's brain (Unless the water were distilled. However stuff comes in on the bots themselves and after even one match, the water would be contaminated.)

I would guess that eventually teams would have to use gyro sensors, like those in a Segway. How soon? No idea. But I can deffinitely see a game in the future that relies on balencing, and having those sensors being super helpful.

Aside from that, I cna't guess exactly what we'll be doing. There are simply too many directions you can go with something like this.

[MASherry]

I definetly agree, Stack Attack was quite a good game. I was looking at some teams website the other day and they were showing past years games and I think maybe they should go back to the hexagonal field or something other than a rectangle maybe a octagonish shape with 4 teams on eac alliance.

[hansTP2S]

I am fully against autonomous at the end. Part of the game is the suspense at the very end, hoping that your team can hang/cap or that one of the other teams will lose their "grip" on the bar. That suspense is totally ruined if you know exactly what will happen during the last 15 seconds (scouterz represent!). It makes it so much better to have a last 15 seconds that is totally dependent on the situation. Additionally your autonomous could be totally ruined by field problems (a movable goal or robot in your way); i realize this could happen with autonomous in the beginning because of collisions in autonomous. Also (this may be a good or bad thing) since usually after the 1st or 2nd match you know what the robot's autonomous is, a team could totallly mess up another teams autonomous with the slightest effort.

bottom line is that autonomous at the end would just not work and it would partiually ruin the game.

[Team311]

how 'bout Zone Zeal 2. Where the setup is pretty much the same but with 13 inch balls instead of soccer balls. And the only way to get the balls is to realease a giant ball from a platform. and if that is not done the balls do not fall on to the feild. the balls can also be colored so only the balls that are the color of your alliance count in that color goal.

[Ryan F.]

Originally Posted by Team311

how 'bout Zone Zeal 2. Where the setup is pretty much the same but with 13 inch balls instead of soccer balls. And the only way to get the balls is to realease a giant ball from a platform. and if that is not done the balls do not fall on to the feild. the balls can also be colored so only the balls that are the color of your alliance count in that color goal.

That sounds pretty simular to this years game without the bar.

I think that the playing field will stay with carpet. The problems associated with making fields of other matierals are too great. Water-won't happen because of the millions of reasons already stated. Sand....would be cool, but imagine the problems the average team would have with making this field. A ball pit?.....another interesting idea...but I don't think anyone could even move in it!

[Marc P.]

How about a game where instead of having one color balls score into a teams specific goal, switch it around, so you have red and blue balls, scoring in a common goal. All the balls will be mixed up around the field, so it would present more of a challenge to the drivers to pick out which balls you would want to score. If the balls are red and blue, the optical sensors we currently have would be able to differentiate them.

As for autonomous at the end of the match, I think too many teams relied on dead reckoning this year. If autonomous were at the end of the match, this would not work so well. Until the majority of teams can effectively make use of the IR, or other method of tracking position, I think autonomous would have to remain at the beginning of the match.

[tkwetzel]

How about a game where instead of having one color balls score into a teams specific goal, switch it around, so you have red and blue balls, scoring in a common goal. All the balls will be mixed up around the field, so it would present more of a challenge to the drivers to pick out which balls you would want to score. If the balls are red and blue, the optical sensors we currently have would be able to differentiate them.

Or how about different color balls and goals. Make the balls worth 5 or 10 points depending on what goal they are in. If you have a red ball in a red goal it is worth 5 points, but if a red ball is in a blue goal it is worth 10 points. And you could allow teams to goaltend their own goals to prevent the other alliance from getting double the points in their goal. It would present a lot more interesting strategies and more options for teams.