New Ideas for next year's competition

[Not2B]

Give a young or small team a game that requires an amazing drive train, and you will get boxes on wheels.

Give a young or small team a usable, simple drivetrain, and you will get some impressive "others".

In the past, we have blown our whole build trying to get a drive system working. As a result, we just tack on some junk for our "other" devices. This year we used the drive that came with the robot. And WOW!!! did that get the students excitied. All of a sudden they could work on REAL robot parts instead of a fancy RC car. You don't need the fancy machining to make an arm, the way you need it to make a fancy 6 motor 9 speed automatic crab surfing drive train.

That drive system was the single best item that has ever come in the kit of parts for my team. We got so many more people involved. I'd say it at least DOUBBLED our ablity to spread the word of FIRST on our team.

I say go with simple drive, and the teams that CAN do a fancy drive will.

[Joe J.]

He's right you don't need fancy machining to build an arm all you need is a Hacksaw & Drill.

[Collmandoman]

When you begin to think abotu designing a game... you just can't.. there are so many considerations... cost.. is it practicle...is it fun.. is it watchable... the list goes on and on and on forrrrever.. I feel sorry for lavery =/

[mathking]

Wasn't going to post here, but what the heck? What about a game which offers alternatives? Maybe a game with a set of bars running accross the field that a robot can grab and move along to accomplish its tasks while still allowing robots to accomplish the same tasks while driving along the ground. Or a platform that can be climbed with tasks to accomplish atop the platform and tasks to be done by robots on the ground?

One thing I am sure of, I and my students will have fun next year. When I think back and compare the "best" and "worst" games I have seen from FIRST I think it is like choosing between BlackBerry and Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream!

[WLitchfield]

I say screw drivetrains, and screw playing fields as well. I think the competition should be underwater where robots manuever to move objects from one underwater cube to the others to score points. No one would really have an advantage b/c both rookie teams and vets are on a whole new plane of thinking and engineering. Besides the depths of our oceans are still considered frontiers along w/ space so we should move to a game that is practical to todays frontiers.348

[the_short1]

i agreee.. it helps us (rookie team) to be able to focus on our telescoping arm) rather then on driving.. we spent a couple days thinking about our drive train and it was rather simple to decide to use omni wheels and 4wheel drive so we would be manuverable yet powerfull..

i also seen WAY too many broken arms . . it was fun to watch yet. .. painfull>? . . . and it would make it way worse and it breaks the teams hearts to see their robot break if the playing field had rough terain.. i say.. keep it flat..

[Billfred]

I've seen some of the flatter games (Zone Zeal, Triple Play) in action, either live or by videotape. I've also seen games with monstrous climbable field features (Stack Attack, FIRST Frenzy: Raising The Bar) the same way.

Put simply, I love games with the big field features. If for nothing else, it makes the field look more interesting. Compare:

FIRST Frenzy

Triple Play

Also, a good use of colors can contribute to a field that draws folks in more. (For reference, both of those pictures were taken in the same venue, the Colonial Center here at USC.) In FIRST Frenzy, we've got colors all over the place--purple balls and yellow 2X balls, of course, but then we have this ginormous red and blue platform usually stuffed with the aforementioned purple and yellow balls, plus a few robots on the bar. Triple Play has the tetras and the goals, with the vision targets at the bottom of the field. (Of course, with the CMUcam in the kit this year, I can see how there's a method to the madness with a simple field.)

That being said, I would be ecstatic to see an interesting center feature again, one that would draw robots that way, instead of away from each other. (Ten-point bonus for all three robots touching the center goal, anyone?)

If/when Dave posts the "you-design-the-2006-game" thread, I'll develop this the whole way.

[dhitchco]

Hi gang,
please bear with my reply, as I work for a military radio company, so this response may have a lop-sided response:

TriplePlay is my first exposure to the games of FIRST, but I have seen videos of prior years too. I really do like the concept of multi-team alliances and think that three is a good number, but not more than that. I believe the "heart" of the game is in the vision, manipulators, and strategy, not in the drive train.

Real-world robots that operate on a level floor and pick/push/grab something are pretty pervasive in the industrial world.

However, in the military environment, the terrain is not likew running a raobot on a level warehouse floor. So, I'd like to see more crawling and climbing robots. Tunnels where the driver can't see the robot (semi-autonomous tasks) would be way kewl! Ramps and climbing like "stack attack" are also great.

I'd like to see the robots go from "A" to "B" and then perform some "task" rather than just moving an object. As an example, the military now uses robots (ground vehicles) to defuse those roadside explosive devices.

Think about a robot that has to go through a tunnel and then stick it's "key" into a special hole to turn on a 10-point reward light.

The objectives of the games can be endless; but think about how robots in the real world have advanced so much in the past few years with feelers, vision systems, and better 3-dimensional climbing abilities.

Lastly, human players (as discussed in a different thread) are a MUST-HAVE in these competitions. It adds to the excitement, involvement and human players can truly be "random"; which adds to game complexity. After all, it's not the robot that is getting the penalties this year is it?

[Billfred]

Alright, allow me to toss out a completely unrelated idea for 2006, and how it somewhat parallels the real world.

Suppose, when teams arrive at the Magnolia Regional on Friday, their match listings looked something like this:

MATCH 1 0930
RED: 9999, ????, ????
BLUE: 8888, ????, ????

Each of the remaining matches was done the same way, with each time being listed explicitly N times. At this point, those teams will be required to approach two other teams to join their alliance for that match, with some limit on the number of matches a team can play during the regional.

I relate it to the real world like this: Teams 9999 and 8888 are trying to make a product (more points than the other alliance). In order to meet that objective, they're going to have to recruit some outside suppliers (two more teams per alliance) to get their goods (additional point-scoring ability) in order to ensure success.

Now, there would be weaknesses to this--for starters, it adds another layer of madness to an already mad regional. And you'd have to get all these newly-formed alliances into the software pretty quickly (I suppose you'd have a person at the pit admin table entering this information from a team representative--I'd say the person with the mentor badge, but that's me.)

Then there's the issue of three teams always picking each other. You could always put the standard argument of "FIRST isn't fair" here, but it would still get mildly boring after a while. At this point, you'd limit teams acting as the picker (the team listed on the printout) to picking the same team no more than, say, twice at a regional. (The number can change, depending on size.)

Finally, the issue of the team that doesn't pick in time. This one I haven't figured out yet. If you were to force them to go out with one or two robots, you would all but ensure their alliance's failure, but then one or two teams couldn't play a match (as nobody filled those slots, and the capacity shrunk accordingly). I suppose it would involve a forced drafting of teams that still had open slots left. Undesirable, definitely, but the only way around it.

The "dance card" setup is a little crazy*, but it would add another layer of strategy to competitions, IMHO. Thoughts?

*Then again, some folks might argue that building a robot in six weeks is a little crazy.

[Scott Chambliss]

Going back to some of the earlier ideas about difficulty and rookie vs. veteran, I think that the competitions should have opportunities and challenges for all levels of experience. The ideal game (hypothetically speaking) would have a field that a rookie team with a provided drive train could move around on and score a respectable amount of points, as long as they put a bunch of effort into their robot. The field would also have a more challenging section/obstacle that could give a lot of points and would be seen as a challenge to the veteran teams. This way, all teams could be challenged, and rookies would have a decent chance of doing well.

Hmmm, its 11:40 and I haven't started my homework ...bye!

[SuperJake]

It seems to me that most of the penalties this year could be avoided through game design instead of taking off points. The two biggest hitters for point deductions are because FIRST wants to discourage teams from blocking or descoring opponents and keep human players safe.

The reason teams choose a descoring or blocking strategy is because it is easier to block or descore than it is to score. Solution: Have at least one scoring piece (that is really easy to pick up) get deposited into something like a goal so that it is difficult to get out. Also, make many scoring pieces available as well as several places to score.

The safety penalties were targeted around the HP and Auto loading zones. If you hit a bot while they were in this zone, that bot could potentially fall and hit a person. Solution: elevate the loading zones off the floor using ramps or isolate it from the field using barriers. The plus side to using ramps is if someone tries to block you from getting out of your zone, you can go any direction out of the zone. Also, if the penalties still exist for loading zone infractions, then the opposing team can clearly see from across the field that the robot is in fact in a loading zone (because it is elevated from the field). Or, you could keep the HP away from the robot and load the robot from the HP like in 2000 or 2001... from behind the alliance station.


My idea for a future game:
2 Scoring Objects:
- Balls (A different color for each alliance).
- Something Else (Floppies, tetras, KK donuts, whatever).

2 Types of Scoring Locations:
- Troughs/goals/bins for the balls AND other scoring object.
- Something Else (ONLY for the other scoring object).

Ways to score points:
- Deposit balls into troughs/goals/bins (common scoring container for all alliances, points will be assessed by how many objects of each color are inside the scoring container).
- Deposit other scoring object (other than balls) into troughs/goals/bins (This will be worth more than the balls, but less than scoring this object at the specific scoring location) - EG: If I have a donut and put it in the trough, it is worth 5pts. If I take this donut and stick it in my mouth, I get 20pts because 1) it is hard to get a robot to put a donut in my mouth and 2) it tastes better in my mouth than in the ball trough.)
- Deposit other scoring object into other scoring location (reference example from before).
- Hang, get to a home zone, or do a little dance.

Auton Possibilities:
- knock off a ball (as in 2004) that releases more balls or alternate game pieces.
- Score other scoring object before Auton mode ends.
- Auton segment at the end, robots are able to move from anywhere in the field back to the home zone or some other location to score points. (Eg: you get points for being in your home zone. Time is running out, but you don't want to give up your position, or you want to finish scoring your last point. Time runs out and End Game Auton Begins. If you are a good team, you know exactly where you are and exactly where the end zone is [Possibly with the help of the camera or sensor beacons like in 2004]. Now that you have ~10-15 seconds of auton, you can get back to your home zone. If you are a less advanced team, you hope that you were able to get back before End Game begins, or you are at least pointed the right way so your dead-reckoning robot shoots back home.).

Field Considerations:
- Platforms for auto-loading stations. Here you can get the other scoring objects (not balls, the other thing).
- 1-2 ball troughs. Smaller bots should have the option of going under the troughs. The other scoring locations could be at the ends of the troughs, between the troughs, or some place else entirely.
- mobile goals?
- Alliance-specific other scoring locations?
- A hanging bar? (Everyone seemed to like the hanging games.)


What do you think?

[Nowhere Matt]

On the long trip back from Altanta, someone in my car was talking about the whole 6 robots too much thing, and brought up the crazy idea of having 3 teams of 2, a triangular field, maybe have some sort of goal in the centre and one in each of the corners, and continue the idea of teams having specific items to get

[Winged Wonder]

first of all... keep the human players away from the robots. the penalites really killed a lot of the game this year. i know they were necissary... but this year.. lets just have the robot and the human player stay out of contact.

i've always been fond of ramps... but instead of having a ramp like this: _/\_ why dont you set it up like this: \_/ ....okay i know that looks funny.. but think of it as the robots starting next to the diamond plate on their alliance side of the field, and they must go DOWN into a valley of sorts to do something or other... i dont know... i was just wondering about something different other than a large ramp in the center of the field and rather, 2 smaller ones on each side of the field. you get points for King of the Hill depending on which ramp you're on. lets say you're blue. you get 5 points for being on your home ramp, but if you go over to the red side of the field and get on that ramp/platform, you get 15 points. i like the 3 v 3... so make the platforms only big enough for 2 robots each. or maybe you could have on robot on a platform and have an alliance bot work to try to RAISE the platform as much as possible with that robot on there... the higher the platform, the more points. this would force there to be a lot of different kinds of robots.. strong robots, but also very light robots so that the platforms would be easier to lift. i'm not sure how you'd get the platforms to lift though. a pulley system doesnt seem very effective... and i seem to think back to the year where there were teeter-totters (sp?) and you had to balance goals on them...

-shrugs- just my two cents. =)

[SURVIVORfan44]

I liked last year's game so much. I think that last year's game depended on too much of the human player. I think that the game win should be decided on the robot and not the human player. With that being said, I think that next year's game should have 3 giant pillars, and on each of them, having a tetra (from triple play), a doubler ball (From FIRST: Frenzy), and a tupperware container (from Stack Attack). The object would be to place in order how they are with the FIRST logo. The pillars would be funny looking so that each specific one would hold the certain object. Anyway, its a crazy thought...

[RudimentaryPeni]

I think that a free car should be given to everyone who participates....(i can still dream)