[Official 2006 Game Design] Game Elements and Subtasks

[Ryan Foley]

Here's an interesting idea for a midfield barrier.

Place a 2ft diameter pipe on it's side, spanning the width of the field. For robot scoring, robots would have to climb on top and not be supported by anything but the pipe.

Options:
1) fixed pipe on ground
2) freely rotating pipe (about an axle of course) only raised enough off the ground so it doesnt contact the carpet. Some interesting defense could be played if teams could get on top and then start using their wheels to spin the pipe. Log rolling competition anyone?*
3) Cut out some parts of the pipe, so that there are tunnels leading to the other side.
4) raise the pipe off the ground (perhaps a smaller diameter, like 1ft or 1.5ft would be better if this was done). Imagine the 2001 or 2003 limbo bar, just a lot bigger.
5) put another one (same diameter) at least 8 feet above the first one. Then teams could hang off that one for points, climb on the bottom one for more points, or use the the higer one to pull them up and onto the bottom one.

Interesting Combinations of options mentioned above:
A) 1 and 3
B) 2 and 3 (it would almost be like something out of mini-golf, could be fun)
C) 2 and 4
D) 2, 3 and 4. The clearance under the pipe could be 8inches, and under on of the holes could be 16in, that way you dont have to be less than 8in to get under.

*= I'm not suggesting anything about water when I say "log rolling"


PS: this midfield barrier also keeps the piggy-back robot option that seems to be applicable to every game since 2001 in some way. Check out 111's 2001 robot if you don't know what I mean by "piggy back robot"