[Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions

[=Martin=Taylor=]

As I see it, the whole concept behind robots is that they are meant to be labor saving devices. They are supposed to mow your lawn, serve you drinks, and clean your house. They are supposed to be largely autonomous and capable of simple thought.

Notice I didn't say anything about "remote control". After all, what good is your butler-bot if it needs someone to operate it .

I would like to see more autonomy in future FIRST games. Adding more autonomy would put more emphasis on the 'robot' part of the game.



Now of course the problem with adding more autonomy is that many rookie teams would not be able to compete. The solution to this is to give bonus points for scoring autonomously.

An appealing idea to me is to have a special "No-Man's-Land" in the middle of the playing field. When robots enter this zone the remote control is immediately turned off and robots must score autonomously. Teams unable to score autonomously could score in other non-autonomous portions of the field.