[Official 2008 Game Design] OK, so YOU design the 2008 game...

[Joe G.]

Okay, here's my game, based around the popular concept of goals onboard robots without being too radically differant from years past.

Stick Stack:



Same size field as this year, maybe a bit wider. The basic field layout looks like this:



The central structure, known as the tower, is the main place to score. There is a red and blue middle goal, a read and blue high goal, and 2 circular plates for stacks. (more further down.)


The game pieces are 3/4" x 18" PVC batons, with plastic or wood endcaps.
There are two types of game pieces, standard batons, and stackable batons. Stackable batons have a red end and a blue end, and 2 relativly strong magnets embedded in each endcap, wheras standard batons are, well, standard.


Each alliance starts with about 60 standard batons and 6 stackable batons in their homezone (like triple play with the human load tetras.) In addition, 9 stackable batons are placed standing on end in the area behind the white line.

There are 4 ways to score:
Placing standard or stacking batons in a goal.
Stacking stackable batons on either stack base (small circular protrusion from the central tower)
Stacking stackable batons Onboard a robot!
Getting robots into any of the endzones at the top of the field.

Before the match, one robot per alliance is designated as that alliance's goal, per choice of the alliance members. A goal similar to the stack bases on the tower is attatched to that robot wherever the team wishes. (teams will be required to leave a 4"x4" flat surface free for this purpose.)

At the start of autonomous, robots may start with nothing, 5 standard batons, 1 stackable baton, or both. They have 15 seconds to try and score these. After this, 2:15 of teleoperated play begins, divided into 3 periods. However, these are not offence-defence periods like aim high, but periods that dictate how robots score.

In period 1, robots cannot cross the white line, and human players cannot bring stackable batons into play. To score, teams must score standard batons in either the low goals on the side of the field, or in the middle and high goals in the center of the field. These batons are brought into play by the human player, who must shovel them out onto the field through the human player chute (no passing over wall.)

To prevent the triple play human loading station penalty dilema, there will be strict penalties against breaking the plane of the side wall within a certain area of the human player chute, rather than 'ramming/touching/being in the general vicinity of' penalties. Batons scored in the tower are returned to play through a funneling system, and scored with a system similar to the low goal scorer of aim high. Batons scored in the low goal can be returned to play by the opposing alliance's human players.

In period 2, robots may both score with standard and stackable batons, and the restrictions on access to the stackable batons are lifted. Alliances get points for every baton in a stack with their alliance color facing up. These stacks can be formed on any of the four goal bases. In addition, stack scores on the 2 non-robot goals are doubled for the alliance controlling the uppermost baton, and multiplied by 1.5 for every stackable baton in the stack scored in autonomous. Obviously, medium-tall stacks won't survive very well on a moving robot, and so teams planning on carrying stacks of any height must develop a method to protect their own stacks. Robots may possess up to 2 stackable batons. (batons in an onboard robot stack don't count as "in possession")

In period 3, teams can only score with stacks, and no more standard baton scoring may occor. Also, the possession rules are lifted, so that robots carrying stacks can carry several batons, and build a stack on themselves in the last few seconds of the match. (see the endgame section to see why teams may want to do this. )

In the endgame, teams get points for robots in any of the 3 endzones, each of which is just barely wide enough for 3 robots, but teams will really have to work to get that.


Teams must negate the Diamond plate speedbump to reach any endzone, and the 3.5 foot limbo bar to reach the middle endzone.


Scoring (kinda approximate):
.5 for each baton in low goal, 2 if done autonomously (score is rounded up to nearest whole number)
1 for each baton in middle goal, 4 if done autonomously
2 for each baton in high goal, 7 if done autonomously
5 for each stacked baton.
10 points for each robot in corner endzone, 25 for each robot in middle endzone
middle stacks multiplied by 1.5 for an autonomous baton, 2 for controll of top baton.
robot stacks multiplied by 2 if on a robot in the corner endzone, 3 if on a robot in the middle endzone (obviously hard to carry a 7 foot stack under a 3 foot bar.)

Thoughts? Comments? I think that, despite being quite a bit differant from past games and more complex, it has a wide range of challenges to choose from, and makes it quite hard for a robot to "do everything." Also, teamwork is critical with scoring on each other, and the challenge of protecting a baton stack, plus a completely new gamepiece should lead to robots quite diffeent from all past years, like shooters in 06 and ramps in 07.