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

[Gabe]

One Sentence Summary: Score flexible foam pool noodles for points, taking advantage of the "safe" zone.

Duration: 120 seconds human control, 15 seconds autonomous

Alliances: Three red, three blue. Can also be played with two red, two blue.

Field Elements: Foam pool noodles. Box at each end of the field, with an open back, which is the goal (target light at top of box).

Game Field:



The Game

Autonomous: Robots attempt to place a single (1) foam pool noodle into the box in their goal zone, tracking the green target light at the top of the box. Teams will have to take into account the possibility of collisions with other robots. The autonomous noodle is worth ten (10) points, for a maximun of thirty (30) points possible during autonomous.

Human Control: For human control the noodles should be worth approximately two (2) to three (3) points each. If robots did not score during autonomous, they may score their single (1) noodle as normal and/or may gather more noodles. Robots may be in possession of more than one noodle at any time.

Loading is accomplished in either of two ways. The first is to pick up noodles from the floor. The second way is for the human player to load noodles into the robot at the loading zones in the corner of the field. As mentioned earlier, the goal box has an open back, allowing the human players to recover the noodles scored and feed them to the robot by reaching around the corners of the field.

Teams try to go across the field to score in their noodles in their goals, while attempting to evade the opposing alliance that is playing defense. Collisions will occur. To score you must get to your "safe" zone, which is a protected area that is off limits to your opposing alliance, but completely open to you. Once inside your "safe" zone you can take your time scoring noodles in the box.

One robot in the "safe" zone is one robot less defending the other goal, and teams can use this to their advantage, by scoring while defense is weaker. Deciding when to try to score versus holding back to defend will be a key part of the game.

Near the end of the game teams may choose to to return to their starting positions and remain there until the end of the game for an additional ten (10) points per robot, for a maximum of thirty (30) points possible. However, during this time opponents may continue to score, possibly allowing them to score enough points to offset this thirty (30) point endgame bonus.