Rechargeable batteries for the RCX

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

I think that FLL will have to migrate to a larger playing surface in the future for the NXT since the robots I saw were so much larger.

I hope not. The table surface is already very large - it's wide enough that I have difficulty resetting the center "shared" mission, and it's long enough that I have a difficult time running up and down the table to help out kids playing on the game board because *they* can't reach their robots either. I would hope that FLL will not grow the game board size at all, and make the teams just design smarter. Already the "base" areas are huge - compared to previous years where RCX-only robots were competing - and the referees give tons of flexibility on that rule as it is. I'd like to see less delicate mission models and slightly more complex activities for robots to solve/complete - I loved the "Smart Medicine" mission with the Buckeyball from this past year, the "Protect the Pumping Station" from the mission in Ocean Odyssey, and the "Climb the Stairs" mission from No Limits - those were all simple in concept, but could be done in multiple ways and were as simple or complicated as teams wanted to be. The models were fairly easy to build (the stairs maybe were a pain), they were definitely solid, and they were fun to complete.

That's just my $0.02 as a head referee...

-Danny