[Official 2008 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Tottanka

Something that really bothers me. there are a total of about 350 teams , at Atlanta we had about 220 teams (correct me if im wrong). This means that 2 from every 3 teams is in Atlanta. Israel has 34 teams, only 4 were in Atlanta this year. That is 1 from every 9 teams! FIRST should consider giving one or two more awards which lead to Atlanta. I would suggest adding the Finalist captain, and maybe 3rd place captain. Maybe the highest scoring team, highest rookie seed, and the best optin might be a specail Judges Award that sends a team straight to Atlanta, but only for the quality of it robot, This team must not be a team who won the regional/chairman/engineering Inspiration/rookie-all-star/free ticket to Atlanta anyway.

Actually, there were approximately 1350 teams in the entire FRC competition in 2007, not 350. Approximately 320 teams participated in the FRC Championships in Atlanta, not 220. Those numbers will change your statistics a little bit.

-dave

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Actually, there were approximately 1350 teams in the entire FRC competition in 2007, not 350. Approximately 320 teams participated in the FRC Championships in Atlanta, not 220. Those numbers will change your statistics a little bit.

-dave

Oh, well that might explain a couple of things =]
Still though, with 1350 teams and 320 in Atlanta it still is a 1:4, Israel has a 1:9.
Thanks, Liron

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Tottanka

Oh, well that might explain a couple of things =]
Still though, with 1350 teams and 320 in Atlanta it still is a 1:4, Israel has a 1:9.
Thanks, Liron

I suspect it has something to do with the cost to get to Atlanta from Isreal. And that many teams from Isreal were rookies and so could not use the "buy your way in" sign-up.

If you want to look at it in a different way, the Isreal regional had a smaller number of teams than most regionals, and yet still had the same number (6) of qualifier spots for Atlanta. When a team wins more than one award - say on the winning alliance plus Rookie All-Star - there are fewer actual teams that qualify from any given regional.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

I suspect it has something to do with the cost to get to Atlanta from Isreal. And that many teams from Isreal were rookies and so could not use the "buy your way in" sign-up.

If you want to look at it in a different way, the Isreal regional had a smaller number of teams than most regionals, and yet still had the same number (6) of qualifier spots for Atlanta. When a team wins more than one award - say on the winning alliance plus Rookie All-Star - there are fewer actual teams that qualify from any given regional.

Israeli teams are not aware of the buy-your-way-in thing.
We had only one combo of Chairman winner+regional winner.
I still think that Teams from Israel, Brazil, UK, Netherlands and Ecuador should have some more saved slots, in order to make FIRST more of an Inter-national project.

[Tetraman]

Human players

What if an alliance's human players have to complete a task together as a team? What if Human players could control a moving part of the field?

[petek]

How about an "Autonomous Only" game challenge? This would be a one-way street, earning a substantial score for the successful completion of a challenge autonomously, and driver-controlled scoring would not be allowed in this area. I'm thinking that the robot would be in autonomous mode for the entire match, but there might be other options I haven't considered.

Why would a team pick this option? Maybe they are really focused on the technical aspects of robotics, or want to get away from the battlebot action we see so much of these days. Or, maybe they are from a school for the blind, and this would be the only way they could compete effectively.

By "substantial score", I'm thinking the equivalent to what the GDC expects a competitive driver-controlled robot to score on average.

The decision to go for the Auton Only score would be made prior to the start of a match and would be irreversable once taken for that match.

[Tetraman]

Teams with Odd numbers must have their robot be built to a certain range of height and weight, and a different range of height and weight for Even numbers.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

Teams with Odd numbers must have their robot be built to a certain range of height and weight, and a different range of height and weight for Even numbers.

This will be in that way or another unfair to some teams.
A classes options as there was this year is better i think.

[AndyB]

Originally Posted by Cory

Eliminate half the practice rounds on Thursday at the Championship Event.

All teams have competed in at least one, with a decent percentage in two regionals. Everyone should be able to pass inspection by the end of lunch. There would probably be more of a sense of urgency to get inspected if you knew you had less time to do so as well, speeding up the process.

After lunch, start the qualification rounds. Run then from 1 PM to 7 PM and close the pits at 8 PM. All teams should be able to get at least 2-3 more qualification rounds, which would be huge, considering you're only getting 7 right now. It would give teams more value out of their $5,000 and make the event more competitive overall.

This is the only solution I can see that gives teams more matches, without requiring more fields, more days added to the event, or FIRST needing to find more volunteers to staff the event. It would require that the referees and scorekeepers all work an extra day, but they're all at the event on Thursday already. They'd just be forced to complete their training earlier in the day, and they wouldn't be able to do two jobs at the event (ie: referee and inspect).

I love this idea. Do you really need to practice after 1-2 regionals?

Originally Posted by Tetraman

but considering the joke pulled on us with the changing lights from Aim High Nationals, some out of the hat unknown addition can be added for the finals at nationals.

Actually, if you look at it, the light shield actually showed you the orientation of the game field. Red Green Blue, With the alliances at the ends and the green (autonomous goal) in the middle of the field. That could be nothing more than sheer coincidence as well though.

I do like the idea of having backup robots in the finals, like IRI this past year, but it would be harder to accomplish at events like Midwest where there only 30-some teams that compete. In response to only doing it for larger regionals, I think however its done, it should be the same for every regional.

I did like the robot classes this year, I felt it made for some more interesting designs. Maybe that could be elaborated on more next year.

As far as the finals go, I think Serpentine order is the way to go (1-8, 8-1). The only alternatives I can think of would be the old straight shoot (1-8, 1-8). If we did alliances of 4, whether that be 4v4 or 3v3 with backups, the order should be done (1-8, 8-1, 1-8). Cmon... everyone loves upsets.