2008 Game- Overdrive

[galewind]

we measured the ball to be roughly 7.4 pounds (or 7.8 pounds), I dont recall. Anyone else get the discrepancy?

[cbale2000]

Well, this game definitely gets the award for "different". I have to say, I liked Aim High a lot, I didn't care much for Rack and Roll, but from what I can tell so far this is probably my least favorite game yet.

Lets see what's changed so far...

• No defense, whatsoever. Unless you count knocking down the other teams ball at the end (oh wait, the rules prevent you from going that high, never mind). So you essentially just removed about 1/3 of the potential strategies of a standard FIRST game.
• 4 game pieces (10 if you count the robots, woopie). Always makes for an interesting match. Of course the fact that they're so huge you can't even get them through a door always helps, whats more fun that just a few balls? How about a few REALLY BIG balls?
• You can now use IR remotes to manipulate auton mode, that conveniently any other team can interfere with. It could also potentially be used as another controller telling your robot to turn, go, and so on, so in a way it could make the entire auton (or "hybrid") mode a bit pointless.
• Robots this year have to go fast... REALLY fast... in a big circle. I'd almost venture to say it might be more practical just to program you're entire robot to autonomously go around in circles really fast while the everyone just sits back and watches it go around and around (Remind you of any other sport?)
• Contact is now a really big deal, and we certainly all need bumpers to withstand the light taps of other robots signaling to go around us. Whatever happened to making a robust machine that is actually designed to withstand impact from game elements and other robots?

Oh well, maybe it has something to do with my enjoyment of shows like robot wars and my hatred towards Nascar (loved that spoof picture of the logo a few pages back btw). I will say it is certainly easy for any team to play a part this year, just build something with wheels any you're all set, but does that make things challenging? What will the media that we are supposed to be getting the attention of think of a bunch of robotic race cars driving in a circle for 2 minutes and 15 seconds (ahh, they even made the matches shorter this year!) while some move huge colored exercise balls around? I certainly know what I would think if I was looking at it from an outsiders perspective.


Anyways, enough ranting from me. There's robots to be built after all, regardless of what the game is, or how much a few people do or don't like it.

Originally Posted by galewind

we measured the ball to be roughly 7.4 pounds (or 7.8 pounds), I dont recall. Anyone else get the discrepancy?

I got almost the same thing after inflating ours (about 7.5 lbs), maybe the manual is just playing it safe or compensating for differences in air pressure or altitude or something.



By the way, whats this I've been hearing about the Cim motors? Did they get rid of some of them or give us different versions or something? Will the small Cims from last few years still be available? (If not we may have to rethink some drivetrain ideas).