2008 Game- Overdrive

[Drwurm]

I'm not that thrilled about Overdrive. We just came up with a 4 speed shifter base and now we can't even push.... Also, this isn't really the most exciting/interesting game to confront the media with.

There really aren't that many different strategies to come up with this time. Last year, you could score on the rack or be a rampbot (or both), 2 completely different tasks. This year, you can go around the track, go around the track with a ball, or go around the track and pop the ball up every once in a while.

[Lawry Goldstein]

I have to say that I feel the overall game is very good with many different levels of complexity for all skill levels.
-Drive around
-Drive around with ball
-Drive around with ball and hurdle
Personally, I kind of wish that one of the balls was on the ground, one in the air incase rookies ever end together or no-one can get a ball off that round, it will be very boring since there isn't going to be any difference and they will just have to sit there and lose.

Other then, I am happy with everything but the 'hybrid' mode. I feel like it does nothing over autonomous and will be abused by teams hoping to make it act like a teli-operated period. I am also slightly worried that these remotes will be unreliable during competition, and teams will be tricked into counting on something that doesn't work. 1 remote well aimed in a workshop will be much different then 6 remote during a competition.

P.S. Doesn't Plexiglas block IR light, meaning that remotes wouldn't work behind the safety shields?

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by Drwurm

Also, this isn't really the most exciting/interesting game to confront the media with.

This.

Where did the incredible game designs go from 4+ years ago go? The games are getting a lot more simple for outsiders to understand, but in the simplicity there isn't enough room for incredible innovation and hurts teams in the longer run. All the designs of summer projects have basically gone to waste unless you made a drive train that turns fast. I do enjoy the idea of something new, but when you get down to it, this game can turn out to be another stack attack where whomever can build a robot that can go over the line faster wins.

I've seen some mentor and student game designs so much more thought provoked and laid out. What if next year the game design committee were a group of senior team mentors?

Now this little rant may be only because of my headache. But there are some truths to it.

One thing I must applaud is a judge certification. While I may fail at it and might not even be able to judge, I'll see if I can take it. Maybe it would be a good idea if all FIRST students take it.

[cicib99]

this is a very creative and good game.

Its give rookie teams something that they can be really good at and for other teams like us it posts the big challenge of hurdling..

Its seems like competition time will be exciting too.

[Mike@1023]

Originally Posted by fredliu168

What prevents a team from throwing the opposition's ball out of the areana? Also, how do refs rule if your blocking the roadway.

Im almost positive you will recieve a penalty for removing any trackball from the field. hence, the outer walls...

[Mike@1023]

Originally Posted by vivek16

I downloaded the manual yesterday...

NO CIMS!?!?!?!?!?! arrgh.... the world has gone mad.

-vivek

EDIT: no cims in the kop but apparently the robot parts says the kop has the chalupas...

The manual says there are 2 sims. arent there any in the kop?

[Drwurm]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

but in the simplicity there isn't enough room for incredible innovation and hurts teams in the longer run.

EXACTLY! ARGH! I hated that, this year, it took us all of an hour to exhaust our feasible strategies before we turned to highly eccentric and probably illegal ones. I like being able to weigh a few good options for a couple days. I would have much rather had an overly complex game this year. They're fun to design for and even more fun to whine about.

[enpurx]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

All the designs of summer projects have basically gone to waste unless you made a drive train that turns fast.

I'm not that fond of the game itself either, but at least now rookies and veterans are on the same level. This game is atypical enough that the majority of teams will have to start anew. We're all rookies now!

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

This.

Where did the incredible game designs go from 4+ years ago go? The games are getting a lot more simple for outsiders to understand, but in the simplicity there isn't enough room for incredible innovation and hurts teams in the longer run. All the designs of summer projects have basically gone to waste unless you made a drive train that turns fast. I do enjoy the idea of something new, but when you get down to it, this game can turn out to be another stack attack where whomever can build a robot that can go over the line faster wins.

FIRST is a business. They want more customers so they make it easy to follow. Its that simple.

[smurfgirl]

So... our team's connection dropped as Woodie was introducing the game. We heard "the 2008 game, FIRST..." and it went black and silent. It came back at "good luck!" That was a major disappointment, and we were so confused when "Who Wants to be an Engineer?" came on, because we hadn't seen anything. Besides the initial confusion, here's my reaction to the game (though I'm sure I'll grow to love it more than I can imagine right now) :

Things I don't like:
- no real defensive opportunities (who doesn't love our famous New England defense? I'm going to miss it at the Connecticut Regional this year)
- can only drive counter-clockwise; I feel like the tracklike structure and the rules about obstructions limit your movement and your motion a lot
- game pieces are hard to manipulate- I can't lift the trackball myself because it's too large and slippery for me to wrap my arms around, so how can I expect it to be realistic for the robots to do?
- game pieces are heavy and bouncy; they hit with a lot of force (knocked a team member over earlier) and can potentially cause a lot of damage to a robot if they crash into it
- only four signal choices for the remote in hybrid period- we had sixteen autonomous modes last year, so even though we can now control it as we go, four options feels limiting
- return of weight classes? I saw this one in the inspection sheet, but I haven't seen it in section 8 yet
- success in hybrid period doesn't seem to carry that much weight relative to the scoring in teleoperated period
- you have to drive around in circles so much to be able to score...
- it seems like a lot of potential strategies involve working with the alliance partners, but you never know if that will be possible (what their capabilities are)
- the field is still taller than me... so I can't remove game pieces from the top )':

Things I do like:
- hybrid period instead of autonomous
- spherical playing pieces- I told my team so!
- it's very different from past games, so it should be a real challenge
- it seems like it will foster a lot of teamwork within the alliance
- trained referees! so they will make more fair and more consistent calls... and I won't have to break the rules and start arguing with the head ref (I'm the drive Coach)
- doesn't incorporate a green target light and a camera- the remote control should be pretty cool
- offers a lot of opportunities for changing strategies, and on-the-fly math while I'm coaching

The funny thing is, the list of things I like weighs a lot more heavily with me, even though it's much shorter

[Herodotus]

To be perfectly honest, I don't like it. My main problems with it are as follows.

Too much linearity and repetitiveness. Go straight, turn left, go straight, turn left, go straight, turn left. Will our robots even really need to ever turn right? As I driver I am personally annoyed at this aspect.

Also, I don't like the DRASTIC reduction in defense this year. I think last year had a perfect balance of offense and defense, and it REALLY kept it exciting. It's not fun watching a robot just perform an action, it needs to be confronted and challenged to make it interesting. A robot putting tubes on a rack is not cool, even if thy ring the whole thing. What made it cool was when a robot would put a ring on, while being rammed into by another robot. I mean, we don't need battle bots here, but we do need robot vs robot interaction.

Those are really my main beefs with the game. That said , hate is a strong word. I would simply say I'm not excited by the game itself, but luckily the FIRST organization has many things to offer besides just the game itself. Also, I do like the scoring piece in a sick and twisted way. Those things will be a monster to carry around and will prove to be a fun challenge to overcome. I also like the hybrid period idea.

So, here's to making the best out of the competition. And I have to say I understand the GDC has a tough job, and I can't expect them to always do things the way I would want.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

Where did the incredible game designs go from 4+ years ago go? The games are getting a lot more simple for outsiders to understand, but in the simplicity there isn't enough room for incredible innovation and hurts teams in the longer run. All the designs of summer projects have basically gone to waste unless you made a drive train that turns fast. I do enjoy the idea of something new, but when you get down to it, this game can turn out to be another stack attack where whomever can build a robot that can go over the line faster wins.

While I personally think that the 2004 FIRST Frenzy game was arguably the best FRC game ever, I strongly disagree that games of late has stifled innovation. If anything, the level of sophistication and innovation has only grown over time. With the addition of items like the Kitbot to the KoP and companies like AndyMark, gone are the days when just getting a robot that drove was a major hurdle for some teams.

As an avid fan of Top Gear, and with mechanical design being my personal branch of robotics (CS is my second favorite), I really love this game. I loved Triple Play, just because teams could build nice mechanisms and score, score, score without having to really worry about defense. The best defense is a strong offense.

Now this year, not only do we have racing, but now we have rules that encourage us to try cool mechanical designs for manipulating the huge trackballs without worrying that the game will degrade into a defensive pushing match, a la Stack Attack.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Lawry Goldstein

I have to say that I feel the overall game is very good with many different levels of complexity for all skill levels.
-Drive around
-Drive around with ball
-Drive around with ball and hurdle
Personally, I kind of wish that one of the balls was on the ground, one in the air incase rookies ever end together or no-one can get a ball off that round, it will be very boring since there isn't going to be any difference and they will just have to sit there and lose.

Other then, I am happy with everything but the 'hybrid' mode. I feel like it does nothing over autonomous and will be abused by teams hoping to make it act like a teli-operated period. I am also slightly worried that these remotes will be unreliable during competition, and teams will be tricked into counting on something that doesn't work. 1 remote well aimed in a workshop will be much different then 6 remote during a competition.

P.S. Doesn't Plexiglas block IR light, meaning that remotes wouldn't work behind the safety shields?

The RoboCoach is operating it, and they have to stand in the RoboCoach stations... which I believe are fenced, not plexiglas.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

If you still think this game is really easy, I suggest you inflate your track ball. You'll quickly realize the enormity of this challenge (literally). Building a manipulator that will be light yet strong enough to hold those balls will be hard.

Also realize that we will have to "catch" these balls after hurdling them. In order to score a hurdle the ball must bounce on the ground - it will then likely bounce away...

As to the excitement of this game I will remain neutral until I see it in action. Although many aspects of this game remind me of the two worst games of all time - 1995 and 2001 (IMO).

[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).