2008 Game- Overdrive

[Michael Corsetto]

I was under the assumption that FRC stood for FIRST Robotics Competition. From what I can tell, there's hardly anything robotic about this game at all.

First, they take autonomous mode away and make it "Hybrid" mode, adding essentially limited driver controls to what used to be the programmer's time to shine. Aside from the remote controller, there is no practical use for sensors on the robot, besides standard pot's and such for any manipulators. Any effective autonomous task (ie. race around Track, knock down Trackball) could be easily accomplished with dead reckoning and finding out what position the ball is at via the 4 button remote (I like to call the RoboCoach the "mini-driver"). Although the autonomous mode might be more exciting, it definitely isn't challenging.

Second, as if sensors weren't useless enough, they hold absolutely no advantage in the Teleoperated period. I remember back in 2006 when our robot was capable of tracking the green light and adjusting the pan and tilt of our shooter autonomously and would make the shot almost every time. That was the year where I really saw was robotics was capable of, how a group of high school students could design, build and program a mobile, auto-locking, auto-shooting nerf ball launcher.

Also, contrary to what others have posted about this game reducing the "Drive train arms race" with its lack of defense, I believe it just furthers it. I see no room for innovation in the drivetrain, I don't even see why a 2 speed would be needed. All you need is a high speed, and the more motors in that drivetrain, the better as far as this game is concerned. I remeber seeing drivetrains like 1114's, Simbotics, back in 2004, which had a swivel drive where each individual swivel module was capable of being pnuematically retracted 6 inches upward in order to climb the steps on the field. For the fourth year now, we have an essentially completely flat surface, where teams can just use the kitbot, or even further perfect their 6 wheel design (ie. the "West Coast Drive"), or just rehash any number of other drivetrains used the past 3 years. Just like in the programming aspect of this game, I see no advantage to innovation in the drive systems this year.

All in all, I think FIRST and the GDC took a big step backwards with this year's game, in my opinion dumbing it down to be more "accessible" to new teams and the media, yet leaving experienced teams hanging. Seems like we're all just gonna be building RC cars this year instead of robots

Just my $.02,
Mike C.

ps. I don't like the lack of human player either, I enjoyed that aspect of human to robot interaction and I hope it comes back next year.