an idea

[archiver]

Posted by Kyle Huang.

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School and Sun Microsystems, Nasa/Ames and Xerox PARC.

Posted on 9/12/2000 12:22 AM MST



i was at a toy store today, and i saw a big inflatable ball for sale - looked very much
like the balls from the '98 competition, but with one major difference. they were
multicolored. it got me thinking...

if there could be a way to make the balls change color in the middle of a match,
wouldn't that add a little bit of a challenge? say a computer changes the colors
randomly. not too frequently (maybe the there's a layer of LCD underneath a
translucent layer of rubber of plastic), and once a ball is picked up and/or
scored it can't change anymore, and while balls are at the human player
stations they can't change colors either...

some cons i can think of right now, are:
how to make the color change
balls would be expensive
what if they fail, or something goes wrong? half blue half red ball?
controlling the colors - how?

well, i dunno, it's just a crazy far fetched idea, but whaddya think? i think it'd be
a helluva fun game to watch, if possible!!