[Official 2008 Game Design] OK, so YOU design the 2009 game...

[Joe G.]

Here's my game this year:





Note: I am aware how structurally unsound the drawings are, they are mostly for visual representation purposes.

The Field: Same size field as past years, without the angled corners of overdrive. Carpet surface, with the bridge in the middle being structured similarly to the ramp in stack attack. (screen over a wood framework) The bridge is constructed as lightly as possible, and is weighted in the middle so it favors a balanced position, as the bridge in 2001 did. The bars extending off the sides can be used to manipulate the bridge's position. Robots start in either their colored squares, or behind their colored line. (alliances must have at least one square occupied, but can use two if they wish) Height-weight classes from 2007 are brought back. The bins on each of the player station walls are made of lexan and are supported so that they swing back and forth, and a persistent robot can tip them. Infared beacons are embedded in all four of these. Due to the close proximity of these to the driver stations, the lexan "ceiling" of 2005 returns.

Gamepieces:



The gamepieces, known as nun chucks, are constructed from pool noodles, 1/2 inch PVC pipe, and thin nylon rope. Two segments of PVC 9 inches long are attached together by roughly 18 inches of nylon rope, which is threaded through holes in a endcap. 11 inch pool noodle segments are then glued to each piece of PVC, with an inch of overhang on each end. They are colored red and blue, and belong to that alliance. These start in 4 places:

-Each robot starts the match with up to five in their possession. These are marked by a white stripe.
-Ten are hung, with one end in and one end out of the bin, from each seven foot bin. These do not count as scored unless they are tipped such that both tubes are within the bin. Red nun chucks start above the blue driver station (where the blue tape is) and reds start above blue.
-25 start in each autoloader (not pictured, but go on the lexan "flaps" on the sidewalls) Teams can either use the FIRST provided loader, which is essentially a ramp with a lip on the end, which the pieces roll down, being pulled or lifted into play by robots, or replace one or both of the loaders opposite their driver station with one of their own design. They may have no powered components, weigh a maximum of 25 pounds, and fit within a 3'x3'x3' cube, and are subject to the same material, cost, etc requirements as robots. The loaders containing blue nun chucks are on red's side of the field, and vice versa. This matches with the real world in that engineers can, to some extent, alter their challenge. For example, in manufacturing, a handle can be temporarily molded onto a plastic part, and when building a mars rover landing system, engineers were able to choose less dangerous territory to land in.
-An indefinite amount of both colors are stored by the referees.

Gameplay: The match begins with 15 seconds of autonomous. Robots play the game as normal, with no alteration of scoring, other than the bridge. The autonomous score of the alliance whose driver station the bridge's "down" side is facing is doubled, with five extra points given only if their is an autonomous tie otherwise. However, the teams that start in squares are not allowed to touch the bridge autonomously, and the teams who start behind the line cannot touch the two bins behind them in auto. During autonomous, the 72"/80"/whatever it will be next year rule is lifted, to allow for robots to expand greatly in order to quickly hit their side of the bridge. Because of the great possibility of robots interfering with each other during autonomous, as shown in this picture, teams must develop avoidance code to be successful.


A typical autonomous mode, showing how the robots are likely to meet.


Each point scored in autonomous gives one nun chuck to the alliance's human players, from the ref's pile.

During teleoperated mode, robots score in any of the four bins, and multiply their score by creating rows on the structure on the bridge. Human players function identically to 2007's human players, either scoring directly in nearby bins, or putting gamepieces into play for more strategic use by the robots. At the start of teleoperated mode, the infrared beacons within one randomly chosen bin turn on. The scoring potential for this goal is doubled for all nun chucks that were not preloaded. The base scores for the bins are 2 points for the lower bin, and 3 for the upper bin. These scores are multiplied by the creation of rows on the upper three bars of the tower on the bridge. They are multiplied by 1.25 for a row of 2, 1.5 for a row of 3, etc. The bottom 2 bars give a straight 3 points. To score on the bars, the nun chucks must be hung by the cord. These may not be directly descored, but opposing robots can shift the position of scored nun chucks side to side, and separate them with their own. The positioning of adjacent nun chucks will be determined by a half inch strip on top of each bar. If the strings are not crossed in this strip, then they are scored per the string position. If they are crossed, they cancel each other out. A camera could be suspended above this structure to view these positions. This discourages grabbing 30 by the strings and hanging them all in one spot, as it applies to nun chucks of the same color as well.



During the endgame, robots on both sides try to balance the bridge. All red multipliers provided by the central tower are multiplied by 1+number of red robots on a balanced bridge, with the same applying for blue. During the final 10 seconds, once a team is fully supported by the bridge, they cannot exit it, to disallow teams jumping off at the last second to screw up a large bonus for their opponents. To count as on the bridge, robots must be entirely in contact with the surface of the bridge. However, robots not satisfying this requirement can be actively helping to support it while it is balanced, by manipulating the four bars, and the bridge itself. Bi-alliance balances are ideal for both the winning and losing team, due to ranking points.


Game specific rules:

-No forcing robots onto/off of the bridge
-Tipping penalties apply to any manipulation of the bridge that interferes with a team's efforts to enter/exit it. ex pulling the bridge up as they are halfway off of it.
-No descoring of the bins through reaching in, descoring through rotation of the bin is allowed however.
-5 second grace period for teams that extended beyond maximum playing configuration in auto to return to normal playing size.
-Same bumper rules as Overdrive, auto and the bridge would be rough.
-No trapping of teams by tipping the bridge or bars onto them.



Variations:
-Remove the bridge, make the tower wider, have fixed limbo bars. Endgame becomes hanging from tower, with more points awarded for lower bars.
-Add a third tier of bins.
-get rid of multipliers, and provide straight points for the tower and bridge.


I'd appreciate any feedback on this game from others. (not necessarily dave) It can use the new control system's abilities in a few ways, such as using the camera to precisely position manipulators over small gamepieces, or having robots tell each other which goal is doubled, but is not completely dependant on it.