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

[acdcfan259]

FIRST games are (almost)always hard to ref, there's really nothing you can do, that's how they are.

[skimoose]

I think the Robocoach was a great addition to the game. However, under the constraints that the four commands had to always be the same, it pretty much limited the Robocoach's input to the hybrid period. There weren't many Robocoaches doing anything during the driver control period. At least the human player had the same two minutes as the drivers, not just fifteen seconds.

One solution is to have two different sets of commands one for hybrid and one for driver control periods.

Another solution would be to resurrect the human player by making the Robocoach perform the human player role during the driver control portion of the game.

Scoring Objects: I don't have anything in mind, but something that isn't inflatable would be nice for a change. I know that inflatables are easy to pack and ship for FIRST, but they are not enjoyable to get ready at competitions. Volunteers inflating these objects are in for some hearing loss doing this job year after year.

Goals: I like multiple goals spread around the field. This tends to spread out scorers and defenders, limiting over-aggressive defense. The concept of owning a goal in Triple Play was great. That year's game leveled the playing field because a match played with strategy could overcome a scoring frenzy. An alliance that played smartly could knock off a scoring powerhouse by owning more rows at the end of the game. This game also was exciting because the lead kept swinging back and forth during the match.

Mobile goals should make a return. FIRST Frenzy was also great. Several different robot tasks. The human player was really important to scoring, and by requiring a decent level of athleticism we had our best year ever for recruiting student athletes to our team. Those athletes had so much fun that they stayed on as team members in later years. Dean has always said he modeled FIRST after the sports playbook, so lets keep some sport in the game. We haven't changed the country yet.

Just a few random thoughts.

[Billfred]

Here's what I've thought up:

The field is approximately the same size as before, with the same ol' 3v3. The robots are within a couple of inches of their present size, though not 28x38 just to mess with the heads of folks.

Around the field are several trash cans filled with a mix of 8.5" and 13" playground balls. (For those who aren't familiar, 8.5" balls are your standard four-square balls; 13" balls were last seen in FIRST Frenzy.) Teams score points by placing the 8.5" balls in their cage at the end of the field; the cage is roughly the height of the aluminum on the player station walls with a shakeable top (think spiders from Rack 'N' Roll) with appropriately-sized holes to allow teams to dump a can's contents onto it and shake the smaller balls down below.

Along the side of the field are several robot-sized protrusions from the wall to form human player zones, one per team. Anything within these zones, save for robots (which start from them), may be manipulated by the human players as they see fit. (I figure this might offer a degree of protection relative to the last time we saw human players this close to robots.)

To provide an appropriate incentive for an autonomous routine, some of those trash cans will be colored red and blue with enough markings (or lighting, if you want to get something that works with the CMUcam as a safety) that a robot can distinguish them. Teams will receive points for each of their bins that have not tipped at the end of the autonomous period, and more points for those that have not tipped at the end of the match. (I imagine sensors can tell you when these bins have tipped.) If you want to be a softy, offer lesser points for bins that are merely upright at the end of each period. For the real carrot, offer teams a single point for leaving the human player zone under their own command. Once they've opened up the programming software to get their freebie point, hopefully they'll continue fiddling around with it.

In the middle of the field is a bar, approximately 30" off the ground. Teams receive points from hanging from this bar at the end of the match; in addition, the bar serves as a nice irritation for teams trying to transport trash cans without tipping them.

Any team can rattle the cage, knock over trash cans, and move trash cans into the human player zones for them to cherry-pick the small balls for scoring. Better teams will be able to hang, move the balls directly over to the cage, and will have some way of rejecting the 13" balls to keep their cage's top clear. Beatty and Simbotics will hang, have ways of extracting the balls from bins without tipping them, sorting balls onboard the robot, depositing the large balls onto the opposing cage, and clearing out space atop their own to guarantee a hole to deposit theirs.

You'll notice I haven't made mention about penalties; the only ones you'd want to call would involve interfering with human players. I'm trying to figure out a best practice that would allow human players to manipulate things left inside the human player zone without having to disable their robot as in 2005. A pressure pad that creates a no-robot's land when unoccupied would be a valid approach. (Human player steps off, lights turn on to signal the refs to watch. Or if FIRST has a bunch of money in its budget for field construction, a gate that pops up to block robots would do as well.)

You couldn't play this tomorrow, but I think the concept is on track.

[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.

[Leav]

I love the nun-chucks! you could throw them at the bridge from far away and they would catch!

[Ericgehrken]

One element that recent games have been missing was variety in strategy in alliances. The games over the past few seasons have been very straightforward. This season with teams hurdling trackballs and racing. Last season with scoring on the rack and ramping. And 06 with just shooting/dumping balls into goals. What FIRST needs is a game where there are a variety of strategies that prevail. There needs to be simplicity and complexity for a wide variety of teams. A 2004 style game is the change we need.

In Play Pin Brawl there are many objectives. A box on wheels team can score by ramping while a veteran may want to build a hybrid shooter and try to lift themselves on the pole. A variety of strategies will prevail.

Play Pin Brawl
The Field
Play Pin Brawl is played on a 54’x27’ Carpeted Playing Field. The field contains a center game piece structure known as the ball pin. On both player station sides of the field there is a high goal (30” diameter and 12’ high) and two low goals (on ground level). The field also contains a bonus pole and a ramp.









The Game Piece
The game pieces are 3” diameter hard plastic play pin style balls.
The Object
The object of Play Pin Brawl is to gather balls from the Play Pin and shoot them into the goals.
Match Play
Teams compete in alliances of three. They each must position their robots so they are touching their alliance station wall. The ball pit begins each match with 50 balls in it.
Each match is 2:15 seconds in length. 15 Seconds for Hybrid Mode and 2 Minutes of driver control.
Hybrid Mode
Robots start the match with up to 10 balls.
Robots use preprogrammed commands and commands from their robocoach to attempt to score the 10 balls for regular points in either the high or low goals. They can also earn 5 bonus points for crossing the half field line in hybrid. Alliances also score bonus points for touching the outer wall of the ball pit at the end of hybrid. They score bonus points in the following manner, 4 points for having one robot, 10 for two, and 20 for all three alliance robots touching the ball pit wall.
Tele-operation
Robots are now under student driven control and earn points by scoring balls in the goals. 3 points for each ball in the high goal and 1 point for each ball in the low goal.
End Game Bonuses
Play Pin Brawl features many end game bonuses that only one of the two alliances can receive bonus for each. A robot that uses the bonus pole that is 10 feet high to elevate itself at least 1 foot clear of the ground will receive a 50 point bonus for their alliance. A robot that uses the ramp and is fully on top of the ramp will receive a 20 point bonus for their alliance.
In the final 30 seconds of the match the ball pit will become moveable. If an alliance is able to have the entire ball pit in their home zone (within 12 feet of their alliance station wall) then they will receive a 30 point bonus plus 1 point for each ball that is inside of the ball pit.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

End game
Have one goal for bonus points that CANNOT be accomplished by both alliances, or has limited potential to be shared. Swing points are always great strategy focal points, and a massive fight at the end of the match is very exciting to watch. Hanging from a bar is the closest thing we've seen to this in the past few years.

What about the rows in '05? They were definitely swing points that were hard for both alliance's to have. I'd also classify them as "end game", but obviously not "king of the hill"/"position" points.

[evanisthat!]

This game looks a lot like the 2006 Mission Mayhem version of Aim High...
That was an exciting version of Aim High, nothing like seeing those big robots fall of the 2 sided ramp. Also it was in a cafeteria with a low ceiling so that added to the fun as well. Hope it goes well.

[SamC]

I think it would be cool if there were multiple objectives in the autonomous/hybrid period with scoring bonuses if multiple objectives are completed.

Heres the idea,

Task A - "Score High"
Task B - "Score Low"
Task C - "Score Mid"
(Would allow for each robot to do something different)

Each individual objective is worth points on its own (all objectives are of equal value to keep teams from focusing on any one task in their auto programs). But if multiple are completed you earn bonus points.

Task A is completed for +10 points
Task C is completed for +10 points
Bonus of +15 points is awarded for completing 2 tasks for a total of 35 points.
If all 3 had been completed the bonus would be +30 for a total of 60 points in the auto period.

Multiple tasks should not be completed by any one team, but instead alliance partners should work together each focusing on one objective.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Penalties.

I don't see why these are necessary.

The GDC should design games that rely on RULES not PENALTIES. If the GDC wants teams to play a game a specific way they should just say so in the rules. If teams violate the rules they should be DQ'ed or not allowed to pass inspection.

What I don't like are games where the GDC uses penalties to restrict the game play. In my mind this is like saying "Okay, we don't want you to do this, but we'll make it possible for you to get away with it." As a result, teams wind up scoring "negative points" for their alliances...



What I'm trying to say is this: the GDC should never design a game that relies on penalties. They aren't fun, they never seem fair, they make the refs jobs harder, and they make the game more confusing.

Just my 100 cents

[Team 1708 Dave]

Hi From Pittsburgh PA,

This is very exciting to read how thought out the "Games of the Future" could be. If any of these ideas or combination of ideas are used we are in for a very challenging season. I'm a newbie to the whole FIRST competition, and truly enjoyed the experience, 08 season Pgh regional.

Here's a thought that isn't game related but maybe appreciated by the teams. A dedicated team photo spot, fitted with the current years graphics and of course FIRST regional banners and game pieces as props, for the teams to take those all to important team photos.

I understand that some venues are very tight during competition. But during the finals a quick connect rack with a back drop could be assembled. Then the teams that are interested could use the area in a orderly fashion. Our team along with every other team, at the same time it seemed, tried to take team photos with mixed results.

Team photos are more than souvenirs. They are used for marketing, recruiting and fundraising. The FIRST organization could also benefit from this simple addition. There's no way, once the teams leave the event, to recreate that moment in time or even gather everyone evolved at one time. Every emotion is experienced during the events, what better way to capture the future engineers before there famous feats.

Dave

Go Pens!!!

I've been doing a bit of design work for something along these lines: Take the Stack Attack ramp, but instead of having an upper flat area, drop that level down to the floor, in order to create a "trench" of sorts in the center of the field. Near the center of the trench would be two heavy duty steel pipes linking the two sides of the trench. Scoring would be similar to Aim High, except there would be two goals on each side, slightly lower than AIM High, and the scoring object would be foam cubes, rather than balls. Each block fired into the goals would be different values of points, based on the size of the block. In order to aid auto-scoring, a cheap RFID chip would be placed in each block, with a small directional reader in each goal. Small blocks would be worth less points, large blocks more.

For the endgame, whichever team was fully supported on the pipes, and nothing else, would gain a 50ish point bonus, enough to swing the game heavily in either direction.

EDIT: Here's a render of what I mean:

[AndyB]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

I've been doing a bit of design work for something along these lines: Take the Stack Attack ramp, but instead of having an upper flat area, drop that level down to the floor, in order to create a "trench" of sorts in the center of the field. Near the center of the trench would be two heavy duty steel pipes linking the two sides of the trench. Scoring would be similar to Aim High, except there would be two goals on each side, slightly lower than AIM High, and the scoring object would be foam cubes, rather than balls. Each block fired into the goals would be different values of points, based on the size of the block. In order to aid auto-scoring, a cheap RFID chip would be placed in each block, with a small directional reader in each goal. Small blocks would be worth less points, large blocks more.

For the endgame, whichever team was fully supported on the pipes, and nothing else, would gain a 50ish point bonus, enough to swing the game heavily in either direction.

Good lord. So it's like king of the hill at the end, except the loser ends up upside down in pieces...

[lingomaniac88]

I might as well take a crack at this. I know the diagram could be clearer, but things are described better below.

What I particularly like about this game is that there are so many strategies. It is quite a challenge to build a robot that can do everything, but less experienced teams can still contribute to the scoring effort, like in this year's game. (Yay, lapbots!) In addition, the human players have an important role because they may be able to access a scoring location that their robots cannot.

Hold 'Em High

Field:
- The game is played on a 27' x 54' carpeted playing field. The field is split into three zones: a red zone, a blue zone, and a neutral zone. The red and blue zones make up the 12' of the field in front of the red and blue alliance stations, respectively. The 30' in the middle makes up the neutral zone.
- Two of the four corners contain 7-foot "posts" in the shape of isosceles right triangles, and are fenced along the edges of the field. The other two corners contain "chutes" through which game pieces can be delivered to the human players. Neither the robots nor the human players may break the plane of the chute.
- The center of the field contains the "orb roller." The orb roller is an hollow, open-top 5' cube which holds the game pieces during the autonomous period and releases them at the beginning of the teleoperated period by releasing Plexiglas panels. The inside of the orb roller is sloped in the shape of an inverted V, allowing the game pieces to roll onto the field when the panels are released.
- The field also contains two "pedestals," or 7-foot square carts on wheels that are 2.5 feet high. Each one has a small "lip" to keep the game pieces in the cart when it is stationary, but can cause them to fall off if the pedestal is pushed too hard.
- In addition, a 10-foot high "bridge," made up of two lengths of pipe spaced 6 inches apart, goes across the long end of the field. Since game pieces can be scored on the bridge, it has stoppers to prevent the game pieces from leaving the zones.

Game Pieces:
- The game pieces are 60 standard air-filled playground 8.5-inch diameter kickballs known as "orbs." They come in five colors: white, red, blue, green, and yellow. White orbs are standard, red and blue orbs only score for their corresponding alliance, green orbs are covered with reflective tape and used during the autonomous period, and the yellow orbs are the rarest and therefore the most valuable.
- There are 35 white orbs, 8 red orbs, 8 blue orbs, 3 yellow orbs, and 6 green orbs.

Autonomous:
- After the robots are placed on the field, the pedestals are positioned as shown in the attached picture. The six green orbs are placed within the neutral zone, three on each side of the pedestals, and the other 54 orbs are placed into the orb roller.
- During the 15-second autonomous period, robots must find and grab the green orbs. If a robot is in possession of a green orb, it earns 5 points per green orb for its alliance. If a robot is holding three green orbs, it earns a 10-point bonus for its alliance (including the 15 from the orbs).

Teleoperated:
- The teleoperated period is, as usual, 2 minutes long. At the start, the orb roller releases the orbs, allowing the orbs to roll off the slopes in the orb roller. During this time, orbs may be scored by robots placing them or by the human players tossing them.

Scoring:
- Orbs have the following point values:
White: 2 points
Red: 3 points for red alliance, 0 points for blue alliance
Blue: 3 points for blue alliance, 0 points for red alliance
Green: 5 points during autonomous, 0 points during teleoperated
Yellow: 10 points
Orbs are scored if they are completely or partially within an alliance's zone. Orbs may be on the floor, on a pedestal, on a post, on the bridge, or possessed by a robot.
- The following multipliers exist depending on the height of the CENTER of the ball:
x1: less than 2'
x2: at least 2', less than 5' (pedestal)
x3: at least 5', less than 10' (post)
x5: at least 10' (bridge)
A robot on top of a pedestal (yes, I'm serious - think 2004 or 2007) at the end of a match earns 20 bonus points for its alliance.
- Note: The scoring may seem complicated, but it is feasible using some benchmarks on the field, say, the pedestals, posts, alliance station walls, etc.

[EricH]

The one thing I am going to say (well, a few things) about the above are:

1: That's a lot of multipliers!
2: Which size playground ball?
3: The bridge is actually spanning the long side of the field, in the middle.
4: More room would be nice.