First Official 2012 Game Hint

[gyroscopeRaptor]

Originally Posted by Duke461

Guys, guys, guys. Calm down. It's not a water game. It's a mineral water game.

The GDC finally took notice of teams' Mountain Dew capacities. They worked out a special deal with Pepsi...

This year's game is a High Fructose Corn Syrup game.

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by gyroscopeRaptor

The GDC finally took notice of teams' Mountain Dew capacities. They worked out a special deal with Pepsi...

This year's game is a High Fructose Corn Syrup game.

No, no, no. Don't disregard past clues. Remember "mulling"? Apple Cider!

[kendra21093]

I see it being related to two things:
1. Pinball
2. Pushing buttons to do something/get something done.

But I dont know, thats how I see it.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by kendra21093

I see it being related to two things:
1. Pinball
2. Pushing buttons to do something/get something done.

But I dont know, thats how I see it.

1. Pinball

*slow-clap*

I think we found a winner.

Originally Posted by kendra21093

1. Pinball

Will the champs be crowed the "Pinball Wizards?"

[Ninja_Bait]

1. Pinball

Instead of The Final Countdown we will listen to the Who's Tommy.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

If I were guessing... wiffle balls...high initial speeds possible but they quickly slow down... limited flight...
these have been used in other competitions (FTC-VEX)
Cheap, easily obtainable...pretty visible if you get the yellow ones..

size...probably the softball sized ones...

Or perhaps a return to poof balls (hmmm in honor of the 254's CMP alliance win last year?... just kidding)

Those are excellent projectiles of a relatively smaller size... fairly easy to obtain... terminal velocity characteristics are pretty good....we have precedent for their use...

just my ideas... what say you?

I would argue against wiffle balls - they have holes in them, which would make the photosensors (presumably used for tracking scoring in some way) unreliable - if it manages to "see" straight through the middle of a ball due to the holes, it could count that ball twice (the beam would break when the ball first enters, resume in the middle, then break again on the second half). The biggest thing I get from this is that the game pieces are likely solid (referring to the exterior - they could be hollow like a tennis ball, or solid all the way through like a billiard ball), spherical, and numerous. In other words, no Orbit Balls!

[Engineerette]

Originally Posted by eagle33199

I would argue against wiffle balls - they have holes in them, which would make the photosensors (presumably used for tracking scoring in some way) unreliable - if it manages to "see" straight through the middle of a ball due to the holes, it could count that ball twice (the beam would break when the ball first enters, resume in the middle, then break again on the second half). The biggest thing I get from this is that the game pieces are likely solid (referring to the exterior - they could be hollow like a tennis ball, or solid all the way through like a billiard ball), spherical, and numerous. In other words, no Orbit Balls!

Alternatively, they could be similar to ball pit balls. They're hollow plastic, come in bright colors, and definitely have similar flight properties to wiffle balls since they're so light. Couldn't cause too much damage either.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by kendra21093

1. Pinball

Now I am imagining a field shaped like a triangle... Slopes going down each side, the robot's goal is to score into a goal like a pinball game. Except the field is made out of regolith so you can't actually climb the triangle without traction. At the same time the top of the triangle is exactly like Breakaway's bumps. The game specific piece being a... bowling ball!!

I can already see kick-off... Telling us that we need to make our robots robust because there will be bowling balls flying around.

On top of all of this they will still make it a water game by creating a fountain of water all along the pinnacle of the triangle. The water is just a light stream of course, but we have to protect our robots from water damage!

I predict the 2012 game will be the best game ever!

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Wiifi

Now I am imagining a field shaped like a triangle... Slopes going down each side, the robot's goal is to score into a goal like a pinball game. Except the field is made out of regolith so you can't actually climb the triangle without traction. At the same time the top of the triangle is exactly like Breakaway's bumps. The game specific piece being a... bowling ball!!

I can already see kick-off... Telling us that we need to make our robots robust because there will be bowling balls flying around.

On top of all of this they will still make it a water game by creating a fountain of water all along the pinnacle of the triangle. The water is just a light stream of course, but we have to protect our robots from water damage!

I predict the 2012 game will be the best game ever!

Then the new Einstein field MC would be Bob Barker because that sounds exactly like Plinko!

[zaphodp.jensen]

EDITED TO MATCH EXTRA INFORMATION:

The math that I did:
2500 Panel Lights = 2500 Teams --> Thus, this is one order, Possibly for everything they are getting from Rockwell.

14 Amber Stack Lights (Or 14 E-stop Buttons) / 3 per Alliance * 2 Alliances Per field - 2 Spares = 2 Extra Fields Being made this year --> That knocks out all of the remaining stack lights

~250 High Speed Counters & 500 Photosensors = 2 Photosensors to One Counter = Two Seperate and equal scoring Goals for Each Alliance (Like the two Logomotion racks)

500 Photosensors/ 19 Fields = 25 Sensors per field = 12 per Alliance + 1 Spare

250 Counters / 19 Fields = 12 Counters Per Field = 6 counters per alliance

6 counters per alliance = 6 Scoring Levels?

168 Roller Limit Switches= Some lever Element or Robot Interaction Element on Field? These style of switches are not like the standard microswitch that were used on the Tower for Logomotion. These are heavier duty than those, and the roller indicates that something is designed to roll or slide past the switch. With a 99% probability, I can say that these switches aren't intended for user interface, or something like the minibot tower...
168 Roller Limit Switches / 19 Fields / 2 Alliances = 4 Switches Per Alliance


As for Tennis Balls as game pieces, to make a field reset faster what if the field was a gently sloped "^", where the dropped tennis balls roll down to the ends of the field, and were collected in a large hopper? This would eliminate the driving hazards and speed up the field reset... This would also explain the "Heavy" Field, because surface would need to support the robots... And why else would they need the high speed counters? A normal counter would easily have the frequency to count, say, soccer balls rolling through a photogate...

And if the balls rolled back to a hopper, that would mean that the switches could be used to trigger a "Dumping" mechanism that would dump that hopper into a robot, maybe scoring extra points?

This would also be an interesting twist of strategy, making floor pickup less effective due to the game pieces "running away" and a robot that can quickly and effectively travel across the field to collect from the dumpers more effective than floor pickup.

[thefro526]

Pierce, just so you know, there will be 19 fields this year, not 15. This will skew your math a little bit, but many of your points seem valid.

Originally Posted by Bill's Blog 9/15/11

We’re building two additional competition fields this year bringing the total number of fields on the road to 19 (if you include the one packaged and staged for emergency deployment if something should happen to one of the other fields as it travels between events).

[Eric Sakshaug]

Has anyone else noticed the correlation between the numbers for very high speed counter, and the photoelectric switches? The difference is two. I think that this might be where a minibot would come in, if anywhere. Minibots could be faster than normal robots (STEVE!) and with the possibility of six minibots breaking a beam, perhaps several times in a row, the speed on the counter may be necessary. (2)

That, or there might be no minibot, and the robots may have to manipulate several small things into a hopper (ping pong balls? No, too easy to find for FRC, especially near the start of the spring semester for most colleges(tennis balls in the middle of winter are a completely different story, however.)), breaking the beam several times in rapid succession, especially if a team has a hopper that can hold several items at once. A photoelectric sensor would also be required in this case, as a limit switch might not have time to reset, or may not even be able to trigger if the items are too lightweight. (1)

Or, a combination of the two: the robot might have to manipulate a swarm of minibots into a hopper, and they all fly over to a limit switch in the back of the hopper. Your score is reduced based on how many minibots you use. (3)

Of course, the sensors might also be able to detect if the water is overflowing from the game field. (4)

In conclusion, obviously it's a water game.

Kidding. The numbers after each paragraph denotes my perceived likelihood of each event happening, the lower, the more likely.

[Sean Raia]

Im seeing an infared photoswitch, this has the capability to tell if something has interupted the beam in light of dark environments. Why would FIRST order so many photoswitches just to do the job of a ref and look for a robot passing a line? They wouldn't.

I could see a part of the field being obstucted from view.

[CNettles11]

Originally Posted by Sean Raia

I have just been informed that the game is called Bowled Over, appearantly there was a leak on andymark. More info to come.

Bowled over is the FTC game, not the FRC game.