With FIRST testing a new FMS and about to break the 10k number mark do we think we will see a game with 8 robots on the field anytime soon? The double substation could have easily have been another driver’s station.
Just a note, 10k team numbers handed out does not mean 10k active teams, this year we still had less total matches then in 2019.
With the current field dimensions, 4 robot alliances would create too much traffic. There’s just not enough space on the field to have 8 large robots drive around. The game would also be limited to more open field designs.
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It’s possible to fit more robots on a field if they don’t put too much field element junk in the middle of the field. It would be a big change. If they ever go to 4 vs 4, I would expect that the robot size constraints would get a little bit smaller to help with congestion.
If we add teams to 4v4 events with the idea that we can get more matches per robot per event, we’d still need pit areas for everybody, and more inspectors and referees and such. If the ideas is to run more matches per team, then we’d also have to consider that the time between matches could get really short for 40 team events. You’d be running 1/5 of the robots at the event in every match, so some of the gaps between team matches might only be a match or two before you go back out there.
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Having been to some off-season events with a small number of teams (as low as 23) and several one-match turnarounds, it would change the way successful robots are designed. Forget the goal of, say, an 8-minute intake replacement; you need a 1-minute replacement in queue, or mechanisms that sacrifice something else for durability.
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Where did you hear this because FIRST I think just usually just modifies the actual gameplay part of the FMSField Management System?
It’s been an open secret for a bit. Most of the testing is East Coast areas so we wouldn’t necessarily see it.
I want to say that hardware to build was posted on CD a few years back, but haven’t seen a full system that I can recall.
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100% this. At the 27 team Central Missouri regional last year, there were scheduled breaks between ‘rounds’ of qualification matches to give teams decent sized breaks between matches. This is why teams only received 1 more qualification matches than events with 20 more teams. 4v4 may be worthwhile at big events like the championship, but you wouldn’t gain much at most regionals/districts.
4 team alliances mean either requiring 36 teams for playoffs or only having 6 playoff alliances and changing the bracket structure again to accommodate it. The first option is fine for large events but doesn’t work well for most district events. The second option likely means the controversial round robin format would be deployed at all events.
Regionals would also have even bigger issues with qualification than they do now - if the Championship size stays the same for the foreseeable future then only half of the winning alliance gets to qualify and it puts finalists even further away from getting wildcard slots.
I think a 4v4 game could be fun, but it just doesn’t work with the current state of the competition in my opinion.
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