Just wondering here randomly. With Microsoft’s XNA Studio, which uses C#, which is based off of C if I remember correctly, why can’t the programmers of the FIRST teams band together and make a video game that represents FIRST.
This is just some of my random musings on methods of spreading the word of FIRST and I realize that this may not be all that feasible in the near future. I just wanted to plant the idea so to speak. But I think that it is something to think about.
A few people have made some simple flash games of other competitions.
Some problems with making a full 3d professional quality game:
*Game changes from year to year
*Wide variety of robots
*Personal/Team time taken up
*Commitment over long time period (some programmers might get discouraged and stop working after a few months)
*Large amount of people needed (coders,artists,designers,etc)
I don’t doubt that the FIRST community could do it, but I don’t think it is a feasible project.
I had that idea about a week ago. Someone else had it some time before then. Interest is high, time is not.
I think interest in doing this is high enough that someone should take the lead. (I might, but I’ll have to think about it.)
I also feel that this would be an excellent solution to robot simulation. For example, a team could demonstrate autonomous routines in the game without the robot being present or running said routines.
Ummm…
Why are we starting from scratch when there’s already a project, albeit an abandoned one? Did everyone forget the Ultimate Robot Challenge subforum? Or does no one have the motivation to learn C++ and CrystalSpace?
From what I gather, the planning was finished and some other stuff too, then the project just dissipated. This was in 2005. I looked.
The question is, is it possible to pick up where they left off? If so, great. If not, then we pretty much have to start from scratch. Some teams have simulators online (I forget just which team does for this year). Those can also give a base to start with.
Someone needs to take a close look at the CVS archive in their sourceforge project, and from there decide if what they have is usable. Tried, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it easily, so I gave up. Short of that, get Mike or Astronouth to post on what they think. The non-sf website is down, but that’s nothing unusual.
(If we, ChiefDelphi people who are vaguely interested, have to start over, my inner python-loving open-source freak wants to recommend Soya, but I doubt enough people would be willing to try it.)
](http://sourceforge.net/projects/furc/)
First Game? Check
Based on Overdrive? Check
Using XNA and C#? Check
Using our friendly robots seen in the yearly game animations? 3 out of 6 so far at least.
6 Players? Check
XBox 360 controllers? Check
Available to the public? Not quite yet
This was developed by Lockheed Martin mentors in their spare time and inaugurated at the VCU/NASA regional in Richmond, Virginia last week.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30905
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30906
I can see this happening. Some things that would be useful.
>MAJOR online version control
>Be able to import inventor/solid works files(both robot and field)
…lol I forgot the other ones that I was going to list.
Like I said I can see this happen, we would just need to make sure that we had pretty of documentation so it can be moved to other FIRSTers easily.
Would be nice to import solid works, etc, but writing an importer requires a whole lot of expert knowledge. Its better if there is some common format that could be used, that people could export their robots into, such as 3ds.
As far as version control, you are talking about open source software, right? We have not ruled out that option. There are benefits and drawbacks, we’ll have to see where it goes.
Seeing as this would be a FIRST related game, I dont see why it shouldn’t be open source. That way, every team can add to it and make it better.
Wish it were that easy… if it was a personal project there’s no doubt I’d make it open source, but things are a bit more complex than that.
Again, the option hasn’t been ruled out, but there are many factors that will go into the decision to make it open source, which I can’t enumerate here. Rest assured, even if we don’t offer the source publicly, we will offer any wide offering as public downloads.