FIRST RPG-style skill-tree

I saw this on boing boing this morning and thought it would be fun to create for FIRST. Perhaps multiple groups, e.g. game, electrical, programming, mechanical groups merging to a “master roboticist”.
http://www.dungeonsanddevelopers.com/#_ab_13_Your%20Name

That site is blocked at work, so I’ll have to look at it later.

I’ve poked around in game theory with respect to running a FIRST team. It was a fun thought experiment with

  • Positive resources that had varying levels of diminishing returns (mentor time, funding, quantity of students, student engagement, experience)
  • Negative resources with scalable impacts (mentor burnout, classroom grades, team dynamics complexity)
  • Goals (reputation, college attendance rates, business success at competition, robot success at competition)

It would be pretty awesome to also incorporate a Robocraft-esque “build season” with 3v3 competitions of different games in FIRST’s history. Short of that, even a card game would allow the mechanics to play out. A card game could even be deployed to the web for easier access.

Ok that is awesome. If you don’t play Warcraft or a similar game I think it might be lost on you but it is very cool.

For first it might be interesting to make a useful version of that. Start out and let the kids work their way through the tree and give a certificate when they complete all the talents.



Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 10.23.54 AM.png


Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 10.23.54 AM.png

Does this mean if I master the skill tree I get to become Andy Baker?

Where do I start? =D