I am kind of surprised at how people focus so much on “scoring elements” that everyone assumes must be some sort of small, movable object that there are several dozen of on the field, which the robots manipulate for score. I think things like hanging on the bar or last years ramp are more interesting methods of scoring than just moving around bunches of balls, floppies, or whatever else you like. If there is stuff to manipulate, it would be interesting if there were fewer so robots wouldnt spend time “farming”, especially when the match is so short. I like the idea of something like the capture the flag where there would be few elements and which would require alliances to work together to a much greater degree.
Well, well, well, Chris… Aren’t we just the excitable one? 
I really like that idea too. Though the thing I fear is how much it would turn into a battle bots type match. It would be robot vs. robot the whole time.
I think to remedy that you take a cue from FLL. Rather than do a LOT of Robot vs. Robot, do more Robot Vs. Field. Throw some more obstacles out there.
Maybe the robot has to trigger a lever to let down a bridge (NO, I am NOT serious, this would cost insane money and I’m using it in an exaggerated sense to demonstrate a point).
…Although I’ve always seen FLL as the graduation from Robot vs. field to Robot Vs. Robot, and I LOVE robot vs. robot.
I do think that this is probably the major concern with having less “robot vs field” and more “robot vs robot” as specialagentjim calls, but this is where the real challenge in designing the game comes from. Robot vs Field just seems to defeat the purpose of getting dozens of teams and thousands of people together when the robot could be doing everything its doing with only 1 other or no other robots. I think a larger degree of interaction between robots than this year had is important.
I’ve seen some examples of robot vs. field, and I’m personally not a fan. And if I can’t get into it, I have little hope for spectators. But maybe that’s me.
I could seriously see a CTF game in FIRST. Or, if we were gonna get really sweet, perhaps laser tag. I mean, we’ve already had to deal with infrared sensors once before, now let’s have the robots go to town with 'em!
Thing is, how would you reset after a capture? Have a ref release another flag once an alliance scores, or just have a lot of flags? One requires a lot of neutral human (ref) intervention mid-match, the other puts us right back where we were to begin with. Ah well…FIRST has a way of working that out.
Well i wasn’t thinking about exactly a CTF game, just the idea of all teams focusing on one or a few objects. To make the game as complex as this year, their would need to be more to it, like a human player’s involvement and the oppurtunity to put lots and lots of things on your chasis other than a drivetrain so it can’t be just grabbing an object and driving with it. The field could have many manipulable/movable items that could affect gameplay. just a simple way to deal with the problem you mentioned, scoring could be based on the time a flag is in the scoring zone, not just entering the scoring zone, that way the opposing team could recapture it. Obviously, a significantly larger amoutn of thought needs to go into this than we can give here just typing away at our PCs.
I didn’t like the ramp… You see too many robots tipping because of their center of gravity or robots having “plows”… I hate it when robots tip because matches just get boring… You need a lot of excitement and the more options and different ways to score then the more excitement there is…
i don’t konw… just my opinion…
With the capture the flag kind of idea, you could have some sort of object that the robot had to manipulate as the “flag.”
Ex…some sort of ball…bin…floppy…or some other unknown object. It would allow for both talented veteran teams and rookie teams to compete…because a robot could get in the way no matter how simple it is.
a double decker field with ladders will be interesting. ramps, stairs… thats already been done. a rope ladder would be even more interesting.
or maybe a game that uses deflated balls and you get points by blowing them up
I have always thought about a double decker field… I would absolutely love to see HOVERCRAFTS!!! That would be crazy but I think that that would never happen… Well, not in this decade…
A water Competition would be good but… not to put all the teams down but some teams have a hard time building a robust robot. To build one thats 100% waterproof will be trying and hard espicially with the currently set 130lbs. w/ battery.
Another issue that may arise is this robots would be small ones. for the simple fact that you cannot lift a 130lb robot out of the water w/o a crane. The playing field would not be very big either.
I too would like to see a water competition but it would be too hard of game. Many things would have to be changed and the problem would be how interesting could it get.
If anything I would like to see Multipliers and many scoring options available with the “Winner Gets the Loser Score for QP’s” And the 0 - 1 - 2 Method for Ranking.
Same Field, maybe with hanging objects in which robots have to retrieve and place in their Respective alliance zones. Maybe put the E-Stop Buttons to use again and end the match at your own free willing. Almost like in 2001 where where if you ended the match after a certain time you get an X amount of points. This type of game wouldn’t be very spectator friendly but nevertheless has some ideas that could be usable.
Ahh the copy and paste is such a godly tool - thanks to jessica she had posted in a newly started threadthat was created by anonymous (too lazy to look) the link to this one.
Thank You Jessica
High school students + electronics + water = hahhahahahah
That could be cool if it would work…
[quote=Greg Young]We’ve heard over and over that IR tracking is going to be essential in the future. I think Dave’s been reading too much Harry Potter. Think Golden Snitch.
One game piece is a small autonomous robot with an IR beacon on top that moves around the field. The direction of motion is under control of a random number generator with ultrasonic range sensors for object avoidance so it can run away from robots that are trying to capture it. Its maximum speed is 3 to 5 feet per second.
QUOTE]
so how about this.
there is a Roomba (that robot vacuum) on the field, with an IR beacon attached to it. catch the roomba.
The time multiplier concept would be great to have. A fun time for strategy. Once you clock out your are dead for the rest of the match, leaving your opposing alliance freedom of teh field. Interesting.
I think the game next year should focus more on precision. We’ve seen the drive train feature gaes, like 2002 and 2003, and basic manipulation of an object, so how about something harder. Place a tennis ball atop a 6ft pole. Turn a doorknob to trigger somthing.[/quote]
I have information from an inside source that the field will most likely be the same general side next year. One interesting idea I heard was to have the robot assemble something from parts on the field then use that thing to do thing X (climb, stack, push, open, etc.). A larger vertical element to the field (i.e. things hanging from the ceiling) would also be nice.
I could understand the field being about the same size…if nothing else, FIRST can re-use most of the walls. Just patch up the ball chute.
Assembly of something would be good, as long as the parts were easy to manipulate. Rubbermaid containers are one thing, baseball-sized parts are another.
Perhaps robots have to stack up a staircase to climb? (The only hitch would be making the staircase stable–can’t have other robots knocking your stairs from under you, can we?)
Maybe they are just dropping all these hints about IR sensors just to throw us off?
Anyway, I think a cool idea would be to have autonomous mode in the middle of a match instead. It would be even cooler if things just went to autonomous in the middle of the match and your robot had to move itself somewhere in autonomous and depending on where it moved itself, that is how many points they would get. The only problem I could see here would be for the referees. They could also have something when in that autonomous, you had to trip some kind of switch to get extra points.
Let’s just remember that while there are plenty of great veteran programmers out there, there will also be newbies coming on who barely know C and will have trouble doing an autonomous, period.
Well my first comment is how about a differnt starting posistion. Not RIGHT in front on the drivers but maybe up on a ramp? And if the same old boring starting possitions stay, maybe one side consists of a red and a blue, two opponents on the same side and visa versa for the other side.
Now that I got that out, how about a task that a robot can do, to give their team an advantage, for example: A button that if pressed (one time per match) the opposite team gets a blind sheild for 15 seconds. Maybe there could be mutiple tasks and your alliance can only pick one to use against the opponet, if they can reach it (maybe very hard to get?) I think that that would be a GREAT idea. It would involve alot of challange, a big race to do what ever the task is, and ALOT of strategy. (maybe have to do it in auto or else it doesnt do anything like this years.) Well those are my ideas…what do you think?
A few of the main things that I think will be kept for all FIRST games are the elements of safety, mobility and “cheapness”.
Safety: Making sure everybody is safe (or else they might have some legal issues). I think the reason they choose larger objects is because it is harder for them to fly off the field and hit somebody. If you have people throwing frisbees and tennis balls, it gets a little harder.
Mobility: Not sure if this is the right word I want, but it will have to do. FIRST is growing to like 29 regionals or something similar, and they need to make sure they can take all of the materials needed for the game easily. You can’t guarantee heights of ceilings and whatnot, and constructing one isn’t very feasible.
Cheapness: Keeping things cheap. I remember talking to one of the Regional Directors last year (after 2003 game) and they were really upset at that game (for many reasons obviously) partly because the bins would break constantly. Not very many bins lasted more then a few matches. This year was slightly different, but the 2x ball bursting was another cost hitter. I believe FIRST will go for something that will not take a hit on the budget.
But then again who knows…
Chris
I want to see some limited visibiility in the next game. I am kind of a fanatic about FIRST, and I love how this year there was no “best bot” this year, like wild stang last year. I
Back to the limited visibility,
This would be crazy, and it involves an elevated human station
1 1/3 of the field is visible to all
2. the remaioning 2/3 of the field is variable, (starts split 1/3 red 1/3 blue)
- Human players, with the aid of robots, get frisbees and throw them at frisbee golf hoops. If a player’s frisbee hits the chain, then some of the variable feild swithes to the other teams.
I know that this would be a nightmare game, but it would be a very interesting and crowd-pleasing game, i would like to see something like it.