I want to get an early start on this one, what do you think “and be serious” that next years game will consist of? 
Remember:
What you say can and will be used against you by the Game Design Committee in a kickoff of FIRST.
Stack attack anyone? 
I’m serious abot trying somthing underwater. Why can’t we build submersable robots? It would be chalanging, yes, but it is possible.
I see 24’ by 48’ carpet…
I see multi-tiered platforms(ramp or steps)…
I see dave giving clues that leave us clueless…
Other things I possibly see…clowns…robots balancing on segways…KK floppies…field barriers…and pvc…
I feel like a lot of that has been covered here…
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.
The cost to make a submersable robot would be to great. Every team does not have the funding to build a totally waterproof robot, if FIRST ever went in that direction i could def forsee Kit Cost higher. They would have to supply us with stuff to build a waterproof robot.
I think its safe to say in the near future we will not see a water game.
And besides that, can you imagine how much the field would cost!?! That alone would discourage such a game.
Now I’ve only been in FIRST for three years now and so far 2002 and 2004 have been my favorite years. Stack Attack was interesting but in the end it seemed to be too concerned with seeing who could hit stuff the hardest. Balls are fun beause they are so versatile; nearly any sort of game can be designed around them. In that sense I’m kinda partial to balls. But what I would like to see are some serious steps and perhaps autonomous at the end of the game instead of the beginning.
-TD
Ooooohhh, that would be interesting! Teams would have to spend time driving their robots into a certain position for the autonomous. There would also be considerable time spent trying to put obstacles in the way of other robots to impede their autonomous code.
What about each robot having a certain transmitter on it (supplied in The Kit), and the entire game must be autonomous? The humans would be involved with placing objects at the edge of the field, maybe with RFID tags or something, for their robots to go pick up and do something with.
That would be a true demonstration of engineering/programming!
I have to agree. This would make the game much more interesting then having it in the start of the match.
This may sound weird (and probably won’t work for some reason or another, but hey), but i think someone mentioned that they wanted to see the “carpet” changed… well how about a sand box?
I am a strong proponent of having autonomous mode at the end of the match. And not just an auto mode where the drivers line up the bot. This would be something where the bot would know exactly what it needs to do and do it, no humans involved.
Ahh, the yearly tradition. Someone had to bring up the water game idea… it comes up every off-season.
It’ll sound really weird at first, but…I would love to see something based on keeping the drivers totally segregated from the field. I mean have like a blinder set up where the plexiglas usually is, and having cameras mounted on the robots. In the real world, aren’t most controls for robots first person? Think about deep sea exploration robots and robots used to conduct rescues and research in caves where people usually can’t go. Wouldn’t that be cool?
I’m finding myself intrigued by a combination of end-of-match autonomous and either a “musical chairs” or “baseball bat” finish.
When I say “baseball bat”, I’m thinking about something like having the robots latch a ring around a common goal bar, and the robot which ends up with its ring closest to the end of the bar gets the most points.
Regarding autonomous mode at the end of the match:
I think everyone needs to keep in mind that FIRST is about inspiring young people to become involved with science and engineering. Surely some teams, those with great resources and highly skilled programmers, would be able to create robots designed to succesfully maneuver in an autonomous mode held at the end of the match. However, you must try to imagine how hard this would be for rookie teams.
As it was this year, I saw plenty of teams at the richmond regional and nationals that for one reason or another did not take part in the autonomous portion of the match. (I could be wrong, but I think 2 of the teams in the national finals did not move during the autonomous period) Undoubtedly, some of these teams were unable to succesfully program their robots to work during autonomous mode. I would have to guess that the percentage of rookie teams nationwide that were unable to make good use of the autonomous period was also fairly high compared with established teams.
Now imagine that the autonomous period is moved to the end of the match. Teams that were unable to make a succesful autonomous mode for their robot at the beginning of the match would now be utterly (to put it bluntly) screwed. Also, how boring would matches be if during the last 30 seconds, only one or two of the robots was still doing something productive? (It would be like when a couple of robots get tipped over midway through the match and can’t recover.)
We put up with some robots not doing something at the beginning of the match because autonomous mode provides an extra facet to the engineering challenge of the competition. At the same time, this extra facet is not so extreme as to discourage rookie teams from competing. In my humble opinion, to place the autonomous mode at the end of the match would create an obstacle so great that many prospective teams would choose not to take part in the competition. Moving the autonomous period to the end of the match would therefore go against FIRST’s goal of expanding interest in science and engineering to more young people across the country. For this reason I am firmly against moving the autonomous period to the end of the match.
-Andrew
I would prefer a relay race using two allainces of four robots racing through some sort of obsatcles course carrying a bin or a bowling pin with autonomous mode exchanges. Your seeding is based soley on time(if your alliance loses you get an additonal 15 seconds added to your time).
I dont its going to be a water competition, yet…
But a competition were wheeled robots become a disadvantage or unusable might occur sometime soon(a step pyrimids, potholes, “rocks”…). I would like to see a game similar to a giant air-hockey table, that’d be fun. Not sure what human players would do yet, but still. the field could be made entirely from slippery materials, or mainly from it anyway. The puck could be designed to slide on the surface or on casters. A game like this would require power for shoving matches, speed to avoid them, manueverability for the same reason, and a device to give you control of the puck(would you be allowed to pick it up?). Also, the infra-red could be used to have a robot get a point to aim at when shooting the puck from a distance, so you could have an aimer in effect. The devise you use to shoot would also propose another build chalenge. We have to keep in mind that first is all about creating challenges that make every robot unique, and thats the one problem with my idea, so far. A lot of the robots would be similar. Possibly multiple pucks capable of being stacked on one another to create a multiplier for scoring them? And that creates more scoring chances.
I would really like to see a rough terrrain field or items that are challenging to pick up theese balls are just to easy and the crates from last year were demolished within 2 matches. It would also be nice to go back to a game where the robot could score balls so the whole match isnt dependant on your human player.
I think it will somehow involve moving targets and 4 infrared beacons. The robots could use these to triangulate to tell their position, etc. I don’t think that the whole match will be autonomous, as that would be too large of a challenge for rookie teams.