What will be the biggest change?

After reading the little competition preview on the FIRST website, I couldn’t help but get a little bit nervous about the “changes” in the upcomming year. FIRST has taken gambles before with the alliance format (which worked great) and the 4 v 0 format (which didn’t work so great). They pretty much stated that the game is going to have some form of new format to it, and the statement that “there will be a few groans and gasps” doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach. However, on the same level, these new changes could make the game very interesting this year.

My predictions for this year are as follows…

  1. New Format: The format that will make people gasp and groan will be the introduction of pre-arranged alliances. In this format, teams will be given alliance partners at kickoff in which they will be able to communicate, practice with, and build with if the need be. During competition, these alliance partners will play through the competition together.

  2. New Game Elements: New playing field surface, my guess is that it will be astroturf. Also expect some huge type of scoring element introduced into this game, such as dividers instead of multpliers.

  3. The return of the Pacebo!: Yes, the best and coolest robot in FIRST history, the Placebo, will make its return to FIRST this year. But this time it will be used to help teams who are in need with a destroyed robot.

  4. Footballs: Sorry guys, no footballs this year. Actually I am expecting cubes, large, colored, stackable cubes. Can you imagine a game where you have to stack the cubes on top of each other…teams flying to knock over stacks, last second placements…fun stuff.

Chances are, most of my predictions will be wrong, but hey, its all in good fun!

Happy Holidays!
-Andy Grady

hmmmmmmm Cubes you say… I have heard stories of these cubes you speak of, but footballs are also quite alluring. I expect that the objct of the game would be to stack up cubes, and whoever gets the highest, wins, with multipliers for every 5 you stack up (a stack of 5 gets 1.5x, a stack of 10 gets 2x) but, there will also be footballs, whcih you can shoot the other team’s cubes down with. there will also be an incline on either side of the field, but a divider in the middle that will not allow easy crossing.( maybe a pvc fence with 2’x2’ holes that is 6’ high) who knows. I think that this is in the spirit of first, and kinda seems like smething they might do. I will like to say, i have heard nothing that other people havent heard too. I arent getting any sort of extra info, as some people have accused my team of. but if you voulnteer at a kickoff, (as I have) you will learn the game BEFORE anyone else on january 4th. oooh i cant wait.

Your prediction for permanant competition alliance partners is scary. I REALLY REALLY hope they do not do this because some really good teams could get stuck with a really bad team(several times last year we were paired up with people who didnt move the whole game) and all they worked for will go to waste. Thats a horribly scarry idea. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

*Originally posted by Gope *
**Your prediction for permanant competition alliance partners is scary. I REALLY REALLY hope they do not do this because some really good teams could get stuck with a really bad team(several times last year we were paired up with people who didnt move the whole game) and all they worked for will go to waste. Thats a horribly scarry idea. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh **

That is the point of the pre-arranged alliances - the “really good teams” will help the “really bad teams” to build better robots. Soon, the “really bad teams” will become “really good teams” and teach a new team how to build better robots. I personally LOVE the idea of this…

Tom

What about 2 “bad” teams being paired? Would totally ruin FIRST for both of them.

I think Gope was trying to say how sometimes a team gets paired with a bot that doesn’t move or usually has something malfunction and their alliance has to do all the work. Those matches (if the working partner is built to be able to win alone) causes a lot of stress on the team, and also usually the motors.)
Seeing a team pull off a 2 v 1 is good for the wow factor, but a lot of bots are built as a helper (i.e. most of the ball bots last year lost in 2 v 1 competitions because they coulnd’t grab 2 goals or get 10+ balls in the one they could hold)

The cubes idea? Yea, I brought that up early on in the ‘This Year’s Game’ Thread.

plus, with the permanent pairings, anything can go wrong to prevent people from going to a competition. Also, what would happen if only one team prequalified for nats from previous years? Or, if both teams qualified but only one could get the funds to go? It would also be hard for FIRST to pair up teams that were going to the same regionals. They would run into odd numbers everywhere.

As far as the changes I think will happen, I think that we’re going to see some element of play that is not a robot which is entirely unpredictable, or some form of play that could easily damage robots(like climbing or something). I don’t think we’ll have footballs, but the fact that they say they’re majorly changing it leads me to believe there won’t be balls. Maybe there will be no ball like thing and there will only be large things to push around like the goals from last year.

A prediction that a few people thought of last year was this:

Your team builds a robot to compete. The game is set up in alliances 2 vs 2.

However…

Your alliance drives your robot and you drive theirs.

Yikes!

Andy B.

While permanent alliance pairings would add an interesting new aspect to the game, it would also ruin another great thing about FIRST. In the past, there have been times when you are paired with a team for one QP match, and then in the next you are against them. This is something special about FIRST that I have recognized and now treasure. I don’t think they will destroy this.

*Originally posted by Andy Baker *
**Your alliance drives your robot and you drive theirs.

Yikes!**

If I recall correctly you made the same guess last year at kickoff. Fortunately you were wrong and I was $1 richer :smiley:

Seriously I hope FIRST never does it. The competition would look more like a little league game than a major league game because the operators wouldn’t be familiar with the controls & they would be fumbling around. We’d see a lot less of the quick & graceful movement that we’ve come to expect and love from all of the talented FIRST teams and a lot more mistakes & bad driving.

Mike

*Originally posted by Andy Baker *
**Your alliance drives your robot and you drive theirs. **

Looking at that overall, as a driver, it wouldn’t bother me. Yes, it would be interesting remembering the layout of other teams controls, but it shouldn’t be too hard. The first robot I drove is nothing like the second robot I drove, and I had to switch over without any practice at all, and I seemed to manage OK. However, with our drive team, we would run into the problem where the base driver and the operator would be on different sides of the control board than the way we set it up. This would cause a big headache, between myself and the other driver, because neither of us would be able to hear each other, due to hearing impairments on opposite sides. :frowning:

The game with cubes could be interesting. I wouldn’t like footballs though… they would be weird to pick up.

Having a permanent partner could be done. They would have to do it by events though, not for the entire season. You also have to remember that you are supposed to be able to build the best robot possible, if you accomplish this, you should be able to play the game independently. There were many (close to ten) times where we ran without a partner in the 2002 game.

Learning to drive someone else’s robot isn’t as easy as you think it is.

Our robot last year had swerve steering, all of the wheels spun on a chain, and could spin 180 degrees either way with respect to the frame. We had a knob that controlled where the wheels were and a joystick to control forward and back. We had one driver the whole season and it took him 1 1/2 regionals to figure out the controls, and he’s the one that programmed them.

From what I saw we didn’t even have the most difficult controls out there. I don’t think it will be that easy to pick up and drive a new robot in 2 minutes.

Besides all of that, what happens when the robot gets broken because it was driven too hard by another team, who gets the blame? It’s a quick way to make enemies.

The fact that it is difficult to drive someone else’s robot is what would make that aspect of the game a good one to implement. Dean is talking about how FIRST does an excellent job of teaching children what its like to be an engineer. Look at the Segway - the ultimate in intuitive design. In this modern world of computers and cell phones, there is a huge need to make technology simple enough for the common person to be able to use it.

Granted, I still don’t think that it will be done this year, simply because there would be too many problems such as “Your team broke my robot!” along with the previously mentioned fact that fumbling around is not good for publicity. It is a fun idea, none the less.

~Tom Fairchild~

P.S. Brandon, Segway isn’t in the spell checker’s vocabulary!

*Originally posted by Tom Fairchild *
The fact that it is difficult to drive someone else’s robot is what would make that aspect of the game a good one to implement. Dean is talking about how FIRST does an excellent job of teaching children what its like to be an engineer. Look at the Segway - the ultimate in intuitive design. In this modern world of computers and cell phones, there is a huge need to make technology simple enough for the common person to be able to use it.

Sure the Segway is intuitive, but does that mean it’s immediately comfortable to use and easy to master? I don’t know, I’ve never ridden one, but I’ve seen people ride them for the first time on TV shows. They did not look confident, nor were they gracefully and quickly moving around like Dean does, it takes time to be that good. Every device, no matter how simple it is takes a few minutes to grow comfortable with and master.

Two robots with the same IFI single stick control system can behave completely differently depending on motor choice, gear ratios, wheelbase, etc. A good driver could drive either robot but it would take a minute or two in order to get completely familiar with the feel of each bot & to master them.

We’ve briefly had this discussion before. For more of Tom’s and my comments see http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=330

Mike

The pure mechanics of a competition involving driving other teams robots would probably make for a competition of the sort to be quite improbable. A competition like this would have to have your alliance partner driving your robot all the time, and I believe this would make for more danger and problems (i.e. Arguements between teams) if something catastrophic were to occur. After all the bickering between teams in 2001, I would figure that FIRST would try to avoid this at all costs.
Prearranged alliances, though still slighty difficult to pull off, would not be as far fetched. This actually would simulate real world experiences more than ever, with communication between two parties working together to perfect designs to compliment each other. The biggest problem with this would be distances. Teams who are closer together would have a decided advantage over teams who are further away. For instance, say in the New England region, teams who are attending the Granite State Regional are paired together at kickoff. A team comprising of, say, Hyper, out of Quincy Mass (in Boston), and Gompei out of Worcester Mass, would only be 45 minutes away from each other, thus allowing for these teams to interact not only by electronic or phone communication, but also by physical visits. Now say CHAOS out of Manchester, New Hampshire gets pre-arranged with the German team who will also be competing at the Granite State Regional. They are given a decided disadvantage due to not only distance, but the possibility of language barriers.
So the question now arrises, what could the format change mentioned in the kickoff preview be? For the sake of even further arguement, lets take a look at some more format possibilities…

3 v 3 Competition Play: 3 on 3 has been done before in the competition preview games such as the Chief Delphi Invitational. Not sure how they worked out, but im sure the extra team added to the field brought a whole new element to the game.

Split Field Competition: Lego League type play. One alliance shares one field, one alliance shares another, and they compete in a completely non-physical matchup to score the most points. Only interaction between alliances would be by scoring on the other alliances field in some way. In my opinion, this would be another dangerous move on FIRST’s part, as it just flat out is not nearly as exciting as physical competition.

Autonomous or Partially Autonomous Play: Another competition which I feel isn’t as far fetched as it may seem at first. Though programming would be difficult on rookies, with FIRST toying around with autonomous competition with lego league, along with the introduction of more powerful sensors each year, as well as the success of some teams using the light sensors last year, there is a very distinct possibility that we could see something along this line this year. Being an electromechanical major, I would like this competition, but with strategy and excitement, i think it would take away from the game.

 Of course chances are, the new format will be something totally crazy and unexpected.  Either way it should be a very interesting year.

Happy Holidays,
Andy Grady

Here’s a thought

This year the game will be different, the kit of parts will be different, the kickoff itself will be different, and it will be even more intense and exciting than usual.

What this really means:

  1. The game will be different.
    ---------- It is different every year.

  2. The kit of parts will be different.
    ---------- Again different every year.

  3. The kickoff itself will be different.
    ---------- Well duh they said what would be different
    “flashy multimedia presentation”

  4. More intense and exciting than usual.
    ---------- I think this is about that “flashy multimedia presentation”

So… Why at least 2 gasps and groans…

You’ll gasp at the “flashy multimedia presentation” and you’ll groan when you see that the only thing that is different with the game and kit is that they are the same changes you get every year.

Hahahahahahaha…

Well, normally, I would probably agree with you. But everytime I have talked to a FIRST staff member over the past few months, the only thing they all seem to say is “Its gonna be verrrrry different this year.” Also, they seem to have a look in their eyes that resembles a deer in headlights when they make that statement.

Something is definately up.

Peace,
Andy Grady