Think about this years homework assignment. Bring out the media and bring out an audience. What are two of the most popular sports getting media coverage today and large audiences? NASCAR and BASKETBALL.
This years game brings in elements of both sports. I have come up with my list of analogies. Your assignment, should you decide to accept it is to come up with your own. Please feel free to use this thread to make positive comments about any aspect of this years game.
If teams begin to think of this years game as a race and a basketball game combined, they will begin to see that the GDC has given us the tools for one exciting season. Just think of the possibilities. By the way, one of the reasons I like this years game are the similarities to Nascar and Basketball.
I think Aim High was more related to basketball. That was probably the best game to watch. This game is more of a race, it may be a bit more boring to watch, but it should be easy to follow. There’s only 4 balls on the field.
I will say that this isn’t my favourite game but I do see some good in it.
For one, I agree with you both that it is very easy to follow. It took me a good sentence or two to explain rack and roll is very basic terms.
Now I just need a phrase “nascar with huge balls”
a key advantage in the portrayal of this game is that it is incredibly simplistic looking at it from a media standpoint, once you get into the rulebook it obviously become much more complex, but it definetly follows what Flowers said about three tiers of simplicity:first simplicity(what the media views), then the complexity (what we are trying to get past right now), and finally the simplicity behind the complexity (which is what we are trying to design our robot around).
It’s very simple to an outsider, which was my first opinion on the game. “This is so easy”.
Then once I read the rulebook, there are so many complexities. Once you get into technicalities with rules, homezones, hurdling rules, hybrid period, herding rules, etc. its much more complex.
It’s very simple to an outsider, which was my first opinion on the game. “This is so easy”.
Then once I read the rulebook, there are so many complexities. Once you get into technicalities with rules, homezones, hurdling rules, hybrid period, herding rules, etc. its much more complex.
Don’t forget just being able to do the game task.
Making left turns is easy.
Picking up a ball the size of a small moon (slight hyperbole)
Now that’s a challenge.
I like this game because it will be easy for spectators to watch, but challenging for competitors to design and play. It’s a very simple game on the surface, which is great for the audience - everyone understands the concept of racing and making laps, and the addition of the trackballs is also easy to explain. With all the extra rules, the challenge of picking up a ball larger than your robot, and a competition quite unlike anything we’ve seen before, it’s got enough to make it interesting and engaging for competitors. Is it my favorite game ever? No, but it’s got a lot to offer.
This game has several aspects I really like seeing:
It allows the most basic robot (Can you say Rookie team?) to still contribute to an alliance. If a team just assembles the KOP chassis and hooks up the electronics, they can score!
“Middle experienced” teams can stretch their skills and do really well in Hybrid Mode. A small amount of programming and they can score quite well. Add in the use of a gyro and encoders along with the IR board and now you have a reliably killer Hybrid bot.
Senior teams have the opportunity to really strut their stuff. Look for some really awesome bots from this level this year.
This point is actually one of my favorites. Defense, though still present, has been greatly reduced in it’s value and reward. I never have felt that it had much of a place in FIRST. Don’t get me wrong, there can be a lot of creativity and strategy in defense, but they way it has been heading in the last few years, I didn’t feel we were much different than BattleBots. I have always felt there was way more value in designing a robot to achieve something than there was in preventing others from succeeding in achieving what they had designed for.
I fully expect to see some awesome drive trains this year: Holonomic, Swerve Drive, Crab Drive, Multi Speed trannies etc. I’m looking for innovative arms and hoists. Hybrid/Autonomous modes that are very impressive.