Team Roboto #447

Unlike a competition like Battlebots, FIRST creates a new game every year to keep the competition challenging and on a level playing field, regardless of if you are a rookie team or if you are at the end of your 10th year. Below is a description of this years game, followed by a description of every game since the creation of Team Roboto.

2010:

The 2010 game is called Breakaway. The game this year is played on a carpeted field with two bumps cutting through the center, and two towers in the center of those bumps. Breakaway is similar to soccer, with the robots kicking soccer balls into the goals, which are located at the corners of the playing field. Every ball scored is a point. Once they have been scored, the human players must return them to the field or be penalized. At the end of the round, robots may use grappling hooks or extension arms to grab the bars of the towers for extra points. If your robot is hanging from a tower at the end of the match, your team gets two points. If your robot is hanging from another robot at the end of the match, your team scores three.

2009: Lunacy

Last year's game, Lunacy, honored the 40th anniversary of the first manned mission to the moon. Unlike past years, the floor was a surface known as "Rigolith", which, when coupled with the required wheels for that year, created a playing surface that had 1/6th of the friction of carpet, just like you would find on the moon. There were three game pieces in play, known as moon rocks (2 points), empty cells (2 points), and super cells (15 points). The difference between the moon rocks and the empty cells was during the last 20 seconds of the game you could exchange empty cells given to you from a robot for super cells. The object of the game was to get these game pieces into trailers that each of the robots are hitched to.

2008: FIRST Overdrive

The 2008 game was a modified form of a race. The playing field was known as "the track" and had a divider lengthwise down the middle of the field, creating a racetrack, with a bridge known as the "overpass" going widthwise above the course. The object of the game was to go around the track as many times as possible, lifting "trackballs", 40 inch diameter 10 pound balls over the overpass as many times as you could. This year the autonomous period was replace with a "hybrid mode" where instead of the robot acting autonomously, you were allowed to send up to 4 commands to it with a TV, or other IR-based, remote control.

2007: Rack 'n' Roll

The 2007 game shook things up a bit. This year, the playing field was just a typical rectangle, except for a giant 8-sided object in the middle known as "the rack". The object was to get inner tubes co-responding to your team's color onto the rack. There were also black tubes that nullified any tubes place on the same peg, or "spider leg", of the rack. There were 24 spider legs, 3 rows of 8 columns. As inner tubes of the same color formed rows, their point value increased exponentially. That is, one tube got 2 points, two tubes in a row got 4 points, three tubes got eight, four tubes got sixteen, and so on. Finally, there was a 15 point bonus for any robot that at the end of the match was 4 or more inches off of the ground, and 30 points for 12 or more inches.

2006: Aim High

The 2006 game could best be described as a combination of football, basketball, and soccer. The playing field was nothing more than a large rectangle, at the ends of which there were 3 goals, a center goal which was several feet off of the ground and two rectangular goals on the ground. For every Poof ball that was thrown through the center goal on the opposite side of the field as your alliance you would gain 3 points, for every ball that was rolled through the rectangle goals you would get 1 point. The field was split into two halves. During the match each alliance had an offensive and a defensive period. During their defensive period, one robot had to stay behind on their half of the field while every other robot when to the other side. During the last period the goal was to get up on top of a ramp, which would gain your alliance 5 points for one robot, 10 points for 2 robots, and 25 points for all three.

2005: Triple Play

In 2005 the name of the game was Tic-Tac-Toe. This was the first year that alliances consisted of not two but three robots. The game field was set up like a large tic-tac-toe board, except instead of squares the goals were Tetrahedra. Smaller "tetras" were also the game peices, colored red or blue for each alliance. If you had a tetra inside of one of the goals you would gain 1 point, while if you had it stacked on top of the goal you could gain 3. The highest colored tetra owned the goal. If your alliance had three goals in a row, you gained a 10 point bonus.

2004: FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar

In 2004 the game consisted of elements from many of the previous years. This year the playing field was a doozy. There were 2 moving goals, one per alliance, that robots could push into whatever position they wanted. There were also two, larger, stationary goals, and a "chin-up" bar in between them. Just outside the field there were 2 balls, each worth 10 points, that if knocked off of a tee would release several 2-point balls from an overhead ball release immediately, where if the ball was not knocked off the ball release would not be released until 40 seconds into the game. There were three large 2x mulitplier balls, which if they were capped on the goals, would double the score the alliance whose goal they were capped on. Finally, a ten point bonus was awarded to every robot that could "chin up" on the chin-up bar.

2003: Stack Attack

In 2003 the game consisted of 29 rubbermaid-style bins and a large ramp in the middle of the field. The object was quite simple - get as many bins into the opposing team's side as possible. The bins were worth two points a peice times the height of the highest stack of bins. A king-of-the-hill style bonus was awarded to any robot that was on the top of the ramp at the end of the game.

2002: Zone Zeal

In 2002 the field was five zones. Each zone was numbered 1-5. There were 40 balls on the field arranged in each zone. In the center of the field were three movable goals. The purpose of the game was to get as many balls as possible into the goals and move the goals to one of your zones. The red team could score their points by placing any goals in zones 1-2, with bonus points if the goal was in zone 2. For every robot the red team had in zone 5 they gained a 10 point bonus. For blue it was the same as above, but opposite. Instead of zone 1-2 they had to place goals in zones 4-5.

2001: Diabolical Dynamics

In 2001 the playing field was divided in half. There was a bridge in the middle that could remain balanced or tilt to either side, with two movable goals, one on either side of the bridge. There are 20 balls at each alliance station with 20 more balls and 4 large balls at the end of the field. For each small ball in the goal, alliances gain 1 point. If a teams large ball is on top of the goal, they multiply their score by 1.1. If there is a goal on the bridge and the bridge is balanced, the team will multiply their score by 2. Finally, if a team ends a match before the 2 minute time limit, they multiply their score by three.

2000: Co-Operation FIRST

Our rookie year was the year of co-operation! The field this year consisted of two stationary goals with a ramp and a "chin-up" bar connecting them. Each alliance station has seven yellow balls and one black ball, and there are fifteen yellow balls and two black balls on the far end of the field. An alliance gains one point for each yellow ball and five for each black ball in their goal that is not in contact with their robot. A team gains five points at the end of the match for being on top of the ramp and ten points for hanging from the bar at the end of the match.