I think if we voice our ideas, suggestions, or comments FIRST will listen to us and take them into account. So if you think of a game idea, a better way to organize the comp or just telling them they did a great job, do it here. I want to start by saying for the past two years I have been in FVC I have enjoyed the “ball scoring” game ideas. I think they should do it again but this year with maybe high middle and low goals, and no atlas ball (there were some games where teams would not have the slightest chance of winning w/o the atlas ball) also I think we should be a little more like FRC and have 3 bots playing on one alliance. My last suggestion is that all fields/ teathers/and crystals are tested months in advance.
I think we should do the same games as the FRC teams on a smaller scale. However I like having the atlas ball because its one more thing teams hae to look for. I really like the idea of 3 team per alliance but the field has to be a lot bigger to hold 6 robots and have them move freely.
I’d agree the atlas ball or anything similar is too much of a swing. Also lets go to a 16x16 field size. The 12x12 is really tight especially with the 18x18x18 robots. All that it would take to make the field 16x16 would be 4 more side panels and 28 more floor tiles. Going 16x16 would almost double the field area making it easy navigate and move stuff around. The current field area is 144sqft a 16x16 would be 256sqft.
2 robots per alliance in VEX is nice it’s easy to communicate and work as and alliance.
On doing the same thing as FRC but on a smaller scale, that might be an interesting off season idea but you wouldn’t be able to work on the FVC until Jan. when the FRC kickoff is held. I know I’m on both a FRC and FVC team and if it was the same game that just wouldn’t work.
Yea 16x16 is plenty of room and would make the 3 robot allainces possible. I;m not sure about getting rid of the atlas ball though. It adds an interesting variable to the game, Hasn’t your team ever won because of the atlas ball? Or have any of you lost because of it? I know its basically yes or no but lets see what the results of the question are.
So I ask everyone to post if the atlas ball has helped or hurt them.
As far as the atlas ball, I just think that is saves too many teams from being slaughterd. If your robot’s design is not good enough to compete then I think it should show on the scoreboard. Because if not it gives teams a false sense security, thinking their robot is good instead of going back to the drawing board to make it better. Not to low blow anyone, my team for one didnt do as good as we thought in the Georgia regional so we scraped our bot and re designed.
P.S. did any one tape all the matches like they said they would? I would buy it if so.
I’m working on getting them uploaded. I have a lot of matches but not all.
We have been both saved by and lost by the atlas ball. If it was worth a solid 10-20 points I think it would be a good addition but by straight up doubling the score it can throw a match out the window. Also with the 12x12 field it was extremly hard to move around, there just wasn’t enough space.
If you run a match without the atlas ball you see the robots becoming more competitive and working on scoring faster and higher. Then you get robots hanging and on the platform. I know this because we have a field at my school and 3 teams and 4 robots so we run lots of matchs. The atlas ball also just plain gets in the way.
Okay but I bet that without the atlas ball there would have been many different teams at the atlanta competition.
shs… Good idea; but you forgot to do a search on Chief Delphi before starting this thread.
The FVC Game Design Committee (GDC is already on record asking for your/our suggestions in a thread there (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47862).
So folks, like shs suggested, post your suggestions. Just do it there as well as here. Please limit “discussions” in the CD thread to one-time assertions about good/bad game ideas. Don’t fill it up with a bunch of 1-liners. That way it will stay compact and be more useful.
I suggest we do the back-and-forth debating here (if we need to do it anywhere) and post conclusions over there.
Sound good?
Blake
Some teams lack the creativity and funding that are required to build such a robot like you talk about. Lets put this to rest because none of the teams talking about it need to worry about the atlas ball.
I agree. but in order for this forum to be successful we need alot of teams to post alot of ideas and we are the only ones posting
Only a percentage of the people on this post will care. Other people will just read the threadand take whatever challenge is made up by IFI. We need something to get everyone involved in this decision so we can all play a game we want to. Corplalchee in a reply to this picture you said youd like to see the FRC challenges scaled down.
https://vexforum.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=322&c=8
What peculiar thing to say. You must view game from a different perspective than I. I tend to think a strategy of controlling the Atlas ball in order to defeat one’s opponents is rather wise.
If your robot loses to teams that control the Atlas ball, then maybe your robot isn’t good enough to compete?
If a robot should happen to win more often than it loses (as a consequence of controlling the Atlas Ball and doubling all the softballs they put into goals) then I think the sense of security is rather real, not false…
Thinking that one design/alliance is better than another because the first design can put 99% more softballs into goals, is a false sense of security if that other design/alliance can score it’s balls AND control the Atlas.
100x1.99 is less than 100x2; and it will show “on the scoreboard”.
The rules don’t say the objective of the game is to put more softballs into goals. The rules say that the objective of the game is to have more points than the other alliance at the end of the match.
Blake
PS: I dislike the Atlas too, it is too unpredictable. I am a fan of tossing it out of the match at the earliest moment. Even if (over the long haul) you have a design that will win more than it loses, no tournament I can imagine lets you play enough matches for the long haul to occur. The Atlas ball puts a ton of “noise” (randomness) into the small samples of team performance that are taken at FIRST FVC competitions.
It’s still the first hour of this thread more people will come, also going along with what blake says post what you think here first and then after you see what other people say either post it over at CD or change your idea and then post.
Tmaxx, you’re saying that some teams lack the creativity, well the FVC is designed to be a kinda intermediate step between FLL and FRC. Presumably many teams won’t have amazing robots if they are being designed entirely by students, which is the way it should be. It doesn’t take too much work/creativity to do one task and presumably once a team saw how their robot preformed they would be able to fix problems and make improvements. Obviously money is a limiting factor and thats unfortunate but creativity shouldn’t be especially when you can keep rebuilding your robot.
True I did see I would like to see it scaled down but as and off season competition not as the FVC. I beleive there are going to be some 1/3 rack and roll comps this summer anyways.
My team went to a scrimmage and did great. We went to farmville regionals and did great until we were outsmarted. Others say we only had a square bot but we outmanuvered almost every other robot there. Its our first year and we had no clue what we’d be up against and we didn’t even start until a month and a half before the regional came up. We did not lose because of lack of creativity, we lost because of inexperience. Our only strenght was my driving ability because of my experience with larger r/c cars and our robots speed. Right now I am looking at what i believe to be a great robot for this competition but I cant say what it is because of other teams. We’ll post pictures next sunday after the scrimmage is over. Blake is the rack and pinion robot done?
This was my first year with the vex kit and the FVC. The first design of my robot was a square bot base with a weak arm. I saw how it performed and what needed to be done to improve it and made the improvements. I’ve found that VEX robots evolve where as the FRC robots can’t evolve due to the 6 week build period. I like the fact that the FVC robots can evolve.
I disagree with everything you are saying. The FVC robots do not have to be that intermediate design or about the same uniform design. They are when it comes down to the same kinds of metal and electronics, but building them CAN be completely different. And our robots were design completely by students, our one Coach/Mentor has not laid literally one finger on our robot. I beleive that the crowds at the events we have attended would think that our robot is amazing. We have had tems at the VCU exhibit actually couldn’t believe how affective our robot was when they saw it at the VA Tournament and were rooting for us the whole way. And for our first year competing every robot we have built, we have not seen one like it at all. I beg someone to search for pictures, I have and can’t say that I have found anything realting to them. So all the teams out there who are short on funds, be creative, it will save you money in the long run. It has for us. We have a ton of parts left over.
As for the new games, I would like to see something with hanging and use of the softballs again, maybe some sort of obstacle course.
I think you misunderstood me when I talked about mentors and robots. What I meant was, and you see this in the FRC all the time, is that some teams you look at the robot and can obviously see that it was not built by students. It is too perfect, and sometimes you can be wrong there are some really talented kids out there.
An example: Not too be ungracious or anything but it was pretty apparent to members of my team and other too I think that the Vexy Things robot was not built by the 2 girls on the team.(thats all of the team I saw in Atlanta it least) Now maybe I’m wrong but from watching the matches and looking at their robot I don’t beleive it was built SOLELY by them.
Also I’m not saying that everyone should build the same robot or have the same design and I understand that most teams don’t use the FVC as a step between the FLL and the FRC, but that is from what I understand what FIRST intended it to be. I believe it will grow to be it’s own thing.