Now that the new game for the 2008/2009 VEX Robotics Competition season has been unveiled, we wanted to start a thread where you can share your thoughts, opinions and feedback on the game. (Specific questions about game rules should still be posted in the Q & A sub forum)
We’re excited about the new game, the new season and all the new events being offered around the country and the world. Can’t wait to see all your robots at the competitions!
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts and being an active part of the VEX Robotics Community.
Here are my first impression opinions of Elevation
Playing Field: I think the play field for Elevation provides a very interesting play setting with good autonomous features and many challenges for robot designers. The Auto loaders can provide for quick and easy cube access while the many high goal heights can prove to be both obstacles and opportunities. One thing that worries me is the center platform, and it’s lack of fastening to the ground, and I hope that factor won’t prove to be an issue during the autonomous mode.
Scoring: I feel that Elevation provides a great opportunity when it comes to getting points. The use of cubes is a great shift from the round objects that vex competitions have known since the start. Providing one point for each cube scored in a goal is a good way to get a base score, and seeing how many of the goals you can own may be what make a match. As I said in my response to the countdown thread, I feel that the bonus block is a great alternative to the position based large objects from previous vex competitions (atlas ball & the hexagonal goals) because it should help reduce the pushing wars, and keeping it at only 5 points is a strong improvement to the overpowered elements from past competitions. Having the bonus platform with a 18 inch flat surface is an improvement of the Bridge battle’s smaller platforms, and the large one from Hangin’-A-Round. I do feel that the autonomous reward might have been a few points larger, but with the many scoring opportunities in this game 5 might be just right.
Opposing Alliances: I feel that Elevation has done a good job at putting alliances against each other. With the bonus cube that can go either way from anywhere, there will always be an opportunity to shift the game by 10 points, and the singular platform will very rarely if never provide it’s bonus to more than 1 team. The early game might not be as competitive as past games though, with team simply scoring their own points for themselves but eventually, the battles for who will control a goal should provide a lot of robot to robot action.
SO those are my initial thoughts on the game, now I’m off to find my robot design notebook!
This is going to be a great game. I can’t wait to see how teams are going to approach it. I am mostly excited about the Programming skills challenge as that seems like it is going to be very exciting. I’m also looking forward to the Power Extender, especially after losing power several time in the middle of matches last year:).
I’m going to suggest to my team members that what we thought was a loss of power or computing/communication problems last season was problably something else.
I think that our very heavy robot was overloading our motors, and that the motors were overheating. When they overheat, they shut down…
A pushing contest that causes motors to stall is another way to overheat them.
I am really impressed and can not wait to help the students get started on this game. It looks like some parts are really challenging, but it looks really fun also. I am still surprised that the registration fees are so low, but I am complaining, I think we will be able to sign up 2 or 3 teams.
Now, considering that these things bounce back into shape, i’m assuming it’s legal to squeeze or apply preasure on them to make them more compact in size?
I think IFI did a great job creating Elevation. I don’t believe cubes have been used as a game element in the recent past (2003 FRC doesn’t count), so the playing field will be even so to speak.
What I enjoy most about this game is the possible strategy associated with the game similar to the 2007 FRC game. I predict the amount of scounting teams do this year will greatly impact on their sucess, much more than previous years. The possibility of descoring the cubes plays a huge role in team selection and pregame strategy.
I believe that this year is going to be the best year yet for the vex platform. There are myriad ways to score, yet very few matches will be blowouts. This is because the challenge calls for more strategery than ever before.
