ABOUT THE GAME
Our team is an FRC team, which means that we take part in the largest competition that FIRST provides. FRC teams consist of high school students, taught by professionals and community volunteers, who build robots over a six week period, then compete against other teams from all over the world. The game itself changes every year, and this season our challenge is:
ROBOT RUMBLE!
In this year’s FIRST robotics game, our robot (that must fit inside the dimmensions: 28" x 38" x 60") has to play basketball with other robots. There are two alliances in each match, one is red and one is blue. Each alliance consists of three robots each and compete against eachother. The alliance with the highest amount of points wins the match.
The robots score by throwing foam basketballs into basketball hoops. This seems pretty easy, but the hoops are actually located in three different heights. The first height is only about 2 feet off of the ground, the second height has two hoops at about 5 feet, and the third height has one hoop at about 8 feet. If you score at the bottom hoop you get 1 point, at the middle hoop you get 2 points, and at the top hoop you get 3 points.
The first 15 seconds of the game begins with robots either controlling themselves (using prewritten code) or players controlling them using an Xbox Kinect camera. This time period is called Hybrid Mode. During this time, robots can play to get 3 points added to any basket they make. After Hybrid Mode, the next 1 minute and 45 seconds is considered Teleoperated Mode, or the time when the robot can be controlled by a human person via the controls.
During the entire game, the field is divided in half (width wise) by a short barrier. This barrier can either be crossed directly (lifting the robot up and over) or indirectly (going over the bridges). During the last 15 seconds of the game the robots have an option to balance on a bridge ( a large teeter totter) of your alliance color for extra points. If a robot manages to balance on a bridge, the team gets a bonus of 10 points. When another robot of the same alliance balances on that same bridge, it gets an additional 10 points added to their alliance point score. There is also an additional bridge robots can balance on that is not assigned to either alliance. If at least one robot from each of the two alliances balances on this bridge, they are given coopertition points that will help the teams get higher rankings during qualification matches. The alliance with the highest point score per match wins, and the teams with the highest coopertition score advance higher in the rankings (and have a higher advantage of making it to the finals)!