2007: Rack ‘N’ Roll

The 2007 competition was about speed, cooperation, strategy and accuracy. "Rack 'n' Roll" used a model of competitive teamwork, pitting two alliances of three teams against one another like the previous few years. "Rack 'n' Roll" is a glorified version of 'tic-tac-toe' played on a 3 by 8 grid. The 3 by 8 grid is wrapped around a 10 foot tall octagonal tower in the center of the field. The scoring pieces are red and blue pool tubes (toroids) which are placed on pegs which protrude from the octagonal tower or 'rack'. In an escapade away from 'tic-tac-toe', the game also included black pool tubes or 'spoilers' which could be placed on top of the red or blue tubes to negate them.

The 2007 game shares many similarities held over from the 2006 game. Similar to the 2006 game, there were green lights attached to the tower above 4 of the 8 columns of pegs. Teams could use a camera to help align their robot with the scoring pegs to score during a 15 second autonomous period, or during the game. In another similarity to the 2006 game, alliances could receive points for having their robots elevated above the playing field at the end of the game, however, FIRST did not include ramps in the field design. Instead, teams needed to build ramps or elevating devices into their robots so that they could elevate other teams robots above the field at the end of the match.

There were many difficult challenges to overcome for this competition:

• Grabbing, controlling or possessing an inflated plastic pool tube without popping or deflating it
• Quickly placing or removing 'spoilers'
• Keeping track of the rings placed on the rack and calculating, on the fly, the number of points scored during a match using the complicated exponential scoring model.
  • Rows or Columns of colored tubes belonging to an alliance were worth 2 to the power of the length of the row (2ⁿ)
  • Therefore the score for the alliance was the sum of the values of each respective horizontal or vertical series.
  • Alliances could also score 15 points for robots held 4 inches off the floor, or 30 points for robots held 12 inches off the floor.
• Effectively placing tubes on the 'rack' and it's swinging pegs without becoming stuck on the rack
• Complying with new weight/height classes:
  • 4 foot height limit & 120 pounds maximum weight
  • 5 foot height limit & 110 pounds maximum weight
  • 6 foot height limit & 100 pounds maximum weight

2006: Aim High

The 2006 robotics competition was about teamwork and strategy.  "Aim High" pitted two alliances of 3 teams each against each other.  The goal was to take 7" foam basketballs and either launch them at a 30" wide goal, 8.5 feet off the ground or to shove the balls into goals located near the ground in the corners of the large field.

Above the center goals were green lights.  Each team was given a camera that they could use to seek out the light and aim a launcher.

Teams had to face a variety of challenges, such as:

• Programming the robot to recognize patches of green light from the camera, and using this data to align a ball launcher correctly.
• Finding an effective way of gathering, storing, and launching foam balls.
• Climbing a 20-inch long ramp at a 30° angle at the end of the match.
• Designing code to drive the robot in a 10-second Autonomous Mode at the beginning of each match.

Additionally, teams obeyed rules set forth by FIRST to keep the challenge even: 

• The robot had to stay within an imaginary 5-foot-cube box during the match, and must not have exceed ed38×28×60 inches tall.
• The robot must not have exceeded 120 pounds, excluding bumpers and the battery.
• The teams had to accomplish this all within a six-week period.

2005: Triple Play

For more information on the 2005 challenge, please see the FIRSTWiki Entry. For previous years, please see the directory of FIRST Challenges.

This year's contest, Triple Play, emphasizes teamwork and strategy. In Triple Play, two alliances of 3 teams each (6 robots total) faced off in a complex game of tic-tac-toe.

Each team could not necesarily choose their alliance, forcing teams to strategize with people they had never worked with prior to the competition and exploit the strengths of each team's robot to produce the best overall result.

In order to score points teams had to stack tetrahedrons on top of larger goals, place tetrahedrons inside of the goals, or make rows of three tetrahedron-capped goals. If you wish to know more about the rules of the 2005 competition, check out FIRST's Description of the Game (.pdf), or Read the Official Rules of the competition.