With the Power Up Game Kickoff just 2 weeks away, speculation about the game is all over the place. Many theories have been conceived, contributed, constructed, fleshed out, and in the end were either accepted as a good idea or rejected for being too crazy. Nevertheless, they are always interesting concepts to think about. These are some of the most interesting game proposals that our team has come up with about the 2018 FRC game Power Up.
Our first proposal is a game that revolves around enabling and disabling other robots. The autonomous period of the game will have to do with completing a task to obtain a “power up,” in this case an early start to the game. The rest of the game will be a mixture of obtaining access to new areas (through power ups) to complete tasks such as shooting or placing boxes and using another sort of power up to prolong the amount of time you can control the robot (i.e. if no power up is obtained after a certain time limit, the robot will be disabled). At the same time, you will be able to work together as a team to disable the other team’s robots and re enable your own. It would be an interesting juggling act of trying to score points while making sure your and your team’s robots stay activated.
Our second proposal is a game that is more focused on climbing to and beating different levels. The arena for this one would add a third vertical dimension to the game with multiple levels that can be accessed through either stairs or an elevator. The power up would be used to gain access to scoring points. Once enough points have been scored, the alliance gains access to the higher levels which give an increasing number of points. There would also be obstacles or a maze that would hinder the teams. The power up may be something like inserting a coin into a slot. There would then be a different power up once enough points have been scored to gain access to the next level.
These are only some of the ideas we had while brainstorming and there are bound to be more and more speculations about the game this year. No matter what the game is, with the recent trend in improving game quality and complexity in FRC, no matter what the game is it’s bound to be awesome, cool, and above all, fun.