Aim High - 2006 Competition Kickoff!
Written by Brendon Wall on January 07, 2006Every year, the majority of high schoolers counts down the days until December vacation, and that exciting holiday, Christmas. It is only a select few that turn their sights to the weeks after, counting down to the most important part of their year. Once January 1st comes around, members of FIRST Robotics Teams have only one thing on their mind: the Competition Kickoff that will announce the year\'s game. On January 7, 2006, all members and mentors of Team 230 gathered to watch the annual FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff event. Team members began to arrive at 9:00AM for the 10:00AM internet broadcast. Five veteran team members had also returned to the high school for the event, joining in to help with the brainstorming process after the game was unveiled. Beginning at 10:00AM, the broadcast opened with speeches by Dave Lavery, game designer; Woodie Flowers, co-founder of FIRST; and Dean Kamen, inventor and founder of FIRST. Clues about this year\'s game were slowly supplied, as when two members of the National Coast Guard demonstrated safety techniques while using a softball pitching machine. A mock game show was held between Lavery, Flowers, and Kamen to clarify some rules of gameplay. Finally, the 2006 FIRST Competition Game was revealed: Aim High. The goal and challenge of the game this year is to gather and then shoot 7\" foam Poof balls into two lower goals and one high goal on each end of the field. Two alliances, red and blue, of three teams each will compete aginst each other during each match. Balls scored in the low, floor level goals at each corner of the field are worth one point, and balls scored in the 10\' high circular goal are worth three points. The 2 minute and 10 second game is divided into 4 periods of gameplay: 10 seconds of autonomous play, where robots are able to score goals completely due to programming; 40 seconds of offensive play, where the three teams of an alliance are able to score balls in their goal; 40 seconds of defensive play, where two teams of an alliance are able to block the three offensive robots from scoring; and 40 seconds during which all robots are open to score or defend as they choose. Finally, robots ending a match on top of steep ramps at each end of the field win their alliance more points. Once the Gaelhawks had a firm grasp of the concept of this year\'s game, the team broke into smaller groups of students led by one mentor in order to discuss strategies for Aim High. After prioritising the different approaches a team could possibly take when entering a match and deciding which strategies were most important to winning the game, the team once again met as a whole and discussed what each had found during their analysis of the game. Once the entire team had agreed upon the best strategy, they were able to decide how they wanted the robot to perform. By the end of the day, Team 230 had come up with a good idea of what they wanted their robot to do, all within hours of learning of what the game is. Once the Gaelhawks had decided what they would do, they set aside the next day for figuring out how to do it. The next six weeks would all center around ideas and strategies developed on the very first Kickoff Day. It was a very successful and exciting day for the entire team!
