Rack 'n Roll

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Rack 'n Roll
Year 2007
Number of Teams 1305[1]
Number of Regionals 37[2]
Championship Location Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia
Chairman's Award Winner Team 365 - "MOE"
Woodie Flower's Award Winner Dan Green
Team 111
Founders Award Winner General Motors
Champions Team 190
Team 987
Team 177


Rack 'n Roll is the game for the 2007 FIRST Robotics Competition season, announced on January 6, 2007. In it, two alliances of three teams each compete to arrange toroidal game pieces on a central arena element known as 'The Rack'.

Contents

[edit] Robots

"Raptor", Team 254's 2007 robot.
"Raptor", Team 254's 2007 robot.

[edit] Classes

Robots fall under three different classes restricting their maximum weight and height. These classes are:

Class I II III
Height 48 in (1,219 mm) 60 in (1,524 mm) 72 in (1,829 mm)
Weight 120 lb (54 kg) 110 lb (50 kg) 100 lb (45 kg)

[edit] Other restrictions

Robots also must have a maximum starting footprint of 28" x 38" regardless of class. Robots may expand once the match has begun. The game manual includes other rules restricting various aspects of the construction of the robot that have been put in place for the purpose of safety and fairness.

[edit] Field

The Rack, as shown in the 2007 game manual
The Rack, as shown in the 2007 game manual

The Rack 'n Roll field is dominated by 'The Rack', a large metal contraption with three levels of hanging metal bars, with each level having 8 arms evenly spaced in an octagonal manner. Each arm (known as a 'spider leg') has space for two game pieces. Any more pieces placed on a spider leg beyond the first two are ignored for scoring purposes. At the beginning of the match, the rack is arbitrarily translated or rotated within three feet of the center of the field in order to give some randomness and to encourage autonomous modes that do not depend on dead-reckoning. At the top of the Rack are four green-colored lights above the 1, 3, 5, and 7 legs to aid in autonomous-mode tracking.

[edit] Game pieces

The game pieces in Rack 'n Roll are inflatable toroidal pool toys. There are 3 styles: Keepers, Ringers, and Spoilers. Keepers are tubes with lettering that are placed only during autonomous mode and, once placed, override any pieces placed later for scoring purposes. Ringers are undecorated tubes that are delivered onto the field either by human players via chutes, or are picked from the floor. Nine ringers of each color start on the field in the opposing team's start area (so the 9 blue ringers are in the red alliance's end zone, and vice versa). The other nine start behind the end wall, to be given out by human players. Spoilers are colored black, and cause the spider arm holding them to be ignored for scoring purposes. Spoilers can be removed or repositioned on the rack by robots multiple times. Each alliance starts with two spoilers, accessible by their human players.

[edit] Game play

Each match of Rack 'n Roll is 2 minutes 15 seconds long, divided into three segments. The first segment is a 15 second autonomous period, where robots may attempt to place keepers onto the rack without human input. Once autonomous mode is complete, any keepers not already on the rack are no longer valid for scoring. The second segment, the teleoperated mode, is 2 minutes long, during which robots are operated by the drivers and may roam anywhere on the field. In the final 15 seconds, the end game, robots may not enter their opponent's end zone, but all other rules remain the same from the teleoperated period. Though the head referee may pause the game between the autonomous period and the teleoperated period, the end game follows directly after the teleoperated period.

[edit] Scoring

[edit] Rack scoring

The primary method of scoring in Rack 'n Roll is by making rows and columns of tubes on the rack. A row or column of n tubes is worth 2n points to a maximum of n=8. Note that this includes rows or columns of length 1, so a single tube on the rack that does not form a row or column is worth 2 points. Teams have access to 21 scorable keepers and ringers. This means that the maximum possible score from the rack should be 596 . That is, two rows of 8 ringers, a row of 5 (2 ringers plus 3 keepers), 5 vertical columns of length 3, then 3 vertical columns of length 2.

[edit] Robot scoring

Team 573's 2007 FRC robot scoring
Team 573's 2007 FRC robot scoring

As is usual in a FIRST game, robot positions at the end of the match are worth bonus points. In Rack n' Roll, each robot in its alliance end zone that is not touching any field element and has its lowest part 4 or more inches off the ground will score 15 bonus points. A robot that is not touching any field element and has its lowest part 12 or more inches off the ground will score 30 bonus points. Since robots may not be touching any field element, this means that in order to score bonus points, teams will have to depend on their alliance partners to provide mechanisms to lift their robots or will have to have mechanisms to lift their alliance partner's robots. Since at least one robot must be touching the ground in order to lift the other two alliance robots off the ground, the maximum conceivable bonus points an alliance can score is 60 points.

[edit] Kit of parts

The kit of parts included a few new items, including a new battery and the new EasyC Pro. One substantial rule change is that batteries from previous competitions are not legal, a change that can be easily enforced since the 2007 batteries are visually different from earlier batteries.

[edit] Notable events

In the first week of regionals, a bug in the match scheduling system caused many teams to face one other team in all or almost all of their matches[3].

[edit] Regional winners

The top three teams in each of the 37 Regional events were invited to attend the Championship event at Atlanta, GA.

[edit] Week one

BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional Winners:

NASA / VCU Regional Winners:

The winning alliance of the NJ Regional Event
The winning alliance of the NJ Regional Event

New Jersey Regional Winners:

Pacific Northwest Regional Winners:

St. Louis Regional Winners:

[edit] Week two

Arizona Regional Winners:

Bayou Regional Winners:

Finger Lakes Regional Winners:

Florida Regional Winners:

Great Lakes Regional Winners:

Los Angeles Regional Winners:

Pittsburgh Regional Winners:

Wisconsin Regional Winners:

Brazil Pilot Winners:

  • Team 1860 - Johnson & Johnson & CEPHAS - H.A.Souza Professional Training Center
  • Team 1382 - Johnson & Johnson & ETEP - Prof. E. Passos Technical High School
  • Team 2243 - Fundação Bradesco Campinas Fundação Bradesco

[edit] Week three

Boilermaker Regional Winners:

Chesapeake Regional Winners:

Detroit Regional Winners:

Greater Kansas City Regional Winners:

Midwest Regional Winners:

Peachtree Regional Winners:

Silicon Valley Regional Winners:

UTC Connecticut Regional Winners:

New York City Regional Winners:

[edit] Week four

Boston Regional Winners:

Buckeye Regional Winners:

San Diego Regional Winners:

Waterloo Regional Winners:

[edit] Week five

GM/Technion Israel Regional Winners:

  • Team 1950 - Ramot Hefer highschool (The Crackbots)
  • Team 1657 - Mevo'ot Iron (HaMossad)
  • Team 1574 - Misgav (Miscar) - Iscar

Colorado Regional Winners:

  • Team 555 - Montclair Robotics - Montclair, NJ
  • Team 1583
  • Team 1636 - Arvada High School/DeVry University/Lockheed Martin/Spectrum General Contrators Inc./First & Safety/Great Divide Door Service

Davis Sacramento Regional Winners:

Greater Toronto Regional Winners:

Las Vegas Regional Winners:

  • Team 1425
  • Team 254
  • Team 1983--Skunkworks--Seattle, Washington

Lone Star Regional Winners:

Palmetto Regional Winners:

  • Team 1319
  • Team 832
  • Team 342

Philadelphia Regional Winners:

  • Team 84 - DuPont/NE PA Tech Prep Consortium & Athens Area School District & Northeast Bradford School District & Towanda Area School District & Troy Area School District Website
  • Team 341 - Rohm & Haas Company/BAE Systems/Johnson & Johnson PRD/Siemens Corporation/DeVry University & Wissahickon High School & North Montco Technical Career Center Website
  • Team 181 - Pratt & Whitney/United Technologies & Hartford Public Schools Website

SBPLI Long Island Regional Winners:

West Michigan Regional Winners:

[edit] Championship

190, 987 and 177, the 2007 FRC World Champion Alliance.
190, 987 and 177, the 2007 FRC World Champion Alliance.

The 2007 Championship event was held in the Georgia Dome from April 12-14, 2007. 344[4] teams from around the globe competed in four divisions for the Championship title.

[edit] Division champions:

These were the teams within each division that won their respective divisions.
Archimedes: Teams 179, 233, 71
Curie: Teams 910, 1270, 330
Galileo: Teams 1902, 173, 1319
Newton: Team 190, 987, 177

[edit] Einstein playoffs

The four division champions played each other at a fifth, central playing field for the title of Championship Winner.

SF 1-1: Galileo beat Newton, 54-32
SF 2-1: Archimedes beat Curie by way of a disqualification. A Curie robot earned a red card for tipping an Archimedes robot. This was the first time a robot was disqualified on the Einstein field during the final rounds of the FIRST Championship.[5][6]
SF 1-2: Newton beat Galileo, 48-34
SF 2-2: Archimedes eliminated Curie, 88-74
SF 1-3: Newton eliminated Galileo, 44-32
Final 1-1: Archimedes beat Newton, 50-34
Final 1-2: Newton beat Archimedes, 72-58
Final 1-3: Newton beat Archimedes, 59-54, to become the 2007 Championship Winner. [7]

[edit] Notable events

  • Chad Hurley, cofounder of YouTube, was a guest speaker before the final matches on Einstein Field. This makes 2007 the second year in the row in which a Google employee gave a speech before the final matches. In 2006, Sergei Brin was a speaker.
  • Three of the alliances that won their division and competed on Einstein field had a former world champion in their ranks[8][9][10]. These robots were 71 for Archimedes, 330 for Curie, and 173 for Galileo.

[edit] References

  1. ^ USFIRST.org
  2. ^ FRC Regional Events
  3. ^ http://www2.usfirst.org/2007comp/Updates/2007%20Team%20Update%2016.pdf
  4. ^ FIRST Events ::
  5. ^ http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/events.php
  6. ^ Need some help with FIRST history? - Chief Delphi
  7. ^ http://www2.usfirst.org/2007comp/events/CMP/matchresults.html
  8. ^ https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teaminfo&team=173
  9. ^ https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teaminfo&team=330
  10. ^ https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teaminfo&team=71

[edit] External links

v • d • e
FIRST Robotics Competition Games
1992: Maize Craze · 1993: Rug Rage · 1994: Tower Power · 1995: Ramp 'n Roll · 1996: Hexagon Havoc · 1997: Toroid Terror · 1998: Ladder Logic · 1999: Double Trouble · 2000: Co-Opertition FIRST · 2001: Diabolical Dynamics · 2002: Zone Zeal · 2003: Stack Attack · 2004: FIRST Frenzy · 2005: Triple Play · 2006: Aim High · 2007: Rack 'n Roll · 2008: FIRST Overdrive