The Game
by Victoria R.
Each year, FIRST presents teams around the country with a new challenge in the form of a game -- each team must build a robot which can play the game. This year the game is called "Breakaway" and requires the robot to control and propel soccer balls around the arena.
In each match, alliances will be formed, with three teams (robots) in each alliance. With two alliances on the field, there will be six robots in play. Each match lasts for 2 minutes and 15 seconds.
To make things interesting, there are elongated 12-inch high "bumps" which the robots must climb over. Or they can go through tunnels to get around the bumps. However, the tunnels are only 18 inches high by 36 inches wide, so it will be a challenge building a robot that can squeeze through a tunnel and still control the ball. On the other hand, the bumps have the potential to flip a robot or make it crash because of the steepness of the bump.
Each alliance has two goals -- robots will need to score by placing soccer balls in one of their own goals. Each goal scored is one point. As in soccer, an alliance can only score in their own goals or the other team gets the point.
Robots may play defense to prevent the other teams from scoring.
As the game comes into its last seconds, robots have the opportunity to score bonus points by suspending themselves from a 7-foot tower. This earns 2 points. However (as if things couldn't get more complicated), a robot can score 3 bonus points if it can suspend itself by hanging from an already-suspended robot (much like a barrel of monkeys).
That's the game in a nutshell.