2009 game - Lunacy

2009 Game - Lunacy

Game Basics

The 2009 FIRST game was called Lunacy. The game was in honor of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The game begins with one robot in each corner and one on each side of the field halfway down. Directly behind each robot and just off of the field is a shooter from the opposite alliance. Each shooter starts with 20 moon rocks (see below picture), but up to 7 of them can be loaded onto the teams robot. Each robot was given a standard trailer to tow. Scoring is accomplished by shooting balls into the opposite alliance's three trailers. When the human shooters miss, the ball falls to the floor where it can be picked up and shot again by the robots. Matches are two and a half minutes each. The first 15 seconds of the match are autonomous, meaning that the robots move based on programming, not people. At the end of the 15 seconds, three team members step up to control the robot – two people control the joysticks while a third acts as a coach. 

More Complicated

A second method of scoring points is through super cells. Each of the center areas, called outposts, hold four empty cells. These can be scored directly for 2 points each, or they can be handed off to an allied robot. If the robot can drop the empty cell in an allied corner, the empty cell can be traded for a super cell. In the last 15 seconds of the game, super cells can be thrown into trailers for 15 points each.

Game Video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this movie is worth a novel (give or take a bit). This game video explains the game well. The video is care of FIRST and was linked from youtube. If the embedded video is broken, just use this link.