This year's FIRST Robotics Competition game is called Breakaway. Breakaway is played on a 27 by 54 foot rectangular, carpet-covered field. Two bumps divide the field into thirds. One match is two minutes and fifteen seconds long, and is between two alliances of three robots each. The first fifteen seconds of the match are an autonomous period in which robots control themselves through pre-programmed commands. After this fifteen-second period is over, human drivers step forward to take control, and the real fun begins.
The objective of the game is to score the most soccer balls into your alliance's goals, which are located the ends of the field, adjacent to the alliance station. Like in real-life soccer, a robot may only possess one ball at a time, and that ball cannot be picked up off the ground; rather, it must be 'dribbled' or herded.
In this game, human players participate by putting scored balls back into play through the use of a holder called the Trident. The Trident is used to place balls onto a return rack located above the field, which balls roll down and land back in the middle of the field, ready for play.
A big twist in this year's game is the method of scoring bonus points: hanging from a tower or from another robot. During the last twenty seconds of the match, a period called the Finale begins. During this period, robots can hang from the tower and off of each other for bonus points. This means that it is possible to have a total of three robots hanging from a tower simultaneously, which promises to produce some very spectacular matches.
For videos and more information about the game, visit FIRST's offical Breakaway page
or read the competition manual.
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