Washtenaw Pick-Up Robotics - WAPUR

The idea of a pick-up robotics game took shape on the bus ride back from St. Louis. A bunch of us were excited about completely student-built OCCRA style robots, but we also wanted a game that could be played without any complicated field setup or scheduling or referees.

The rules are still evolving, but this is how it works:

• A few students build a small FRC robot: 2 foot square and 60 pound max.
• OCCRA build restrictions are followed. Students and non-precision tools only!
• They post a meetup to other area teams to play a game.
• One group brings the field--it's small enough to fit in the trunk of a car.
• Students inspect each other's robots and lay out the field.
• Matches are played using standard driver stations in practice mode.
• When the batteries are dead, everyone goes home.

Team 3322 is including WAPUR as a component of the 2015 fall program. We're finishing up the rules over the summer, play testing and then running matches all fall. There won't be any restrictions on how much time can be spent building a robot and previous year's components (and even entire robots) can be reused. We don't intend to change the rules year to year. Basketball and soccer don't change the rules, so we shouldn't have to either. The point is to build skills and have fun.

Background

Why build a fall program around a game?

• Many reasons: it's more fun; it's more engaging; it emphasizes skills needed during the FRC season; it reduces mentor time creating lab exercises; it creates structure to help new students and mentors join the team.

Why not just adopt the OCCRA game?

• Oakland county and VEX puts a tremendous amount of mentor effort into designing a new game each year. They've offered to share the game with us. However, it also takes a lot of effort and coordination to run the competitions (they are similar to FRC district events). Mentor burn-out during the FRC season is a problem and spending a large amount of time organizing competitions seems like it would make the problem worse.