2007 – Rack n’ Roll

2007 was another great FIRST year for Rack-n-Roll! This was a fun game, and it was also very exciting right to the last second! We traveled to Purdue for the first time, attending the Boilermaker Regional, where we were honored with a Judges’ Award for having a student-run team and an all-student drive team. We had student coaches out on the field ever since about 2003, and we have maintained our coach’s admonition that the team is about the students, not the adults! Students have held the lead and the power on our drive teams. They go out and do their own strategizing, usually with no adult mentor in sight! Our team prides itself on having students take responsibility for the direction of our play on the field. During that same year, we attended the West Michigan Regional, where we won the Judges’ Award there, too!

FIRST FACTS:

Number of Teams: 1305
Events Held:
36 Regionals
1 Championship

Robot Size:

130 pounds
Fit inside a 30” x 36” x 5’ space

Brief Game Description:

In the center of the field is a scoring structure known as the “rack.” Three levels of scoring locations known as spiders are located within the rack. There are eight sets of these vertical scoring locations. The game pieces are inflatable plastic pool tubes. There are three types of game pieces used to score points for an alliance. “Keepers” are placed during the autonomous period. “Ringers” are placed during the driver tele - operated period. Black “Spoiler” tubes are used to negate the effects of the Ringers. The objective of the game is to place the Keepers and the Ringers into horizontal or vertical rows. Similar to tic-tac-toe, but without diagonal scoring. Spoilers can’t be moved. The end game - robots that are elevated off the flour in their home zone by other robots.