Team+3459+PyroTech+Experience+with+HPG

=Team PyroTech Human Player Game Experience=

Team PyroTech has done this 3 times now, each time modifying it and making it work smoother.

Fall 2010: Aim High
Watched game animation. Had students in groups of 2 discuss the animation and a simplified version of the rules. Each pair discussed primary characteristics that their robot would have. Each team was supposed to have one "controller" who did all the speaking and one "robot" that did all the actions.


 * What we learned**

Positives: This really helped students understand the huge task that was given with a new 2 1/2 minute animation that they'd never seen before. Helped to really think about the game rules.

Challenge: Room not well laid out, game elements weren't accurate enough, hard to have a person directing and a robot.

January 2011: LOGOMOTION


Our first real Kick Off! Monday, after building a chassis at the Robot Quick Build and spending Sunday looking at rules, we took over a big auditorium at a local retirement center. Created a full size field. Tried to simulate robots by having teams draw random cards with different robot traits and then each person played a specific robot (slower but powerful, quick but not much pushing power, etc.).


 * What we learned:**

It was a good way to get a feel for how long it took to get from one end of the field to another and what rules might be important. However, we hadn't spent enough time really thinking about the game elements and field set up so we couldn't test the importance of the minibot or the initial autonomous period.

Fall: 2011 //FIRST// Frenzy


Learned from the past. Set up a field with full dimensions outside, spent time making sure we had good human-versions of the game elements, printed rules, alliances set up, etc. Team watched FIRST Frenzy 3 or 4 times as a full group -- talking through the rules, the scoring, some initial strategy, then broke into 3-people teams. Two-team alliances (part of FIRST Frenzy's set up) played as people, as hard as they could with no mechanical limitations (other than safety rules).

After seeing some of the challenges, the groups broke to discuss some use cases of robot design, sketched out some potontial robots, then played the game again using those strategies. By the end, it was a no holes barred game... To wrap up, team discussed winning strategies and watched footage of the actual game -- which included a lot of the same strategies the human players had discovered.


 * What we learned:**

This was an extremely effective workshop. High points included having the human players play all out, with most of the Game Rules intact (minor modifications). It helped to play it 2 or 3 times to make it most effective. Brainstorming as a group before and after game play was also helpful as each small team had different experiences and could add different perspectives to the game.