Maize Craze
Maize Craze was the game in the inaugural year, 1992, of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Gameplay consists of four individual robots, or “machines”, trying to collect tennis balls, or “treasure”, into their own home base. The field also includes an impediment to the robots consisting of a layer of loose corn kernels covering the entire playing field, 1-2 inches deep.
Field and Scoring
Maize Craze is played on a 16 feet by 16 feet square piece of plywood, 2.5 feet above the floor, covered in a 1-2 inch deep layer of loose corn kernels. The field's perimeter is rimmed with 8 inch tall Plexiglas walls. The four home bases measure 20 inches square and one is placed at the center of each of the four edges of the field.There are five posts on the field, one in each corner and one in the center. The center post is 12 inches tall and is capped by a high-value tennis ball worth 25 points. Two of the corner posts, at a diagonal from the other, are 36 inches tall and capped by high-value tennis balls. The remaining two corner posts are 24 inches tall and capped by medium-value tennis balls worth 10 points. 150 low-value tennis balls worth 1 point are placed around the center post. Robots remove high- and medium- value tennis balls from the posts and score them along with low-value tennis balls collected from the floor into their respective home bases.
A structure extends 25 feet above the floor to support the electrical umbilicals for the robots.