Infinite Recharge
The competition for 2020 was known as Infinite Recharge. Sponsored by Star Wars, Force For Change, the game was centered around a futuristic city theme involving two alliances consisting of three teams each competing to perform various tasks, including shooting foam balls known as Power Cells into high and low goals to activate a Shield Generator, manipulating a Control Panel to activate this shield, and returning to the Shield Generator to park or climb at the end of the match. The objective was to energize and activate the shield before the match ends and asteroids strike FIRST City, a futuristic city modeled after Star Wars. Details can be found in the official game manual.
The Field
Loading Bay
Loading Bays were located in the alliance stations, with one per alliance. The Loading Bays were used by the human player to give game pieces to the robots on the field. There were five places that game pieces can be put into the Loading Bay, with two upper ports, and three ground ports.
Power Port
An alliance's Power Port was located at the opposing alliance's Alliance Station, requiring robots that intake from the Loading Bays to drive across the field in order to score Power Cells. There were three levels of scoring on a Power Port. Scoring Power Cells into the Power Port also contributed towards reaching Capacity, which is a count of the number of power cells scored, regardless of port. Certain levels of Capacity required additional tasks to be completed. Upon reaching Capacity and completing the stage's additional task, the stage was said to be Activated.
Shield Generator
The Shield Generator was a large box-shaped structure located in the center of the field. It contained both alliances' Rendezvous Points, as well as the two Generator Switches.
Control Panel
After activating Stage 1 and reaching Stage 2's capacity, an alliance may have scored 10 points by performing Rotation Control on the Control Panel. After activating Stage 2 and reaching Stage 3's capacity, the alliance may have scored 20 points by performing Position Control. This entailed rotating the Control Panel to a certain color specified by the Field Management System through a message sent to each team's driver's station. As it turns out, almost nobody reached Stage 3 capacity or just abandoned the Control Panel altogether. Nonetheless, we had a gaget on our robot to complete the task.
Power Cell
Power Cells were the main game piece in Infinite Recharge. The Power Cell was intended to be scored in the Power Port to score points.
Scoring Points
As always in qualification rounds, teams were ranked by their Ranking Score, or their average number of Ranking Points (RP) per match. To ensure high placement, it is not only important to win matches, but to complete the secondary objectives as well, to amass as many Ranking Points as possible.
