Breakaway is the game for the 2010

FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition operated by ''FIRST''®. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work to build robots capable of competing in that year's game. Robots c ...

, announced on January 9, 2010. Robots direct

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s into goals, traverse "bumps" in the field, suspend themselves and each other on towers, and/or go through a tunnel located in the center of the field. In 2010, a new driver station was introduced, the

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, replacing the previous Kwikbyte driver station.

Game overview

Scoring

Balls are kicked or herded into goals located in the corners of the fields. There are two goals for each alliance, adding up to 4 goals total. *Scored Ball — 1 point At the end of the match, bonus points are awarded for robots that cling onto either of the two towers in the center of the field. More bonus points are awarded if alliance robots can suspend themselves from the robot clinging onto the tower. *Suspended Bot — 2 points *Bot Suspended From Another Bot — 3 points

Game Play

Robots play Breakaway on a 27 by 54-foot rectangular field. The field is bordered by a set of guardrails and alliance walls. There are two "bumps" in the field that divide it into three zones. During matches, the robots are controlled from alliance stations located outside the field at both ends. These rectangular zones consist of three-team player stations that provide connectivity between the controls used by the robot operators and the arena. Goals are located at the corners of the field, and extend behind the alliance wall and adjacent to the player stations. After goals are scored, human players must pick up the balls and pass them to the center of the alliance station to be placed on a ball return rack, after which they will re-enter play at midfield. Teams are penalized if balls are not re-entered within a set time limit.

Starting Positions

Each round lasts two minutes and fifteen seconds. In the first fifteen seconds of a round, the robots run in autonomous mode, then there are two minutes of game play during which robots are user-controlled. The game is played by two three-robot alliances with each team starting one robot in each of the three sections of the field. At the beginning of a match, every robot must be touching either one of the bisecting bumps or an alliance wall. Also, at the start of the match each of the 12 balls in play must be placed at one vertex of a six foot by six foot grid. There are two grids marked at either ends of each of the three zones.

Competition schedule

* Kickoff — January 9, 2010 * Shipping deadline — February 23, 2010 * Championship — April 15–17, 2010 Seven different fields were built and shipped around different events to be played on.Bill's Blog: One week to go
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Events

51 events were held in the 2010 Breakaway season over 5 weeks, from March 4th to April 3rd, 2010. There were 44 regional events and 7 district events. District events were held only in

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

and led up to the Michigan State Championship in

Ypsilanti Ypsilanti ( ), commonly shortened to Ypsi ( ), is a college town and city located on the Huron River in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 20,648. The city is bounded to the north ...

. In the 2010 season, weeks 1-5 were considered the Regular Season, with the Michigan State Championship and the FIRST Championship be considered Post-Season.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

District Championships

FIRST Championship

The World Championships were held at the

Georgia Dome The Georgia Dome was a Stadium#Types, domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown Atlanta, downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of th ...

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. Attendance was estimated to be around 20,000 at that

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. Each division is named after a prominent historical figure in STEM, with the winners of each division playing each other in a final bracket on the Einstein Field.

FIRST Championship Results