Has anybody thought about building a defensive for skyrise or think that its possible to build a strong defensive robot this year. If so what do you think could work.
Since most teams at the early regionals will be terrible at scoring on the skyrise I think a 10 motor x drive could do well. It would expand to be shaped like a U and go in front of the pyramid on the opponents side in auton and make it really annoying to get cubes. It would also be really funny to watch.
I was thinking of making a offense-defence bot for the first competition and see how it does
I was thinking about something like this, but you also leave you ally with the same problem and they have to go 2 on 1 so I was thinking of a robot that limited skyrise scoring.
I miss those wonderful blockers in gateway, including green egg’s gateway bot… Defense, in my opinion, should be encouraged more in VEX.
We, like the most teams, are considering the choice of building a fast scoring robot to compete for all awards, including excellence and skills champions. But defense is definitely there as a legal strategy, although a harder road for sure.
Mainly wallbots are facing the disadvantage of having an unprecedentedly open field in VRC and ten total field goals. But advantage is that two robots start in a pretty tight corner. Therefore, if a wall bot can be built to block two opponents inside their corner, that will definitely be a decent strategy.
Basic defense plans we are thinking of is to scatter the cube stack in the center in autonomous as long as there is a claw bot competing against us. Due to this issue i believe teams will lean to roller intake for cubes pass mid season, because nobody will allow a claw elevator to take advantage of that three cube stack.
If you think like this, you’re going to lose. Just saying it straight. You never want to underestimate the opponents. It’d be better to think of hypothetical situations where YOU are the bad robot, then you can think of ideas where you can overcome the other teams. Building a simple push bot can get you high up when you are early in the season, but lots of the non-rookie teams will know what to look for in selections.
If all you are doing is driving to block, you might have a bad time. It isn’t hard for a good driver to completely ignore you and go around, regardless if you are fast. If you’re strong, you will defeat some teams, but some will have the ability to not be pushed. If you’re a good driver, you might not actually have a bad time. It all depends on if you play the cards right.
This game really requires you to think outside the box (cube?) There is very little room for defense, since you can’t block the opponent from scoring their skyrise. The only thing you can block are the actual goals on the walls.
I’ve been to a lot of regionals over the years and it’s just fact that there will only be a few teams able to build a decent skyrise at the first few. Just driving around a ten motor x drive isn’t as easy as you might think, especially in the tight corner where the pyramid is. As far a winning regionals goes, it gets boring. Having a ten motor x drive would be a lot more fun IMO.
Here’s what you should do - don’t make a 10-motor X-drive, just go 8 motors instead, and use the other 2 on a lightweight elevator with a pneumatic claw on the end. Build your skyrise while your teammate grabs cubes, or run off and go defense on your opponents. Have the two sides of the X-drive (each set of wheels on the left and right) connected only by linear slides so the robot can drive itself apart and expand horizontally. Then go ahead and annoy the heck out of the opposing team and mess up their scoring 
I’ve had two defensive robots cooking up for about a month now. Or maybe it’s wiser to say 4 robots…
Anyhow, the first multibot composed of 2 robots. the mother bot walled off the two high posts, a middle post, and low post. this robot also had a ratcheting lance which pushed off the wall to create an opening for the “minibot” to pass in the protected corner. The minibot would focus on building the skyrise in autonomous, then drive off the mother bot to grab cubes and either score them on the skyrise, or dump it in the walled off area. Assuming the skyrise was filled, the robot (or an allied robot) would then drive around the wall bot, into the protected corner, and access the cubes and score. The main strategy for this robot was to maximize the autonomous bonus and lower the opponent’s cube scores as much as possible.
The second multibot was a lot simpler, and a bit less “radioactive”. The mother bot was a 4 motor drive with a 2.33 to 1 torque, and 1:1 standard ratio. It was equipped with a scissor lift and enormous claw which would shovel the opposing pyramid cubes into the corner of the tallest goals. The minibot started under the motherbot. This minibot just a weighed down copy of the motherbot’s drivetrain. The idea was that after the cubes were shoveled to the corner, the drive train would prevent the opponents from accessing the cubes, while the mother bot could either play goal deprivation defense, or score cubes.
“the problem in this business isn’t to keep people from stealing your ideas; it’s making them steal your ideas!”- Howard Aiken
They really seem to try to discourage defensive strategies. I wonder why?
Generally, defensive tactics focus on lowering the score of the game. They stop the opponent from scoring so that you can easily score higher even if you can’t score very much at all. Offensive tactics focus on scoring as much as possible and doing things. The idea behind Vex is teaching students how to be creative, inventive, and productive. Defensive strategies can negate the productivity of a well-designed robot and lessen the intensity and interest of a match. While Vex does not explicitly outlaw defensive strategies, they discourage them with rules like G12. This pro-offensive/anti-defensive idea translates to later parts of life; we need to focus on building up and getting ahead instead of dragging the competition down. Karthik explains this on Ted Talks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfC3JdkEVgQ (skip to 4:40, I’d encourage you to watch the whole thing though).
In my opinion, wall bots/defensive bots can be cool, interesting, etc., but they really are not adding much to the game. Obviously defense is an important factor in a match, really in any game, but it’s offense that wins. VRC is meant to be an interactive and engaging game, and defensive robots stop the interaction. They limit the capabilities of a team so that another team with less or lower-level capabilities can win, which is not, in my opinion, how it should be.
There will always be defensive robots in Vex, despite obvious efforts to discourage them. The real challenge is being able to win against both offensive and defensive robots with a strategy combining the two.
(skip to 4:40, I’d encourage you to watch the whole thing though).
Karthik has also said that trying to find a chokehold strategy (i.e the defensive strategy that completely breaks the game) should be the first thing a team does
[http://youtu.be/Apk_X-maRf8?t=16m20s
It’s a fantastic discussion of strategy, even if it is meant for FIRST, and I strongly recommend everybody watch it if they haven’t already.](http://youtu.be/Apk_X-maRf8?t=16m20s)
Right, a chokehold strategy is obviously desirable, but I was talking about why Vex tries to limit defensive strategies (chokehold or not). They make for a boring game at any level of competition and, in a way, not having them levels the playing field.
They try to limit them because if everybody built a D bot then you’d have a wallbot crashing into another wallbot and nobody would score. And I quite agree, that would be boring.
That being said, the level of excitement I saw in people as they saw our D bot at worlds, and I’m sure 1471A experienced the same thing, proves to me that D bots make the matches they play entertaining simply because they are not the same match that has been played dozens of times that day, they are something new and different and exciting.
As for a level playing field, if you are the best team with the best scouts you pick the wallbot as the third team on your alliance and so the best team still wins. If you aren’t the best team, or your scouting totally missed the potential of the wallbot capable of bringing the best team at the tournament to its knees, you probably would have lost anyway had the wallbot not been there.
As for a level playing field, if you are the best team with the best scouts you pick the wallbot as the third team on your alliance and so the best team still wins. If you aren’t the best team, or your scouting totally missed the potential of the wallbot capable of bringing the best team at the tournament to its knees, you probably would have lost anyway had the wallbot not been there.
That’s the hard park about wallbots at state level most teams don’t see the potential of a wallbot and only see its rank. If a wallbot can get past that people at worlds can see the power that a wall bot posseses and its a good wall bot you could end up like 2w.
In conclusion wallbots aren’t just hard to build well its hard to sell them to alliance partners.
That’s the hard park about wallbots at state level most teams don’t see the potential of a wallbot and only see its rank. If a wallbot can get past that people at worlds can see the power that a wall bot posseses and its a good wall bot you could end up like 2w.
In conclusion wallbots aren’t just hard to build well its hard to sell them to alliance partners.
2W has been the only really successful wallbot that I’ve ever seen. The field has just been too open for them since Gateway. Sack Attack and Toss Up fields have been relatively clear compared to Gateway, and Skyrise is even more open with no permanent barriers besides not being allowed in your opponent’s corner (not actually a physical barrier though). I just don’t think that it’s feasible to use a defensive strategy this season.
On chokehold strategies, not very many games really have them. With so many places to score, protected skyrises and tiles, and quite a few cubes on the field, there’s not much else to do besides outscore the opponent. You’re not even allowed to steal your opponent’s cubes and put them in your corner.
It is plainly stated in game manual that defensive strategy and wall-bots are not encouraged. My interpretation is, the basic format of robotics education is having students design solutions to a task. Competition is then added as an exciting incentive. Therefore, what game designers possibly want to see is teams accomplishing tasks rather than preventing opponents from completing their task. But a competition is a competition, outscoring does not necessarily mean scoring faster and better.
Just my personal opinion~:)
I agree. Having a competition where nobody can move after the first 5 seconds is kinda boring. The only possible drama is then for a team to dismantle the wallbot, which they are allowed to do, but which is a downer for those involved. 
Let’s not forget that this competition isn’t all about The Competition, The Matches, The Winning. I’ll even argue that the challenges you face building a wallbot is far greater and numerous than the challenges of making a mere offensive robot.
You simply cannot deny the quality needed in a wall bot and the experiences a student can take by accomplishing, or more notably, failing with these robots.
Challenge accepted.
I think that Skyrise has more defensive potential than any game since Gateway. Of course I could be totally wrong, we’ll have to wait until the first tournament to see.