So this weekend my team did well we were 10 place and got picked by the fourth seed. So we made it to semifinals and we had to go up against the number 1 seed. Their first seed had a accurate shooter that we knew we didn’t stand a chance against since they were averaging 150-160 and we barely got 100 as a alliance. So in the time between quarterfinals and semifinals we built a wall on the back of our robot and just sat in front of their preload shooter. We made them score only 104 but we scored only 67. So even though we did lose we gave the first seed a run for their money. So we wanted to put this idea out in the community and get your ideas, because by the bigger competitions such as state or worlds one team will take driver control loads and do those perfectly. So as a lower seed blocking that team would seem better because then its the other seeds team that isn’t doing the loads vs your loading bot. What do you guys think about this strategy?
If a team can accurately shoot the driver loads, then it is okay to assume that they can go back into the corner and shoot as well. Their angles will probably be too high to be blocked by an 18" wall one or two feet away, so they will be unaffected, except for adjusting into the corner shot.
So, it will be important to keep trying and switch to more aggressive of a playing style in terms of defense on the field.
Also, I believe that by worlds, the field will be cleared quickly, the driver loads will be shot in about 10 seconds with two teams splitting the stack, and elevation will be done with over 15 seconds left on the clock. Or perhaps the strategy will become more defensive and field battles will go on longer…
Yeah we will never know, we have seen quit a few teams with shooters that are low to the ground and this was the first time we have seen any type of defense put into play in terms of blocking instead of pushing teams around that go outside of their square. And the team that we blocked could only really shoot from that one spot so it was effective and they didnt realize how to stop a blocking bot until finals when they got their partner to just sit in front of them so they could be pushed. But this game strategies will have to be adaptable right now because its early and we dont have an idea of which strategy is the best, but also all shooters are under 18 so depending of how close it is to the outside of the loading zone a piece of metal at the top of 18 could be able to at least mess up the trajectory a little to miss the goal.
Playing defense is a good strategy, but I don’t think it’ll matter as much for driver loads for later matches in the season. We are working on making sure our alliances go after balls on the field first, before we even attempt shooting driver loads or lifting. If both teams have a good lift and a robot that can shoot driver loads, it’ll come down to the balls on the field, especially the bonus balls. Defense around the outfield will either be really important for hoarding balls, or it will not matter as teams are trying to quickly score as many bonus balls as possible.
Teams will start to split driver loads at the end of matches and lifting will not take more than 5-10 seconds by the time World comes around, so I believe that trying to block driver loads would be a waste of time.
Yeah we see but if you could block loads you could just push the other robots outside getting balls and blocking them when they are not infront of your robot. Now i want to see a fully defensive robot to see how well it would work with that type of strategy. Like get a defensive bot that could push anything out of its place and has a lift that could lift and that robots soul purpose is to go around blocking shots and pushing robots to get them unaligned with the net then pick up in the last seconds of the match, and even if a team uses brakes with lifting mechanisms that are made already that work barely need anything so you could build something to push them around. So how would we play against a bot like that with a good shooter? That just us thinking a little outside the box for this game though
I think it seems like a lot of effort for a strategy that is specifically discouraged
Besides the above, as others have said, shooters are protected in the loading zone; if you are just trying to block, then the other robot on the opposing alliance is still scoring; if the shooter is close to 18" tall you are unlikely to block, as the arc will take it abouve you robot; if you go out into the field to disrupt those robots, then the shooter in the cormer is free to score, plus you risk getting flagged by the ref.
We know just wanted to think outside of the box for a day and go against the flow to maybe get some creative mind to put something together, because getting others thinking about something could bring something great out of their thinking. We will not have a robot solely for defensive strategies but it would be nice to see one working, because two years ago walls bot were discouraged in toss up but if you could make one that was good and well built you could actually do what your robot was built to do. So really this forum was made to see if maybe one day someone could build something that different than what everyone have now, because when it boils down to it there are already little different designs for robots and seeing something different would be cool if it could work and achieve what it was built for. Plus if a robot is built to be defensive until its time to lift it would be solely for defense.
Well I guess this could be practical in the event that the robot you are up against has their flywheel mounted closer to the bottom. However, a robot with a flywheel mounted anywhere near the top at a reasonable angle will pretty much not be affected by this sort of strategy. Especially if they can shoot from the back of their climbing zone.