i would think it requires a shooter in order to be effective. But it wouldn’t matter for robots who have holonomic, it would just be too slow to function.
However, maybe if you started launching sacks in their robot, a bigger threat would occur. You may prevent robots from lowering their lifts completely, which will be critical against scooper robots and top rollers. You may also start weighing down their drivetrains. That could also be dangerous considering many high end teams tend to push their torque. The sacks may also rest on wires for the intake, meaning that if they raise their lift, it may threaten disconnection.
But of course, that’s beginning to sound like it violates the no intentional damage rule
I don’t think that would be very effective. Many robots can easily drive over sacks. It seems like it would be a better idea to simply deposit the sacks in the trough.
Beginning to sound like it violates <SG8> too… (the no intentional placing sacks on opponent robots while not in the process of scoring rule).
I think a trough-capper against a robot with an equally strong/stronger drivetrain would be interesting…
You could always use <SG8> to your advantage against a trough-capper. It might not be very effective, but you could always put a heck of a lot of sacks on top of the “cap”, weighing it down enough for them not to be able to move, and they are then scored too. After all, you could be “in the process of scoring”. As I said though, if might not be very effective and wouldn’t work if their alliance removes the sacks or if the cap is shaped or designed to slide the sacks off.
I do think a well designed and thought out trough-capper stands a very good chance of doing very well indeed this season. But it would need all the flaws smoothed out.
But imagine a heavy, solid, elastic-expanding troughcapper, with a connected minibot that can score? It would be it’s own partner, so if you add in Robot A, you now have a full 2v2 with B and C unable to score in the trough.
A pivoting set of sliders or a well-made chain of C-channels could act like a tether without being an entanglement risk. Or perhaps some other kind of expansion would allow the troughcapper to be 1 solid construction.
The problem is, any sacks on top of the cap would be supported by that robot, and if the refs pull it away at the end, then it would take all the sacks with it.
The video says it would be attached with sliders, which would make it legal, but then it would lose all of the protection against tipping, ramming, etc. as it could be considered to have obstructed the field.
I know its unsportsmanlike and probably extremely illegal but couldn’t one place a trough capper and score one sack in their goal then use some form of jamming device to jam the vex net signal of all the robots in the vicinity? At least in the college level one… you don’t have restrictions on electronics…
The idea was to stop them being able to score in half of one trough, while stopping our trough from being descored, effectively giving us a 1.5 trough advantage over the opposition. We had a solid tether that worked very well, and even allowed the robot to go under the trough and stuff, we threw the idea away when karthik ruled you cant have weight on the trough though
when i think about it now it was a silly idea and took a lot of time that could have been spend on other things
heres some debate we had as a team over it:
Justin Attwood likes this.
Vincent Ardern what is this?
October 22 at 9:12pm · Like
Vincent Ardern don’t say ‘a descorer’
October 22 at 9:12pm · Like
Jack Barker it blocks them from scoring in half of their trough, and stops them descoring mine
October 22 at 9:12pm · Like
Vincent Ardern ah. sounds very cool
October 22 at 9:13pm · Edited · Like
Jack Barker (my old robot, with 6 motor drive and 2 motor lift, dumps this in trough)
October 22 at 9:13pm · Like
Jack Barker its going to be epic
October 22 at 9:13pm · Like
Abigail Birkin-Hall what happens when we gently remove your robot from the trough to score?
October 22 at 9:19pm · Like
Jack Barker nothing, they stay there lol
October 22 at 9:19pm · Like
Jack Barker it just makes people not be able to descore them
October 22 at 9:19pm · Like
Abigail Birkin-Hall but they’re sitting on top of the robot?
October 22 at 9:20pm · Like
Jack Barker no?
October 22 at 9:21pm · Like
Abigail Birkin-Hall oh, I see. Thought it was under tha sacks in the blue trough too. Still, >_>
October 22 at 9:22pm · Like
Nick Waddington “Come at me descorer” You’re effectively a wallbot now so i can legally pin you against a wall, problem?
October 22 at 9:37pm · Like
Jack Barker nope, 1 robot of each alliance not doing anything, my remaining robot has a 1.5 trough andvantage, problem? xD
October 22 at 9:39pm · Like
Jack Barker *advantage
October 22 at 9:40pm · Like
Nick Waddington you seem to be relying on your alliance quite a lot…
October 22 at 9:41pm · Like
Jack Barker this is assuming someone is able to pin a 6 motor 1:1 torque robot
October 22 at 9:41pm · Like
Nick Waddington watch me
October 22 at 9:42pm · Like
Jack Barker even then im still at a big advantage and the only time im gonna come up against 2 good robots is eliminations (hopefully), in which i will have a decent partner
October 22 at 9:43pm · Like · 1
Vincent Ardern liked for logic
October 22 at 9:48pm · Like
It isn’t a direct rule, but in a Q&A thread Karthik ruled that intentionally putting weight on the troughs was a potential cause of damage so it wasn’t allowed.
Anyways. If he would attach this to his robot via sliders it will greatly hinder his robot performance. Driving would become a hassle who says that he will be able to score as well with a big fridge stick out his back. It’s difficult to get the mobility you want. I deployable? Yes, however there are way more negative aspects to the this strategy than one might think.
Not only that he also has worry about the latching rule as well. Why might you ask its not actually latching. Well if it’s a somewhat rigid connection then the device itself might actually be considering a locking mechanism since it isn’t easily movable. Thus making the design illegal. However we haven’t seen the entire design. If I was an inspector/ref I would keep close eye on this bot.
I will admit there were A LOT of issues with the design, and really its not worth pursuing:/ we have gone to a different design which should have the same sort of effect hopefully (inspired by Kevin from WASABI)
I think the Metagame for sack attack is going to be interesting… because there is already so many ways to play the game, its going to be hard to have something which counters all of them
