How does a team know if their wall-bot is “good enough” to go to VEX Worlds and be successful?
Our team was having a meeting and we discussed this question. What is the community’s collective take on the subject?
I’m not quite sure what you are asking. No one knows their robot is “good enough” as you can have catastrophic failures so on so fourth. That being said I don’t know how to answer your question.
- Andrew
if your wall bot can cross the field in autonomous and block off the entire trough you are very likely to be a first pick.
with 0 chance of someone getting across before you do it
If a wallbot can cross under the trough before the other alliance can score or cross themselves, deploy to 12ish feet wide, and effectively lockdown half the field I would tip my hat and say they probably deserve to win the match.
Having mentored a wall bot build that went pretty far at worlds and deployed to over 40" in under 1 second, I can confidently say it was a significant challenge. I could not imagine trying to get to 12 feet.
If you don’t cover the entire field, the other team could just execute a pick and roll on your wall bot.
As much as I liked the wall bot strategy in Gateway, I think it will be an epic disaster in Sack Attack.
I defiantly agree with the increased difficulty, but should you be able to pull it off you could almost completely shutdown a team. Even if the pushed every one of their sack onto the floor goals just a couple of sacks in the trough and you would have the match. How you could fit12 feet into an 18x18x18 cube is going to be the real challenge i think. I do remember seeing something in the forum about the possibility of defensive robots having the possibility of disqualification so make sure you check on that.
This is only if you trap the other team in a space less than one field tile, just like gateway
Your robot would have to move under the troughs and expand faster than a scoring robot could simply drive to your half of the field. If another team runs your blockade during autonomous, the wallbot is pointless.
8 17.5" slider rails could extend to 12-ish feet.
Whether or not they can effectively limit the tactical effectiveness of their opponents, I say would be a good measure. For example, in Gateway, if they can push past the opposite tile to deny the doubler barrel, or cap the middle 30" goal like 2W did. They ended up world champions.
If the wallbot can’t limit the tactical effectiveness of its opponents, then it’s rather pointless. If a wallbot is red, and both of its opponents slip by it during autonomous before it expands, then you’ve got a 1v2 on the red side of the field, and blue will likely win.