Throwing the ringers.

[Taiku]

Are players allowed to throw the rings over the wall and attempt to land it on the rack? (not that we are going to make that our real strategy! :) More like when the time is running low and we have extra ringers.)

[karlcswanson]

yes

[Ericgehrken]

It doesn't say they can't, but it is going to be difficult to throw a tube over and 8' wall and get in on a spider which is 19' away. Plus there's the plate that the tube needs to get past.

[1086VEX]

It doesn't say they can't, but it is going to be difficult to throw a tube over and 8' wall and get in on a spider which is 19' away. Plus there's the plate that the tube needs to get past.

its actually a 6.5 foot wall, and a person on our team did it while we were prototyping!!

~AleX~

[Doug Leppard]

its actually a 6.5 foot wall, and a person on our team did it while we were prototyping!!

~AleX~

Our team did it while playing around on a full size rack.

[Agent 108]

Heck yeah! No rules about it, so go for it!:D

[Dominicano0519]

uh just be carefull because what if you cap your own ringer( void :( )

[kawelch]

not only is this not illegal... it is expressly allowed.

Rule G48 says "...enter a RINGER...by attempting to throw it to a ROBOT or onto the RACK...over the top of the Alliance Station Wall..."

so HP's start practicing....

[mizscience]

uh just be carefull because what if you cap your own ringer( void :( )

I agree. Targeting would definately be the most complicated part of throwing a ringer, assuming you could actually get one on the rack from that great a distance.

:]

[windup zeppelin]

I dont remember reading a rule saying you cannot throw the tube over, it wouldn't be hard to do it anyway considering the wall isn't very tall.

[Agent 108]

My sugestion: If you want to do it, practice aming whenever possible!:D

[nparikh]

Legal, yes. Practical, who knows? Sure, if you have extra ringers at the end of the round, why not? But to use this as a main strategy--and have HPs try and get them on a rack seems somewhat unreliable. Yes, you can probably do it, but the question is how often will it happen. To use Carnegie's Cost/Benefit analysis scenario, if it takes you 5 ringers to get 1 in, does it really seem worth it to waste those 5 just to get your 6th (or one of the 6 in) when you could use those ringers to feed other robots or use them for various other strategies.

Our HP and Coach have been practicing continually on doing this and he's getting better and better, but it's still not good enough to warrant it as a main strategy.

[T3_1565]

I was thinking why not just throw all the rings somewhere around the rack right at the beginning so your robot barely has to move? it just picks them up off the ground and puts them on the rack lol.

[Eric Scheuing]

Maybe, rather than throw ringers, you could throw spoilers. Hmm...

[redbarron]

<G09> POSSESSION - ROBOTS may only have 1 (one) GAME PIECE in their POSSESSION at
any time during the match. A 10-point penalty will be assessed for each infraction.
Inadvertent bulldozing of GAME PIECES while the ROBOT moves around the field is
allowed. Controlled "herding" of a single GAME PIECE lying on the floor is permitted as
long as no other GAME PIECE is in the POSSESSION of the ROBOT. Herding of multiple
GAME PIECES, or herding of a GAME PIECE on the floor while in POSSESSION of another
GAME PIECE is not permitted (as this would be considered POSSESSION of more than
one GAME PIECE). GAME PIECES may fall on to a ROBOT during the course of normal
game play (e.g. a RINGER falls on a ROBOT while attempting to HANG it on a Spider Leg).
In such cases, GAME PIECES that are already in the POSSESSION of the ROBOT may be
played. However, the additional GAME PIECE must be removed from the ROBOT (either
by the ROBOT or by an ALLIANCE partner) before it can POSSESS a new GAME PIECE.
GAME PIECES may not be intentionally placed on opposing ROBOTS for the purpose of
causing a violation of this rule. Any such GAME PIECE placements will not be considered
in POSSESSION of the affected ROBOT, and will be ignored.

I would be careful throwing them, because unless I am reading this wrong if you throw one onto your/an alliances bot and cannot not get it off then you are not allowed to possess another one until you or an alliance partner get it removed.

[Cyberguy34000]

Set it up.

I paced off the measurements, and it actually seems surprisingly doable. It'll take some practice, sure. But if you chuck 'em like frisbees you've actually got a pretty good shot at shooting at the rack directly in front of you. Though I don't think you'll be able to have a shot at more than 4-5 targets, the top ones are pretty hard to hit and if the rack is at an angle it makes it considerably more difficult.

Last year people made a big deal about human players scoring in the corner goals would be ridiculous. But lo and behold, in some matches, Brandon our human player managed to score 8 or so points, enough to win some of those really close matches.

[Zoheb N]

I was thinking why not just throw all the rings somewhere around the rack right at the beginning so your robot barely has to move? it just picks them up off the ground and puts them on the rack lol.

that sounds like a great strategy:] it would save you time of driving back and forth.

[Ross Team 759]

I think in the last 15 seconds of the game in which the driver is attempting to the robot on top of another would be a great time to try to get the rings on because if you don't get any on then you haven't lost anything

Well, unless you've filled up most of your side of the rack because youi don't won't to void any of your ringers!

[Graham Donaldson]

that sounds like a great strategy:] it would save you time of driving back and forth.

That's one of our ideas. Save the time driving back and forth to pick them up, and just have the HP chuck 'em in the robot's area.

[JYang]

Our team did it while playing around on a full size rack.
Has anyone been able to score the ringers continuously? And how accurate are they?

[joshsmithers]

If someone does get good at this strategy, it seems kind of reasonable.(to a certain point in game strategy)

The HP could at least try to score the ringers at the end, however. It's better than throwing your arms in the air and giving up.

[Doug Leppard]

Has anyone been able to score the ringers continuously? And how accurate are they?

They were just playing around at the time and were surprised they could do it at all. We will look into it seriously as soon as we get our permanent location.

The rings are unstable, but a very talented person might be able to do something, we most likely will not be using it as a strategy, but use it throwing it to the robot for sure.

[BandChick]

I agree with Neil, while it IS possible, it's going to be extremely hard to have the accuracy necessary to make this a worthwhile strategy. Fun, sure, but I wouldn't depend on it.

Keep in mind, it's a LOT easier to throw a ringer on a stationary rack, but once robots have come into contact with it, it's going to be swinging and swaying, thus, making targetting for your HP a LOT harder.

[cam1031]

honestly throwing the ringers in my mind is a ridiculus idea there is just too many variables:
-inflation of ringers
-air current in arena
-movement of rack
-the little rubber stopper on top of the circle

and the accuracy of the robot would have to be exact to get it on

[Priyadarshy]

today we a few people from our team spent about 2 hours throwing ringers over a wall all the way to rack we were actually very successful in getting them on the rack, if the ringer is thrown right it kinda falls into place

now this wont be our main strategy but it could be awesome when we get to the end of the round, also human players seem important to the games last year our human player made 20 balls in to the corner goal it was amazing, maybe we can score a bunch of points with these ringers

[dancingfool]

yepperz, but that is quite a long distance to throw a tube! You may want to just throw it onto the robot instead

:D

[Dominicano0519]

uh like i said before what if you cap your own leg

like someone else said what if you get it stuck on your robot and it can't get it off

and one more thing what if the rack is nice and peacefull and you just shook it up and made it harder to score

not a really good idea to me

[Dan Richardson]

honestly throwing the ringers in my mind is a ridiculus idea there is just too many variables:
-inflation of ringers
-air current in arena
-movement of rack
-the little rubber stopper on top of the circle

and the accuracy of the robot would have to be exact to get it on

Doesn't stop proffesional athletes from performing similar feats. Now granted this is a little less intuitive than say throwing a baseball but practice can make perfect. We were albe to do ok with 15 mph gusts of wind in an outside environment. In this type of scenario you could practice and probably get pretty good at doing it. 2 or 3 out of 9 in the shorter amount of time to do it wouldn't be a bad deal at all.

Edit: Also in rereading your post I think your confused as to what we are talking about, we are talking about the human player throwing them not the robots.

[Choi9111]

haha weve been practicing throwing the tubes...were not very good yet but we can do it with some practice!

[Priyadarshy]

our human player is throwing them on at will he said he will be hitting the gym because he is ~5 foot 6 and the wall is 6.5feet high (he is gonna try to jump higher) haha he jumps up and flicks it and makes it ill try and post a video tomorrow

[team 888]

I was wondering. What if you somehow accidentally threw a tube on top of the rack and it stayed up there or fell through?

1) What would happen to the tube on top? (like penalties, bringing it back in the game, etc.)

2) If it fell through, would you be able to reach into the rack and grab it? (any limitations)

That would be a problem if you lost a ringer while using your energy.

What do you guys think?

[robotguru1717]

our human player is throwing them on at will he said he will be hitting the gym because he is ~5 foot 6 and the wall is 6.5feet high (he is gonna try to jump higher) haha he jumps up and flicks it and makes it ill try and post a video tomorrow

you could see if someone taller say maybe 6' to 6'4" is willing to do it (if anyone like that is on your team). they might have more luck!

[Priyadarshy]

he has got mad ups he has spent hours practicing on a volleyball net, he does better when he has to jump because he gets a lot of mustard on the throw

[T3_1565]

I still believe that the best stratagy for human players is to throw it close to the rack where you and you allies can just pick them up with the robot without having to have your robots go back and forth. it seems pretty simple but there is the chance that you get it caught on the robot :S

[Priyadarshy]

the idea for being able to throw it onto to the rack is that during the end game when everyone is scrambling for ramps and what not that u can gain an extra advantage if by throwing up the rings if there are any extra