Re: Best Fender shooters
 

If you don't think fender defending is effective, I suggest you watch the Troy Finals. 548 if left unchecked during most qualification and elimination matches, scored on average 5 balls/match @ 85% accuracy. In both finals with 244 defending the fender, they scored 1 ball, and shot 20% accurate.

If you are planning to score against the fender and you are playing us, if we think your team is a threat we will be sending a defender to sit in front of the fender and force you to take a lower percentage shot.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

244's defense in the first match was exemplary, but if one is to say that fender defense isn't effective, that's no excuse. I cannot at all deny what you're saying - fender defense CAN BE very effective, even against such good teams - except to note that 548 refused to avoid the defense (when 244 was up against the fender, 548 drove right up into them instead of staying right off and shooting from there). They're aren't quite built for it, but they can shoot from a yard off, even pretty well. Not sure why they didn't switch to that strategy midmatch (maybe it's a bit too much to expect from drivers or a bit too far? If you think so, I'd be willing to defer to experience and expertise), but it looked that they considered feeding balls to 217 to be a better (higher %?) shot for the second match. Definitely one good example of great and highly effective fender defense.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

I think 1629 can be added into the mix of a great fender shooter, we were a high scorer in Chesapeake, and the second highest scorer at Buckeye. We missed two shots in Autonomous, and probably only two in Hybrid the whole weekend at Buckeye. I may be bias to my team, but we have an effective robot! We have tracks, and when being defended we can drop to low gear and move other teams away from the fender as well. I think a good mix of high goal scorer and middle goal scorer is extremely effective. 1507 (high goal) and 340 (middle goal) put up some big numbers and won the Buckeye regional.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

I completely agree that the 2point hoop was game changing!!! On our team, team 1099, the DiscoTechs, our robot was able to change the angle and position of its whole entire shooter, ball picker upper, electrical board, battery, and more which allowed us to shoot from the key or fender to any hoop with ease. At our second regional we discovered that if we just focus on the 2point hoop our accuracy became close to 100%!!! So we changed our autonomous to move forward and sink 2 into the 2point hoop, and during the match we almost always did fender shots into the 2point hoop unless there was defense. This strategy was great and we became a force to be feared and was chosen for the 4th alliance because we could do everything very well even though we were ranked 27/64.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

To answer the original poster, watch this weekend's matches at MAR. 1370 made it to the finals at both Rutgers and Lenape with their defense. At both previous events, fender shooters were forced by 1370 to shoot from the key, where they were less accurate, while hopper/dumper robots were harassed constantly. MAR should feature more of the same...

Good luck to everyone competing this weekend in both districts. :)

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

I'm the coach for 548, we were having serious problems with out camera tracking at troy. Without the camera a long range shot is 100% manual and very difficult for our drivers. Needless to say changes were made. See you at MSC. Also congrats to 67,469, and 244, by far the toughest defense we have seen yet

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

We prefer to shut down two fender bots simultaneously. More fun that way. ;)


We've never had a problem with a dunker (or two), and even exclusively close scorers. There are bunches of robots that can take both shots, though. The best (and most likely to be defended), at least around here, don't seem to have major loss in accuracy from the Key. Secretly I think they do it just to draw defenders back so they can screw with them (it worked, 25). :P MAR bots include 103, 25 and 222.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

You have a funny definition of everyone. :P

The key to making the two point fender dump valuable is the autonomous, specifically the +3 bonus rather than the double from last year. This has made fender dumper after fender dumper viable this year, as driving forward and making a high percentage close range shot is simply easier than a distance shot, especially since these balls have notorious consistency problems. When you can drive up and puke out balls for only 2 points less than a technical-challenge three point arc, I am frankly surprised more teams didn't go for the easy points.

As the play level gets higher, you'll notice these bots fall out of favor for a few reasons:

1. Traditional distance shooters have had multiple events to tune their shooting in.
2. Fender defense has developed and has become more dynamic.
3. At deeper events, the least good scorer is starting to find other things to do (fender defense, ball movement, etc)

However, it would be silly to say they will not be a factor. Consistency matters.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

I think that the variable distance shooters are the most dangerous teams at any event. These teams can sink repeatable shots from the fender or the key, or even farther for a slight accuracy penalty if needed. They are the most dangerous precisely because they can hit from both a close and a protected location.

You want my prediction? Fender bots will be a huge factor if they can back up and still score. They back up far enough with you contacting them, they don't need to hit every shot to get 3s.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

1629 is a very consistent mid level scorer and is able to play through defense, and is definitely a team to watch at champs.

That being said, we picked 340 at Buckeye for a reason. With a guaranteed 10 points in auto, smart driving, quick scoring, and good balancing, 340 and similar teams are poised to make their presence known at champs. They might not be the flashiest, but any consistent fender bot with smart drivers is perfectly capable of taking home hardware.

Also, defense will get better as the season progresses, but so will teams' ability to play around defense. Check around 1:30 in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2oTSZOtqq4 for an example of 1507 and 340 working together to clear the fender.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

I am of the opinion that fender defense is only valuable when the offensive robot shoots only from the fender or has a very low percentile key shot. Otherwise the defender is probably better off trying to steal balls from the other side while the offensive team is scoring. What are they going to score with if you took all their balls? Of course, this requires the defending robot to be able to effectivly pick up and shoot balls.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

If you think fender defense is ineffective, you simply haven't played against a top tier defensive team yet. You likely are also thinking their goal is to completely prevent you from scoring, when in most cases it is not.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

After competting down at the CVR competition.

1717 was the best key shooter, but a team that helps us. 1323 was by far the best fender shooting bot followed by 330/254. It was really neat to see their idea. I was surprised it worked well. multiple times they shot balls under d.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

The main reason we put the bumpers as low as possible is because it makes the over the bumper ball pickup easier and helps prevent the balls from going under the chassis. We build our robots as close to the ground as possible to maintain a low COG.

Re: Best Fender shooters
 

I'm clearly not going to argue that's not why you have your bumpers so low, but I heard the note about pushing from one of the other mentors on your team while we were at SVR.