Defense at Championships
 

With the major capabilities of blockers in UA I thought that it might be a good idea to start a thread showcasing the abilities of defensive robots that will be attending Championships.

Information to Showcase

Type and strength of drive-train

Expertise of Drivers

Height and Strength of FCS blocker

Climb and/or Dump points

How good can you shoot?!?!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

I know 2789 is gonna shut down Newton with their D. You are just not gonna get past them

Re: Defense at Championships
 

what are their capabilities?

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Thanks, we're looking forward to putting up an aluminum curtain defense and causing a lot of stress and frustration for opposing teams ;)

Information to Showcase 2013 Highlight Reel

Type and strength of drive-train 4 CIM, 12:1 Banebots Planetary, 6" AndyMark blue wheels, skid steer

Expertise of Drivers Rookie driver with 2 Golds and a Silver this season...he also helped coach 4610's defensive play through the finals at the Dallas Regional to help them win a Gold in their rookie season

Height and Strength of FCS blocker Making modifications to version 5 of our blocker for this season...we are working on a blocker that will allow us to go under pyramid, here's our documentation for what we took to the Alamo Regional

Climb and/or Dump points We hang 10

How good can you shoot?!?! We have a low goal dumper but thanks to our good friends at 4063, we are working on a shooter this weekend to bring to champs, so we will at least have an 18 point autonomous.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

How much defense was played in the rest of the country? I know MAR was very heavy on defense. There would even be double teaming on the best robots.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

1646 will be coming to Newton to play some hard nosed defense. We have found that because of our inability to score with anywhere near the proficiency of the top robots at our competitions that we are best suited to play defense. This is due to our chassis design and driver experience in defense. Our robot cannot be pushed by any single robot we have faced and routinely pushed two opposing robots with ease (this was because many times alliances would call their defensive robot over to try to play defense on our defense). Our defense was so stout that at our first regional some teams decided to try and feed station shoot instead of cross the field which is when we added our blocking wall.

Type and strength of drive-train - 4 Cim AndyMark SS gear boxes with a 6 wheel 1/8" drop center with 6 inch custom traction wheels.

Expertise of Drivers - Our driver is a 4th year senior driver who has driven every regional of his highschool career

Height and Strength of FCS blocker Our blocker is 1/4" lexan (LED lit of course) that brings our total block height to 59"

Climb and/or Dump points We have a 10 pt hang every time

How good can you shoot?!?! We shoot from the back left outside corner. 3's in autonomous so we will contribute 18 pts in auton.

Note. We played much of our first regional and part of our second doing whatever we needed to do to best help our alliance. Meaning if there was a robot with no shooter then we played offense exclusively. We could only make 3 or 4 trips per match and when we lost our camera we decided to quit shooting in teleop all together. We contribute significantly more points to the score differential by playing defense and won a regional due just to that. We hope that teams in St. Louis will see the advantage to a defensive robot as opposed to an alliance of 3 scorers which will be tempting with all the fire power that will be present at Champs.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Team 1262

Information to Showcase: Half and Half Defender

Type and strength of drive-train : 2 CIM, 4 omni, 2 Kop (middle), tank treads, sideways defender (not a linebacker, but does not get moved sideways easily oddly even with omnis, the omnis when they do push our robot always keep our robot infront of them, so it works out)

Expertise of Drivers: 2 years and 4 years

Height and Strength of FCS blocker: Going to try to add an 84 inch window motor driven lexan shield

Climb and/or Dump points: We hang 10

How good can you shoot?!?! 18 point autonomous, and we try to make a minimum of 2 cycles even when playing defense (again half and half)

Re: Defense at Championships
 

So you're saying they're going to stone 1986?
This I gotta see!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

We had a lot of defense being played in Michigan some where playing good D on some elite teams like 67 33 469 and I never thought anyone would ever slow down teams so powerful but this year is the year to do it!!!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

We've learned quite a bit since losing to them in the finals at Hub City in week 1, both about them and about ourselves, but hopefully, like I mentioned in another thread, we'll be wearing the same color bumpers as they are when we're both on the field...otherwise, challenge accepted ;)

Re: Defense at Championships
 

The Immovable Object vs. the Unstoppable Force. There is no better show to witness.
Like I said: I can't wait to watch this go down.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Our drive team has learned a few things as well, so this should be fun.

ditto!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

^ THAT'S why I LOVE Titanium :)

Re: Defense at Championships
 

This will be quite the match up for sure! Very excited!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

OK, so I tried editing the post above but couldn't, so here is the video we shot today to test the autonomous for our shooter...thanks for 4063 for all their help! NOW we're ready for champs!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Nice stuff! I'm sure you guys are gonna be an early pick with the amazing package you offer!

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Nice; that'll make you even more useful as an alliance partner than you already were. And assuming it stays consistent, you've seriously upped your odds of playing Saturday afternoon.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

The hard part about being an amazing defender -- there's a very large chance that they'll be gone by the time the serpentine comes back around to the upper seeds.

In elims, I wouldn't be surprised to see an entire alliance comprised of robots that are easily able to delivery 26+ discs each -- so defense may be tricky.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oPsvq81n2A
:D

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Yesterday our team was talking about how at regionals we've been to we typically see second picks in the serpentine draft usually begin with selecting a third offensive robot because those seeds are concerned with the scoring capabilities of the top seeds, and defensive picks can sometimes fall to top seeds...this will be our first trip to champs, so I'm curious to see if that trend continues.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

While 1912 has been an offensive robot through our first two regionals, we are making some modifications to the robot, specifically adding a large net that will deploy up to 60" at the start of a match to block FCS, or to sit in front the other alliance's pyramid and forcing pyramid shooters to go on a corner.


Type and strength of drive-train: 2 AM Super Shifters geared at 30:1 and 7.5:1 with 6, 6" High traction wheels, belt driven.

Expertise of Drivers: 2 years each

Height and Strength of FCS blocker: 60", simple net to deflect discs

Climb and/or Dump points: 10 points

How good can you shoot?!?!: Make 18 in auto from corner, and can make 3-4 cycles in to 3 point goal.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

1781 has pretty good defense.

Drivetrain:4 CIM Andymark SuperShifters drop center tank. 6" Andymark wheels with high traction.

Driver: Senior who has been the driver since his sophomore year.

Blocker: A 59" blocker that can extend to 82". Also blocker is two-directional so we can block facing the FCS or perpendicular to the FCS (defending robots of FCS tend to turn robots with drop-center sideways).

Climb: We climb for 10.

Shooting: We score 3 in autonomous and are pretty decent in teleop. We had the seventh highest OPR at Midwest and I believe around the fourth or fifth highest discs scored during teleop.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

This is probably the only effective defense I have seen played on 1986:

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2013okok_qm21

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Well, you'll get a chance to see in Newton Quals 6...assuming this "preliminary" schedule becomes the "official" schedule.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

They gotta stone both 1986 and 2826. That's a really tough assignment for any robot.

Re: Defense at Championships
 

Can't wait :D

Re: Defense at Championships
 

What is this "preliminary" schedule you speak of??

With around 100 teams per division and a 9 match schedule (?), your chance of going up against any other team in the division is just over 1 in 4. Your chance of being paired up with any other team in the division are under 1 in 5. You will never see over half the teams in the division during qualification matches.

(Edit: Nevermind about the "preliminary schedule" - I see the blogpost)

Re: Defense at Championships
 

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...atch-schedules

...and we only get 8 matches...