Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

There are ways to increase the likelihood of a catch :p

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Of course, but unlike 2013 neither the "roomba" nor the full court shooter is protected from contact defense. When you are shooting 40 feet, a short displacement from a hit can result in several feet of difference in trajectory.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Catching off of the wall is huge here. Get your dimensions as big as possible then sit about two feet from the wall. If the ball lands in front of you trap it for possession. Bouncing it off of the wall slows it down and often places it in a catchable position.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I agree a full court catch and assist is not going to be common. There are so many variables to manage for teams that have had very little practice time together. Not to mention, a ball launched with enough force to achieve full court is more likely to break things when it lands.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I really like playing defense no matter the game and this year makes me giggle with excitement over all the defense possibilities. I say a great strategy is win Auto and then just overwhelm your opponents with defense.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

This is probably the best strategy to use to win all your elimination matches. I keep saying this and I'll keep saying it until we test it out and fail.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, at more than one regional, the very best teams will be mainly defensive robots. It's so much easier to stop an entire alliance from scoring in this game than it ever has been before, and any "powerhouse" teams that devote themselves to defense could get really, really good at it.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

It depends on what your considerations for "best" are.

While I have no doubt that some very good teams will be playing solid defense this year, I sincerely doubt that they will have designed a robot specifically for that purpose.

Being successful in competition is a large deal about control-- during a match, over your robot, of the game piece, during elimination matches. Fairly consistently, very good teams are those that maximize control-- and defense is, by its very nature, something that the value cannot be controlled by-- your value to alliance is contingent on your opponents being good.

I can't wait to see what teams have come up with this year-- the strategic depth is almost as good as Ultimate Ascent, in my opinion.

I think the game on the field will be significantly different than the game people are planning their robots around.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I disagree. I believe that, this year, the absolute best possible robot to have, in qualification and eliminations, is designed, built, and programmed to play excellent defense, with strategies developed to match. I'm not sure how many of those we will see, if any, because too many people and teams seem to think that defense is only a fallback solution; I hope we will, though.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

What is your definition of "excellent" defense? Yes, we will see some very good defensive robots that will have success but I can guarantee you that 1 V 1 the offense will always beat the good defense this year as long as there trajectory is above 5 feet and they can launch is half court...all's you have to do is sit at feeder station and throw it over truss. If the other robot is pure defense and cant score...well good luck trying to win. This is just my opinion and party theory.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

So, suppose a team was insightful enough to make sure that they've got something tall and easily damaged but also easy to replace on each corner of their robot, to push it right up to the 60" mark.

Say that same robot decides to bump bumpers with you while you're trying to catch a ball (off the wall or anywhere else) while expanded to full volume....

20" outside your frame perimeter -7" of bumpers = 13" inside their frame perimeter, in contact and causing damage = technical foul.

(Of course, the real place to play defense on a catch is on the robot doing the shooting.)

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Even without worrying about damage. The defending robot has the advantage in nearly any rebounding situation since their goal isn't to get the ball just prevent you from getting it. That should be a far easier task.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Defense can win matches but I think it will create low assist points for both teams. For this reason defense robots will not have as good qualification rankings. It comes down to will defense bots get picked above another strong scorer?

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Look at last year. Team 3284 was one of my defensive robots. 4wd with 4 cim 2 speed gearbox. They could score but not that great. In the Galileo divison they ranked 63 yet they were still picked by team 2169, 3rd ranked team, and went to finals, only loosing to the alliance who would win worlds. So yes i would say defense will get you picked :)

Also 3284 had a net integrated into their robot to block FCS so i would say a massive part of their design was pure defense which worked out great for them!

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

But this thread is wayyy of track.

To answer the op question I think that the abilities of the top teams at a regional (defining top teams at those seeded highest) will be scoring and pickup. If you are built just as a catching, assisting, or defending robot you will not be a high seed. In order to do good you have to have good alliance partners which is unlikely in Qualifications. So the picking robots will be able to score in high goal and pickup from floor.

Now the robots they will pick will be the catching, assisting, and defending robots.

I imagine that a common winning alliance will look like this.

Captain) High Goal Shot, Intake, and sometimes catching mechanism
First Pick) Intake, Truss Shot
Second Pick) Strong drivetrain/driveteam, intake, maybe shoots but better at Defense

Scouting is everything this year. Scouting has always been what wins championships but this year it is double as important!

just my 2cents