Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

We were just wondering it seems everyone is building ball shooters are there any wicked awesome goalies out there ? Are any teams building high goal or low goal blockers ?:confused: It seem a blocking bot would be rather a sought after commodity ?

It seems like you could block the low goal by just sitting in front of it.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

There are 3 entrances into each low goal. A good low goal defender will need to do far more than "sit in front of it"

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Our team has noted that most catapult and puncher shooting bots seem to only be able to hit the high goals and the top entry of the low goal . So we have concentrated on a blocker for these two areas . Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon also ?

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

During brainstorming someone suggested a goalie bot four feet long (possibly with a 20" extension that pops out at each end) by eight inches wide, 60" tall, and a drive system allowing it to speedily move sideways. Along the top would be a line of pneumatic pop-up blockers, which the operator controls with something like a piano keyboard.

Of course, this would completely block one driver's view if it wasn't made see-through. This led to speculation about an anti-goalie bot whose main strategy would be to block the opponents view, and whether such a monstrosity would violate gracious professionalism. ;)

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I think most people are over 5' unless the extensions somehow build a wall;)

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Due to the rule about the 6 inch cylinder going above 5 feet i can't imagine how hard it is to be a good goalie. :eek:

Though if simbotics, robonauts or one of those other fantastic teams build a goalie that doesn't allow the opposing alliance to score they will obviously win. :yikes: :)

Only time will tell though. :o

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Sounds like it would end up on its side allot... definitely pushed out into open field to try not to fall over as soon as possible in a match.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I think you might want to re-read the rule on the blocking there is no height rule:
If a ROBOT is in contact with carpet in its GOALIE ZONE, and for only one ROBOT per ALLIANCE at a time, there is no height restriction; however, any extension or combination of extensions above 5 ft. may not extend beyond a vertical cylinder with a 6 in. diameter.

Our high goal blocker can zip up to 112 inches and can withstand the blunt force of the direct hit of the ball with out toppling over the robot. We are new to this being a rookie team .
The team just wanted to be good at one thing blocking shots.
In the hope that we were a valuable asset .

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

From my experience, being offensive wins matches more often than being defensive. I've found that acquiring more points for your own alliance is much more valuable than preventing the other alliance from scoring. The bottom line is that offense scores points, and defense does not. Teams like 1114 and 118 are aware of this, and may be too busy during a match scoring assists and goals, that they need not bother with being a goalie. I do see a possibility, though, of a high performance team choosing a good goalie robot -- that ideally can also score in the low or high goal and can do controlled assists -- as an alliance pick.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I beg to differ. See Super Bowl XLVIII.
Defense is unappreciated because it's value is not directly apparent in the score.

Preventing or delaying a cycle is the same as scoring.

Being that each offensive team has only one ball, a good defender might be the winning teams mvr (most valuable robot). This year defense in a one on one matchup.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

This is absolutely true! A perfect example of this (in FIRST) would be at the Pinetree regional. My team was selected by the top rank alliance 3467 and 2648. The matches were going well and we found ourselves in the finals. Match one went great (we won), then match two came along and just before the match started an inspector noticed something that was wrong with our robot that they had missed on the last two inspections causing us to have to sit on the field disabled for the match. Unfortunately this caused us to lose the second match and go into the dreaded third match of the finals. By this time we had fixed our bot and were back up and running. The third match came, we played our hearts out and came out on top for a well deserved title as the regional champions.

So moral of the story? Defense really does help. All 2386 was able to do was defense and score in autonomous. By us not being able to compete match two and losing by over 50 points (we were usually 50 ahead), showed just how valuable our defense was. We were quite pleased with how us not being able to play in match two, showed that we hadn't just won a lottery, but we actually greatly helped our alliance in getting to where it did.

Defense is totally underrated.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Defense is totally underrated. I can see that defense will be a major part of the game after the ball is passed to your alliance member. You will have nothing else to do while you wait for the robots on your alliance to score for the next ball to be put into play. So I can see defense becoming a big part of the game after these week 1 competitions coming up. :D

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

My team put a LOT of consideration into the idea, but ultimately the mentors vetoed the dedicated goalie.

You can find an animation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=408YXf6kGJ0

The idea is up for grabs if you can build it in a week...

PM me if you want a detailed .blend file.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Okay, this is something that we came up with at the beginning of build season but never used it (blocking is not in our strategy). The perfect blocker would be a large pole mounted on the edge of a lazy-susan turn table. When you wanted to block you have a motor turning the table and the previously small rod now takes up close to three ball widths (or more) Couple this with rapid robot movement and it could become a very effective blocker.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...IXJv_Fw3vy9vRv

The table could look like this and you mount the pole on one of the corners. (the table would obviously be bigger).
Figured I would share the idea for anyone who wants a blocker. What do ya' think?

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Really creative design, I like it. If made it probably would have been one of the best goalies out there.

However, it would have suffered from the same Achilles Heel as every other goalie robot out there: counter-defense. All it would take is one robot parking sideways in the goalie zone to block the goalie from moving through the goalie zone quickly. the goalie would either have to push the counter-d robot sideways as fast as the shooting robot could re-position and shoot; or retract its blocking extension, drive around the counter-d robot, get back into the goalie zone, and re-deploy its blocking extension before the shooting robot could re-position and shoot.

This is why we did not pursue a goalie design. Defense is important, but a goalie robot is simply too easy to effectively counter.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Even though I don't think the goalie strategy is good this year, I like this design. It's quite clever and well thought out.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Unfortunately, it is against the rules.

G12

An ALLIANCE may not POSSESS their opponent’s BALLS. The following criteria define POSSESSION:
1. “carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT),
2. “herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
3. “launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT),
4. “trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

A lazy-susan does not help much since you can not have it free spinning.

G12

An ALLIANCE may not POSSESS their opponent’s BALLS. The following criteria define POSSESSION:
1. “carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT),
2. “herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
3. “launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT),
4. “trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I guess it is a good thing we didn't go with that design.;)

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

We did a lot of analysis, and we found that mathematically, we still benefit our alliance as long as it takes more than two seconds per cycle for this counter-defense robot to get into place (because we slow them down). Actually, we found that if we block a single ball in autonomous, we are pretty much guaranteed a win. Of course, our mentors correctly pointed out that while it is mathematically advantageous, we still have to get picked, and it doesn't look good if we get blocked.

Well noted. We were more than a little irked with this significant rule change after two weeks. Our prototype was fast enough to lock position before impact, but the struggle was indicating clearly to the referee that the post was stationary.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Emphasis mine.

I think this rule is ambiguous; it can be argued effectively that such a mechanism impels the ball in an arbitrary direction not at all determined or "desired" by the drivers.

It could also be argued that there is a "desired" direction, namely "not towards the goal."

Without a clarification, the legality of such a mechanism is unclear.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

If someone did do this, the launcher wouldn't need to launch an opponents ball. Instead why wouldn't you use that catapult as a possession of your own alliance's ball. Then you would be able to get an assist without having to move. Though I guess that this would only work if an alliance partner that could catch... But still it would be pretty awesome

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

If the post is sliding left/right, this would only be "impelling the ball to a desired location" if the ball were to be deflected significantly left or right. Yes, while an off-center bounce would send the ball off to the side, The major (>>95%) "impulsion" would be caused by a deflection rather than a launch.

I would invoke the "grandmother clause" in this situation. A move like this is pretty clearly a "block" more than anything else (blocking being a deflection).

I think people are way over-thinking the "possession vs defense" side of this game, especially when it comes to goalie. IMHO a robot like this is quite obviously legal, especially because the intent of the device is clear (to move the defense device in front of, not "impel" the ball)

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

This seems useful here.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I love this robot. It's completely legal, and I really wish you had built it. It's really well thought out and would be an awesome addition to nay alliance, especially if you could truss it from the goalie position.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

This is incorrect. Logic would show you that preventing an opponent from scoring is exactly the same as scoring the same number of points yourself when it comes to determining who won the match. 0-1 match scores, while boring, count the same as 0-120 scores from a WLT perspective.

However, this changes when you start looking at it from a ranking perspective rather than a winning perspective. Take, for example, years where your second sort was based off of your opponent's score. During those years it was beneficial to allow your opponents to score so long as you could outscore them.

So, what I'm saying is that offense or defense wins matches (it doesn't matter which one) but offense tends to rank higher. Now, the really fun part of the discussion involves the difficulty and risk of effective defense as well as the metagame of the area you are playing. You also need to take into account the difference between effective defense and crappy defense (I'll give you a hint 90% of defense is of the crappy variety, maybe more).

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I totally agree that defense is underrated. I'm not saying that defense is not useful. As a drive team mentor, I have to think of defensive strategies, too, and defense can be extremely useful in certain situations, but defense is something that can be done well by many teams at a competition, although some robots are better designed for defense than others.

My point is that as far as I know, high performance teams tend to err on the side of being offensive, because the acquisition of points is solely on one's own alliance alone, and does not depend as much on what the opposing alliance does, compared to being defensive. It's all about who dominates the field strategically, and how well a strategy is planned. This is why I mentioned a good possibility of a very strong offensive team choosing a good goalie. This might give a team an advantage, and it might just make the difference between a win or loss, but defense alone usually will not win a match. There's gotta be some offense along with it. You can have an all offense strategy and win a match, but I don't think you have an all defensive strategy and win, unless the opposing alliance scores nothing, and your alliance earns foul points.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I completely agree with this. If your scouting system fails to appreciate the value of defense in a single piece game like this, you are setting yourself up for an outright spanking when you pass up that total shutdown defensive bot in eliminations because they have no OPR.
If a robot is able to effectively seal off one side of the field (or simply deflect even as low as 25% of shots) it doesn't matter how far you can shoot, or how well you can catch, if you struggle to end a cycle, even mediocre robots will take the banner away from you.

Points not being awarded to your opponent are subtly points being added to your own score. If you can slow down the other alliance such that they can only complete one less cycle per match, that effectively gives you an entire cycle's points worth of a head-start on them.

Matches are only ~2 minutes long, and when your 20fps shooter fires a ball right into the awaiting goalie post of the other robot, it is going to go flying in some direction, wasting precious seconds. If a defensive bot can deflect even as low as 2 shots per match, I wholeheartedly believe that they will significantly hinder your score.

Also take it psychologically: from a driver perspective (as a former driver), getting your shots blocked is very frustrating, in the heat of a match nothing makes you madder than an effective defensive robot hindering your progress. As you get angry you stop thinking clearly, only digging yourself deeper. Even the most trained and level-headed drivers will face the pressure of constantly being shut down.

This makes me wish we had made a defensive bot this year.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Yup. Winning the match is always the first priority. It's a win if you score more than your partners. It's also a win if you prevent your partner from scoring any points at all.

The best offense is a good defense! :rolleyes:

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

If we are talking about top tier teams, which we originally were, the question isn't so much "is defense effective?" as it is "is defense more effective than offense, given their vast capabilities?" I believe that the answer is no. I question how effective an amazing defense bot can really be. Blocking is pretty much out of the question, because you can just send a robot to push any goalie out of the way. Anyways, the "safe zones" that you may have heard about elsewhere on CD are immune to goalies. And what else is there? You can have an awesome, powerful drivetrain, but most top tier teams have one already. And top tier teams already have great drivers. They could also put up a 5ft wall for blocking, but that is trivial for these powerhouses. I can't imagine any other way that you could be more effective at defense. So they have the choice to either call themselves a defensive bot and be finished halfway through week 2, or add on offensive mechanisms and be able to be both (like they have always done). Is that really even a decision?

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

choosing to play defense can be a hard one, although the team that I am apart of decided that in the long run (finals) it would be more beneficial and look more appealing to high ranked teams. Message me for details about robot if you want to know more.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

The most dominant defensive robot I've seen recently is 1011 at the Arizona regional in 2011. They did not score during the regional. They went 5-1-3 (the 3 ties were 0-0) and seeded 11th.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

our team won in Montreal last year because we could hang, shooter in auto, and defend like mad. Defense is always important.

Team 2410 has a telescoping arm which runs of a window motor and weighs under 10 pounds. It easily extends over the top of the goal, we've nailed it with balls and it has yet to yield at all, our only concern is keeping it verticals however so far it has been working fantastic. Unless somebody is blocking us directly we can block pretty much anything from what I've seen in our practice matches.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Pics/vids or ban! :yikes:

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I think a problem with being goalie is that because of where you have to hang-out, you probably won't be a part of any assists. You'll actually take points away from your own team.

Thoughts?

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Were going with a man on man defense for this year, most of the bots we have seen are pretty low and have a ball trajectory that is easy to block.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

2789 in 2013....

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Isn't that goalie zone very near to where you'd want to be inbounding balls? The video link above in the thread shows the goalie deploying a net and catching a ball tossed into the field. So the goalie actually becomes the possessing bot in that first zone. If the goalie is busy with the one-and-only opponent game piece at the moment inbound is needed, the inbounder could toss the ball further upfield to a mate, or a mate could inbound that cycle. So goalie could probably inbound about half of the balls for the alliance (unless they are a really good goalie, in which case your opponent is going to spend the rest of the match in their offense zone trying to clear their blocked autonomous balls and trying to pin and push the goalie around :)

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I don't think that's true at all. There will be quite a bit of team when the goalie bot isn't blocking shots, and during that time, they can certainly receive an inbounded ball and pass it up the field. Even if they don't have a ball holder, they can still possess the ball...

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

This saddens me.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

What you say is generally true. Outscoring your opponents is what wins. If your combined offense and defense is better than theirs you win, and that depends on the game and the effectiveness of the defense. In 2000, team 25 had the ultimate defensive robot. It could score almost zero on general offense, but could remove balls from their opponents goal and score them for their alliance. They couldn't qualify worth a darn, but were deadly with the right partner and ultimately ended up on the Championship alliance.

In this year's game, with a lot of high scoring teams likely, it is possible that a good defensive robot vs. the opponents high scorer might even the odds in elimination. Most likely that defensive (third choice) will be a generalist that can maneuver, pass, score with a kick-$@#$@#$@# driver as opposed to a special defense only bot.

A remote possibility is an autonomous defense specialist. This will only come about if someone has such a devastating autonomous scorer that a defense is needed. It is unknown if a super autonomous scorer will be developed.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

A number of teams have shown videos with 2- and 3-ball auto moves. I think that qualifies as a devastating autonomous scorer. A blocker that could stop one of those robots will make life very miserable for the other alliance.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I know it's a little late, but Team 1710 has put together a defense bot. Check it out in the photos or visit team1710.com

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...highlight=1710

Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I'll get those pics up ASAP, been working all day sorry :/

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Backing up discobrisco
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/39604?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=659774174065369&set=a.6454577321636 80.1073741835.142538092455649&type=1&theater

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

We have posted some photos of our Wicked Awesome Goalie that team 5040 built .I guess the Awesome part is yet to be seen but the tag is wickedawesomegoalie we also have a video that we made ;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlBo...e_gdata_player

The team sure had fun building it !

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I sure hope you've got legal bumpers to put on your robot. :eek:

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Just for clarification, per Rule R24, those corners need to be filled by the bumpers you plan on using at competition.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Totally agree. Our alliance could not win Montreal in 2013 without you guys.

Defence is effective as long as the effectiveness in the time spent defending is superior to the amount of points a robot can score during that same time. During the finals in Montreal 2013, 1075 was excellent at shutting down the two teams who happened to have the highest OPR and be on the same finalist alliance. 1075 created room for us and 3387 to cycle through and score. It was beautiful.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

I would like to counter both of those with my team in 2006.
Won the Philly regional first.

Then we went undefeated on Galileo (qual and elims) purely playing defense.

Watch any video of our team that year and see how defense can control a game.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Mumble mumble 1 point mumble mumble

- a disgruntled RUSH Alumni.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Rush did get the advantage of Bobcat defense in making it to the Galileo finals in 2004.
And if Winnovation had taken Sparx first in 2006????

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

We do have two sets a red set and a blue set and they are legal
These photos are of the team building progress , not the final bag and tag photo.:]

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Not exactly a goalie, but we added this piece onto our robot as a simple quick deploying defense mechanism. It wont be blocking entire goals but it gives us at least the opportunity to play defense if need be.

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

What about any hella sick goalies?

Re: Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?
 

Our team is both offensive and defensive. We can cover both goals within 2 seconds due to our great mecanum drive. We made sure we can defend so we have a higher chance of being picked but it looks like it doesn't matter because we will probably be picking :)