Truss throw catching club
 

I suspect that the most rare ability demonstrated on the field this year was the ability to catch a truss shot (intentionally). The only thing rarer is to do so as part of a perfect cycle. Anyone else done it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO1C_flphVE

The interesting thing is that catching a truss shot requires more teamwork than anything else in the game this year. It really should be worth more than just 10 points.

At the Chesapeake Regional, we took one practice match specifically to work on truss catching. With 1629 throwing, it took three missed attempts before the drive teams nailed it, and completed the last two of the five attempts. We were hoping for the opportunity to catch a throw from them in the qualification matches, and we were dismayed to find that the match schedule had us playing against them TWICE.

There's an interesting back story to the catch in the above video, as well. We got to be good friends with 1610 on a shared bus ride to Palmetto a couple years back. The weekend before the VA Regional, we traveled to 1610's home turf and spent a day doing joint drive team practice, using our respective practice bots. Among the things we practiced together were floor assists, and over-the-truss passing. We never got a really good opportunity to work together in a qualification match until this one, and it resulted in an over-the-truss catch, a perfect cycle, and setting the high score record for the regional. Our Friday night strategy session was held jointly with 1610, with everyone sharing scouting data and insights about the other robots, then each team separately developing their own pick list. As luck would have it, we ended up on separate alliances, and met as opponents in the finals. Because two teams on 1610's alliance had previously earned Championship slots, we knew we were going to St. Louis when they made it into the finals. The finals were about who got to take home the Blue Banner, and whether our 3rd alliance partner would go to Worlds with us. After seeing 1610 take the gold at our previous two regionals, it was finally us who came out on top at Chesapeake. Without patting ourselves on the back TOO hard, one of the things I'm proudest of this year is how the students on 1610 and 2363 have lived the philosophy of Gracious Professionalism, competing fiercely on the field while helping each other become better when off the field. It's these kinds of relationships which the teams of Virginia need to develop with one another in order to raise the level of gameplay in our state to match other areas of the country.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Woo, 4536 is now part of two clubs!

2501 was the only other robot at our regional to catch a ball (I think).

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1678 (trus) and 399 (catch) ran two perfect cycles of 60 in the last finals match at Inland Empire in Week 1. The video has run repeatedly in highlight reels (with me standing up and blocking the camera...:o )

1678 also has the capability to catch (which we did several times at the Week 0 practice session) but haven't since IER.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Team 20 has caught truss shots before. I'll get up video of the FLR qual match where they get one of ours. They have used their catching ability for other roles in the eliminations rather than catch points.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2056 was doing some catching at their events. I remember 67 getting an accidental catch once from 469, but that wasn't purposefully done (I don't think) and I don't have match footage off-hand.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

179 and 1251 twins can catch

1251 putting on a clinic with 4 catches

179 catching under defense

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We caught balls from two different robots at Vegas this past weekend (I don't know where there is any video). We also may be the only members of the "truss and catch your own ball" club which you can see here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leJu...U-PXC3&index=5 ) at about 1:55! We were told later that we were only awarded style points for our catch :rolleyes:

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2010 at Buckeye had 4 or 5 catches spread out through their matches. There was one match where they caught twice from us.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1648 caught a pass in one of our matches at Palmetto, though i can't remember off the top of my head which match it was. We attempted catches several other times, but failed in all of those other attempts.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

@Citrus Dad, that had to have been our collectively worst auton period of the entire elim matches!

I personally think the "catch" is probably the most undervalued point action in the game. I think it would have made the build season more interesting if they would have given it a 20pt value, so that so many teams wouldn't have written it off their design as low probability / low reward point. I wonder if any regional experienced double digit catches total during it's entire weekend?

I was not at Utah, but was told 399 had 2 more catches that regional, and I know we caught another in a Las Vegas Qual round.

I loved our (1768 to 399) pass&catch as it was like a QB throwing to a receiver in full stride. nothing "Lob & run under" about it.

Here is the video 1678 posted publicly on youtube:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhY_p3qhSkY

Matt

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2583 catches 3 balls in this match (only 2 are the correct color).

We throw to them using our flashlight passing aid.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1218, 4575, and 4373 had a perfect cycle at springside chestnut high event

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

2485, 987, and 3250 had a perfect cycle in the first quarter-final match of the San Diego regional.

Link:
http://youtu.be/HwjqJDIqhAY?t=55s

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

According to me, this club contains the teams that actually succeeded the point of the game : making aerial assists. Congrats to all the teams who succeeded on doing this, including us, who managed to catch the ball a couple times at the Montreal Robotics Festival. I don't have any footage on me right now, but as soon as I get some, posting it here will be the second thing I'll do with the footage (the first thing being watching it, of course!)

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We had a catch (trussed by 5318) in quarter final 3-2 at CODE. I think it might have also been a 3 assist cycle (with 1245 in bounding). I'll come back and post a link to the match video once it's uploaded. One of my favorite moments that weekend =)

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We caught a truss shot in a qualifying match at Arizona. We tried a few more times and failed, it is hard to do, especially with a robot that isn't really designed for it.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We had 2 (almost 3) truss catches throw by 662 in qualifier match 60 in Colorado.

148 had a catch from 359 in the quarter finals at Dallas. The crowd went wild.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Thanks to our extendable arms we have caught about 5 times at Chestnut Hill and Lenape.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Todd Ferrante from 2363 mentioned the day spent with us practicing
at our place. Below is a link that one of our mentors did. (thanks Matt)
While its not a video...there are some shots that show us practicing
throwing and catching.

2363 because of the design of their robot is very very good at catching
when they are on their game.

Thanks Todd for your Kind words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIGb...ature=youtu.be

BTW...the field carpet you see...is from the Virginia regional field last year.
Compared to the carpet carnage i've seen this year, last years game was much easier
on carpet and the VCU carpet was still in excellent shape after the regional.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

At Pittsburgh we had back-to-back perfect cycles with 1503 catching. We also had two catches of our own throughout the event and I believe 1218 had one.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Below is a video where around the 55 sec mark we make a catch. The pass was thrown by team 2992. We had catches from other teams as well including team 2468 whose passing ability was much appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr1qF...m-upload_owner

At the start you will also see that we belong to the Multi-Ball Auto club.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Our team (4490) and team 16 and 45 had a practice match in which we ran a few perfect cycles including catches by us, we had a big huge orange net catcher that worked great! I'll try to post a video of it sometimes, or someone could look up the arkansas regional on youtube and it is one of the first search results.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Todd, thanks for the kind words. We've thoroughly enjoyed working with 2363 as well and I couldn't have said it any better.

Back on topic, I've heard we have a very "catchable" truss shot. Check out this GoPro video of a planned shot with team 401 in a practice match at Virginia: http://youtu.be/z5OVD5vnTdg

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We (1024) made 14 catches at Crossroads. Below is a list of teams whose truss shot we have caught. We are also looking at videos to count up how many catches we made at our other 2 events (Palmetto and Queen City). Catching was a major part of our strategy at Crossroads. It allowed our alliance to score more points per cycle which gave us an edge on our opponents.

537 - 2 catches - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-yTOKtuhMk#t=72
48 - 2 catches - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VacVyX28Nrk
3494 - 2 catches - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz6WwEldNgs
1108 - 1 catch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6kM01DzeSA
1038 - 2 catches - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HMKIV-LWSo
2252 - 1 catch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tQGKnhNdv0
829 - 1 catch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWirB_LFrAE
234 - 2 catches - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6AW2qklBA
3147 - 1 catch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2arMW74lko#t=54

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

The truss/catch combo was so exciting to see in competition but there didn't seem to be a lot of it going on.

Here is a video of Flash 1319 completing a catch at the Bayou Regional (look at 1:33).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaVWqaayisg

Having a great throwing partner is so important for the catch! Thanks to all the teams that completed or at least attempted the truss/catch shot with us! It was exciting! :yikes:

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Here is the video of ours with Team 45 and 16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYGtIwOhKw4

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nxGDV69IxU

Still stings a bit that we didn't manage to score that last ball.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Full court truss and catch in video 2.

http://youtu.be/PpwvllKZYzc

http://youtu.be/_yYTYzqNAbY

http://youtu.be/htr1TM85Kx8

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

That is mind blowing, and the best Aerial Assist I have ever seen.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We had two perfect cycles in match 35 (first and last cycle)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb82Qjvb3ro

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

While the individual match videos aren't up yet, 1712 had a number of successful catches during practice at MAR champs, and then twice during qualifications (Q63 from 4573 and Q108 from 2577).

Is that memory foam I spot on 2521's robot? Awesome to have some company on #teampillow.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Did the referees not know that straddling two zones doesn't count as possession in either?

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Team 997 was captains of an elinanation alliance at Oregon city that ran two perfect cycles in a row with 997 catching and shooting high.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We have done several truss catches and perfect cycles at Gull Lake and West Michigan districts. Defense was too brutal at MSC to make it worth while there. You can see two truss catches ay West Michigan here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Xh-uh01HI

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1918 has been doing truss catches from the beginning. We did at least on in each of our 4 competitions this season. However we have found that the time it takes for someone to line up for a truss throw for us to catch, allows for the defense to know what is going on and defend it. A missed cat truss catch results in the ball being on the floor and we all know what that result can be.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

I saw 862 manage a catch in MSC elims.

Not a really a CATCH, but in Q5 at MSC, 857 managed to catch a wrong-colored ball from about 2/3 the length of the field. Video link (around 2:13 to 2:21 show the events)

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Big shout out to 1024! You guys are the beast at catching! My team that I am on (3494), managed to catch twice. We didn't put that much thought into our catcher so it was cool when we did manage to do it. The first was at Crossroads in a practice match, we catch at about 2:29. It is a practice match so the gameplay is quite slow and not everything is working yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XRX_2GhK1E
The second time was at Queen City in the elimination rounds. We were also using our 2 ball autonomous. Thank you to 868 and 3506 for an amazing alliance!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3XxrojGjAU

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

4301 completed the only catch at Hub City:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDLsJxaACUA

(3:28 in video)

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Nah, It's just plain foam. It did fix the problem we had with the ball bouncing out though.

On a different note I would like to say that we caught 18 times between our two district events and PNW champs. We set out to build a catching bot and that we did.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

1750 and us teamed up to perform the only catches at OKC. 2 in our final match..

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

I don't know if this is me being negative or what but where is the defense? I understand people want to catch and you might have a "catching bot" but anytime I see an alliance trying to execute a catch we play quick D on the ball something that will cause the robots to move and the catch to become nothing and worse yet a loose ball on the ground. The best one I saw was the 2056 and 254 combo but there was still very little D on that even. I think the catch might be cool in practice matches or on occasion but isn't useful during matches...maybe its just the different style of play we have here in Michigan;)

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

It has surprised me the lack of defense that has been played in some of the matches I've seen. There were only 2 successful catches that I saw at Chesapeake, mainly because people would play defense when they saw you were trying to catch. It could very well be the style of play in the different areas, but the lack of defense in some of the matches is surprising since only 2 teams per alliance really have an offensive role at any one time, leaving the 3rd robot to defend.

I did see one team at crossroads try to defend a catch but the ball fell in their robot instead, causing a foul. Everyone was a little cautious after that. Sorry I don't remember the match number or the team. At Queen City there was more defense. Every time a ball was caught, the crowd cheered.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

I have not looked at all the videos yet. But I can assure you MAR teams did not allow robots to just truss and catch a ball. I posted a few videos on page 2 of this thread.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Teams 3641, 67, and 4362 were able to pull off a truss catch at MSC.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

A truss by Team 230 was caught by Team 177 in the 2nd finals match at the NECMP. You can see the beginning of the truss and the catch in this video at around 2:05. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nP39EO6VBI

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

We actually managed two catches at MSC

Match 61: https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...-HTwKIS0#t=152

QF3-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNItdW5UzO0#t=41

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

Ahhh, I see what you did there.

We had a blast at Bayou competing with so many new faces and teams for us. It was great working with you guys on the field.

Re: Truss throw catching club
 

4213 Has done a number of catches and mid-range inbounds this season, esp. at Boilermaker.
Sadly I can't point to any video.