How we plan to get over the defenses
 

The more I think about this game, I come to the conclusion that the way many of us are going to tackle the defenses, is by pushing (or being pushed by) our alliance partners. It seems to be an unspoken part of the rules.

What do you think?

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

From my interpretation of the rules, that's fully legal. But it may pose a problem by preventing one of the robots from scoring points on the opposite end. We figured out a system that will get our own robot over the obstacles by itself as to let our other teammates do their job.

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

I agree that my interpretation of the rules as they are currently written it is fully legal for one alliance member to push another over a defense (and even on to the batter).

I do fear that this could lead to damage to one or both of the robots. I have two fears. 1. That due to the potential for robots to be at an angle relative to the floor that the bumpers may override and damage items inside the frame perimeter or for the robots to be locked together. 2. I do foresee a potential for the stuck robot to become damaged because of the potential for a robot to be at an angle relative to the defense and side loading on the wheels to cause damage to them.

I mention the "even on to the batter" based on the fact that in Rebound Rumble my team's alliance was beaten by an alliance who pushed their dead alliance member onto the bridge for a successful 3 robot balance.

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

It's week 3....we still have time to adjust our designs to work with this strategy.

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

I think that a push may not be needed and a strong manipulator can be used to assist a partner out of a snag.

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

One potential technique for the 'passive' defenses is to go at them full speed. As long as your design accounts for that 'collision', you'll go over for sure.

In Breakaway, we found that going over the ramp was tricky unless we did it at full throttle. The bot was built extra robust, and we lost to 1114 and 469 in the finals on Curie. Catching air every time made the crowd go wild...

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

I hadn't gotten that at all. The draw bridge and sally port are too easy to solve through cooperation between two robots with working drive trains to be worth the manipulators they will require to solve solo, but other than that, we are planning to cross the defenses solo. Of course, we'll give our alliance partners a push if they become tortugas, and ask for a bit of help if it happens to us.

Re: How we plan to get over the defenses
 

In addition to working with the NERDS, I'm also part time mentoring a rookie team 6127 in Bisbee. I think the pushing thing is going to be a way for rookie teams to handle defenses more easily, if they figure out they can do that. It's one of those things that is not obvious if you've never played FRC before...or even if you have, but don't think that far.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out at the regionals.

btw after starting this thread, we tested our chassis design, and it appears to be capable of crossing half of the defenses relatively easily alone. So we might not need the push after all. But we will need help with the drawbridge/sally, and we are planning to ignore the portcullis/cheval, and be able to handle the low bar easily on our own.

This game makes my head hurt, thinking of the possible ways to play each match! Coaching will be a challenge.