How Important Is Capping?
 

I went to the NJ Regional on 3/6/04 with a few people from my team just to do some scouting. The one thing I really noticed was that there were a lot of very good ball-cappers (I think 303 and 195 were the best, could be getting team #'s confused though). Our team sort of discarded ball-capping at the beginning because we thought the small balls and hanging were more important. But there were a few matches where capping played a HUGE role and most of the alliances that went deep into the playoffs had at least one capping robot.

Has anyone seen anything like this at any other regionals (if there have been any others yet) and if you have, what do you think of it?

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

In the first day at the Manchester, NH regional, ball capping made a difference in a lot of matches. But on the second day, it seemed like the team who could cap well would often just be pushed around until it was too late to do anything.

I was actually surprised that the balls didn't play a more significant role in the finals. I had expected to see really high scores, dominated by ball scoopers, but hanging from the bar seemed to actually determine the outcome of many of the final matches.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

from the webcast it seemed that capping only made a differance if you had a lot of balls in the goals and a lot of robots were somewhat inefficient at herding balls.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

At NJ, 303 showed that if your robot was good at getting balls to the human player and capping, you could beat hanging robots "easily" (with a good HP). They beat us fair and square in QF 1.2 by getting balls in the movable and fixed goals and capping them. I think they scored over 80 pts with balls regularly throughout the competition.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

I think capping is very important. Thats how we won most of our matches. If both human players make all 3 balls in at the beginning of the round and thats capped thats 60 points which is more than 1 robot hanging. Feed a few more balls to the human player and cap it and u can easily beat 2 hanging bots.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

what do you do if a robot can hang and cap at the same time.....?

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

win?

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

haha i meant what can your team do as a strategy if another team you're against can hang and cap/uncap at the same time?

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

run aroud crying cuz you just lost...

no you could know this in advance and throw your arm in their goal to stop them

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Dont let them hang :)

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Capping is important only if your alliance can score balls--and that means that at least one of the robots must be able to efficiently collect and deliver balls and your human players must be good.

If one team can cap and one team can score balls, than you're very well off. Re: Us and Hyper allianced in practice on Thursday scoring over 200 points this way.

--Petey

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

First off...you save a couple of small balls so that you can knock your opponents 2X multiplier off their stationary goal with a baseball throw. I've done it several times in practice--it just takes some skill and a lot of luck.

Second off...you try to get your robot--or your partners robot--to hang/cap/block the bar/ whatever to the best of its ability.

Thirdly...you pray.

--Petey

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

ok well. im from team 303 and we dont have anything to do with hanging. what we do best is capping. you can totally offset the score of a hanging robot by only having 5 balls and a cap. or something like that. in finals we caped twice with balls in each. capping is deffinatly worth it. but what makes a alliance strong is one bot that hangs and one that stays on the ground, a ball handler.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

that is so true.. we stuck to capping and were seeded 6th (we lost our first 2 macthes due to tech difficulties..

also, we scored like at least 70 points per game

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

I've noticed the topic of capping the opponents goal before balls are scored (or when there are only a couple) hasn't been mentioned as a defensive strategy.

Is this because it doesn't work, as it can typcially be uncapped so easy, or just something not too many teams tried to do in the first regionals?

Regards,
Scott358

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Capping proved to be very effective to those who could do it consistently. I think the reason we won was because of a great alliance. Each bot complimenting the other. Especially 237 and us. They hung and blocked the bar and we just went around gathering balls then capping both goals. Our alliance lost once throughout the eliminations against the 8th seed (probably the 2nd best alliance with 25, 365, and 103). Ball handlers and hangers make a good combo.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I will be the first to say that if it can be done, this is an excelent strategy, keeping in mind a couple things..........

If you put the ball too far in, any ball on top of that are multiplied, even is you get 5 or 6 in thats still decent points. If the ball is gently placed on top, the hp's might have some devine strength and be able to knock the ball out (though with the PVC in back that might be hard).

This strategy works very well against an alliance who hads no 2x ball capibilities, however some teams that can hang, might be able to uncap the ball as well.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

actually, I dont know how the other regionals are working, but at the drivers meeting of the Nj regional they announced that any balls on top of the yellow ball arent considered points at all according to revision C of the rules (which dont include the Q&A forum). Any backup on this from other regionals?

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Question was asked at the driver's meeting on Thursday at New Jersey regional. They specifically said that balls on top of the 2x would count as nothing. So that strategy would not work.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Balls on top of the 2X multiplier are still multiplied.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

What's your source on this?

edit: From FIRST's document on the game: A small ball is scored when it is contained within a goal or supported only by the goal and/or other small balls.

There's a little room for wiggling in there...but I would say on top of yellow balls = nothing.

edit2: Apparantly I'm wrong, from the below...but I still wouldn't say that a ball on top of a multiplier is "contained" in the goal, and it certainly doesn't fit the other description of scored... :confused:

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Question and Answer Section of FIRST

ID: 68 Section: 4.4.1 Status: Answered Date Answered: 1/13/2004
Q: Please clarify the definition of capping. If a large ball is wedged into the goal and 5 point balls are on top of it, are they doubled as well? Does the "capping" actually "cap" the scoring that can be done with that goal?

A: Yes, the ones on top are doubled as well. Refer to the definition of SCORED.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

The head referee at the NJ regional said that balls on top of the 2x count as nothing and he made it pretty clear that they counted as nothing. I don't think it ever happend in a match but if it did would his ruling be wrong?

*edit
From 4.3.1

SCORED – A SMALL ball is SCORED when it is contained within a goal or SUPPORTED only by the goal
and/or other SCORED SMALL balls. A ball is not considered SCORED if it is touching a ROBOT of that
alliance or is SUPPORTED by a structural part of the field other than the goal

It says supported only by the goal. Balls on top of the 2x are support by the 2x ball also.

/*edit

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

According to the ruling by the Question and Answer System, that would have been an incorrect call.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Read the edit of post #24

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Refer to SUPPORTED.

If the 2x ball was remove would the 5 pt ball be supported by the goal. In most cases yes. Therefore the 5 pt balls on top would most like be counted and because the 2x is in the goal they would be doubled.

And SCORED does say: contained within a goal or SUPPORTED.........

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

I know it says that in the Q&A. I had one of my teammates question it because the head red said revision C only. No Q&A in Rev. C. He was pretty straight forward on the rules and very specific about what ones he enforced heavily. According to the definitions it should be scored, but the supporting device makes the situation flaky to some.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

The Q&A is to help us understand what the rules are supposed to mean and for FIRST to get feedback on what points teams are having trouble with. The Q&A answers have never been the final answer. The latest revision of the rules is the final answer. I must admit I haven't redownloaded the rules lately myself. I should probably do that so I have something to read on the way to Phoenix! But the refs do have the final version handy at all times. Hopefully they don't have to refer to it much.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

I thought the combo of 303 and 237 was pretty much unbeatable. 237 could go straight to the bar, hang, and move around. 303 would be going around scooping up balls and capping. Then, you through in 56 which is a very good robot and you got a real great alliance.

Cappers and hangers really do work together well. I think that FIRST designed this game so that you really depend on your partner. Last year, if you had a good robot, very good driver, and some luck, you could win a match by yourself. But this year, teamwork is much more important.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

At VCU ball capping was not that big for our team til the finals. Because the amount of balls we got to the human player was large and his percent accuracy was so high having a ball capper on our side was better for us.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Sorry for the late posts, but Sparky 5 is all capping. Our human player can sink them in like crazy. IMHO, Capping=Hanging in the regular matches. In the finals, capping>hanging. Many of the higher up teams hang, and lots of times teams won by just one ball. If a team can get one of their bots hanging, fill up their big & small goals and cap them both, they'll win.

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Both depend on one's strategy. OUr robot could cap only the stationary goals but was very capapble of hanging. Our robot alliance won at stl and one of our alliances could cap but not hang and the other capped and hanged. We ended up winning the final match by having both us and our alliance hanging while the oppoisng allaince had only one hanging robot. But much can be said about capping as well as the first win of the finals was with the capping roobt, our robot tipped over and i shot about 6 balls in with the other shooter shoooting about 4 or 5 in and then they capped it allowing the victry. both are essential to go far.

"air ric" not to be confused with air jordan

Re: How Important Is Capping?
 

Hey all,
First I would like to say... THANK YOU 967 for picking us to be in your alliance! You guys are awesome as is team 16! Our team has never been this excited about anything. We all freaked out a bit in that first match when you guys tipped over but our drivers and your human player worked awesome together to pull off a nervous but exciting win! Thank you 967 and 16, you all did a great job!!! It is a very good strategy to have at least one good capper / ball herder in the elimination matches... or at least it was shown to be a good strategy at St. Louis.
Derek