Balls are the difference
 

I will bet anything that a ball bot that gets 20 balls in one goal will beat anybody, as long as they can control that goal. If you just can pull goals, than 20 balls will counter your two goals. Balls are the difference

Very true team 173 RAGE showed everyone that balls will come into play in finals at the Long Island Regionals. So look out for all the ball bots including team 56.

Brian

Balls are the difference for SURE
 

As a member of team 16 I can assure you that when we grab only that one goal and put 20-30 balls in it, then go home in the last 4 seconds, we will more than likely win the match.

Ask anyone who went to the Houston regional.

P.S. We seeded first also. I love us ball getters.

Re: Balls are the difference
 

THAnk you!!! i said the same thing in our initial design meetings, but all the engineers could say was that it would be easier to build a goal robot than a ball robot. Yeah. Never mind that there seems to be a MAJor lack of ball robots at ALL the comps. Ugh. Anyways, to all my CD posting friends, put in a good word for Beach 'Bot with your teams....we happen to be a wonderful goal grabber and will most likely be groveling at the feet of any teams that can handle lots of balls in the finals.
Love y'all!
Amy (Beach'Bot, #330)

not ture
 

at UTC there is more ball handlers then goal grabbers.

You weren't the only one
 

Actually Amy, at least ONE engineer argued strongly for a ball robot and even built a couple of prototype collectors.Gee I wonder who that was? :D

Though I agree that a goal grabber is simpler. As I recall the decision came down to a single vote, so there were strong arguments either way.

Agreed
 

I'd have to agree, Balls are the difference. In our qualification match against Beatty, we had only 1 goal, but 18 balls and 1 robot get back, they had 2 and 1 robot get back, we won 38-25....thats why we have a ball bot.

it must have been 38-30 because if they got 2 goals and a robot back that would be 30 points.

Brian

My fault on that one, they didnt get a robot back, and they got 5 balls in from the human players.

Team 930, Mukwanago Masters of Machinery
our motto: "It's easier to pronounce than Occonomowoc ;-P"

I agree, balls are the difference. We made some rookie mistakes at the regionals and we are making some improvements to our manuverability for Orlando. The other thing, I don't think we promoted ourselves well enough.

Falco, I don't know if you saw it, but we had a match where we got 19 of the 20 balls on one side of the field in one quick,long pass. There was no room for the 20th ball and the 19th had to be backed out so we could lift the full basket. It was a cool sight.

Hopefully we will be able to consistently show that off in Orlando and the manuverability changes will make the difference. I believe we could fill and dump twice in a match.

By the way, you guys did great!

Thanks!
 

No, I didn't get to see that one, but I believe you guys could do it, you have a great ball bot. And thanks for the compliments, we can hold 9 in our basket and about 3 in our rollers,the most dumps we did in a match was 3, but there was time for a fourth. See you in Florida, maybe we'll give a pronunciation class there lol. :D

Balls are defintely the difference. We've been on both sides of the coin of 'winning by a ball.' Rather than having 20 balls in one goal, however, just have one goal in each scoring zone, the other neutral, and one has one more than the other. That is what it means by balls are the difference.

Balls are definately, without a doubt, a major factor this year. Just ask the Technokats or Wildstang (but not DJ!).

If you didn't know, they lost their 2nd match at Finals at MMR by 2 balls accidentally thrown into the opponent goal...

yea, i'm very proud of my team's (86) ability to pick up 25-30 balls and dump them successfully. we seeded in the 20s but that was due to a bad start...after we (the drivers) calmed down everything went fine...and at nats I think that ball bots really will make a difference...i know they did with the few ball bots at KSC. I know in the finals alot of the goal grabbers picked ball bots to balance their alliance and this proved to be quite a good strategy

YOU'RE ALL WRONG!!!
 

I write this message with a smile on my face :) I want any and all ball loaders to try to load balls when a robot is blocking them. It's well understood that you can suck up 20-30 balls, but it does you no good if you don't have a goal or if you are being blocked. I hope you all look at your machines and understand that this game is not about balls, but rather goals! Cryin' out loud, get away from those balls and start grabbing goals. (this entire message is written towards the finals -- the only time this game counts!). Have fun in Disney because when it is time to play it won't be any fun getting blocked. Mark my words: Watch extenders and goal grabbers to win.

Jnadke,

I thought a great combo for the finals would have been you guys and us (930).

as far as 1first is concerned (with your anonymous profile), the point of this thread is that the balls can turn the tide against goal bots as long as they can get one goal. Of course, if they can't get a goal it is pointless. From my limited experience, even against a 3 goal bot, getting one goal was not impossible with a good start.

Can't wait for the Nats.

-Jim

Re: YOU'RE ALL WRONG!!!
 

Where do I start? Between our 2 regionals, team 121 has broken 3 goal grabbers from 3 different teams. They had a goal and we ripped it away from them. After we were done laughing we dumped our 20 balls. We have also broken 2 to extenders. Ball bots win regionals and will win nationals. A strong ball bot like ourselves will be able to win with only one goal. we got 34 balls from the playing field into one goal during one of our finals matches. Needless to say we won. Ball bots do the picking when it comes to alliance selection because they can score high every single round. Of the top 8 seeds at utc 6 were ball bots. The winning alliance (121, 103, and 69) all had ball handling capabilites. So next time you rag on ball bots do some research.

Still Missing the Point
 

But, you are still missing the point. The point is that any moving robot can and WILL block you from sucking up tons of balls and also will block you from getting to a goal. So, again goal grabbers will win at nationals. One example of ball loaders winning doesn't prove anything. This is the exact trouble we had when talking to alliance partners; they really don't know how to play this game. Ball loaders may win in qualifying but don't think you will win loading balls into a goal in elimination (where it all counts).
***Please: ALL ball teams think about your strategy, get a goal and get back home at the end of the match.

Balls Will Make a Difference......
 

Balls do make a difference in elimation matches especially closer towards the finals when the scores are closer and closer... I personally have seen 2 finals matches that won the regionals because of balls :)


1.) At MMR it was 45/111 against 71/519, we had one goal with 8 balls....wildstang had 2 goals......the score was 28-30, the 45/111 alliance was winning.... When about 10 seconds (maybe even less came around) the wildstang robot accidently (i think i can call it that) dumped 2 balls into the goal we had...making the score 30-30.....That means that the 71-519 alliance won because they had more balls in their goals ;)


2.) This weekend there was a good example at one of the regionals (either LA or St. Louis) where ONE ball that was thrown in (i believe) right at the end won the regional for that alliance.

What you said of robots blocking ball collectors may in some ways be true....but there are many robots that are very quick at collecting balls and there are plenty of balls out there to go at, plus many ball bots out there have 1 goal grabber even 2 (ex. 111)

BALLZ
 

To 1first:

Give me a break... You mean to say balls don't make a difference. We have a ball bot that we won the St. Louis Regional at. We also qualified first giving us first pick. You say qualification doesn't matter, but who gets first pick on goal bots, oh yeah, it's the first seeded person, which is usually a ball bot. Also, if you are a ball bot, you can most likely out maneuver a goal bot since maneuverability is need for getting balls. Before you go making conclusions like that, rethink your talk. We do have a very good goal clamp too, and yes, we can do our share of pulling, but getting balls is the difference in every game, all you have to do is get one goal, and just about every team can do that.

By the way, the one ball that went in to win the regional event was our human player (Matt Brinza on the Baxter Bomb Squad) I just wanted to brag on him a little.

Ball-vacuums work wonders
 

I just want to say that either robot, goal grabber or ball handler can win any given competition. To say that a goal grabber will win on the basis of blocking the ball handler, then you are sadly mistaken. At St. Louis, we (the Bomb Squad) were blocked or shall i say the teams attempted to block us from the balls. We still yet managed to maneuver out of the way and consume all the balls off the floor that we wanted. Either robot can win, the point of this game was not to 1. get all the balls or 2. get all the goals but was to be able to get balls and goals. I saw maybe 30% of the robots at St. Louis that could successfully do both. We will just see how it turns out in Orlando.

But, I do have to brag immensely on our drive team. Lance Taylor, our driver is excellent, he stayed on his feat and was a very smart driver, escaping other robots and not getting knocked over. Tommy Cline, our "button pusher" so to speak was very careful to keep control of our clamp and ball mechanism. I have to say though, that our beast behind the robot was Matt Brinza, our shooter, he looks like a catapult that has locked in on it's goal and won't miss.

blond typo

i meant lance's feet not his feat.
:)

balls do make the difference! Anyone who went to the GLR or to the Canadian Regional, u know our robot (team 5-the Robocards) We are specifically designed to pick up the ball & pop them up, how ever fast you can feed them in, we can suck them up and put them up in the goal. We average about 17 balls/match. That is very good, from what i have seen. There are other teams that are huge scooper-uppers, but we suck them up, and we have to be attached to the goal...

Of course I'm going to say balls make a huge difference, but...

All that it takes to beat a ball bot is a more powerful bot. Push comes to shove, it's going to end with pushing and shoving.

Power doesn't mean just goal grabber
 

We ( the bomb squad) is a robot designed to scoop up balls on the front and latch onto a goal in the back. We are very strong, with our high torque drive system. in the finals at st. louis, we pushed a goal oriented robot out of the way in a head to head pushing match. so, i agree that power determines it, not just balls or goals
:)

it all comes down to strategy...... and as for ball bots and goal grabbers...... the ideal is a machine that does both, or an alliance

and ball bots can be blocked and harassed, but its kind of hard to prevent them from accessing 40 balls in play and 10 from thier human player station

its better just to let them get thier balls and then steal the goal

I must say, I was rathered surprised to see good ball manipulators doing well in finals (which is a good thing). Ball manipulators are often the deciding factor in matches where neither side dominates the goals. In fact, my team was very successful exploiting 2 goals plus a million balls (thanks team 224) when we had previously thought that 3 goals was the way to go. However, I still believe it is best to get the three goals when the oportunity arises. I still believe the perfect matchup for elims is a bunch of solid goal manipulation bots with a lot of raw power. In theory, you can't score balls without goals to put them in. I acknowledge that balls are important, but power behind goals is essential.

Some guy somewhere said...
If brute force isn't working for you, then you're not using enough
(hehe, I like that quote :) )

~Hubicki~

Balls can be the difference in the playoffs. That's why we built a robot that is excellent at grabbing the goals (we pulled 3 goals and 2 robots at the same time in a practice round), but is very quick and agile, allowing us to either get to the goal before anyone else, or gather 8-9 balls at a time. If anyone remembers our roller and conveyor from the 2000 finals, we used a simliar system this year. It worked great then(got us to the finals) and is doing well now. Chances are, an alliance that has either 2 great combo bots or a heavy-duty goal bot w/ a quick ball robot will win the competition.

The soccer balls make all the difference. My team (157) won the Philly Chamionship by 2 points. those 2 points were scored by our human player. And also, we have had matches where the other alliance had 2 goals, but we won because we had more balls in the goal. Yes the balls do make a difference.

we thought about this strategy too. However, it will be very difficult to get 20 balls in a goal. The team would also b needing a tether ( or else it would be up for grabs: what HP gets the most balls in)
we decided that if we could lock up all three goals, who cares how many balls the opponent can load.

but it is a great strategy

all of these responses have good points but what happens when your against a great one goal grabber that can also scoop up 20 balls quickly. most of the ball machines have bad grabbers because they concentrated on that design. anyone partnered with us from utc knows how well our design is for both goal grabbing and dumping/collecting balls. we managed to break 3 goal grabbers off between 2 regionals. i dont think any robot can get to a goal in less than 2 seconds and be able to have enough power to hold that goal unless they have a high and low gear. speed and power trade off with one another. speed but no power and vice versa is not good. medium speed with acceptional power is great with a robot. personally strategy changed from our first regional to our second and im sure it will change for everyone in nationals. everyone has learned from experience and will be trying new things in qualifying and in elims. just one more thing. balls allow you to score high qps so you can get first dibs on teams. thats how they win the comp for you by allowing you to choose your partners.

True. I think the most entertaining match will be a hybrid alliance vs a hybrid alliance (eg. 173 & 157 & 571 vs. 45 & 111 & 121). There will be both a battle for the balls and for the goals...I hope this happens at least once next week.