Defensive Strategies
 

So, what ideas do people have for defense?
There's the obvious stuff; stay in front of the corner goals for ground shooters, and for center goal shooters, try to bump em off as best you can.
What else?

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Build an incredibly aggressive ball-sucker. Depriving the other team of balls is a good way to decrease their scoring. Use your ball-sucking skills to hand balls over to the best shooter on your alliance either by dropping one or two balls in front of their collection mechanism, or by gently poofing them into an open-top hopper. Sometime in the 4th period dump all your balls into the low goal for a little 15-25 point pop.

You could also try running up the ramp at high-speed, flying through the air to smash into the plexi in front of the opponent's driving station, distracting them and perhaps causing them loss of bladder control. Your robot may only be able to do this once, so pick your time wisely. :)

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

you could hook on to another robot and drag them, though im not sure if that would count as a pin or a disableable offense. there is also ramming and annoying LOUD NOISES to scramble the brains of your opponents.
but seriosly, try to interfear with the main objectives of the opposing bot as muc as possable. if you were uber GODly masters of programming sensing and the force you could try to shoot the opponents balls in mid-air (have fun with that).
you mainly have the basics though. try to see it as what would be to most irksom thing that could happen to you when you are playing offense.

remember land mines are defensive weapons.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

You'd probably get an entanglement call, and its associated penalty or penalties. (Don't have a copy of the rules handy, so can't check just whate the penalties are. I think there was something about disabling.) Unless the head ref was really feeling gracious, that is.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

The best defence has gotta be just continuous ramming another robot so they don't get an opportunity to shoot. Since this isn't basketball where a defence-man can't touch someone who's in the process of shooting, this strategy would be equal to just hugging the player with the ball all the time so they can't shoot or pass (which isn't allowed is b-ball). So I really don't think many robots will have to specially equipped for defence.

Whats more important is defence strategy; choosing which robots to stick on, or choosing whether to play defence at all. You could just sit back and load up on all the balls your opponents score and when the period ends, got back and score all those points back.

The most interesting defence period will most likely be the last period where both teams can score and there are no backbots. There are so many strategies for that depending on bot's weakness and strengthes and the score situation.

So all in all, just ram the robot trying to shoot.

<edit>replace all instances of "ram" with "impact from short distance"</edit>

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Might I just note rule G 22 on page 7 of Section 4 The Game, where it specifically says no ramming... Granted this strategy works well when just simply stated as pushing, but just remember everyone RAMMING IS NOT ALLOWED.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

I think Shu means ramming from short distances. Eg. accelerate from 2 feet away, ram, back off 2 feet, ram etc. The rule states no long distance ramming.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

That is why I put my post in the wording it is, to note that ramming is technically illegal and is stated in the rulebook as from a distance, and that a good defense does not include ramming but instead pushing.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

We had the idea of attaching a large CIM to a fan blade and trying to blow the ball away from their trajectory. Yeah, like thats gonna happen. We also had the "idea" of attaching all 15 available motors ( i think there are 15 ) to a fan, and just floating around the field.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

you know....anything is possible :ahh:

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

You know what, that sounds REALLY COOOL!!! perhaps...gear it to a thousand rpm, like most teams' shooter roller thingies, you could have some potential for changing the trajectory just enough. Then again, I think just making the robot mobile enough to get in front of the shooting robot should be enough. There probably won't be (m)any teams that have robots that fire from the ceilings of their robots.

BTW, if you could have a floating robot, load it up and slam dunk! =D

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Really? This is the only design we have been seriously considering.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

[quote=Shu Song]Whats more important is defence strategy; choosing which robots to stick on, or choosing whether to play defence at all. You could just sit back and load up on all the balls your opponents score and when the period ends, got back and score all those points back.[quote]
Keep in mind that the backbot is any robot that is behind the center line during the defensive period. This means that during any 40-second period, the backbot can switch out without penalty as long as there is at least one bot behind the center line at any given time.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Here's my idea; have your backbot harvest balls until it's full. Then switch the backbot with another alliance bot. Repeat. Then, at the beginning of offence, rush the opponents goal and chutes. Even if they block two of your robots from scoring at all, you're going to make 10-30 points (assuming your robot holds 10) right off the bat. This strategy also has the advantage of keeping balls away from your opponents (seeing as you don't even have to rotate your backbot to collect balls; it would just be easier to collect them (and guard the opponents) by rotating backbots).

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Where in the world will you get land mines? Beside your backyard.

But anywho, i think you have the general idea. block the two corners and blocking the shooters gonna be hard. Well you could like when he sets up to shoot you could "nudge" :D him off course.

~Doug

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

well in the strategy team we brainstormed about all kinds of defensive strat's

the backbot, on all our strategies collected balls all the time
but we had a few ideas for him
for example have the backbot pile up lots of balls infront of the corner goals
and pick up ALL balls from the field, arranging them according to the teams capabilities, also during the defensive period our HM's will throw balls continusly towards the bot for him to organize the balls

one of the most important thing is we control ball circulation,not the other team, that way they need to wait for us before they can act
heck if we have a lead when most balls are in our side we might not even throw balls out and just wait out the rest of the match, always think about the circulation VERY important

about the 2 other bots they will try and push balls away as much as possible
if the opposing team has 2 pushers and one shooter (Average?)
if the pushers get the balls in the corner goals we can let go of them and focus on the shooter (since any ball coming from the HM's on the other side will be quickly pushed away by us, easier to push a ball and disrupt collection
then collecting a ball...

we are trying to get a meeting with some basketball coaches on more defensive moves and strat's seeing as this game is VERY similiar to basketball
in the gameplay

and that's about it, wont get into specifics ( :rolleyes: ) but I do suggest
you guys take photoshop or even PAINT or whatever and take the arena graphic (from above) and draw up moves your bot might do on the defense
study them
and offer them to your alliance teammates in the matches

only trouble is trying to convince your alliance to go with one certain plan
and not just "play it out"

good luck all

(my 2 cents, sorry for typos)

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

a strategy to consider goes along with collecting all the balls, but you dont necessarily have to score them. Because once u do, the balls are then available for the other team to score, and if u scored one-pointers, they could use those to make three-pointers. You could just collect the balls and not score them, just hold on to them, if you have a decent lead, because for every ball that you have, that is one less ball for the other team to score.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Ramming like that is what i call sniper ramming.

But anyways...

Use your defensive robots, all of them to plot/prepare for offensive period.

It's surprisingly simple.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

you need to think out of the box.


First everybody is worry about the 3rd robot scoring. what would happen if a defence robot can push 2 robots at the same time around :) leaving the other robot 1 on 1.

If you where to block a side goal while waiting there you could be filling it with balls

no one have said anything about the ramp. this is going to be big. it is worth 25pts if you get three robots up there. I like that because if you push your opponent up on to the ramp you can hold them there until the end. :yikes: (by the way the ramp I think will flip robots over if being push to it) that will make it easy to move a turtle on its back up the ramp. :eek:


go to where the points are and you will win.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Only thing to watch is if the refs continually see you tipping teams even if it is pushing them up a ramp they may start calling penalties and dq's etc... Something for the FIRST q&a maybe?

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

the way the rules are stated it looks like they are looking for teams to do this. because they will let you pin forever on the platform.


It will be up to the other team to make sure their robot will not be tip over

Look at this video. that year almost every match there was a robot on there back. this was at the nationals. and not once where we ever warn. because if your robot is defending and trying to stop someone from scoring and they flip over it would not be your fault. But you had to make sure you did not have anything on your robot to help the other robot to flip. ( like a wedge ) like our robots they always had a flat surface only 1/2 - 7 inches off the floor. this alone help robots over if they turn and you pushed them on there side. some form the front

so if the other teams robot is worth points to your team they become a scoring object.

yes

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

is the pinning rule the only rule that does not apply on the ramp/platform?

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Yes that is the only one

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

You mean you can pin this robot the whole round on the ramp? :ahh:

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

As the rule is written, you can pin any robot for any length of tim on the platform as long as one or both robots is not touching the carpet. Though I would like to see someone pin a robot on the ramp during auto mode.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Yes, but I think that'd be pretty hard on the drive system and electrical system.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Not if you do it right. My only thing was how many robots would move up the ramp without falling over if being pushed :) the ramp will play big this year. Like I said every robot is now worth points. So if you plan on getting some points why mess with the ball when you can use other robots

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Correct they are, but you cannot assume that you will be able to bulley every robot that you will be against this year. Robots are dynamic, balls on the other hand are fairly static.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

I would say 80% of the robots will be pushed around easy it is the 20% that you have to worry about. I been around long enough to know that at a competition you will have the weak, quick and weak, brittle robots, the average robot, strong and slow or the strong and fast. Then you will have a robot that will do everything and be good at everything. these robots will be at the top 1%.

If you are a small school and looking to do good and have fun I do think you have to think out of the box. like looking at the other robots as points. I do not think you will run into any teams that will have 3 strong robots during the seeding rounds. So for the seeding rounds this option would work out good.

I always do like your robot from Penn team 222. You always come to the competition prepared. But you must know what track can do with power. and how so many robots do go over on a flat surface.

We will see you in New England and at your competition. a great venue in Penn. Good luck and take your team far.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Does anyone know whether the leafblower idea (blowing air to deflect shots) is legal?

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

why a leaf blower just use a air Bazooka works great. just need to make a big one

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

is it alright to position yourself on the ramp and deploy a suction cup mechanism to hold your position there? You wouldn't necessarily be altering the playing field or anything and you could retract them.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Yes you can. I would not worry about holding yourself on top. it will be pretty hard for someone to take you off if you are on top. No robot can grab you so if you stick yourself into one of the corners of the top ramp it would be to hard to move you. I would worry more about getting up without flipping if you are fighting with another robot.


If you go back to stack attack and look at some of the robots you will see they used suction cup but it was harder to try to stay on that ramp.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

well if another robot gets up the ramp and your robot is sitting right in the middle shooting, they can push you to the side and pin you there until the end of the round if necessary.
you would have to able to shoot from the angle of the corner of the ramp. which would be a tough shot to hit.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

I was talking about being on your own ramp.

I would say most people will be able to shoot from the floor. I could only hope someone need to get up the ramp to score. then yes you would want to keep that robot there. robots are points this year :)

robots would make our lives easy if they do get up on our ramp to score. this way we would not need to push them up there.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Careful.

I think you will see robots that go up on your ramp near the end of the match and rapidly disgorge 20-30 balls for 3 points each. At that point we, I mean they, will be happy to give you the 15 points for being on the ramp.

:p

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

I was talking about going on the opposing alliances platform and scoring goals in the center goal. Once on the platform, you would need to hold your position to prevent an opposing alliance's robot from coming up and pinning you to the side. thats where suction cups or wings would be nice to have...

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

And what would keep another robot on offense to go behind the line with 5 seconds left in the period and either knock away all of the carefully arranged balls or simply scoop them up? It may be better to have a scooper that can spit them out into another robot's scooper... or just score everything it has.



My revision to having the backbot scoop up balls... sure, have your human players throw balls to the backup and have it ready to be scored, but also fill up a robot that is conveniently blocking a goal (assign a robot that has a hopper to do this task). with time remaining in the quarter, have both this robot and the backbot rush to the corner goals before the offensive team has time to block either, and dump all balls in inventory. Consider this like a fast break in basketball. nothing says your defensive robots have to be back there the entire time, you may have a 3 v 1 situation if you wish to catch them offgaurd. This would work especially well if you can tell that the offense is starting to run out of balls but would not be expecting to block a fast break.


One last comment, there is no reason to have to excuse your typos, thats what spell check is for ;)

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

yes we were thinking about this in our simulation
the backbot can shovel all the balls into one corner and guard it, I think it will be pretty hard to shoot or dump balls for other robots, you need precision
and precision needs time
if I see an opposing bot starting to dump balls for an opposing shooter-bot to take
I won't sit and wait for him to do that

if they go back in the last 5 seconds, that 5 seconds I earned of them not shooting
this game is really hard to predict I think, much harder then last years

(hey I spell checked just now... it's easy =)

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Just on the idea of collecting balls..

This might be a cool way of collecting. :D

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

A few of my pals were shooting the breeze...when it hit us: a wall bot for the ramp. Provided a robot, that is a wide fronted bot and has SERIOUS traction, can get one (two on a good day) robots on the platform and hold them there for a good period of time, you could make it a 2 on 1 match.

Reality: Possible but not likely to be a big thing...unless some team can master it.

Just an idea from the 2003 616 Robot "Wings."

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

you have a width limit so I don't really see how you can block 2 bots within those constraints (?) also remember that if you get them up your on a slope going down
on that metalic surface, would be easier to push you, and if you are waiting on the buttom rug area then they have that entire slow to gather speed to push you down
that's some SERIOUS traction, possibly to much as it will destroy the carpet?
I would love to see it play out though...

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

We tried it doesn't work. The blowing ball thing. We tried :p

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Remember us, your teammates at LV regional?
We also go to Wilsonville every year to go to bullwinkle. We race at the PIR every memorial day weekend. Our robotics team also does an Electric vehicle race. All the way from Hawaii!!

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Could someone please post which rule states this?

Also, I wonder how effective shooting a ball at the plexiglass window in front of the opponent drivers would be. Might be enough to distract them quite well.

You'd also waste a lot of balls doing this though.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

That was in the Q&A about distracting with the robot, the bolded should apply to the balls fired at a plexiglass window as well though.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

Rule <G24>, emphasis mine:
There's a Q&A that says the robot cannot intentionally block the view of the driver because of safety (you can easily search for it yourself). [Edit: Oh, you don't have to, Donut found it for you.] I'm sure firing balls at the driver window would be disallowed because of the same safety considerations.

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

the best offense is a good defense

Re: Defensive Strategies
 

as well as the best defense is a good offense


that really does work both ways