how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

i know early on many people were doubting the abilities of low-goal only ball herders. now that we are almost done with regionals, how do people feel now? have you seen any ball herders that have really stuck out? how often did you see the outcome of a match greatly affected by a herder?

we here at 1504 are a low-goal ball herder and we just finished up our 2nd and final regional in wisconson. we were the 7th seed alliance captain in detroit and ranked 5th in wisconson (chosen by 3rd seeded alliance). we could easily put in about 30 balls a match in wisconson and were very effective defensively.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

oh man...I got a story for you.

Dumpers are awsome...but never have two on a team.

At the end of the seeding matches at Buckeye...The first seeded team 965 (I think that's their number) choose team 123. Both these two teams are dumpers. When it came time to choose the last of their team, all they could choose was the Scarabian Knights 120 as the best shooter of who was left, and the shooter barely made any points at all.

The teams took the first matches by storm and ended easily on the platform, we thought we didn't stand a chance. But the dumpers have one very big flaw...they can only score in the lower goals. Thus, 272 and 174 stuck ourselves against the goals while 494 picked up balls during the times where the dumpers had offence. We took offence and all three of us too to the goal and loaded in about 40 points, and took to the goals again to block for the final period. By that time, there would be no chance for the extra 25 point bonus to even count.

I'd say a dumper is nice to have, but use caution when chooseing one.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

actually.. we also fell victim to this during the seeding matches. 2 out of our 3 losses during seeding rounds occured because we were paired with 2 other dumpers, and they didnt allow us to score after autonomous because they just sat infront of both the goals.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

2Train Robotics (395) is a herder/dumper bot. They won 2 regionals, Pitt (#1 Alliance Capt) and NYC (#2 Alliance Capt). They are very consistent during qualification matches with good 10 ball auto mode. They have good scouting and form very good alliances for eliminations. In both regionals they picked the best shooter (1038 and 375) with their first pick. I never thought that a dumper could be so successful this year, but they have changed my thinking.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

At the beginning of the season, our team thought dumpers would be too easily blocked, inneffective... so we went with a shooter. Well, at Phoenix, we saw how effective dumpers are in autonomous. Our shooter can pan and tilt, so we can easily miss three or four balls, but many teams (dumpers) just went to the side goals and got a quick and easy ten points!

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

If you get off ten shots with four misses, then that's 18 points. The ten "easy" points is effective against that only when their partners can make up the other nine.

More yet, those ten points aren't all that easy. A mad dash to the opposite corner to stop the dump is just as easy.

The real value a dumper has when they gather many balls and score them during regular play. But again, they must be aligned with a very good shooter, or two, to keep the opposition from goal tending.

You made the right choice.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I disagree. At the Florida regional, the second place alliance was 357-1523-1902. 357 was a dumper (fifth seed - not bad) as was 1902. Since 357 picked balls up off the ground and 1902 was a very effective human loader, they both were able to score to their fullest potential. This alliance with two dumpers beat (in only two matches) the first seed alliance in the semifinals that was led by team 233 (who has just won the Boston Regional). What is more, the three robots they played against (233, 190, 744) were all very good shooters.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I guess than, in my case, the teams we went up against didn't have a stragety against us.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

there was one hearder that really impressed me. 213 i think if they kept sucking up balls and just starved the other teams from getting balls they would be hard to beat.

shaun

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

At NYC the top seeded alliance was a dumper.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I believe at the UTC regional, team 195 had the best 1pt bot, followed by team 716. Team 195 ended up captaining the 6th seed alliance, and 716 the 2nd. I put 195 first because their robot was more robust in my opinion. I was really expecting more of those robots to show up, but I guess us New Englanders don't leave much to the imagination when the game name is "Aim High".... :p

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

in pittsburgh the first 3 top seeds were dumpers. i never even considered dumpers to be so effective, but there's some proof right there. also 868 at BMR was a dumper and they dumped like 20 at times, probably even more than that all at once, usually making their alliance win.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

i agree that having a 1 point score bot on your team is a great advantage. for the most part, they guarantee you 10 points in autonomous. this kind of robot that stuck out and the Finger Lakes Regional was Chuck 84. they went over, got on their ramp after autonomous, and fill up with easily 20 balls. then they sprinted across the field and dumped all of them in under 2 seconds.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Dumpers are only effective if they can push the shooters around. Penalties also play an important role in dumpers effectiveness. At our regional (SPBLI) only 1 penalty was called, and it was an offsides violation. therefore dumpers were allowed to do whatever they wanted. They constantly went into the goal, which should be a disqualification, and they repeatedly flipped other robots that were not even attempting to score. If penalties were enforced i believe that dumpers would have been significantly less successful.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

In a well balanced alliance, the corner goal is often the key to victory. "Well balanced" has many different variables, depending on the exact capabilities of teams (such as the 357, 1902 example), but it almost always includes at least 1 shooter. An alliance dependant on the corner goal (just as an alliance entirely dependant on the center goal) can be easily defended, or starved of balls (in theory, in your opponents are scoring 100% in the center goal, they only have to return 34% of the balls you scored back "into play" in order to win).
In my opinion, the ability to score both the center and corner goal rapidly and consistantly is the key to victory (along with winning autonomous).

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I found that while the "dumpers" were very valuable, that they were also very much ignored. We were only defended against once at Detroit (when both of our partners broke) and very late in the day on Friday at Milwaukee. People are so busy watching the shooters and the balls flying through the air that they don't notice machines like ours dumping in 30-40 balls a match. It was the funniest thing to me when, after the match where the other alliance was able to effectively defend the 2 lower goals our kids were like, they're giving us the compliment that we're good enough to defend!

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I think it is important to distinguish between dumpers and herders.

Being a dumper was good when you could hold a lot of balls and score them quickly and effectively. You would also have to play very good defense as a dumper and be able to put the 10 in during autonomous.

Being a herder was probably the best thing you could have on a robot. One particularly good one at SBPLI was 358 (happauge eagles). They were a very good shooter but i think the reason they did so well was because they could harvest balls like nobody's business and then turn around and put them into the goal. During one match, there had to be at least 20 balls next to a corner goal. Any team that could have scooped them up and put them in would have one that match. Being a herder is what is going to separate the great scorers from the good scorers.


//slight thread hijack

My team 1546 was at the SBPLI regional and I believe we pretty much played the game the way Phil seems to be grudgingly describing it. Our team prided itself on our defensive prowess (seeing as how our offensive capabilities were extremely low). This game is a physical game, teams were going to get tipped and teams that were capable shooters were going to be dogged all game long. I know many teams didnt like it, but our team's autonomous load was simply to interfere with the capable offensive modes of other teams. Many teams werent happy about our bot crossing the field at a decent speed in order to interfere with other bots. But the head ref put it the best way " I need an intent to harm." No robot at our regional had an intent to harm any other robot. We had an intent to win. And when you have to win your matches on defense, its going to get a little bit physical which is why FIRST emphasized building a robust robot.

I apologize for the slight hijack
//

back to your normally schedule program.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I remember a match when the other alliance had three dumpers, and all we had to do was sit in front of the corner goals the whole time and it was an easy win.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I wasn't discounting dumping robots defensive capabilities. In some matches you guys gave us hell and we had a hard time shooting. I was just saying that flipping other teams or blocking them during their defensive period is illegal, flipping us while we are trying to shoot is totally legal. But if were only collecting balls flipping us intentionally isn't allowed. thats all i was saying.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

At NYC, herders were very important, with 395 and 348 taking the lead for much of the competition.
There weren't many reliable shooters there (there were some), and in autonomous, having herders dominated-- since shooters had to shoot 4 in the center goal in order to beat out a successful dumper (12 to 10), which I didn't see often. Also, the dumpers weren't easy to block as the shooters were, shooters sat there, so a quick ram did it-- but the herders were easily able to drive over to the corner goal to unload before anyone opposite them could get to 'em.
Also, the shooters were easily blockable from shooting in (unless you're 25 of course :p ), while unless you had the goals jammed up the entire round, the dumpers usually were able to push through and do their thing because of pin rules (I remember seeing some robot pinning 395 2Train as they had just loaded up from the human players and the referee was just counting pin time with his fingers, and the pushing bot had to constantly back away. Slowly the count required the duel to go beyond the corner goal/ramp area and 2Train began to be double teamed before it managed to get away and rush to the side goal to relieve itself of the 10 or 15 balls it was carrying.)

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

i don't know if i can speak for the herders, since the onle ones (my team's bot included) at the BAE were herders by necessity and not choice - when multiple systems leave you hanging, sometimes its all you can do. my team designed our bot to be a collecter/low shooter, but ran into problems with our shooting mechanism and ball release mechanism, so we ended up doing a lot of herding.

dumpers on the other hand, totally win my approval. i know team 97 and 213 (did i get the number right? i know they were the "dirty birds") both made it to the elimination rounds at BAE, and gave our team a lot of trouble whenever they were on an opposing allicance. our driver was great at defensive manouvering, but we just couldn't effectively stop the two teams i mentioned. this is a lot coming from a team whose bot held teams like cocoa beach and the t-hawks to almost nothing in our defensive rounds.

at the beginning of the build season, i wanted to build a six wheeled dumper, but we went with a more complicated design instead which proved to be our downfall, but that's life. props to 213 for their omnis, too. they were my favorite bot at BAE.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Thanks for that. We tried our best to pick up some balls when we could.

Herding is deffinetly important this year. I also think that dumping is also good, but only in partnership with 2 good shooters. Its also a very good way to ensure an autonomous win.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

in the elimination rounds at boston every alliance (121,233,1568) played had one dumper on the alliance, in Quarterfinals: 1757, in semifinals 1592, and in finals it was 213, 213 and 1592, could score in auto mode and they did, but the winning alliance had 2 shooter (121 and 233) and one defensive (1568)

but 213 was an awesome dumper

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

In the peachtree regional, the winning alliance consisted of a shooter (1261), a dumper (1414), and another shooter/defense (1057). 1261 was the #1 seed, 1414 was the number 2 seed, and I don't remember 1057.

What we (1261) saw in 1414, was an unstoppable dumper during autonomous. Several teams tried to intercept them, but did not succeed. They consistently dumped all 10 balls during autonomous.

We had some autonomous shooting capability, but could be stopped after a limited number of balls were shot. If we were not targeted, we did OK during autonomous. We changed strategy depending upon our opponent.

We then had 1057 serving different roles depending upon opponent. They did very well adapting last minute to some of our alliance team requests. All in all, it paid off.

In the end, I agree with Lavery, a well balanced team is probably best. If an alliance depends on one thing (shooting), they can be stopped with no recourse.

Paul

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

From the experience of having visited one regional, and participated in 2, I've seen dumpers do pretty well in qualifying rounds, when there's a diverse mix of experience on the field.

Once the playoffs start, from what I've seen, you had better have 2 shooters.
This was a big point in our last regional, as 329 was an awesome dumper, but we choose a shooter with our first pick (who happened to be an awesome shooter).

Have there been any regional winning alliances with 2 dumpers (who only dump) and 1 shooter? Or perhaps even 3 dumpers?

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Chuck 84 is a Herder and I feel we are very good at it. Granted its not the most challenging or important aspect of the game, but we have a very strong nitch. A Herder can do plenty on the field by being the back bot, utilizing the human player, picking up balls off the floor, relieving pressure on shooters or the ever classical defense. Beyond that, it depends on your allies, your automode, and how well you play the game together.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Shooters are great, but i dont think a team of three will be as effective as some believe. From are one regional in Arizona Our team 1013 the Phoneix when we were paired with a good pair of shooters we dominated the competition and it really hurt are standings becuase we had no QP. We were 4-1 at the end of the day and in 15th place. We were able to push just about any bot there on the field and overall the 15 or so matches we had i think only 250 points were scored against us by other alliances.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I think they're just as important as any other team on an alliance; in general, a successful alliance has 3 robots that all together can complete all the tasks in the game.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Do you mean Boston?

213 and 97 were at BAE as well and had a pretty good showing. 1547 and 549 were also very impressive low-goal scorers in Granite State elimination rounds, hitting 10 almost every time in autonomous.

I think this game was particularly well-balanced; the 3:1 point ratio is perfect. Low goal scorers can make the difference in low-scoring or close high-scoring matches, and they are often able to sneak in while the shooters are being defended.

We went into the quarterfinals at Boston with two dumpers and one shooter against two shooters and one dumper. We pulled off the win, but it can be attributed most to an entirely different scoring mode: getting up the ramp. As others have said, the distinction between shooters and dumpers isn't as important without considering the complete package (herding, ball-storage, defense, ramp climbing, etc.)

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I agree that the herders/dumpers are very important. I know we had a few matches where we dumped nearly full load of balls (somewhere around 45 points). A lot of the effectiveness of a herder/dumper is that the focus is usually on whoever the best three point shooter is, then you can send out your other partner to play defense on people defending the shooter, or basically get in the way. We did this, and it let our bot run free and score tons of points. Team 213 was very manuverable...makes me think what could have happened if we ran four omni's instead of two.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Having been on the receiving end of a good old fashioned spanking in the 5th (yes, fifth) match of the finals, we know only too well how important shooters are in the finals. Scott358 is correct in that you can only go so far with a dumper (we dumped 9/10 times in auto). Eventually you have to have the 3pt scorers. That is why we had to select two shooters for the alliance. We were just plain lucky to get 1468 as the third choice--thank goodness we had zero turn around time between the last match and selections, other teams passed them by.


BTW 358--you have an incredible team. You did a miraculous rebuild in three hours on Thursday eve.and were rewarded with a regional championship for your efforts. Congratulations

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Herders and Dumpers, or in my teams case a low shooter, have one ENORMOUS advantage. They nearly always win autonomous mode. The simple reason for this is that shooting all ten balls in the 1pt goal is far easier then getting at least 3 balls in the 3pt goal.

My team arrived at its 1st regional planning to concentrate on the 3pt goal. However, due partly to complications getting up the ramp, we scraped our entire 3pt-shooter/turret-assembly to make us less top heavy. Believe it or not we actually started doing better when we started concentrating on 1pt balls. By simply aiming our robot sideways before the match and firing up our 1pt shooter we were able to win autonomous mode on numerous occasions.

Winning autonomous mode was one of the primary abilities that squeezed us into the finals.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

In the early week regionals low goal scores were more effective than in later weeks. Just from one weekend to the next the number of shooter that started working caused my team to change strategy completely and become a mainly defensive bot. I believe by the time nationals occurs herders/dumpers will probably not play a major role in scoring the majority of the points for the alliance however if they take the role of trying to the the best partner possible a herder/dumper could possibly be on the championship winning alliance.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Thanks for the kind words Kev. We were hopeful that 1468's capabilities would get noticed. We enjoyed being chosen up with your team along with the PoBots. We were also happy to share our scouting information with you folks as our scouting team was able to get good information all through the regional.

I gotta admit that although we were on the short end of the stick in the finals I can't remember the last time we had as much fun at a regional. It took until Tuesday before I finally got my voice back (my wife seemed happy about the quiet on Sunday and Monday :p )

As for Scott358 and the rest of the 358 team: Go Get'em in Atlanta, we're rooting for you!

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Hey spam thanxs

I agree with that it is ok to have 2 dumpers, but you also have to have a good enough defense (or a heavy enough bot to push others) to hold off amazing shooters liked the ones we faced

great times at the florida regional S P A M spam spam spam!

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

we ended up being a dumper at palmetto, (and thanks to teams 180 & 68 for choosing us to go into the finals with them)... dumpers are useful, may not always be able to score much, but if they have good defense abilities, and srong allies who can make the center goal, it can make a world of a difference, We learned that friday morning after keeping one of the best shooters at the regional (95) from making any into the goal

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Team 84, Chuck, was a herder/dumper at the Philly Regional, and they were an excellent robot. They were very quick, played very good defense when needed, and easily ascended the ramp at the end of the match; Oh, and they also scored 30+ points by dumping continuously in the corner goal. They did not seem to require repair as often as most shooters. A very solid multi-purpose bot.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

When we got the game, our team (379 Robocats) designed our robot to be a good low goal/defensive bot. We thought that if we had the ability to stop a shooter well and then dump a lot of balls, we could do well ... we were right. We were in the finals at all three regionals, being selected in the first two and picking 6th at Philadelphia.

291 CIA has an awesome side goal dumper ... they won the Philadelphia regional.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

yes they did. also, CHUCK (84) was incredible! it just needed a weeeeee bit more torque. because they pinned it so much. because it was SO good! they would get all three human players to load it, and then it would run and dump like 30 balls in the corner. woooooooow it won the 2nd place team at phili many matches

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

The Herders and Dumpers were very effective at Philly. There were some really good dumpers like 84, 291, 716, 357, & 379. The top pure shooters were defeated with good team defense from alliances like 291 177 306 & 157 173 381 & 84 250 104.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I think one thing is important to remember however about dumper is they have to be able to play strong defense, and often times good offensive defense ( keeping teams off the shooters and such. )

Teams that have this competition can be very competitive because they can score quickly ( our team can score 18 in about 3 seconds in a corner goal ), and in with some sensory feedback autonomous can be just about 100%.

For a dumper bot most of the time the name of the game is consistency. 10 points in auton is a must, strong defense is a must, 1 solid dump or 2 smaller dumps into corner goals during the game is important, and getting on the ramp with the rest of the alliance is all great. Shooters often have to line themselves up to shoot and they are sometimes slow, but a dumper can get rid of their balls fast as lightning.

I also believe in a dumpers case it is good to be able to have a few choices for autonomous. Scoring from the 1st 2nd or 3rd spot as alliances move out and a defensive mode are pretty important. Ideally a dumper bot may also cut across the field to the opposite goal and score into that one, just in case someone shoots from the first spot.

If a dumper can do most of these things I believe they can be successful even on the national stage, and as we've they have been very successful at regionals this far.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

the ideal alliance is 2 shooters and 1 dumper. the bumbers have allowed 815 to become the defensive powerhouse we have because it kepps you from getting penalties. hearders are very effective also. depending on their hopper size they can score 30 to 40 points at a time

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Thanks for the complements. Our biggest problem is actually battery drain. We have so much friction that even with a drop down caster wheel for turning it would get low occasionally to the point that we couldn't climb the ramp. Do not under estimate CRT ether. They had an awsome drive, hard for anyone to push against. Besides, it it took try three for them to finally "pin" us in. :D

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

I agree, 549 was an excellent dumper at both BAE and Boston. At Chesapeake 225 and 484 were both great dumpers. :)

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

To expand on what Brian Lucas said, the two dumper bots in the winning alliance at the Philadelphia regional proved to be really handy.

177 was the only robot that could score in the upper goal in our alliance, and during the finals, we lost our pneumatic system which made us unable to feed balls to our shooter. We made 1 shot during all of finals, but still won two matches. We used a good alternative strategy, and the other two dumper bots were responsible for all of the offense during those matches. with a little defense and ramping at the end, we still came up with a win.

Do not underestimate the capabilities of 1 point dumper/defensive robots.

Re: how effective are the herders/dumpers?
 

84 was just about the best dumper bot at philly, they also had a strong and reliable drivetrain! They almost pushed us sideways (which is a feat in itself) and if they had, would have dumped 30+ balls in the side goal... winning the finals. What scares me the most is that when they almost pushed us sideways, they only had 3 drive wheels out of 4... 84 was a very, very effective robot.