Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

For one of our matches that didn't seem to apply to field damage. We were trying to hand off the side of the tower, another robot hit us and our hook bounced onto the no-touch side of the tower. The driver unfortunately hit the winch, causing a red card, but according to the ref there still would have been a penalty even if we didn't attempt a lift.

Anyways, it still could be argued as a "dangerous mechanism" if it even unintentionally causes field damage, and could knock out their chute design if the ref outlaws grabbing the tower

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Brilliant! Stock up a bunch of balls, then see if you can hammer them home in the opponents goals so fast they can't keep up with them.

It's like the Russian way to win a war... retreat your opponents to death*.

Jason

*Although I say it light heartedly, I am not trying to be disrespectful to the costs that Russia bore -- or the contribution they made -- in WWII. But they did, literally, retreat both Hitler and Napolean's armies to death.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

We did that to ourselves a few times in the matches. The thing is our human players still could keep up. In elims with a ball being scored every 4-5 seconds we had 0 penalties due to not returning the balls on time. That strategy would only work for qualifying any ways, thats the only time a 6v0 strategy can win. You still need to cause 5 points in penalties though.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

I just watched a youtube Video of 469. oh my! im Just mad that I didnt think of it first. What an awesome Way to play the game guys, it is awesome! I think this thread however is a travistey , and I am appauled that people of first would actually stoop so low as to publicly nit-pick a design and go so fas as sugest that First should change the rules to dissallow this robot. Thats Discusting! If I were a student on 469 right now I would feel alienated by this comunity. we should be praising them for setting the bar higher and working on a way to top them, not be engaging in this Very Un-Gracious, Un-Professonal discustsion.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

One possible strategy is one used in the final matches at cass. I think it was robot 302 or 308 that just hit them everytime a ball dropped into their "arms". It stopped the balls from even remotely scoring, although they usually still ended up in the homezone.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

This is one of those better than nothing strategies. It reduces the scoring effectiveness, but they're still feeding the balls right back into the home zone for 217 etc to clean up. You'd still depend on an awesome defense bot clearing balls like mad to have a chance. Even then you'd be playing catch up once you managed to starve them of balls. It's probably possible to beat them like this, but it doesn't seem likely.

I'm thinking that with a good striker, you're not going to have any luck defensing them once they're locked in. At that point, you're better off pitting your offense against their offense. If you can knock them down to 2-3 balls in cycle, you might have a chance.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Is it possible for people in the opposing alliance station to observe the current "state" of 469's deflector? How long does it take to change state? How far would a robot need to move (adjacent to the bump, parallel to it) to go from blocking one trough to the other? What are the chances of timing their ball drop/trough roll cycle to block a shot or try to induce "active mechanism above the bumper zone" penalties by forcing them to redirect rapidly as the ball is coming off the feed rails? (This assumes that their alliance partners are busy texting their friends instead of blocking you, but thats another story).

Also, what is shape of the ball catcher/trough mechanism? If you were to define a plane passing through the tip of the ball catcher to the tip of each outlet, would the ball remain within 3" of that plane the entire time? If not, what defines the 3" incursion zone above the bumpers? (As we interpreted the rule when fitting our flat/angled passive deflector panel between our rounded roll bars, we made sure that the deflector was never more that 3" below the roll bars).

Great job 469. I wish we had thought if it, but we couldn't have executed the concept as well even if we had. I look forward to seeing them at MI State.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

I wouldn't go so far as to call this particular thread a "travesty" - the vast majority of the posts in this thread were not actually calling for changes to the rules. This thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=84293 and this thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=84280 were far more egregious in this sense.

Most of the discussion in this topic has been pretty civil. However, I would still like to urge people to be sensitive towards the members of 469 who read and post here. How would you feel if there were multiple threads on CD explicitly discussing how to shut down your team's scoring capability during match play? Or publicly brainstorming designs for mechanisms intended specifically to interfere with your robot? Calling for FIRST to change the rules to make your team's robot and strategy illegal?

A certain level of attention and discussion may be seen as flattering. Taken too far however, it can cross the line into making people feel unfairly targeted. Let's try to make sure we are mindful of that line.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Flattered. I would feel very flattered.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Me, too. I would feel made of awesome-sauce.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

To a certain extent, I agree with you. However, when the level of public criticism and scheming against your team's (perfectly legal) robot/strategy reaches a certain intensity, it may begin to feel like you are being punished for your success -- instead of being admired. Let's just be careful.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

ya woops. Reading fail on my part it's like im that surgeon that operated on the wrong foot.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Since it seems to be coming up a bit, here's some links to pictures of said mechanism, courtesy of Daniel Ernst:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7623503276399/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7623503276399/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7623503276399/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7623503276399/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7623503276399/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daniele...7623503276399/

First off, man that's pretty: bot and photos both. Hats off to 469 for a stellar idea well executed.

To summarize the chute selection mechanism, it's just a metal bar at the top of the chute that rotates from one side to the other to complete the track of that particular chute. Think of a railroad switch. If it could actuate instantly, they could change their minds up to the instant the ball hit the top of the chute. Instead, it's pneumatically actuated, so it looks to take a small amount of time to move. Figure they're committed after the ball comes off the ball return. Per a previous post, it sounds like they're going to be hiding this information from opponents with a simple shield behind the flipper. If I were them, I'd block as much view of the ball as I could from the back to make defense that much harder. Ideally, teams wouldn't know which way a ball was going until it left the chute and was on its way to the goal.

@Jaine,

I think (hope) most of the talk about ways to play 469 is just idle chatter and brainstorming. Mid-week there's not THAT much going on, especially with the lack of rule changes from the GDC. 469 is an attention getting robot that presents a unique challenge to any opponents. I think the problem-solving strategists on the board have just been presented with an irresistible challenge in an otherwise boring week. I don't think it's really aimed personally at 469, as there was a giant strategy thread aimed at this style robot earlier in the week. 469 is just a focus as a particularly stellar example of this style of robot.

Personally, the various discussions of specific robot designs to counter 469 seem incredibly silly if we're considering actually implementing them. Seems like something on the order of Lex Luthor designing a kryptonite armored car to thwart Superman and forgetting to put locks on the door to keep the cops out.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

Kudos to 469.

All this stragegy against 469 and the tower is all well and good, but did anyone notice the automode in the video? If a strategy was employed to try and block 469 at the tower, they have the ability to score from the middle position, so having that, they really don't have to attach themselves to the tower if they find that a robot could effective block that strategy. They could become an effective middle position scorer.

Altogether this is a very well designed robot.

Re: How does 469 not violate <R19>?
 

I have a little rules situation to put forward.

Suppose there have been 2 balls scored. 1 of them has passed through the chute switcher and is on its way down the main ramp. The 2nd ball is on the ball return chute. A 469 (or any similar bot) driver sees the defender speeding to block the active chute, and, while the 1st ball is still on the chute, switches to the 2nd chute. For the period of the chute switching directions, does that turn their return system into an active mechanism?

If that were true, what if a bot drove up on the bump and put themselves up against the 469 ball return. Since they are on the bump it is legal to touch out of the bumper zone. If a ball were to be caught on said chute, would an attempt to bypass the block be considered an active mechanism above the bumper zone manipulating the balls?

P.S. congrats to 469 for designing a robot that has yet to have an effective counter-strategy devised against it.

Also,
looking at the speed at which the chute can be activated, it would mean taking one of your bots completely out of the game to block the entry to the tower just to prevent 1 robot that is still a very effective scorer from activating their amazing mechanism