[Donut]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

I think it's worthwhile to have a discussion to see what everyone's thoughts are. Recent "full court shooter" videos are starting to pop up. No doubt alliances will want to send a defender to deal with them. What exactly will you tell this defender to do?

I'm worried about this. There aren't a lot of full court shooter videos out yet, but I've seen enough to be convinced that at least a handful of teams will pull off effective ones that could score 70+ points a match if left uncontested. But how do you defend them? Skillful driving is fine and dandy for robots that have to line up to shoot, but unless you can keep a full court shooter from their loading area for half the match all it does is delay the inevitable. A 15 second delay getting across the field once doesn't really stop them from unloading 45 frisbees into the goals.

The thing that compounds my concern is that it seems like many teams are building short robots to fit under the pyramid or hang, and there's not a huge incentive to build a tall robot since it hurts your CG. Outside of the handful of 30 point climbers I don't think many teams will see a reason to extend to 84 inches in their home zone, and without that ability a tall full court shooter is unblockable.

If we have the weight for it a simple piston to flip up a flexible flag/ski pole may be useful to block taller shooters like this if there is a need for it. And if the math works out that we're still not tall enough to block a shot... well I guess taking penalties for loading zone contact could be the lesser of 2 evils.