[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Donut

From the perspective of an average team facing off against a robot like that, I'd say yes. It's one thing to get steam rolled by an elite team because they just execute so much better than you do; it's quite another to know before the match the starts that your robot is physically incapable of beating an opponent regardless of execution. I think this is more applicable to a bot like 71 in 2002 where the match was over in the first 5 seconds if you were slower than them, at least 469 had to have a partner start scoring for them before they were unstoppable.

Early in the season, your comments about 469 were true. By their second district, their kicking had improved substantially. Between going 2/2 in autonomous and pulling out of the tower if necessary, 469 could very easily "start the cycle" themselves.

Granted, the "cycle" would operate a much larger volume if their alliance partners added to it and maintained it.

Originally Posted by Feroz1325

Though this strategy (full court shooting) is not a choke-hold strategy, if executed properly it could be close. Consider the elimination round alliance of a full court shooter, a robot with floor pickup and a third pick defensive bot....we will call them the red alliance.
The full court shooter could fire discs at the goal while the floor pickup bot could collect the missed disks. If a blue robot comes to block the shot, the red defensive bot could simply defend the blue defensive bot. This would require two robots from the blue alliance to defend the full court shooter and essentially make the match 1v1.
Do full court shooters ruin the game? No. They just add a new level of strategy, i know my team will be brainstorming ways to defeat (and work with) teams like this.

This strategy could never be close to a chokehold, simply because the other alliance can mirror it. There's no scenario in which this strategy is a guaranteed win, regardless of your opponent's actions.

The only example of a chokehold strategy being executed in FRC history is moving all 3 goals into your scoring zone in 2002 (and ensuring none of your robots are in the opponent's end zone and not taking penalties). If you were successfully able to do that, it was literally impossible for your opponent to outscore you.

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I'm not sure this is a direct comparison. The 469's robot was hard to come up with and hard to design/build. Not every average team could have done it. The fact that there was one amazing team (and maybe 2 other very good teams with 51 and 125), that had the design makes it different. We have already seen/heard about countless teams that have sucessfully built full field shooters. Seems too easy for a potentially huge payout.

2337 and 2992 also had ball deflectors that physically attached to the tower, but neither of them directed the balls at the goals.