[ToddF]

As others have recently pointed out, thrown litter has made a significant difference in week 1 outcomes. There seem to be three big effects of thrown litter.
- short throws cluttering your own side of the field
- long throws clutter the opponents side of the field
- long throws scoring points with unprocessed litter

I'm going to throw out a simple concept for litter defense: the net bot. As far as I can tell, there is no rule against setting a stationary robot against the landfill at the start of the match and setting up a full height net that spans the width of the field. Unless an opposing HP can do a long throw over the net, thrown litter would be completely neutralized. Even better, thrown noodles that hit the net would drop into the landfill, scoring points for the good guys.

The range in abilities between the top performers and the possible third pick bots this year seems pretty wide. I would think a team might guarantee themselves a spot as a third pick if they used their 30 pound weight allowance to bring a net and two poles. Even better, if the net was a roll of COTS netting, and the poles were raw material, the materials might not even count against the weight allowance. Just be sure you can set up the net in under 60 seconds, it is stable enough that it won't tip over out of the field or onto the other side, and connects to your stationary robot somehow (the robot could be one of the pole bases).

How many week one regional outcomes would have changed if an alliance had a netbot on their side?