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.
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Originally Posted by [527]phil
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.
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//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
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back to your normally schedule program.