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Re: Mecanum Einstein this year
It is true that defense can be tough on a mecanum robot. However, it is an exaggeration to say that mecanum is screwed against good defense.
I'll get one of my students to upload our videos, including the ones against 973. What you will see is a mixture of two things: 1) 973 wasting a good chunk of our time playing good defense, and 2) us getting around them some of the time. This is to be expected. 973 played what I thought was the best defense of any team I watched this year - they were able to stifle not just mecanum opponents but others as well. Yes, it is true that they were not only defending our robot, but that is also to be expected.
It's true that mecanum isn't going to "dance around" or "drive circles around" 6WD defense. But it is not true that mecanum is helpless against defense, either. It's also not true that 6WD is strictly better against defense in every regard. Notably, a mecanum driver can more easily fake out the defender and get them to start in the wrong direction and allow you to rather quickly get past them in the other direction. I'm not saying that works all the time, but it does work some of the time. And yes, mecanum looks pretty bad when the defense is working well and wasting 20 and 30 seconds at a time. Not denying that... I'm just saying that a defender is not able to guarantee this outcome. And do remember that good defense is also capable of wasting 20 and 30 seconds of a 6WD robot's time.
If one wants to argue that 6WD is better against defense than mecanum, then I can agree with that. 6WD is better at hitting the defender on their side near a corner, turning them some, and pushing past, which is a higher percentage play than trying to fake them out.
I don't think it is a liability to have one offensive mecanum robot on an alliance. It does get to be a problem when you have 2 or 3 mecanum robots and you lack a good 6WD to play defense or play some other strategy that requires pushing around. Not having those strategic options available (as 973 did when they switched over to defense after presumably playing offense all season long) is, in my opinion, the bigger downside to mecanum drive.
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