Best defensive strategies

[EricH]

The bar blockers in 2004.

This class of robots, half a dozen in number, could pull a 200-point swing in a match. At 50 points per robot on the bar, the blocker would go up (50 points) and block one or both of their opponents (50 points each) and then allow their partner up (50 points) for a possible 200-point swing. The real fun came when two bar blockers went at it. I seem to recall one of them pinning another on the bar...

It gets better, though. Two of the bar blockers could eliminate a doubler ball from the bar. Opponents could place the doubler on a goal, but these two robots could remove the doubler.

Robots to look up: 64, 190 (stationary with capacity to steal the doubler ball), 237 (there is video of 190 vaulting over them), 330 (the other with un-doubling capability), 868 (the only one to make Einstein), 1266 (a rookie that year).