Stopping a Triple Balance

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by bhsrobotics1671

You could park in front of the bridge then have your battery fall out or become disabled, therefore not give up any penalties but still block the ramp. Happened to us

I find it hard to imagine there isn't a rule that would allow the refs to give you a red card for doing that intentionally.

[bhsrobotics1671]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

I find it hard to imagine there isn't a rule that would allow the refs to give you a red card for doing that intentionally.

The ruling on the field was that they went and parked a foot or so away from the bridge. As we tried to approach the bridge, we nudged them into the bridge. The field crew was all in agreement that sometime between them sitting there, us nudging them, and before they made contact with the bridge that they lost their battery and were therefore "disabled". Since they were disabled, they could not get any penalties. It seemed to just be really bad luck on our end.

[Yankeefan181]

Originally Posted by sst.thad

I saw 488 defend the triple balance in week 1. what they did is get inbetween the bridge and the robots trying to get up. it worked well, and actually stopped the triple that match.

I saw this match too, they were extremely effective at pushing the third robot into the fender and keeping them away from the bridge. Here's video

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2012stx_sf1m2

The strategy is to keep the third robot away from the bridge, while avoiding penalties. It sounds difficult, but it can be done, as seen here. Kudos to 488 and their alliance partners for putting together a smart strategy like that in week 1.

[dellagd]

Hmm. At hatboro the heas ref told us that even if your robot becomes disabled, you are still eligible to have penalties on you.

[dellagd]

Man, the guy in that match video is REALLY enthusiastic!

[bhsrobotics1671]

Originally Posted by dellagd

Hmm. At hatboro the heas ref told us that even if your robot becomes disabled, you are still eligible to have penalties on you.

I have not found a rule to disagree with your statement. Could someone please point me to the rule that says if your robot is disabled then you cannot get any penalties?

[GaryVoshol]

Beside committing fouls, a dead robot can also score points.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by bhsrobotics1671

I have not found a rule to disagree with your statement. Could someone please point me to the rule that says if your robot is disabled then you cannot get any penalties?

This rule was last seen in 2010.

Originally Posted by 2010 FRC Competition Manual

<G27> Disabled ROBOTS and PENALTIES – If a ROBOT becomes unsafe (e.g. the ROBOT begins to smoke, the battery falls out, etc.), it may be disabled by pressing the E-Stop Button in the corresponding Player Station, per Rule <S03>. ROBOTS that are disabled in this manner cannot incur further PENALTIES nor can they earn additional points.

[JakeD]

Originally Posted by Yankeefan181

I saw this match too, they were extremely effective at pushing the third robot into the fender and keeping them away from the bridge. Here's video

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2012stx_sf1m2

The strategy is to keep the third robot away from the bridge, while avoiding penalties. It sounds difficult, but it can be done, as seen here. Kudos to 488 and their alliance partners for putting together a smart strategy like that in week 1.

This is essentially what I was saying earlier. At about the 1:45 mark you can see 488 push 922 into the corner like i was talking about. The difference is I believe with skillful driving you can essentially trap them there by forcing their driver to use less space to maneuver around you.

[Jash_J]

I have not yet come up with a way to stop a triple balance. However there might be other ways to work around this strategy.

Lets say in autonomous mode both teams get nearly the same amount of points. Once teleop starts, i noticed that if you ball starve the other alliance by having one robot continuously shooting balls into their zone while the other one or two robots score repeatedly. This works very well because this forces the other alliance that can triple balance to have a much lower score. This means you will be by far ahead going into the balancing stage. This makes up for the 20 points between their triple balance and your double balance.

Just my thoughts.

[dellagd]

So we dont believe there is a way to really defend if all robots are going onto the bridge from the side of the field on their alley?

[George Nishimura]

You have to block them from getting to the alley.

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by Madison

Credit for that strategy belongs with 2468, however. They did the same against that alliance in the quarter-final and it was fairly effective. The missing piece, in their case, was that they didn't have a scoring machine as powerful as 118 to drive up their score while they played defense like we did.

Thanks Madison for the kudos for our attempt to block the triple balance.

Our plan was to have 2969 go do the blocking of the bridge while we,2468 played defense on 148 and allowed 245 to stay at home and score. 2969 was having difficulty moving so we went to block the bridge. We stayed as long as I thought we could and still have time to bet on the bridge to balance with 245 but we ran out of time. Our original plan was to begin the balance at 45 seconds left. If we had gotten the balance, we would have won the match. you can see the match here.

I still believe it is a viable strategy to prevent the triple balance. We had even discussed blocking the barrier so that the opposing alliance had to use the coopertition bridge or go the long way around thus taking extra time to get there.

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2012stx_qf2m3

[dellagd]

I must say, this is my rookie year and all this strategy stuff, especially defense, is really interesting. It seems bridge defending is a very effective strategy if you can be careful, and be in the right place at the right time.

While they were balancing, it seems a foul was called on the red alliance. Can someone tell me what that was for?

EDIT: Oh, I guess that was just the announcer making a mistake.

[bam-bam]

Originally Posted by dellagd

I must say, this is my rookie year and all this strategy stuff is really interesting

I found this year to be one of the more difficult years for scouting, because of the (somewhat) heightened difficulty with shooting, and the importance balancing with the bridges. In addition, the cooperation bridge was an freakin' huge wrench thrown into a lot of teams' plans.

Last year and 2010 was pretty easy in terms of functions required, as you only needed two defining actions in order to win the regional (For 2010, it was kicking and raising yourself up on the towers, while 2011 was being able to put tubes on the wall and having a fast minibot.)



If you want to be able to defense OR balance, you need high traction.