Defense in Ultimate Ascent

[Justin Shelley]

This year our robot was planned to be a three point shooter and a thirty point climber. Then tragedy struck and our climber and feeder broke during the first qualification match. So by destiny we became a defense robot, and it was amazing. We could go underneath the pyramid and since we had a 6wd pneumatic drivetrain we were near impossible to push. We shut down Raven Robotics and they were the #1 shooter there, also a pyramid shooter. We also shut down 1706 which was a fcs, and their shooter shattered lexan at 80%. The only team we didn't shut down that we attempted to was 3284 and that was because they had a two speed high traction 4 cim drivetrain, though we made it were they only did two trips from feeder station to pyramid. We never scored one point in teleop yet we were the second pick of the regional.

So i would have to say that defense is extremely important in UA and that a good defensive robot can win or lose a match for an alliance.

FCS blocking is a must for any alliance, without a FCS blocker you should kiss your chances of winning goodbye.

Pyramid shooting blocking is extremely plausible and easy. We just would wait until a robot got by their feeder station and then we kept them on that side of the field by going back and forth under the pyramid.

We also sat in front of a FCS on our alliance that way the opposition blocker couldn't block our FCS shots. Very effective!