Any Wicked Awesome Goalies out there ?

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

From my experience, being offensive wins matches more often than being defensive. I've found that acquiring more points for your own alliance is much more valuable than preventing the other alliance from scoring. The bottom line is that offense scores points, and defense does not. Teams like 1114 and 118 are aware of this, and may be too busy during a match scoring assists and goals, that they need not bother with being a goalie. I do see a possibility, though, of a high performance team choosing a good goalie robot -- that ideally can also score in the low or high goal and can do controlled assists -- as an alliance pick.

I beg to differ. See Super Bowl XLVIII.
Defense is unappreciated because it's value is not directly apparent in the score.

Preventing or delaying a cycle is the same as scoring.

[cad321]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

I beg to differ. See Super Bowl XLVIII.
Defense is unappreciated because it's value is not directly apparent in the score.

Preventing or delaying a cycle is the same as scoring.

This is absolutely true! A perfect example of this (in FIRST) would be at the Pinetree regional. My team was selected by the top rank alliance 3467 and 2648. The matches were going well and we found ourselves in the finals. Match one went great (we won), then match two came along and just before the match started an inspector noticed something that was wrong with our robot that they had missed on the last two inspections causing us to have to sit on the field disabled for the match. Unfortunately this caused us to lose the second match and go into the dreaded third match of the finals. By this time we had fixed our bot and were back up and running. The third match came, we played our hearts out and came out on top for a well deserved title as the regional champions.

So moral of the story? Defense really does help. All 2386 was able to do was defense and score in autonomous. By us not being able to compete match two and losing by over 50 points (we were usually 50 ahead), showed just how valuable our defense was. We were quite pleased with how us not being able to play in match two, showed that we hadn't just won a lottery, but we actually greatly helped our alliance in getting to where it did.

Defense is totally underrated.

[Akash Shah]

Originally Posted by cad321

This is absolutely true! A perfect example of this (in FIRST) would be at the Pinetree regional. My team was selected by the top rank alliance 3467 and 2648. The matches were going well and we found ourselves in the finals. Match one went great (we won), then match two came along and just before the match started an inspector noticed something that was wrong with our robot that they had missed on the last two inspections causing us to have to sit on the field disabled for the match. Unfortunately this caused us to lose the second match and go into the dreaded third match of the finals. By this time we had fixed our bot and were back up and running. The third match came, we played our hearts out and came out on top for a well deserved title as the regional champions.

So moral of the story? Defense really does help. All 2386 was able to do was defense and score in autonomous. By us not being able to compete match two and losing by over 50 points (we were usually 50 ahead), showed just how valuable our defense was. We were quite pleased with how us not being able to play in match two, showed that we hadn't just won a lottery, but we actually greatly helped our alliance in getting to where it did.

Defense is totally underrated.

Defense is totally underrated. I can see that defense will be a major part of the game after the ball is passed to your alliance member. You will have nothing else to do while you wait for the robots on your alliance to score for the next ball to be put into play. So I can see defense becoming a big part of the game after these week 1 competitions coming up.

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by Akash Shah

Defense is totally underrated. I can see that defense will be a major part of the game after the ball is passed to your alliance member. You will have nothing else to do while you wait for the robots on your alliance to score for the next ball to be put into play. So I can see defense becoming a big part of the game after these week 1 competitions coming up.

I totally agree that defense is underrated. I'm not saying that defense is not useful. As a drive team mentor, I have to think of defensive strategies, too, and defense can be extremely useful in certain situations, but defense is something that can be done well by many teams at a competition, although some robots are better designed for defense than others.

My point is that as far as I know, high performance teams tend to err on the side of being offensive, because the acquisition of points is solely on one's own alliance alone, and does not depend as much on what the opposing alliance does, compared to being defensive. It's all about who dominates the field strategically, and how well a strategy is planned. This is why I mentioned a good possibility of a very strong offensive team choosing a good goalie. This might give a team an advantage, and it might just make the difference between a win or loss, but defense alone usually will not win a match. There's gotta be some offense along with it. You can have an all offense strategy and win a match, but I don't think you have an all defensive strategy and win, unless the opposing alliance scores nothing, and your alliance earns foul points.

[TheKeeg]

Okay, this is something that we came up with at the beginning of build season but never used it (blocking is not in our strategy). The perfect blocker would be a large pole mounted on the edge of a lazy-susan turn table. When you wanted to block you have a motor turning the table and the previously small rod now takes up close to three ball widths (or more) Couple this with rapid robot movement and it could become a very effective blocker.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...IXJv_Fw3vy9vRv

The table could look like this and you mount the pole on one of the corners. (the table would obviously be bigger).
Figured I would share the idea for anyone who wants a blocker. What do ya' think?

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by ohrly?

My team put a LOT of consideration into the idea, but ultimately the mentors vetoed the dedicated goalie.

You can find an animation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=408YXf6kGJ0

The idea is up for grabs if you can build it in a week...

PM me if you want a detailed .blend file.

Really creative design, I like it. If made it probably would have been one of the best goalies out there.

However, it would have suffered from the same Achilles Heel as every other goalie robot out there: counter-defense. All it would take is one robot parking sideways in the goalie zone to block the goalie from moving through the goalie zone quickly. the goalie would either have to push the counter-d robot sideways as fast as the shooting robot could re-position and shoot; or retract its blocking extension, drive around the counter-d robot, get back into the goalie zone, and re-deploy its blocking extension before the shooting robot could re-position and shoot.

This is why we did not pursue a goalie design. Defense is important, but a goalie robot is simply too easy to effectively counter.

[gpetilli]

Originally Posted by TheKeeg

Okay, this is something that we came up with at the beginning of build season but never used it (blocking is not in our strategy). The perfect blocker would be a large pole mounted on the edge of a lazy-susan turn table. When you wanted to block you have a motor turning the table and the previously small rod now takes up close to three ball widths (or more) Couple this with rapid robot movement and it could become a very effective blocker.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...IXJv_Fw3vy9vRv

The table could look like this and you mount the pole on one of the corners. (the table would obviously be bigger).
Figured I would share the idea for anyone who wants a blocker. What do ya' think?

A lazy-susan does not help much since you can not have it free spinning.

G12

An ALLIANCE may not POSSESS their opponent’s BALLS. The following criteria define POSSESSION:
1. “carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT),
2. “herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
3. “launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT),
4. “trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

[TheKeeg]

Originally Posted by gpetilli

A lazy-susan does not help much since you can not have it free spinning.

G12

An ALLIANCE may not POSSESS their opponent’s BALLS. The following criteria define POSSESSION:
1. “carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT),
2. “herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
3. “launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT),
4. “trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

I guess it is a good thing we didn't go with that design.

[ohrly?]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

Really creative design, I like it. If made it probably would have been one of the best goalies out there.

However, it would have suffered from the same Achilles Heel as every other goalie robot out there: counter-defense. All it would take is one robot parking sideways in the goalie zone to block the goalie from moving through the goalie zone quickly. the goalie would either have to push the counter-d robot sideways as fast as the shooting robot could re-position and shoot; or retract its blocking extension, drive around the counter-d robot, get back into the goalie zone, and re-deploy its blocking extension before the shooting robot could re-position and shoot.

This is why we did not pursue a goalie design. Defense is important, but a goalie robot is simply too easy to effectively counter.

We did a lot of analysis, and we found that mathematically, we still benefit our alliance as long as it takes more than two seconds per cycle for this counter-defense robot to get into place (because we slow them down). Actually, we found that if we block a single ball in autonomous, we are pretty much guaranteed a win. Of course, our mentors correctly pointed out that while it is mathematically advantageous, we still have to get picked, and it doesn't look good if we get blocked.

Originally Posted by gpetilli

Unfortunately, it is against the rules.

G12

An ALLIANCE may not POSSESS their opponent’s BALLS. The following criteria define POSSESSION:
1. “carrying” (moving while supporting BALLS in or on the ROBOT),
2. “herding” (repeated pushing or bumping),
3. “launching” (impelling BALLS to a desired location or direction via a MECHANISM in motion relative to the ROBOT),
4. “trapping” (overt isolation or holding one or more BALLS against a FIELD element or ROBOT in an attempt to shield them).

Well noted. We were more than a little irked with this significant rule change after two weeks. Our prototype was fast enough to lock position before impact, but the struggle was indicating clearly to the referee that the post was stationary.

[RaxusPrime]

Originally Posted by ohrly?

We did a lot of analysis, and we found that mathematically, we still benefit our alliance as long as it takes more than two seconds per cycle for this counter-defense robot to get into place (because we slow them down). Actually, we found that if we block a single ball in autonomous, we are pretty much guaranteed a win. Of course, our mentors correctly pointed out that while it is mathematically advantageous, we still have to get picked, and it doesn't look good if we get blocked.



Well noted. We were more than a little irked with this significant rule change after two weeks. Our prototype was fast enough to lock position before impact, but the struggle was indicating clearly to the referee that the post was stationary.

If someone did do this, the launcher wouldn't need to launch an opponents ball. Instead why wouldn't you use that catapult as a possession of your own alliance's ball. Then you would be able to get an assist without having to move. Though I guess that this would only work if an alliance partner that could catch... But still it would be pretty awesome

[Ladiesman217]

Were going with a man on man defense for this year, most of the bots we have seen are pretty low and have a ball trajectory that is easy to block.