Defense

[ck114]

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find any good defensive matches from any previous years. I was thinking that defense might end up being popular and I wanted to see how other teams try to stop and delay cycles. I went through around 140 matches in Newton, Curie, and Galieo at the 2013 ultimate accent, and didn't find to much in terms of a very strong defensive. If you know of any good defensive matches in any year, I would love to see them

[Canon reeves]

look up team texplosion on youtube, their video is called shut em down, I'm not on their team, but I know they won atleast one regional if not more, and they just did defense and hung a ten!

[Chris is me]

Good defense will be quite different this year. Last year, you couldn't touch a robot loading or shooting.

[EricDrost]

One of my favorite defensive robots of all time (869 2013):
http://youtu.be/qG38P2a6CJg

Best moment at 3:09

[Squeakypig]

Finals matches of Centerline District 2013.

E-Corse Robo Raiders and Crevolution play double defense while Las Guerillas plays pure offense.

This type of strategy won't work this year (in my opinion) due to the limited amount of points one team can score on their own.

Crevolution did not have a high torque drivetrain this year, but just by getting in between MOE and the goals was enough to slow them down and limit their scoring potential.

I do not have a link to the video because I am at work and have limited internet access, but I know these videos can be found on:
www.thebluealliance.com

[Racer26]

48 has long been known for building strong defensive bots over the years. I remember in 2013 at least once (I think FLR?) they made an impressive run across the field to intercept a shooter at high speed.

One of the best defensive plays I ever saw happened at the 2004 GLR. 1241 (a rookie at the time) had built a robot that caught the 5 point balls as they fell out of the overhead compartment. Then it opened up like a refrigerator to pass the balls to their stellar human player to score them (he was on their school basketball team as I recall). 67 decided that to stop this, they would stuff a 2X ball down 1241's throat so it couldn't catch the 5pt balls. A brilliant play, and I'd love to have a conversation with the person who thought outside the box to come up with it. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=26857

[Jhultink]

Team 177 in 2006 didn't score a point on Galileo (I think), but didn't lose a match. http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/177/2006 The videos are awesome.

[msaunders]

I don't know. I thought we (FRC 862) played good defense on HOT (FRC 67) during the 2013 Curie Finals. Pretty much shut down their full court shooting and caused another member of their alliance to spend time trying to push us out of the way.

And managed to score a few of our own here and there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bL6r...a8NpaPO9C8KIHT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A-EC...NpaPO9 C8KIHT

[c.shu]

If you are looking for good defensive match videos I would reccomend looking at the 2010 Breakaway season.

As far as match videos go we have one. In this match our kicking mechanism was not functional. (which we learned during autonomous)

• Tipping of robots was not intentional
• Spinning at the end was due to a short circuit after crossing the bump

[BrennanB]

Here we go...

From what I have seen over my past few years, every single game has had an aspect where defense can be played (within the rules at the time) and probably most teams aren't taking full advantage of the opportunities. Even games like last year where there were so many protected zones, several teams were able to significantly impact the score of the match (and in some cases completely shut out) teams.

Firstly, there are a few different approaches to defense:

Push em' around/T-Bone: This is perhaps one of the most dramatic and hyped up forms of defense. Also perhaps not very useful in most games cases. The idea is you push around the team on the field, or slow them down by causing a T-Bone where they can't break free. It was really interesting how much of a role this came into play in Lunacy, where the 2nd pick on an alliance would just ram/pin another stronger robot so that they would be scored on. Or in 2010 with the attempts to block 469's auton lock and load re director. Even last year with the pushing matches to clear the way for a full court shooter (Michigan teams were particular adept at this.) This match is a good example of this kind of defense. The reason this method my not be as successful as others is that good drivers well... just avoid you.

Specific Defense Mechanisms: The classic "net" or "blockers" I can't find the video right now, but there was a team in 2011 that had drop down sides to block teams from getting into their done easily. Last year there were the "air bag" teams, ore extending walls to block FCS. 111 in 2003 with their ramps to stop other teams from coming up the ramp. Perhaps this year we will see an effective goalie mechanism?

Positional Defense: What IMHO is the most effective way to defend (especially this year) which I wish more teams would do (except when they play us ) Take a position perpendicular to the other robot, and keep them from getting to the position that they want to go. From experience this can be brutal. The best part is, every team should be able to this. It's effective and it's rather annoying to the team on the other side of the glass. Unfortunately it didn't happen much last year at worlds. It was the cycler's worst nightmare Albeit if you have a slower robot, it is significantly harder to play good defense, but nonetheless is still annoying.

tl;dr There aren't many "Complete shutdown" matches, or "epic defense" simply because that is too hard. Yet there are a ton of examples of great defense from teams in any region. Just need to look for them.

[Max Boord]

look up 4814 on youtube. they seeded 3rd on curie by doing an 18 pt auto and unstopable deffence on teams like 2056, 1717 and 67without getting a single foul.

Here is 1523s final champs match where we where shut down by deffence: http://bit.ly/NiD5xz

Also, 233s technical foul heavy deffence can be seen in a few of there matches and is about as heavy as it can get.

MSC finals match 2-3 where 217 shuts down 67 and forces 2337 to
atempt to push 217 (unsucessfully). 67 was unable to cycle some of the time due to a drivetrain problum.

TeXplosion was a deffender from texas who could push any texas team around however, at champs they seeded 99th and went 1-7.

The archamedies alliance fielded 1519 in a FCS/ deffender setup handing off with 469.

Look up any match of 973 on Einstein in 2011 and you'll see some of the most amazing Tbone defense in FRC.

[RonnieS]

Originally Posted by Squeakypig

Finals matches of Centerline District 2013.

E-Corse Robo Raiders and Crevolution play double defense while Las Guerillas plays pure offense.

This type of strategy won't work this year (in my opinion) due to the limited amount of points one team can score on their own.

Crevolution did not have a high torque drivetrain this year, but just by getting in between MOE and the goals was enough to slow them down and limit their scoring potential.

I do not have a link to the video because I am at work and have limited internet access, but I know these videos can be found on:
www.thebluealliance.com

I will second this..was the most annoying thing in the world...

[Chris is me]

469 vs 1114 in 2011 is probably the best line / zone defense ever.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by Canon reeves

look up team texplosion on youtube, their video is called shut em down, I'm not on their team, but I know they won atleast one regional if not more, and they just did defense and hung a ten!

Actually, it was:
Hub City (Lubbock) Finalists (w/16 & 4063) Week 1
Lone Star (Houston) Winners (w/118 & 148) Week 2
Alamo (San Antonio) Winners (w/2468 & 4063) Week 5 (I think)

Here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCPZuWQtUvI

If you are going to look into how we played, you need to watch some whole matches after you watch the Shut 'em Down video. Pay attention to position and orientation as well as driver skill. A big part of playing defense in our style is to understand both the rules and the opponent's robot. We do a LOT of work to understand both of these.

FYI: Our drivetrain last year was a 4 CIM skid steer, 12:1, with the 2008 FIRST Wheels (6") from AndyMark. For 2014, it's a 6 CIM drop center with timing belts, 12:1 transmissions, and AM roughtop (6") for the center wheel and 2008 FIRST Wheels (6") on the ends.

See you at Alamo and Dallas!