Is your robot defense ready?

[IVAN]

I expect to see alot of hit and run D

[Wayne TenBrink]

With all the overhanging appendages and high speeds, I hope the referees strictly enforce the "contact inside the bumper zone" rule. Breaking your own bot when you run into somebody is one thing. Trashing the innards of the bot you hit is quite another.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I thought there would be only one human player in the alliance station. Two are stationed up by the truss in those positions. I also note that human players cannot pass the ball between each other from station to station. Now... that was assuming human players were dispersed on the field and not all behind the alliance area.

Anyone else want to chime in on this? Can an alliance use all of its alliance human players in the drive station area? Would you want to?

G8
Each TEAM member must be in designated areas:

COACHES and DRIVERS must be in the ALLIANCE STATION and behind the STARTING LINE.
HUMAN PLAYERS must be either in one of their HUMAN PLAYER AREAS or in the ALLIANCE STATION and behind the STARTING LINE.

G38
HUMAN PLAYERS may not pass the BALL to a HUMAN PLAYER in another HUMAN PLAYER AREA (passing the BALL within an ALLIANCE STATION or HUMAN PLAYER AREA is permitted).

IMO, an alliance that chooses to leave one human player area empty is taking a large risk especially if one of their balls leaves the field on that side as it would introduce a longer delay in the ball being returned to the nearest human player.

[Max Boord]

Our team takes a different approach to dealing with defense:
1. 20 fps
2. Mecanum
3. 3/4 inch ground clearance
4. 8 square inches of tread jammed into the ground with pnumatics.(anti-push feet)
5. A 6 cim powered arm called a "shooter" that defends the entire inside of our chassis. If a mechanism enters our chassis that mechanism may exit the field at high speed. (Or at least be persuaded into an upright and locked position).

[cmwilson13]

Originally Posted by Max Boord

Our team takes a different approach to dealing with defense:
1. 20 fps
2. Mecanum

1 and 2 are exclusionary from my experience you may be geared for that but i highly doubt you even approach that speed with Mecanum.
if so id love to see a video

[pfreivald]

I believe the winning alliances will have robots wherein the ball rarely if ever touches the ground.

Otherwise, defense will likely school you if played well.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Max Boord

Our team takes a different approach to dealing with defense:
1. 20 fps
2. Mecanum
3. 3/4 inch ground clearance
4. 8 square inches of tread jammed into the ground with pnumatics.(anti-push feet)
5. A 6 cim powered arm called a "shooter" that defends the entire inside of our chassis. If a mechanism enters our chassis that mechanism may exit the field at high speed. (Or at least be persuaded into an upright and locked position).

I second seeing a video of a mecanum robot geared for 20ft/s. Unless you have a crazy drive motor setup you're going to have a hell of a time getting to 20ft/s

[RonnieS]

How many people actually have to stop and/or lower intake to shoot? I guess when we designed ours to stay in the frame the whole time I didn't realize how big of a problem it would be for people if not kept inside! Oh snap

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Ronnie314

How many people actually have to stop and/or lower intake to shoot? I guess when we designed ours to stay in the frame the whole time I didn't realize how big of a problem it would be for people if not kept inside! Oh snap

I would guess 1/4-1/3 of reveal videos show teams that deploy their intake, or some other mechanism, before they shoot. That's the impression that I get anyway.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

With all the overhanging appendages and high speeds, I hope the referees strictly enforce the "contact inside the bumper zone" rule. Breaking your own bot when you run into somebody is one thing. Trashing the innards of the bot you hit is quite another.

I'm concerned about that as well. Large hammers swinging outside the bumper perimeter, intakes outside the bumper perimeter. I also hope that the refs are keeping a VERY close eye on intentional damage. Playing good solid D does not equal intentionally taking full speed runs at other robots and slamming into them.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Playing good solid D does not equal intentionally taking full speed runs at other robots and slamming into them.

It can, though--and as long as the contact is all inside the bumper zone, it's entirely legal.

[JamesCH95]

An interesting hypothetical situation would be: a defending robot rams an offensive robot and the defensive robot skewers itself, and become disabled, on a mechanism deployed by the offensive robot. Is that a foul on the offensive robot for contact inside the bumper zone? Is it a foul on a defensive robot for trying to incur a foul? Is it nothing because the defensive robot got what it was asking for by charging a deployed mechanism?

[E Dawg]

I fear for the structural integrity of anything that extends outside of the standard frame perimeter. That includes the tall blocking mechanisms on goalie bots.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

I would guess 1/4-1/3 of reveal videos show teams that deploy their intake, or some other mechanism, before they shoot. That's the impression that I get anyway.

Wait, teams showed everything off in their reveal videos?

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Wait, teams showed everything off in their reveal videos?

Some fairly obviously needed to get their collector out of the way.

Smart-arse