unique strategies that worked....... or didn't

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

In hindsight, I think it would have been possible for us to take a more active role in the match and still be in the corner when we needed to be. We still have the MARC and the WMRI coming up. Perhaps we will get some chances to try it again!

You nailed it here. Later after being eliminated, I told Ken Patton that I blew it. Every time you guys left the corner to track down a loose ball, you always made it back to the corner - even when defended. I told Ken that I should've made that strategy adjustment in the semis. I thought about it, but I was too afraid to make the call to do it. All I saw was the 390 and I thought to myself, "if we make that change and lose, then I'll have to live with the 'why did you go away from what worked?' questions." I beat myself up that night about that.

What really kills me is that in both of the semi-final matches that we lost, the opposing alliance missed an auton shot and we had the opportunity to to try to shut them down at the start of the match, but we were too focused on getting the cycle started because "hey, we scored 390 in the first match". In retrospect, putting up a score that high in the first match was probably the worst thing to happen to us. After our first loss in the semis, I should've had us go 2 bot cycles for as long as we could defend them from clearing their missed auton ball to build a little lead before starting the 3-bot cycle. Then I thought, "but we scored 390" and chickened out. Oh well. Then again, the alliance we lost to was really great so there's a good chance we would've lost anyway. Ifs and buts, candy and nuts, and all that stuff. I guess I can't complain.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by NotInControl

I do not believe any damage was due to malice intent. Esp at BattleCry. BattleCry is one of the friendliest events I have the privelege to attend with some of the most gracious and world-class teams around. I don't even remember what match robot or alliance our air valve was hit in, because it wasn't important, it was no ones fault. We've all been doing this for many year. These things happen. It is not intentional, and I would never even hint that it was.

But the consequence of that defense was damage that apparently was NOT called as a foul. And we saw some teams intentionally pursue damaging defensive strategies on the chance that they would NOT be called for a foul. So I believe that 125 has a legitimate gripe and 716 shouldn't be extolling its achievement.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by who716

at our most recent offseason event, (battle cry) we were the 19th alliance (716,181,2468) going against the number 2 Alliance, of (125,195,1474) if you are familiar with the number two alliance robots' then you know that they are a regional winning alliance for sure.
During our discussion of strategy our alliance partner came up with doing a one assist cycle and stopping them on defense with the other two robots.
I was skeptical at first, as the 2 alliance is capable of putting up big point quickly, but we were down one and had to try something so I said "lets do it"
To my surprise it worked, 181 would in-bound/truss/ score in the top all by itself. while 2648 and 716 would play the defense roll. At the end of the match we won 95-90 with the foul points subtracted (there was a total of three technical foul 1 on our alliance two on opponents alliance)
we came back with the same approach in quarter final 3-3 and took that match by 20 points with a Tec foul against us. They were brutal matches to say the least but it surprised me to see this strategy worked.

In the Newton final, 971 tried that against our alliance in the first match and they found that they had to give up too much offense and we were still able to put up a cycle. They switched to a more standard strategy in the next match but still lost. The defense had to be truly impenetrable to work.

Of course the introduction of the goalie bots into the elims in the Worlds was the other big innovation. They hadn't been of consequence until then. Getting 254 to miss 2 auton shots in match 2 affected match 3 too.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by rnewendyke

Watching your elimination alliance play on Curie I was actually surprised that you guys weren't utilizing a strategy along the lines of what either 1625/2590/1477 or our alliance were running. Given 469's great inbounding and long trussing ability I was fairly certain we were going to see them inbound and truss over to your HP and then see some robot-HP-robot or HP-robot-robot action for the second and third assists. Instead you stuck to the basics, and I can't imagine you're at all disappointed with the results.

The issue with long trussing is that you have to get 2 robots possessing in 2 zones after the truss shot, so you have to load in the white and then pass to another in the colored zone. We discussed that strategy but felt the pass in the front court was more vulnerable than the backcourt pass.

[Branden2648]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

But the consequence of that defense was damage that apparently was NOT called as a foul. And we saw some teams intentionally pursue damaging defensive strategies on the chance that they would NOT be called for a foul. So I believe that 125 has a legitimate gripe and 716 shouldn't be extolling its achievement.

If you watch the video of that match no one was near them when they died so no one knows for sure who caused that damage.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Branden2648

If you watch the video of that match no one was near them when they died so no one knows for sure who caused that damage.

That cable was fine prior to the match. This means that damage happened during the match. There were two robots with the capability to do that damage. You and 195. 195's arm geometry is incapable of hitting the point where that cable (and the intake motors that also had their leads sheared off) is located. Your claw is capable of it.

If you accept the premise that this damage did not spontaneously appear via divine will, your bot did the damage.

So yes. Your strategy of take advantage of the fact that the refs didn't call the various flagrant fouls you were committing (possession of our ball for the majority of two matches, contact inside perimeter, damaging contact, repeated high speed ramming) works. If the refs had been halfway competent your alliance would have been red carded in match 2 for repeated and strategic possession of the opposing alliances ball.

[Branden2648]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

That cable was fine prior to the match. This means that damage happened during the match. There were two robots with the capability to do that damage. You and 195. 195's arm geometry is incapable of hitting the point where that cable (and the intake motors that also had their leads sheared off) is located. Your claw is capable of it.

If you accept the premise that this damage did not spontaneously appear via divine will, your bot did the damage.

So yes. Your strategy of take advantage of the fact that the refs didn't call the various flagrant fouls you were committing (possession of our ball for the majority of two matches, contact inside perimeter, damaging contact, repeated high speed ramming) works. If the refs had been halfway competent your alliance would have been red carded in match 2 for repeated and strategic possession of the opposing alliances ball.

Except our claw never went down during that match so it was impossible that we could have done that to you guys and even if it was us we had no intentions of causing any harm.

[who716]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

That cable was fine prior to the match. This means that damage happened during the match. There were two robots with the capability to do that damage. You and 195. 195's arm geometry is incapable of hitting the point where that cable (and the intake motors that also had their leads sheared off) is located. Your claw is capable of it.

If you accept the premise that this damage did not spontaneously appear via divine will, your bot did the damage.

So yes. Your strategy of take advantage of the fact that the refs didn't call the various flagrant fouls you were committing (possession of our ball for the majority of two matches, contact inside perimeter, damaging contact, repeated high speed ramming) works. If the refs had been halfway competent your alliance would have been red carded in match 2 for repeated and strategic possession of the opposing alliances ball.

prior to those matches, not once did we say anything about damaging the opponent, trapping the ball, or ramming. The only thing we said was play good defense. we were not trapping the ball, because we were in motion along the full length of the field, we were just preventing you from getting to the other side of our robot, that's not trapping that defense. the video shows absolutely no evidence of 2648 claw going into your robot. therefore to accuse them of intentionally damaging your robot is ungracious.
Also calling the referees incompetent is very disrespectful, they put in there time to help out at an event. they are the reason we were both able to compete at battle-cry, therefore I am going to say thank you to all the volunteers for putting forth much effort to manage the event.

[JamesB3467]

Originally Posted by Branden2648

and even if it was us we had no intentions of causing any harm.

Hate to join into this, but I felt I had to after that. At our UNH district, Northeaster District, DCMP, Worlds and even Battle Cry, 3467 fell to many penalties like this. Having two-sided pickups are great, but it almost doubles the chance for contact inside the bumper zone. There have been quite a few times where we are either taking a shot which requires one of our arm to be out, or picking up a ball and backing off from defense and another robot has intentionally hit us causing our arm to go inside their bumper zone. Most of the time. we could get out of the situation cleanly, but there were times where our arm caught on pneumatic tubing, surgical tubing, etc, and caused damage to their robot. WE NEVER INITIATED CONTACT, NOR DID WE HAVE INTENTIONS TO HARM THEM. Even when I would try to explain to refs that they had rammed us while we were stationary or that their design is asking for this to happen, most of the time we would loose the fight and end up losing the match. Never once did we intend to cause any damage, and never did saying that get us out of the penalty. 2648 (or whoever for that matter) may not have even caused 125's damage, but saying that it was not intentional will NEVER get you out of the penalty and out you in the clear.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Let's get away from the incidents at Battlecry (use another thread or PM each other please), and continue talking about unique strategies. One that we tried at Battlecry was to try and stop 125, who uses the low goal to line up. Our inbounder 3958 would inbound in front of one low goal and would spit it out to us, and we would quickly truss it to our scorer, and then us and 3958 would each sit in front of the low goals to make 125 shoot away from the box. Unfortunately neither of us could push 125 when they went to shoot in the center of the goals, and 3958 stopped moving halfway through the match, but it was interesting defensive strategy to say the least.

[Branden2648]

I'm not saying we did or did not deserve a penalty. I'm not a ref so I Don't decide the penalties I just don't want my team blamed for you not getting the penalties that you should or should not have gotten. In the end I am sorry about this situation and I understand why you guys are mad, just please stop putting the blame on my team, Thank you

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Branden2648

If you watch the video of that match no one was near them when they died so no one knows for sure who caused that damage.

Anyone actually have the videos of the matches? I can't find them in the normal places.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Anyone actually have the videos of the matches? I can't find them in the normal places.

The NE FIRST livestream page for Battlecry(on my phone so I can't link it) has it kinda... It cuts in and out a lot, unfortunately not showing the "key moments" in this discussion.

[Branden2648]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

The NE FIRST livestream page for Battlecry(on my phone so I can't link it) has it kinda... It cuts in and out a lot, unfortunately not showing the "key moments" in this discussion.

If you drop the quality down it doesn't skip

[loyal]

I was not there but watched that match over and over. Andrew your teams robot worked perfectly for autonomous and then a ball got stuck after the human player loaded it. At that point 195 put its horns into your robot. Go look again at the video. As for the fouls it was one against us 716 for trapping a ball and two against 195. 2648 did not cause any damage to your robot. The only answer and the video shows it is your own alliance partner caused the damage. Sorry