Is your team planning on throwing litter?

['lil robo-girl]

We were lucky enough to have a football player/javelin thrower join our team just this year. He's been practicing and can get it pretty consistently around thirty feet. I definitely think that if you have the human resources to throw litter that far, then you should. Considering that very few teams will probably be able to get litter in the cans, I think the potential gain is worth the risk.

[Rhelik]

Our team has a few students who can easily clear the step (none could when they started). Its definitely worth more than the 4 points you'll gain. Any team that gets caught up in noodles or noodle clearance is not scoring totes or containers. If an alliance gets less points because of that then in all matches that's better for you. At best a team can score only 7 noodles, and outside of champs or the highest caliber teams, I doubt many regionals will see even that many used.

Its not hard to throw them over the step, just takes a bit of understanding of the type of throw needed. Think Javelin!

-Bernie

[Lij2015]

I see litterally no reason not to, they don't count against you if they miss and you have a maximum of 7 trash cans if you plan to noodle them.

If they miss you just push in the landfill for a point.

[c.shu]

Originally Posted by Lij2015

I see litterally no reason not to, they don't count against you if they miss and you have a maximum of 7 trash cans if you plan to noodle them.

If they miss you just push in the landfill for a point.

Reasons to not throw litter:

A) Very rarely (if ever) will you see a team that can consistently get them over the step and past the other alliances landfill to get any points.

B) In the rare case you do get it that far, they will probably be close enough to the other teams landfill it will take very little time for them to score them in their own landfill.

C) If they end up on your side of the field they will likely be an obstruction to driving, a lot of teams wont compensate for driving over them and may incur a penalty for damaging a game piece.

D) I personally don't want to take the time from stacking my totes and containers to get a lousy few points when I could be getting 42 for a full stack.

[Lij2015]

Originally Posted by c.shu

Reasons to not throw litter:

A) Very rarely (if ever) will you see a team that can consistently get them over the step and past the other alliances landfill to get any points.

B) In the rare case you do get it that far, they will probably be close enough to the other teams landfill it will take very little time for them to score them in their own landfill.

C) If they end up on your side of the field they will likely be an obstruction to driving, a lot of teams wont compensate for driving over them and may incur a penalty for damaging a game piece.

D) I personally don't want to take the time from stacking my totes and containers to get a lousy few points when I could be getting 42 for a full stack.

Agreed with the rarity of the situation, but I don't think it'll take that much time away from stacking since it's gonna take like 5 or so seconds to safely place a stack of six plus can.

I can also see where driving would be a problem, but if your human player can't throw the litter more than 15 feet or so then that's where the problem is

I'd also rather attempt to get 12-28 points(3-7 noodles) even if you risk giving them 3-7 points. Because any alliance that is going to benefit from 3 points isn't a threat in qualifications anyway(elims is different)

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by c.shu

Reasons to not throw litter:

A) Very rarely (if ever) will you see a team that can consistently get them over the step and past the other alliances landfill to get any points.

B) In the rare case you do get it that far, they will probably be close enough to the other teams landfill it will take very little time for them to score them in their own landfill.

C) If they end up on your side of the field they will likely be an obstruction to driving, a lot of teams wont compensate for driving over them and may incur a penalty for damaging a game piece.

D) I personally don't want to take the time from stacking my totes and containers to get a lousy few points when I could be getting 42 for a full stack.

A) I think you're right; it's tough to get them far enough with most techniques. Yet I think it's like 2012 - once teams see the 'right' way to do it in a live match, everyone will quickly adopt it.

B) Hint: throw it at an established stack. The opponents won't dare touch it if it's lying next to a stack they may knock over. That's if they even see it land there. They can't push what they can't see. Jackpot if it lands on their scoring platform.

C) Fair point, but match flow should help mitigate this. It depends on what the alliance is doing with the field totes, and how fast those field totes get manipulated. As far as damaging a game piece, I really hope the refs wouldn't penalize a team for an obvious and expected outcome of soft foam meeting 150 lbs in motion. We'll see.

D) The drivers & coach wouldn't waste any time. It's all about the HP who isn't working on loading totes/noodles into the field through the openings. Throwing the 3-5 best noodles for some bonus points seems like a win to me, if it can be done with a net-positive point advantage. At Regionals I'd certainly pick an average bot with a great human player as a 2nd-pick depending on where I were in the rankings.

[c.shu]

Originally Posted by JesseK

B) Hint: throw it at an established stack.

D) The drivers & coach wouldn't waste any time.

I would be happily surprised if anyone had the accuracy to land the litter where they wanted to. They take some pretty severe flight patterns in my experience with them.

When I'm talking about wasting time I am referring to clearing them off of my side of the field once they have failed to reach the other side.

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by c.shu

C) If they end up on your side of the field they will likely be an obstruction to driving, a lot of teams wont compensate for driving over them and may incur a penalty for damaging a game piece.

Check G16. Unintentional damage to litter(i.e. by driving over it) will not incur fouls.