Best way to collect balls [off the field]?

[Kelvin Ng]

Originally Posted by Shu Song

IMHO (and I know there are people who will disgree with me), there won't be as many free balls on the ground as compared to games like 2002 and 2004. Rather most of the balls will be controlled by a robot. It's not hard to build a funnel bot and just have a human player continously dump balls into a hopper with the bot right next to the control station. The only balls that will be on the ground are accidental, be it the human player missed the bot or the bot missed the goal.

Plus, if there are any balls on the ground, you can be sure that another bot with a ground loader will be grabbing it too. Cutting down the number of balls that you can get to on the floor.

So while a ground collector would be an easy addition to the bot, I don't think there will be many free balls on the ground to make it worth the effort/money/time/weight.

How about throwing balls to the backbot during the defensive period? I see an immense strategic advantage if the backbot is left alone (all 3 offensive robots trying to score). If it can pick balls off the floor (the human players on defense throw all their balls to the backbot), it can plant itself in front of the platform, wait for the offensvie period and score in the centre goal unimpeded.