Contrary to popular opinion..."wedge" robots are out

[Bharat Nain]

All I have to say is with a ramp like that many drive trains are going to be cut at a certain angle or build slightly high to allow the robot up the ramp. If all a robot had to do was use it's wedge defensively against most of the robots there then the game has a flaw. I am in support of this rule.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I suppose I'll have to fall on the side of being in favor of the new rule. Offensive and defensive wedges both bother me. Offensive wedges for obvious reasons. defensive wedges because they frankly tilt the playing field in favor of veteran teams than can make shooters accurate from 35 feet. If you can make a robot capable of this, surely you can put up with some pushing?

What's a team to do if they just fail to build a robot that can shoot well or pick up balls? If you make it impossible for teams to play defense against top-rank offensive teams, then the game becomes completely one dimensional. I'm pretty sure many of use remember how fun an all offense, no defense game was.

Aside from all that, how would you sensibly allow "defensive" wedges in the rules? There was constant complaining of rules that depended on ref interpretation last year. I don't see how you could allow defensive wedges without bringing intent into the rules. If the rule states that it's not tipping in the wedge-bot is stationary, then your super offense bot is effectively paralyzed. All a birck bot team need do is wait for you to move, then run at you and get flipped over, and you're disabled.

In summary, if you don't want your shooter getting manhandled, put a parking brake on it.

[Jared Russell]

As a member of a team that has been victim to "wedging" in the past, I welcome this change

It should definately help level the playing field, since in many years "defense" becomes the default strategy of rookie teams or those with broken scoring mechanisms.

[jax1488]

Originally Posted by team222badbrad

I, too am glad to see this rule, I just hope it is enforced. Us 222 folks don't care how much any team tries to push us as long as you don't lift our bot up with your wedge like frame.

All I can say is: "Try to push/move us this year!"

well all i wanna say is.. no robot has ever pushed ours without us letting them.. and we have pushed every robot we have desired to in the last 3 years.. without wedges too! lol ill be shocked if anyone can push us at all this year.. ():-)

[Bill Becker]

Are inverted wedges really banned. As long as you have a significant (3") vertical face on the back side where robots would normally encounter each other wouldn't a inverted slope to go up the ramp be ok?

[Ianworld]

I wouldn't worry about inverted wedges. The intent of the rule was to stop you from tipping other robots. Inverted wedges meet that intent. Perhaps checking the Q & A is in order.

[Ethulin]

I know that if this year's rules had not had a wedge restriction there is no way in hell we would NOT have had one this year.

Look at the designs of all 6 bots in the national finals last year, and how many of them were wedges. You will notice that they did not use it for ramming, but it DID allow for them to be pretty un-pushable, allowing them to play their game and pretty much ignore everything else.

[David Brinza]

The motivation for Team 980's wedge last year was strictly to avoid being pushed around or rammed. We considered this to be a "defensive" feature on our robot.

In this thread, it seems some of the posts consider aggressive pushing or attacking other robots as defensive play. We did not use our wedge to gain advantage when pushing another robot. Our wedge was a "passive" form of protection to discourage other robots from pushing us when we had a tetra hanging from our extended arm - a vulnerable, top-heavy configuration for us.

In the Championships, we got DQ'd twice during the quarterfinals (but still won!), because we tipped opposing robots. In both cases, we made contact high on the other robots, causing them to fall. We didn't tip them with our wedge.

[KenWittlief]

if they did allow wedge-bots this year, how would a team keep their wedge-bot from flipping other robots during auton mode?

If two bots collide during auton mode, and one is a wedge-bot, then was it defensive or offensive?

If you drive a wedge-bot out into the middle of the field during auton mode, and another bot runs into it, what can you reasonably expect the result to be? Is it reasonable to require the other bots to be able to see your bot on the field during auton mode, and not run into it?

For all these reasons Im glad there will be no wedge-bots this year.