how effective are the herders/dumpers?

[JJG13]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

oh man...I got a story for you.

Dumpers are awsome...but never have two on a team.

.....

I'd say a dumper is nice to have, but use caution when chooseing one.

I disagree. At the Florida regional, the second place alliance was 357-1523-1902. 357 was a dumper (fifth seed - not bad) as was 1902. Since 357 picked balls up off the ground and 1902 was a very effective human loader, they both were able to score to their fullest potential. This alliance with two dumpers beat (in only two matches) the first seed alliance in the semifinals that was led by team 233 (who has just won the Boston Regional). What is more, the three robots they played against (233, 190, 744) were all very good shooters.

[Tetraman]

I guess than, in my case, the teams we went up against didn't have a stragety against us.

[nuggetsyl]

there was one hearder that really impressed me. 213 i think if they kept sucking up balls and just starved the other teams from getting balls they would be hard to beat.

shaun

[irishninja]

At NYC the top seeded alliance was a dumper.

[Jeremy L]

I believe at the UTC regional, team 195 had the best 1pt bot, followed by team 716. Team 195 ended up captaining the 6th seed alliance, and 716 the 2nd. I put 195 first because their robot was more robust in my opinion. I was really expecting more of those robots to show up, but I guess us New Englanders don't leave much to the imagination when the game name is "Aim High"....

[thatphotochick]

in pittsburgh the first 3 top seeds were dumpers. i never even considered dumpers to be so effective, but there's some proof right there. also 868 at BMR was a dumper and they dumped like 20 at times, probably even more than that all at once, usually making their alliance win.

[Starke]

i agree that having a 1 point score bot on your team is a great advantage. for the most part, they guarantee you 10 points in autonomous. this kind of robot that stuck out and the Finger Lakes Regional was Chuck 84. they went over, got on their ramp after autonomous, and fill up with easily 20 balls. then they sprinted across the field and dumped all of them in under 2 seconds.

[[527]phil]

Dumpers are only effective if they can push the shooters around. Penalties also play an important role in dumpers effectiveness. At our regional (SPBLI) only 1 penalty was called, and it was an offsides violation. therefore dumpers were allowed to do whatever they wanted. They constantly went into the goal, which should be a disqualification, and they repeatedly flipped other robots that were not even attempting to score. If penalties were enforced i believe that dumpers would have been significantly less successful.

[CircularLogic]

I think it is important to distinguish between dumpers and herders.

Being a dumper was good when you could hold a lot of balls and score them quickly and effectively. You would also have to play very good defense as a dumper and be able to put the 10 in during autonomous.

Being a herder was probably the best thing you could have on a robot. One particularly good one at SBPLI was 358 (happauge eagles). They were a very good shooter but i think the reason they did so well was because they could harvest balls like nobody's business and then turn around and put them into the goal. During one match, there had to be at least 20 balls next to a corner goal. Any team that could have scooped them up and put them in would have one that match. Being a herder is what is going to separate the great scorers from the good scorers.

Originally Posted by [527]phil

Dumpers are only effective if they can push the shooters around. Penalties also play an important role in dumpers effectiveness. At our regional (SPBLI) only 1 penalty was called, and it was an offsides violation. therefore dumpers were allowed to do whatever they wanted. They constantly went into the goal, which should be a disqualification, and they repeatedly flipped other robots that were not even attempting to score. If penalties were enforced i believe that dumpers would have been significantly less successful.

//slight thread hijack

My team 1546 was at the SBPLI regional and I believe we pretty much played the game the way Phil seems to be grudgingly describing it. Our team prided itself on our defensive prowess (seeing as how our offensive capabilities were extremely low). This game is a physical game, teams were going to get tipped and teams that were capable shooters were going to be dogged all game long. I know many teams didnt like it, but our team's autonomous load was simply to interfere with the capable offensive modes of other teams. Many teams werent happy about our bot crossing the field at a decent speed in order to interfere with other bots. But the head ref put it the best way " I need an intent to harm." No robot at our regional had an intent to harm any other robot. We had an intent to win. And when you have to win your matches on defense, its going to get a little bit physical which is why FIRST emphasized building a robust robot.

I apologize for the slight hijack
//

back to your normally schedule program.

[Revolverx7]

Originally Posted by CircularLogic

I think it is important to distinguish between dumpers and herders.

Being a dumper was good when you could hold a lot of balls and score them quickly and effectively. You would also have to play very good defense as a dumper and be able to put the 10 in during autonomous.

Being a herder was probably the best thing you could have on a robot. One particularly good one at SBPLI was 358 (happauge eagles). They were a very good shooter but i think the reason they did so well was because they could harvest balls like nobody's business and then turn around and put them into the goal. During one match, there had to be at least 20 balls next to a corner goal. Any team that could have scooped them up and put them in would have one that match. Being a herder is what is going to separate the great scorers from the good scorers.

Thanks for that. We tried our best to pick up some balls when we could.

Herding is deffinetly important this year. I also think that dumping is also good, but only in partnership with 2 good shooters. Its also a very good way to ensure an autonomous win.

[akshar]

in the elimination rounds at boston every alliance (121,233,1568) played had one dumper on the alliance, in Quarterfinals: 1757, in semifinals 1592, and in finals it was 213, 213 and 1592, could score in auto mode and they did, but the winning alliance had 2 shooter (121 and 233) and one defensive (1568)

but 213 was an awesome dumper

[Lil' Lavery]

In a well balanced alliance, the corner goal is often the key to victory. "Well balanced" has many different variables, depending on the exact capabilities of teams (such as the 357, 1902 example), but it almost always includes at least 1 shooter. An alliance dependant on the corner goal (just as an alliance entirely dependant on the center goal) can be easily defended, or starved of balls (in theory, in your opponents are scoring 100% in the center goal, they only have to return 34% of the balls you scored back "into play" in order to win).
In my opinion, the ability to score both the center and corner goal rapidly and consistantly is the key to victory (along with winning autonomous).

[Beth Sweet]

I found that while the "dumpers" were very valuable, that they were also very much ignored. We were only defended against once at Detroit (when both of our partners broke) and very late in the day on Friday at Milwaukee. People are so busy watching the shooters and the balls flying through the air that they don't notice machines like ours dumping in 30-40 balls a match. It was the funniest thing to me when, after the match where the other alliance was able to effectively defend the 2 lower goals our kids were like, they're giving us the compliment that we're good enough to defend!

[emnasson303]

I think they're just as important as any other team on an alliance; in general, a successful alliance has 3 robots that all together can complete all the tasks in the game.

[nifty]

i don't know if i can speak for the herders, since the onle ones (my team's bot included) at the BAE were herders by necessity and not choice - when multiple systems leave you hanging, sometimes its all you can do. my team designed our bot to be a collecter/low shooter, but ran into problems with our shooting mechanism and ball release mechanism, so we ended up doing a lot of herding.

dumpers on the other hand, totally win my approval. i know team 97 and 213 (did i get the number right? i know they were the "dirty birds") both made it to the elimination rounds at BAE, and gave our team a lot of trouble whenever they were on an opposing allicance. our driver was great at defensive manouvering, but we just couldn't effectively stop the two teams i mentioned. this is a lot coming from a team whose bot held teams like cocoa beach and the t-hawks to almost nothing in our defensive rounds.

at the beginning of the build season, i wanted to build a six wheeled dumper, but we went with a more complicated design instead which proved to be our downfall, but that's life. props to 213 for their omnis, too. they were my favorite bot at BAE.