how effective are the herders/dumpers?

[Kevin Ray]

Originally Posted by Scott358

From the experience of having visited one regional, and participated in 2, I've seen dumpers do pretty well in qualifying rounds, when there's a diverse mix of experience on the field.

Once the playoffs start, from what I've seen, you had better have 2 shooters.
This was a big point in our last regional, as 329 was an awesome dumper, but we choose a shooter with our first pick (who happened to be an awesome shooter).

Have there been any regional winning alliances with 2 dumpers (who only dump) and 1 shooter? Or perhaps even 3 dumpers?

Having been on the receiving end of a good old fashioned spanking in the 5th (yes, fifth) match of the finals, we know only too well how important shooters are in the finals. Scott358 is correct in that you can only go so far with a dumper (we dumped 9/10 times in auto). Eventually you have to have the 3pt scorers. That is why we had to select two shooters for the alliance. We were just plain lucky to get 1468 as the third choice--thank goodness we had zero turn around time between the last match and selections, other teams passed them by.


BTW 358--you have an incredible team. You did a miraculous rebuild in three hours on Thursday eve.and were rewarded with a regional championship for your efforts. Congratulations

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Herders and Dumpers, or in my teams case a low shooter, have one ENORMOUS advantage. They nearly always win autonomous mode. The simple reason for this is that shooting all ten balls in the 1pt goal is far easier then getting at least 3 balls in the 3pt goal.

My team arrived at its 1st regional planning to concentrate on the 3pt goal. However, due partly to complications getting up the ramp, we scraped our entire 3pt-shooter/turret-assembly to make us less top heavy. Believe it or not we actually started doing better when we started concentrating on 1pt balls. By simply aiming our robot sideways before the match and firing up our 1pt shooter we were able to win autonomous mode on numerous occasions.

Winning autonomous mode was one of the primary abilities that squeezed us into the finals.

[Allison]

In the early week regionals low goal scores were more effective than in later weeks. Just from one weekend to the next the number of shooter that started working caused my team to change strategy completely and become a mainly defensive bot. I believe by the time nationals occurs herders/dumpers will probably not play a major role in scoring the majority of the points for the alliance however if they take the role of trying to the the best partner possible a herder/dumper could possibly be on the championship winning alliance.

[Brian C]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

Having been on the receiving end of a good old fashioned spanking in the 5th (yes, fifth) match of the finals, we know only too well how important shooters are in the finals. Scott358 is correct in that you can only go so far with a dumper (we dumped 9/10 times in auto). Eventually you have to have the 3pt scorers. That is why we had to select two shooters for the alliance. We were just plain lucky to get 1468 as the third choice--thank goodness we had zero turn around time between the last match and selections, other teams passed them by.

Thanks for the kind words Kev. We were hopeful that 1468's capabilities would get noticed. We enjoyed being chosen up with your team along with the PoBots. We were also happy to share our scouting information with you folks as our scouting team was able to get good information all through the regional.

I gotta admit that although we were on the short end of the stick in the finals I can't remember the last time we had as much fun at a regional. It took until Tuesday before I finally got my voice back (my wife seemed happy about the quiet on Sunday and Monday )

As for Scott358 and the rest of the 358 team: Go Get'em in Atlanta, we're rooting for you!

[Sheepish Jester]

Hey spam thanxs

I agree with that it is ok to have 2 dumpers, but you also have to have a good enough defense (or a heavy enough bot to push others) to hold off amazing shooters liked the ones we faced

great times at the florida regional S P A M spam spam spam!

[Wolf103FM]

we ended up being a dumper at palmetto, (and thanks to teams 180 & 68 for choosing us to go into the finals with them)... dumpers are useful, may not always be able to score much, but if they have good defense abilities, and srong allies who can make the center goal, it can make a world of a difference, We learned that friday morning after keeping one of the best shooters at the regional (95) from making any into the goal

[Bill Moore]

Team 84, Chuck, was a herder/dumper at the Philly Regional, and they were an excellent robot. They were very quick, played very good defense when needed, and easily ascended the ramp at the end of the match; Oh, and they also scored 30+ points by dumping continuously in the corner goal. They did not seem to require repair as often as most shooters. A very solid multi-purpose bot.

[Kyle379]

When we got the game, our team (379 Robocats) designed our robot to be a good low goal/defensive bot. We thought that if we had the ability to stop a shooter well and then dump a lot of balls, we could do well ... we were right. We were in the finals at all three regionals, being selected in the first two and picking 6th at Philadelphia.

291 CIA has an awesome side goal dumper ... they won the Philadelphia regional.

[paulcd2000]

Originally Posted by Kyle379

291 CIA has an awesome side goal dumper ... they won the Philadelphia regional.

yes they did. also, CHUCK (84) was incredible! it just needed a weeeeee bit more torque. because they pinned it so much. because it was SO good! they would get all three human players to load it, and then it would run and dump like 30 balls in the corner. woooooooow it won the 2nd place team at phili many matches

[The Lucas]

The Herders and Dumpers were very effective at Philly. There were some really good dumpers like 84, 291, 716, 357, & 379. The top pure shooters were defeated with good team defense from alliances like 291 177 306 & 157 173 381 & 84 250 104.

[Dan Richardson]

I think one thing is important to remember however about dumper is they have to be able to play strong defense, and often times good offensive defense ( keeping teams off the shooters and such. )

Teams that have this competition can be very competitive because they can score quickly ( our team can score 18 in about 3 seconds in a corner goal ), and in with some sensory feedback autonomous can be just about 100%.

For a dumper bot most of the time the name of the game is consistency. 10 points in auton is a must, strong defense is a must, 1 solid dump or 2 smaller dumps into corner goals during the game is important, and getting on the ramp with the rest of the alliance is all great. Shooters often have to line themselves up to shoot and they are sometimes slow, but a dumper can get rid of their balls fast as lightning.

I also believe in a dumpers case it is good to be able to have a few choices for autonomous. Scoring from the 1st 2nd or 3rd spot as alliances move out and a defensive mode are pretty important. Ideally a dumper bot may also cut across the field to the opposite goal and score into that one, just in case someone shoots from the first spot.

If a dumper can do most of these things I believe they can be successful even on the national stage, and as we've they have been very successful at regionals this far.

[blaskay16]

the ideal alliance is 2 shooters and 1 dumper. the bumbers have allowed 815 to become the defensive powerhouse we have because it kepps you from getting penalties. hearders are very effective also. depending on their hopper size they can score 30 to 40 points at a time

[Martinez]

Thanks for the complements. Our biggest problem is actually battery drain. We have so much friction that even with a drop down caster wheel for turning it would get low occasionally to the point that we couldn't climb the ramp. Do not under estimate CRT ether. They had an awsome drive, hard for anyone to push against. Besides, it it took try three for them to finally "pin" us in.

[Macdaddy549]

Like I've said in a similar thread, our robot (LEW) consistently scored 20 to 30 balls a match. We had an excellent way of picking up balls and ejecting them. During autonomous mode we almost always dumped a full load. This worked so well we consistently won the autonomous round.
Team 549 finished the qualifying rounds in second place at BAE and Boston.

[ScoutingNerd175]

Originally Posted by Macdaddy549

Like I've said in a similar thread, our robot (LEW) consistently scored 20 to 30 balls a match. We had an excellent way of picking up balls and ejecting them. During autonomous mode we almost always dumped a full load. This worked so well we consistently won the autonomous round.
Team 549 finished the qualifying rounds in second place at BAE and Boston.

I agree, 549 was an excellent dumper at both BAE and Boston. At Chesapeake 225 and 484 were both great dumpers.