Defensive Strategy - cornering opponents ball

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

and new track balls are entered into the field only when it is safe to do so.

Do the rules define if the old bad trackball has to come out of the field before a new one goes in?

I find it extremely hard to believe with 4 possible open entry points on the field for a ball to be placed back in, that at no time in 1 minute was there not a "safe opportunity" to put one back in.

And yes, this did happen in a Week 5 regional.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Do the rules define if the old bad trackball has to come out of the field before a new one goes in?

I find it extremely hard to believe with 4 possible open entry points on the field for a ball to be placed back in, that at no time in 1 minute was there not a "safe opportunity" to put one back in.

And yes, this did happen in a Week 5 regional.

From what I have seen and heard at many regionals that I have attended, is that the popped ball stays on the field and the new ball is supposed to be placed as close as possible to the popped ball. In many cases this was not true and the new ball was just placed on the field with the easiest access point from where the extra balls were being stored.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Do the rules define if the old bad trackball has to come out of the field before a new one goes in?

I find it extremely hard to believe with 4 possible open entry points on the field for a ball to be placed back in, that at no time in 1 minute was there not a "safe opportunity" to put one back in.

And yes, this did happen in a Week 5 regional.

Several balls were popped at GTR and they were rather promptly replaced. The old balls remained on the field - one presumes the popped ball was no longer scoreable once the new ball entered play.

The defense in your example seems perfectly valid.

[GBilletdeaux930]

yea cornering works...but be careful bout it...

during our first practice match our team attempted to push a ball away from another robot and then push it into a corner... well the ball popped up and bounced on top of us. we got penalized because the refs called that possesion of an opponents trackball.

now that was possession(supporting another teams trackball) but u gotta be careful because you don't know how picky the refs are going to be.

[Joe J.]

Its a valid strategy and in some cases the only one that will work. We used it as part of the #8 alliance of 291, 862, 573 in the quarterfinals against #1 66, 217, 910. We tried only having one robot play defense on the other trackballs and it didn't work 114 to 62, the next two matches we had two robots dedicated to playing keep away with other trackballs and 217, the first time it allowed us to tie them at 54 (with a penalty on them), then next we tried it again but they beat use by having 910 grab a trackball while we doubled up on 217 trying to keep the other away from them, then 217 was able to come around and grab the trackball 910 was holding and hurdle that one. Doing that they won 88 to 62. It was amazing (and slightly scary) looking down the field while coaching and seeing 217 pick up a trackball out of 910. Simply an awesome counter to our defense.

[web_master_dpep]

yea.Corning does work my team did it many time in finals. Funny tho how people will find the smalles loop holes and use it as defense...

[web_master_dpep]

Originally Posted by Joe J.

Its a valid strategy and in some cases the only one that will work. We used it as part of the #8 alliance of 291, 862, 573 in the quarterfinals against #1 66, 217, 910. We tried only having one robot play defense on the other trackballs and it didn't work 114 to 62, the next two matches we had two robots dedicated to playing keep away with other trackballs and 217, the first time it allowed us to tie them at 54 (with a penalty on them), then next we tried it again but they beat use by having 910 grab a trackball while we doubled up on 217 trying to keep the other away from them, then 217 was able to come around and grab the trackball 910 was holding and hurdle that one. Doing that they won 88 to 62. It was amazing (and slightly scary) looking down the field while coaching and seeing 217 pick up a trackball out of 910. Simply an awesome counter to our defense.

You guys did great tho. Hope the best to you guys. im with 66. Are you going to Atlanta?

[Carlee10]

I think that this could be a very good strategy, and from the posts I've seen, it seems to work. But I think that it should only be used if your scoring mechanism is in some way disabled during the match. At kickoff(correct me if I'm wrong) it seemed to me that they really didn't want teams to play much defense, and that they wanted us to really try to challenge ourselves by trying to make a great scoring bot.

[George A.]

It's valid defense.

I know the round that Elgin is referring to (I think) and while I won't name names, the reason that a new trackball wasn't put onto the field, is that the old (popped) trackball was being brought around the field and attempted to score with. Which means that it wasn't declared "dead" until it was sitting on the field deflating. Had the team that picked up the deflating trackball decided to leave it, then a new ball probably would've been placed on the field.

The blocker wasn't pushing the ball against the wall in an attempt to pop it. It was simply sitting there, moving back and forth preventing the opposing alliance to grab onto it.

I say bravo, and I only hope that we see strategies like this in the future.

[cwood]

thats an interesting strategy, being on a team with a very offensive robot (we like to score) we would get very annoyed by this sort of passive defense. Yes it would work but is it really in the spirit of the game, from what i've seen as far as kick off and the rules, this game was ment to be almost purely offensive and this strategy just seems like teams, as some one above said, are finding loop holes and calling it defense. So yes a clever and most likely successful strategy but probaly not how the game was invisioned by the design team, not that there is anything wrong with thinking outside the box.

good luck with it we will see how it plays out in Atlanta

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Do the rules define if the old bad trackball has to come out of the field before a new one goes in?

I find it extremely hard to believe with 4 possible open entry points on the field for a ball to be placed back in, that at no time in 1 minute was there not a "safe opportunity" to put one back in.

And yes, this did happen in a Week 5 regional.

To my understanding the old ball does NOT have to be removed before the new one gets put ontothe field.

I cannot comment on there not being a safe oppertunity for a whole minute. I know at BAE the popped balls were removed (if possible) but the new ball was put in rather quickly. Do you have a TBA link to the match in question?

[web_master_dpep]

Originally Posted by Water Bandit23

I think that this could be a very good strategy, and from the posts I've seen, it seems to work. But I think that it should only be used if your scoring mechanism is in some way disabled during the match. At kickoff(correct me if I'm wrong) it seemed to me that they really didn't want teams to play much defense, and that they wanted us to really try to challenge ourselves by trying to make a great scoring bot.

Thats what i was thinking. It seemed like FIRST tried to stay away from defense this year but teams tried to find ways and they did. If it was cornering the ball or when they go to get the ball to hurdle just bump to the last quadrent. We did the second on on accident and got a team to break the plain. oops. but i saw some good defense at GLR. Cant wait for atlanta. I want to see the defensive stratagies there.

[GBilletdeaux930]

If you watch 148 this week at Bayou during the elims(only ones i watched so they might have done this the rest of the comp to) it seemed like they gave up lap running and focused completely on defense.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by cwood

thats an interesting strategy, being on a team with a very offensive robot (we like to score) we would get very annoyed by this sort of passive defense. Yes it would work but is it really in the spirit of the game, from what i've seen as far as kick off and the rules, this game was ment to be almost purely offensive and this strategy just seems like teams, as some one above said, are finding loop holes and calling it defense. So yes a clever and most likely successful strategy but probaly not how the game was invisioned by the design team, not that there is anything wrong with thinking outside the box.

good luck with it we will see how it plays out in Atlanta

Some teams take pride in their defense, just as others take pride in their offense.

And I don't think playing defense is finding loopholes ... it's more finding ways to slow down those that think of offense only

[cwood]

i mean just this particular strategy of finding a way to inaffect control or possess two of your opponets trackballs(through the herding rule), and despite the nature of this years game there are a lot of affective defensive bots