Galileo Division 2008

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Coach Norm

Our team sees it this way: only two balls for an alliance. Three shooters have to share the balls.
The lap bot can move the ball around to help the shooters and interfere with the other teams shooters.
If the lap bot has autonomous with the ability to make a lap and knock off balls, that makes them a stong bot for an alliance. If this bot can knock off balls, then they can also knock off opposing teams balls at the end.
Of course, they should be able to stay out of the shooters way and not get penalties.

I see what you are saying, but those good qualities that you mention a hurdler can have too. There are only a few number lap bots that are significantly faster than all other bots (ie 148, who can't knock down). So, by having a hurdling robot that can do just about everything a lap bot can do (good hybrid, knock off well, play defense, lap), they can also hurdle. I think that there will be 12 robots with hurdling capiblities on Einstein. While the 3rd may be doing laps, playing defense and knocking balls off, they are also a backup hurdler incase one team breaks. Also, if the alliances top or second best hurdler is getting a ton of defense, they can act as a decoy and allow the 3rd robot to handle the hurdling while they draw the defense away (although that strategy probably won't work for more than one match). Having three hurdles just gives the alliance more strategic options.