High score of the season

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Second - they've got traction wheels. Someone here says they do well when not locked on - that really isn't very true. They have difficulty turning, aren't very fast, and can't do much of anything if defended. That isn't a knock on their bot. Frankly, it's incredibly effective at what is does. There is NO OTHER WAY you're going to average 1 ball every 4 seconds.

Third - they physically lock onto the tower. With large aluminum plates. There's pretty much no point in trying to move them.

Fourth - you can block them. You have to travel partially into the tunnel at an angle. A number of teams were at the practice field programming auton to do exactly that. Once you stop them from locking in, there no better (and in fact a bit worse) than many other bots. They have a good kicker and a good ball sucker, but they are slow-slow-slow. Don't count on that continuing long though - they're Las Guerillas after all.

I didn't mean to imply that they're great when not in the tower. But if you watch Qual34 (linked earlier in the thread), you can see them score 4 goals (all from the middle zone) and advance one more when not in the tower. That's not incredible, but it's certainly a solid performance. That's certainly good enough to be on most elimination alliances, and tip the favor of the match towards their alliance (considering the other alliance will essentially be playing down a member).

Granted, I don't pretend to have as in depth a knowledge of the machine as people as the event. Their strategy and design are certainly very dependent on their partners for success. It will be interesting to see how effective they are moving forward.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by TKM.368

You can catch some of 469 here, but none of it as impressive as their semifinal and final matches.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497

Match 28 00:07:45
Match 34 01:04:56 (they can be defended against!)
Match 39 01:58:54

Much of what they did in the elims was off camera in these matches.

Match 28: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497/highlight/55850
Match 34: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497/highlight/55851
Match 39: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497/highlight/55852

It appears they only redirect in the first of these three matches and the camera doesn't actually show them redirecting

[thexman]

If your defender can get balls out of the infinite loop then you can have some fun with a 2v1 in your mid and home zones. If you can clear zones during auton, they have maximum 3 balls in their loop. With 9 balls in your control, you should be able to at least keep up.

edit: awkward wording

[nuggetsyl]

[quote=Lil' Lavery;936522]The ramp is a mechanism, but the ball never more than within 3" of it, so therefor it is not a penalty. Per the last sentence of the Q&A you quoted:


That is like saying if you build a high enough robot where the ball does not touch it when it drives over the ball there is no penalty. Its still a 3 inch violation. But even if i am wrong which i left my self to be corrected because there was no clear video of how the robot works I think it breaks the spirit of the rule. My biggest problem with this robot is they wedge themselves under the tower and use a rule meant for hanging to accomplish this task. Its clear they are not trying to hang early.

[Squeakypig]

2851 was the only team to develop an auton to stop guerillas, it worked in the quals (match 60, a video would be appreciated ) we gave our auton code to 313 in playoffs but they got pushed out of the way...guess it shows you need treaded wheels like ours to stand your ground against a bot like that.

O, and seriously, let's face it, we weren't winning that match-up lol.
(for reference 313, 2851, 314 vs 217, 469, 2960)

Is it weird that after it was 16-1 our team started cheering for the opposing alliance to break a record? lol

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

That is like saying if you build a high enough robot where the ball does not touch it when it drives over the ball there is no penalty. Its still a 3 inch violation. But even if i am wrong which i left my self to be corrected because there was no clear video of how the robot works I think it breaks the spirit of the rule. My biggest problem with this robot is they wedge themselves under the tower and use a rule meant for hanging to accomplish this task. Its clear they are not trying to hang early.

The Q&A clearly stated it's acceptable to be within 3" of the vertical projection of the frame perimeter, so long as it's not within 3" of the mechanism.
It's not the same as driving over the ball, as clearly stated by <R19>

<R19> ROBOTS must be designed so that in normal operation BALLS cannot extend more than 3 inches inside
a) the FRAME PERIMETER below the level of the BUMPER ZONE (see Figure 8-5),
b) a MECHANISM or feature designed or used to deflect BALLS in a controlled manner that is above the level of the BUMPER ZONE.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Squeakypig

2851 was the only team to develop an auton to stop guerillas, it worked in the quals (match 60, a video would be appreciated ) we gave our auton code to 313 in playoffs but they got pushed out of the way...guess it shows you need treaded wheels like ours to stand your ground against a bot like that.

O, and seriously, let's face it, we weren't winning that match-up lol.
(for reference 313, 2851, 314 vs 217, 469, 2960)

Is it weird that after it was 16-1 our team started cheering for the opposing alliance to break a record? lol

Not wierd at all, though I wasn't cheering. I was more staring in disbelief.

At one point they scored SO FAST that balls coming down the return shoot got log-jammed because they touched eachother and stopped rolling. Amazing. The announcer even made a joke of it:

"Don't worry folks - it's already 11 to 1, I'm pretty sure they're going to win no matter what."

It really was that one sided once they got there - but just like beatty way back when, there are ways to prevent them from getting in place, and a good fast bot CAN catch those balls before they go in and send them down to the other end of the field - but it's tricky!

Edit: The even sicker part is they continue to score after the game is over. Balls continue to roll down and get returned for the 10 seconds after control is cut, and the score keeps going up.

[Squeakypig]

the jam didn't happen during our match...but yes. But honestly, even if we prevent the guerrillas from lodging themselves into position 217 most likely cud have won it on their own.

To all programmers out there, I say we make a pledge. Not meaning to screw over 469, but I say we all have an auton to block them (load it only when needed, easy to do (in labview put ur code in a boolean box and set a constant up to it, resend code before matches changing boolean when needed)). Believe me, it's easy, it took 2 minutes.

(And now watch, Guerrillas are gonna see this and have some sweet auton that unlodges robots from the hole somehow and gets there anyways lol)

[johnr]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

the reason no one can move them is that they have a springboard that goes under the tunnel and actually lifts up on the tower. They are effectively wedged in their position. This actually causes a problem; In one of the semis or finals (I dont remeber) they lifted the tower so much that the balls wouldnt roll down the return rails... so chickens decided to high speed ram it and bend it all out of wack in order to get them to come down... but no penalties were called so they were all good.

They should have been warned then disabled according to g24 if they really moved the tower. Im sure smarter people here will tell me i'm wrong if i read the rule wrong.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Fifth - Corey, there were good teams at Cass Tech. However, the Guerilla's have a reasonably simply answer to that. The person in their offensive zone plays DEFENSE on the bot there. That way the guerillas can shoot to the clear side of the field. They had occasional problems during qualifications when they didn't have a good offensive partner to get the balls in to get the cycle started, or if they missed their shot in auton.

Maybe suck was a poor choice of words. The robots didn't necessarily suck, but the strategy sucked.

Attempting to stop the balls from rolling into the goals after 469 deflects them is never going to work. You have to take balls out of their loop. If you're the defensive bot in their zone you HAVE to clear balls out to midfield or your own scoring zone. If you just run back and forth trying to keep the balls from rolling into the goals you're constantly going to be playing 1v2 and trying to keep 2 opponents from scoring, or you'll be totally neutralized by one bot while the other scores at will.

If they have 8 or 12 balls and they're cycling them every 4-8 seconds, you're done.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

That is like saying if you build a high enough robot where the ball does not touch it when it drives over the ball there is no penalty. Its still a 3 inch violation. But even if i am wrong which i left my self to be corrected because there was no clear video of how the robot works I think it breaks the spirit of the rule. My biggest problem with this robot is they wedge themselves under the tower and use a rule meant for hanging to accomplish this task. Its clear they are not trying to hang early.

Your assessment of the 3" rule (R19) is completely wrong, as Sean pointed out. There are two very different provisions of R19, one for below the bumper zone and one for above.

As a member of a team who has a built a robot extremely similar in function to 469, I can say I have thought about that particular rule extensively.


-Brando

[Steven670]

The 26-1 match is at
http://www.youtube.com/user/quicksil...28/PJh_tb9Ox6A

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Cory

Maybe suck was a poor choice of words. The robots didn't necessarily suck, but the strategy sucked.

Attempting to stop the balls from rolling into the goals after 469 deflects them is never going to work. You have to take balls out of their loop. If you're the defensive bot in their zone you HAVE to clear balls out to midfield or your own scoring zone. If you just run back and forth trying to keep the balls from rolling into the goals you're constantly going to be playing 1v2 and trying to keep 2 opponents from scoring, or you'll be totally neutralized by one bot while the other scores at will.

If they have 8 or 12 balls and they're cycling them every 4-8 seconds, you're done.

Absolutely. Unfortunately once they got even a few balls into the loop, chickens started playing D on the opposing robot (who should have been the robot playing D) and there was no way to stop the loop. Remember you can only put one defensive robot in that zone - that's the rub.

The only effective way to stop is to not let them start it.

[JGurnow]

<G24> ARENA Interaction – With the exception of the BALL RETURN and RETURN BARS, ROBOTS may push or react against any elements of the ARENA, provided there is no damage or disruption of the ARENA elements. With the exception of the TOWER, ROBOTS may not grab, grasp, grapple, or attach to any ARENA structure. Violation: A warning will be issued when a ROBOT violates this rule. If the referee determines that the TEAM is disregarding the warning, their ROBOT will be disabled for the remainder of the MATCH.

At the event how 469 handled the getting into position was: going under the tower deploying the wedge/latched to prevent being pushed out. The shifting of the towers was less then that caused by robots hanging. Las Guerillas doesn't touch the ball return and their mechanism meets all 3 inch incursion rules. As for trying to stop them from getting into position I can tell you this, you won't win in a pushing match against 469. They can be an 8-wheel tank drive. They have pneumatic wheels, they have so much grip that they had to get creative with the turning solutions.

The match that our alliance scored 25 points in had 0 balls scored in autonomous. We did however have all 6 of out alliances starting balls in our home zone and were able to take 2 more from the middle zone when crossed that zone. We were mostly cycling 6 of the 8 balls we had in our home zone. The fact of the matter is with only 6 balls cycling human players have a major role in the rate of scoring. The last 2 points of the match were scored after time had expired and balls were still returning to the field, there are 10 seconds after the match where objects in motion are allowed to stop. 25 balls in 130 seconds was a rate of about a ball every 4-5 seconds. We wouldn't have been able to get any where near as high if our alliances human players hadn't worked so hard. I also want to thank all teams human players at Cass Tech for there great work at the district, I didn't see a single penalty caused by a human player during the entirety of the event.

In the final match of the day team 226, the Hammerheads, were the robot defending in our home zone. They were able to stop many of the kicks, they ran into the problem where they had to cross the zone while being blocked by 2960 or 217. We started the cycle going and cleaned up any missed shots. The final score that round was, I believe, 15-1. 469 can score as long as a half of the field is open, there is only a single defending robot in the zone so they couldn't effectively move against a defensive bot.

Thanks for the great alliance at Cass Tech 469 and 2960, looking forward to seeing you at State Championship.

[AmoryG]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

As a member of a team who has a built a robot extremely similar in function to 469, I can say I have thought about that particular rule extensively.

I've been wanting to see what you guys made this year for awhile, but man that sounds so ominous. I'm not sure I could handle the awesomeness.