[FTC]: Defense robots and competition

[JesseK]

Competitive games are won by point differentials, not by point potentials.

For robots that can do 1 simple thing very well, this game is perfect for defense. This game already takes 1/3 of the field away and forces offensive scoring to go into the opponent's zone to be effective, so it's as if the GDC wanted high amounts of interaction with this game.

For the team I coached, the simple thing [will be] dumping batons in autonomous and [was] traversing the field in autonomous. It's an easy 20-25 points, and the kids were very glad to play heavy defense for the rest of the match after autonomous. The field is so cluttered that the only time we pinned another robot was when the comms cut out and the robot moved forward on its own. Simply being somewhere on the field has been good enough defense to shut down a baton offense in this game (so far anyways).

Once (if) the kids fix their drive train implementation before the next qualifier, pushing both opponent teams off of the bridge (pre-endgame) shouldn't be impossible either. The tactic probably wouldn't work at the Championships, but for qualifiers where alliances balance at the 1:00 mark, it's perfect.

Offense itself is fairly cornered into 2 or 3 good designs with this game. Even the mediocre designs last year (HotShot) could score decent points in the low goal. This year, at most the mediocre designs will score 5 batons for 5-10 points.

I advise that you get more power to your drive train and figure out how to get more traction. Then implement a good autonomous. There are ways to get better traction; if any team at the Championships last year paid attention to both fields, they would know what those ways are. Good Luck!