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Unread 18-03-2012, 21:18
Whateveryousay's Avatar
Whateveryousay Whateveryousay is offline
Team 1683 Techno Titans
AKA: Tony Chen
FRC #1683 (Techno Titans)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Rookie Year: 2010
Location: Georgia
Posts: 51
Whateveryousay is an unknown quantity at this point
Driver Talking about Playing Bridge Defense

Hi everyone, I am the team captain and the driver from team 1683 TechnoTitans, we just competed in the Peachtree regional in the past weekend. Despite our cold start (ranked 42nd after first 2 matches), we managed to win everything else and ranked 10th after all the seeding matches. We are the best bridge robot from Peachtree Regional (scoring sheet http://www2.usfirst.org/2012comp/eve.../rankings.html ). This was partly due to the fact that we did not get our autoaiming and autoshooting back until elimination matches. I have read a lot of discussion on ChiefDelphi about playing defense this year, and this time, I want to talk about defense from a driver’s perspective, to give some insight to other drivers in the following regionals.

First of all, let me give a bit information about our robot this year, so it is easier for me to talk about playing defense. We have 4 CIM motors plugged into 2 two-speed gearboxes from Andymark, and we are using 6 pneumatic wheels. We are using 2 RS775 with Cimulator gearboxes to drive the shooter, which can shoot close to 27 feet, but usually we shoot from the key. With autoshooting, we can achieve 90% accuracy (sadly this did not happen at Peachtree Regional till Elimination due to cRIO overload, but we figured out the problem).

Here is the video of the match i am about to talk about, it starts at 48:48.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21166431

The match I want to show you guys was our last seeding match. We had 1311 on our side, which was 1st seeding, and 1771 as an opponent who was 2nd seeding. Before the match, our alliance decided that my team should play defense, and go to the other side to stop 1771 from balancing on the bridge at any cost, and 590 and 1311 would attempt a double balance on our alliance’s bridge.

I was really nervous before the match because it was my first time playing defense. Although I knew that our robot would be good at it, our strategy never asked me to try playing defense since it was only the seeding matches.
In the video, at around more than one minute, my coach told me to cross the bump and start playing defense. Without hesitation, I crossed the bump and parked right in front of the blue alliance bridge. One problem that occurred was that I ran over a ball during this process, and my initial position was pretty bad. I think one of the most important defensive strategies of defending the bridge is to park facing out, not facing in. This way it gives you more room and easier control. From the video, you can see me quickly correcting my position and ready to play defense.

And here 1771 comes; one strategy that many teams will try against bridge defense is causing the defender a foul. This was the only time throughout the whole event where I gave my robot full throttle. I know that behind me is the bridge and if I touch it, it’d be a foul. But be aware of your opponent, they might suddenly back off and retreat to the key area, and causing you a foul in another way. In the video, you can see that 1771 tried that a couple of times. Concentration is the key of successfully playing bridge defense without causing a foul.

With time expiring, our alliance’s robots successfully double balanced, and another robot came to help 1771 to get me away so they can attempt bridge balancing. When there are two robots around the bridge, things get tricky. As a driver, you should quickly identify what they are trying to do, which robot is trying to balance. If both robots have the capability of balancing, you cannot just play defense against one and leave the spot. One common mistake a driver makes in this situation is leaving too much of a gap between the defending robot and the bridge so that another robot might slip past the defense.

Last important point of playing bridge defense was not to give up till the last second. A good bridge balancing robot only needs about 10 seconds to balance, maybe even less. (in one of the matches I played, I only used 7 or 8 seconds for a single balancing, including bringing the bridge down). Keep playing defense till the last second, like what I did in the video, because they can still cause you a foul at the end if you let your joystick loose.

This is written for drivers who want to try playing defense during their matches, and also a real example for the discussions that are happening on ChiefDelphi about how to play defense in this game. Using this strategy, preventing a triple balance is not going to be that hard.
__________________
2011 Peachtree Regional Innovation in Control Award
2011 Peachtree Regional Semifinalist
2010 Peachtree Regional Champion
2010 Peachtree Regional Creativity Award
2008 Peachtree Regional Finalist
2007 Bayou Regional Champion
2006 Peachtree Regional Finalist
2005 Peachtree Regional Quarterfinalist

Last edited by Whateveryousay : 19-03-2012 at 00:30.
 


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