Shooting full-court: The uprising of the human-loader shooters

[EricLeifermann]

I've said it before and I still feel this way, unless full court shooters are against an alliance who are all too short to block them, they are going to have to be opportunistic. Get to the feeder station if no one is trying to block them start shooting full court until the other alliance notices, then fill up with 4 discs and drive to a closer/un-blockable location next to the pyramid. Then rinse and repeat.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I've said it before and I still feel this way unless full court shooters are against alliance who are all too short to block them, they are going to have to be opportunistic. Get to the feeder station if no one is trying to block them start shooting full court until the other alliance notices, then fill up with 4 discs and drive to a closer/un-blockable location next to the pyramid. Then rinse and repeat.

And this is coming from a team that appears to be incredibly accurate with full field shooting.

For what it's worth I agree 100%. The truly dangerous teams will be the ones who can pull off the full court shot while left alone but then when defended can quickly score 4 on the field. They will also preferably have floor pickup to reacquire the missed full court shots and not leave them for the other alliance to take out of play.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by dodar

Was 469 "bad" for Breakaway?

I'm not sure this is a direct comparison. The 469's robot was hard to come up with and hard to design/build. Not every average team could have done it. The fact that there was one amazing team (and maybe 2 other very good teams with 51 and 125), that had the design makes it different. We have already seen/heard about countless teams that have sucessfully built full field shooters. Seems too easy for a potentially huge payout.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I'm not sure this is a direct comparison. The 469's robot was hard to come up with and hard to design/build. Not every average team could have done it. The fact that there was one amazing team (and maybe 2 other very good teams with 51 and 125), that had the design makes it different. We have already seen/heard about countless teams that have sucessfully built full field shooters. Seems too easy for a potentially huge payout.

I agree 100%. The two situations really are different.

469 in 2010 executed a fundamentally innovative strategy that many teams wouldn't have been able to execute even if they had come up with it. It's not like no one thought of shooting from the feeding station this year, there were threads about it from the very first days of build season. That many teams have (apparently) executed this strategy proves that it is not extremely difficult.

Is it a good thing for FRC? I don't really think so. There will be a lot of these shooters, and if they are as common as they seem on CD, it seems like most matches will have one. Is watching a robot line up and do one repetitive task match after match really inspiring? I like seeing robots that drive around and pick up things. Opinions, of course, will differ on this point.

If they did decide that they wanted to "stop" full court shooters, what could Manchester do? They could make climbing worth a lot more, encouraging teams not to spend all the match at the feeder station and to make the shooting points worth a lot less. They could give penalties for staying at the feeder station more than, say, 20 seconds. They could also make all robots shoot from in front of a certain point.

But FIRST won't decide this. They tend to really want counterintuitive strategies to succeed, and do a lot to encourage strategic creativity. In any case, full court shooting was so clearly legal at the beginning of the build season that I don't think that they can do much in good faith to prevent it at this point. We shall see.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

But FIRST won't decide this. They tend to really want counterintuitive strategies to succeed, and do a lot to encourage strategic creativity. In any case, full court shooting was so clearly legal at the beginning of the build season that I don't think that they can do much in good faith to prevent it at this point. We shall see.

I've already got a few strategies to prevent full court shooters from gaining much up my sleeve, but we'll see if it's needed at Palmetto.

Going for a full court shooter isn't an innovative approach. Teams have been trying to find the simplest way to win for as long as everyone remembers. However, becoming the next 71 from 02 or the next 469 from '10 takes A LOT of skill and guided effort. Maybe 1 or 2 teams can pull it off, but you'd better have a back up plan if your shooter gets defended.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

I've lost count of the teams able to do full-court shots. While this does include a lot of teams with a 50-60% accuracy, I've seen many teams reach 90-95%, my own included (and we don't usually do that well).

I could believe 60 percent. I'll believe 41/45 when I see a video of it. If you wanna hide your shooter that's cool, just a video of the goal with 41 out of 45 Frisbees will he enough.

I don't doubt that there are 469s out there, but I do doubt that every event will have one.

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Now that there's a larger portion of teams able to make full-court shots, how special will it be to do so? Will shooting full court be a commonality found in a lot of robots? Will blocking shots from said teams become a viable strategy?

I think it still will be special since with the robots seen over the weekend were not a significant representation of all 2000+ robots involved with FRC.

If I have a defense bot on our alliance that would be who I would recommend blocking, that being said if I had 3 robots who were 3 point scorers, that would mean we would only need 10 disks scored a piece to completely offset all the points the full court shooter getting all 45 into the 2 point goal (since that is where most of the full court bots I saw shot.)

[Rangel]

I think their will be a lot of teams capable of shooting full court but it will be very special to do it accurately. I also think that their will be a special place for them on an elimination alliance. For example, two full court shooting robots would end up being the same as one full court shooter and a regular shooter assuming they are both accurate and consistent.

[tickspe15]

Today we tested our full court shooter and had acuracy above 90 percent we should have a video up Wednesday. The full court had a large window and was the easiest and fastest to line up with even without a camera

[The_ShamWOW88]

What scares me the most about these robots is not their effectiveness but if we're allied with a bot that does this, we only load from the human player zone, not from the floor, so if they sit at a station and drain the 45 but only hit 50 - 60% of their shots, we won't be able to get any discs. Hopefully there will be an amicable way to split the amount of discs between all alliance partners.

[Ben Martin]

For those who attended the scrimmages, were the full-court shooters shooting for the two-point goals or the three-point goals ? In our experience, it was a lot easier to dial in on the two-pointer than on the three-pointer (though this may be due to inconsistencies in our "disposable" wheel and/or our feed). The vast majority of videos of full-court shooting while mounted to a robot that I have seen have been two-point shots.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by BMartin 234

For those who attended the scrimmages, were the full-court shooters shooting for the two-point goals or the three-point goals ? In our experience, it was a lot easier to dial in on the two-pointer than on the three-pointer (though this may be due to inconsistencies in our "disposable" wheel and/or our feed). The vast majority of videos of full-court shooting while mounted to a robot that I have seen have been two-point shots.

I've seen a team make all four in a row into the three point goal. They only tried a few times, but if they had it aimed right, it was consistent.

I really hope that enough teams bring 60/84" walls as a possible add on to their robot.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Donut

From the perspective of an average team facing off against a robot like that, I'd say yes. It's one thing to get steam rolled by an elite team because they just execute so much better than you do; it's quite another to know before the match the starts that your robot is physically incapable of beating an opponent regardless of execution. I think this is more applicable to a bot like 71 in 2002 where the match was over in the first 5 seconds if you were slower than them, at least 469 had to have a partner start scoring for them before they were unstoppable.

Early in the season, your comments about 469 were true. By their second district, their kicking had improved substantially. Between going 2/2 in autonomous and pulling out of the tower if necessary, 469 could very easily "start the cycle" themselves.

Granted, the "cycle" would operate a much larger volume if their alliance partners added to it and maintained it.

Originally Posted by Feroz1325

Though this strategy (full court shooting) is not a choke-hold strategy, if executed properly it could be close. Consider the elimination round alliance of a full court shooter, a robot with floor pickup and a third pick defensive bot....we will call them the red alliance.
The full court shooter could fire discs at the goal while the floor pickup bot could collect the missed disks. If a blue robot comes to block the shot, the red defensive bot could simply defend the blue defensive bot. This would require two robots from the blue alliance to defend the full court shooter and essentially make the match 1v1.
Do full court shooters ruin the game? No. They just add a new level of strategy, i know my team will be brainstorming ways to defeat (and work with) teams like this.

This strategy could never be close to a chokehold, simply because the other alliance can mirror it. There's no scenario in which this strategy is a guaranteed win, regardless of your opponent's actions.

The only example of a chokehold strategy being executed in FRC history is moving all 3 goals into your scoring zone in 2002 (and ensuring none of your robots are in the opponent's end zone and not taking penalties). If you were successfully able to do that, it was literally impossible for your opponent to outscore you.

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I'm not sure this is a direct comparison. The 469's robot was hard to come up with and hard to design/build. Not every average team could have done it. The fact that there was one amazing team (and maybe 2 other very good teams with 51 and 125), that had the design makes it different. We have already seen/heard about countless teams that have sucessfully built full field shooters. Seems too easy for a potentially huge payout.

2337 and 2992 also had ball deflectors that physically attached to the tower, but neither of them directed the balls at the goals.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

2337 and 2992 also had ball deflectors that physically attached to the tower, but neither of them directed the balls at the goals.

We could actually direct balls into the goals and they would score on occasions, depending on how the balls would come off of the return.

We prototyped our deflector/diverter on 469s practice field, which was ironic.

"Steal from the best, design the rest." but give credit at least.

-Clinton-

[MagiChau]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I've seen a team make all four in a row into the three point goal. They only tried a few times, but if they had it aimed right, it was consistent.

I really hope that enough teams bring 60/84" walls as a possible add on to their robot.

Or possibly their climber