Squishing the Spiders

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Petey

The playoffs at BAE GSR turned out to be, by and large, decided by defense. In one match, our alliance (1073-1474-501) beat an opponent 2-0. In another, 1073 and 501 both scored in autonomous and then just battered the robots and the field structure for the rest of the match (I believe we won 6-4).

What quickly became evident was that scoring on the center structure became incredibly difficult if other robots were smashing into it. By the finals, the whole shebang was pretty much swinging wildly in all directions.

Some teams even fouled up our autonomous by just programing their robots to drive forward and smash into the spiders, just to throw everything off course for us.

To all teams at the next few regionals:

I'm telling you, squishing the spiders is key.

The proper term is Whackdegoal.

[code_lacky]

"Some teams even fouled up our autonomous by just programing their robots to drive forward and smash into the spiders, just to throw everything off course for us."

now that might seem smart at first, but I saw a video of one match out there where a bot tried that in autonomous and got caught on the spider. The bot ended up completely useless, off the ground, and hanging there for the whole game.

[Taylor]

I remember some teams saying during build season that their bot would push the spider to the side of the rack, holding it immobile and allowing them to score easily. Does this counter the defense? Likewise, would a manipulator that surrounds the spider foot (without grabbing or gripping it) negate the whackdegoal defense?