Defense

[jeremiahjbarnes]

Hey, I am the president of our robotics team here in Lexington and was wondering how important everyone here thinks defense is going to be. It has been discussed briefly in other threads, but I thought having devoted to debate would be good. Our team is leading towards a primarily defense strategy, but there are several members who think offense is more important. I would particularly like to hear from teams who participated in rack n roll seeing as the scoring mechanisms could end up being very similar. Much thanks.

[DonRotolo]

Defense will be important, since the game requires a lot of movement on the field, but defense won't win a match - you need to score to do that.

Also, defense strategies can be somewhat ineffective due to the field layout. One robot can't prevent an opposing bot from leaving its LANE, since there are two exits separated by a pole. Pinning is ten PENALTIES (@ 3 points each), and you need to get at least 6 feet from them for at least 3 seconds for it to not be called - all to hold them for only 5 seconds. Blocking may be the only moderately effective strategy, but not if you can be pushed out of the way...

Have the team watch the Grant Imahara video off the FIRST site that talks about Team 111, and follow that design process. Decide on capabilities, rank them in order of importance, then find mechanisms and methods to implement those capabilities.

Maybe defense with a great minibot? Or just build a simple elevator bot?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Don,

I'm not sure escaping from the lane will be THAT easy. The space between the tower base and the wall is something like 36" wide. A narrowbot with bumpers ends up about 34.5" wide. So you've got a slightly tight squeeze there. I think you could hinder someone fairly well by blocking off the side escape and then chasing them down the rail till they either run into your own lane or have to try to turn to escape. As long as you're fast enough to chase them, I think you could keep them corralled pretty effectively.

[Grim Tuesday]

The GDC seems to be really pushing away defense this year--which makes me think that it may be an extremly powerful strategy.

Our team is going for the "minibot with defender robot" strategy, and we'll have to see how it works out. Historically, winning alliances have been two offences, and a defender.

[Uriah]

Our team has been debating this alot.. i personally feel that a good defensive bot with a outstanding minibot will be better then a robot with a great arm and an ok bot. Offence has to travel the length of the field if you have to have it fed to you, or around half maybe if you are able to throw them over (and have a good human thrower) so a defensive robot would at least lengthen the time of travel, which could really hurt them... or you could puppy guard a robot and keep them in there scoring zone, this takes up space for the other teams to get in and score.

[Grim Tuesday]

Another role for a defensive robot we have been discussing is the "punter" idea, which plays the same role that a defending robot of last year played--moves the gamepieces into the required zone.

[Uriah]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Another role for a defensive robot we have been discussing is the "punter" idea, which plays the same role that a defending robot of last year played--moves the gamepieces into the required zone.

we've been discussing that too, but more plowing them. we think that kicking them wouldn't move them efficiently.

[Grim Tuesday]

Remember, your only able to posses/herd ONE piece at once, so pushing more than one is considered against the rules.

[Uriah]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Remember, your only able to posses/herd ONE piece at once, so pushing more than one is considered against the rules.

yea i know that, which could be a problem if the field is littered with pieces. if its like last years rule with herding the balls, it had to be obvious you were purposely trying to move to balls at once.. if u accidentally run into one and back up, i dont think they will penalize you for it.

[Grim Tuesday]

Just so we dont get any misunderstandings:

<G34> ROBOTS or HOSTBOTS may only POSSESS or HERD one GAME PIECE at a time.
Violation: PENALTY

It is important to design your ROBOT so that it is impossible to inadvertently or
intentionally control more than one GAME PIECE at a time. Inadvertent contact will
be not be considered HERDING and will not be penalized.

HERDING – controlling the movement of a GAME PIECE. A GAME PIECE shall be considered
HERDED if it is in contact with the floor and, as the ROBOT moves in the direction of the GAME
PIECE, the GAME PIECE is pushed in the same direction in a controlled manner, but does not
remain in the position relative to the ROBOT if the ROBOT changes direction or orientation.

[EricH]

Defense wins qualifying rounds, offense wins championships. --Paul Copioli, FRC 217 mentor/strategist/drive coach, in 2005.

If you can't score a single tube, then all your opponent has to do is get one tube on and they win. A good opponent could probably get 2-3. A great opponent will probably get 4-5. If you can't stop every single one of those, your alliance partners had better be able to play defense.

Conversely, if it's a massive scoring game, some well-timed defense can slow an offense enough.

However, there is one thing to consider:

It's a whole lot easier to plan for offense and convert to defense than it is to plan for defense and convert to offense. I talked to a rookie team last year. Their kicker was not working well (at all?), but they played good defense. I went over and suggested that maybe they should focus on playing D and work on the kicker as they had time. They ended up picking the next day. OK, so they were knocked out in quarters, but that's what happens when good D meets great O that can score through good D.

[Zachary Pilarsk]

when I originally was the video I thought defense would be the best bot to build we have since changed to make an offence bot but I still think defense will make or break teams in finals by stoping the effective scorer on the other team