In the second finals match at the NC State Championship, our entire alliance was playing just defense for around 30 seconds (one of our shooter gear boxes broke and our overall strategy was 40 kpa + 3 rotors). This worked. Has any one every seen this before?
That’s cool. I’m glad the strategy worked for you. But be careful. 3 Robots all playing defense like that can very quickly turn into blockading. And you don’t have to blockade all 3 of the other robots. Just one locked into a location where it can’t move can get you in trouble.
I know that any time we have 3 robots go all defense, I’d be asking my kids to go over and question the head ref on what he considers blockading. Shutting the game down is definitely a viable strategy, but it’s one that FIRST doesn’t like much, so you’ll be walking a tightrope.
1 alliance at OCR this week ran something similar in semis and finals, and we (4) also did in our second quarters match, which we were 2 seconds from winning.
Hopefully this is unambiguously clarified at the driver’s meeting at World Championships.
Based on my interpretation of a blockade, multiple robots must be coordinating to restrict access to a field element. Each robot individually playing defense in the middle of the field shouldn’t count even if 2 play defense on one other robot. I have a feeling that we will see the fully defensive alliance at least one of the champs, potentially on one or both of the Einsteins.
The number one alliance of the Pine Tree district event played all defense for around 30 seconds as well in SemiFinal 1-1. Our strategy was to have 4906 and 1519 get the first 2 rotors going, and then play hard defense. Meanwhile we would finish off the 40kPa and as soon as we got it, play defense also. Unfortunately 4906 lost connection for part of the match so they couldn’t, but they came back to get the climb.
Here is a video of Semi 1-1
Justin
At Hartford during qualifications match 11 our alliance (blue) got called for blockading with a robot placing a gear on one side of the airship and on the other playing defense. I may have misunderstood the rule but I don’t think this instance is blockading
Unfortunately I can’t watch match 11. Thanks to copyright enforcement laws, Sony Music Entertainment has had that match removed from youtube.
Because lord knows people would play first matches to listen to music so they could avoid paying royalties.
I guess NEFirst will need to appeal it if they want it back.
Defense in middle of field is unlikely to be a blockade as there will be open space to get to one end or another and no wall near … closer in on opposite sides of airship may be as seen as a blockade as in OC against the 1 alliance (they still won that match) … two bots can’t restrict movement continually to a certain area and that was likely what got called from what I saw on the replay. Now its “only a yellow” so if you have a yellow to burn in say Finals … perhaps but be careful of red. You don’t want an elevation nor another yellow.
Midwest.
I will say it was hard to tell what is and isn’t blockading. It was never called at Midwest, so I’m not sure if that means everything that happened there was okay, or if the ref was missing some blockade calls. Like Jared said, I really hope this is clarified at Championships, or preferably before then in perhaps a team update or blog post so we can all know going in how things will work.
That Swerve Drive defense though.
I was of the opinion that you couldn’t have a highly maneuverable drive train and play super effective defense. I’m completely biased to high powered drive trains playing defense. (Seriously, ask me about our drive train sometime, it’s what I like to call overkill)
Congratulations Team 900, I stand corrected.
“3 & D” we called it. Fuel was our advantage.
FWIW, the head ref at Midwest told me before Wisconsin that as long as there is an available peg, he wouldn’t call blockading. I personally agree with this interpretation but it will certainly be something to ask at the championship drivers meetings.
Gonna have to disagree on that one. The rule does not specify that anywhere, so that seems to just be creating your own (his) version of the rule.
It will be something to ask for sure. I would agree with that interpretation as well. G10 is definitely worth reading again. (And, if you’re called for it, definitely make sure someone is trying to see how the Head Ref understands the rule, by way of the Question Box.)
OCR SF1-3 video is linked; in Finals and earlier in Playoffs a slightly different variant was used, with no blockade calls on that one.
I don’t think so. I think there’s a limit to that, but an example from the rule (and it’s NOT a blue box example, folks) is blocking all 3 opposing lifts.
G10. Don’t collude with your partners to shut down major parts of game play. Two or more ROBOTS may not isolate or close off any major facet of MATCH play, e.g. block all three opponent LIFTS, shut down all access to GAME PIECES, quarantine all opponents to a small area of the FIELD, etc.
Not to derail this thread, but during both Finals of the PNW Mount Vernon event, the entire red alliance started playing defense around the 60 second mark. We were able to effectively limit the other alliance to two rotors, and keep one robot from climbing both matches.
We employed this strategy in semi finals and finals at shepherd. We found it to be extremely effective. More or less the strategy was to allow 910 (Foley Freeze) to shoot their auton and a hopper or so of balls into the high goal and then toggle to defense, while us (Team CHAOS) and our alliance partner (Vestibots) completed the three rotor cycle, and then all 3 robots shifted to defense to prevent a 4-rotor score from the opposing alliance. We had Foley and Vestibots blocking the shortest route from the loading station back across the field and we played in the center and harassed robots attempting to score gears. At one point I distinctly remember all 6 robots in a shoving match by the blue loading station, as we tried to prevent the from leaving to climb
That match was especially memorable because Vestibots KOP chassis was getting shoved by Da Bears west coast drivetrain, but we ended up ramming behind the vestibots’ robot, combining our drivetrain power and preventing Da Bears from scoring the final gear necessary for a 4-rotor score on their part
The #1 seed in the NYC regional did this successfully in the semis and finals as well. Overall #1 seed 4613 (Barker Redbacks) and third team member 5891 (UASGC Robosquad) played intense defense all through Teleop. 3419 (Hunter Rohawks) scored 6 gears for 3 rotors while that was going on. 4613 was putting up a lot of fuel points in auto, we were consistently getting 3 crosses and 1 rotor in auto, and we were consistently getting 3 climbs, so we knew we could only be beat by 4 rotors. The great defense by 4613 and 5891 prevented that.