At the beginning of the season, everyone thought that the 3 point basket was going to win the matches. Plenty thought that if you could score effectively in the 3 point range, then you would win. But over the weeks I have noticed that there are quite a bit of very good fender shooters. Although they could be defended easily, more time is freed up by shooting quickly then leaving. In addition, due to normal probability, making 3 point shots for some teams may end up being the same amount of points as shooting 2 point shots with higher accuracy.
In MSC, MAR or the Championship itself, will fender bots be a contender? In addition, what fender robots are the best out there? We have heard a lot about the 3 point shooters, but what about the 2 pointers? And if they still indeed are contenders, what is the best way to defeat these teams?
But they are not in Michigan. And I think that MSC is going to be a tough event for fender shooters. We will see smart defense force the shooters to hug the key.
It takes a little bit of practice to hit them so they become unaligned. It can be difficult to push a traction bot sideways sometimes. It’s better to hit the side of the bot so that you spin them in place, rather than dead on in the side which does very little.
It was fun watching 842 shoot 3s from the corner at the end of the fender at the AZ regional. And when they encountered defense, they just scooted back to the key and shot 3s from there.
If you guys want to force two of your robots spend most of the match crossing the field and sitting on both sides of the fender to shut down our shooting, go right ahead.
For most of the season it’s been “common sense” that fender shooters are easy to defend, but despite lots of talk, that hasn’t universally been the case. There are some fender shooters that simply do not move when hit (2056 is one good example). While 469 is one team that’s hard to move year-in and year-out, another team that’ll be at MSC is 862, who can push right back.
At MSC, many fender-shooters shoot from up close by choice. This means that a robot that tries to defend the fender will not decrease the number of shots the opponents gets, but will hopefully reduce accuracy by forcing opposing teams to move back. Teams like 33, 469, and 548 are all teams that can hit the top hoop from up close or farther back. While this defense may be helpful, it won’t be very effective against these high-achieving and versatile teams. I’ve also seen some offensive blocking played against fender defenders. Overall, when it comes to fender defense, all I have to say is “good luck.”
Just need to make sure your frame is up to the punishment and you contact in the bumper zone or else a G27 will get you.
We had a problem with robots wheelie the front of the their bot and riding up our bumpers thus contacting our inside frame perimeter real hard. The refs didn’t call it but it was a obvious foul. I hope the refs watch for G27 in Champs.
That’s an unfortunate consequence of this year’s bumper rules. You can’t reasonably except two sets of bumpers, one at max height and one at min height, to not slide past each other when heavy contact occurs. Even when their isn’t a wheelie, the 2" of contact between bumpers isn’t going to prevent the higher bumpers from getting on top.
If you’re worried about your frame, you can just raise your bumpers to be in the middle of the bumper zone. But I know the purpose of low bumpers is to give you an advantage while pushing, because your wheels don’t come off the ground as much. So when you’re in a pushing match with a robot with higher bumpers, you are fully expecting their robot’s wheels to come off the ground a bit, giving you an advantage. But with that measly 2" of bumper contact in the first place, you’re also deliberately deciding to risk contact within the frame perimeter.
If you don’t think fender defending is effective, I suggest you watch the Troy Finals. 548 if left unchecked during most qualification and elimination matches, scored on average 5 balls/match @ 85% accuracy. In both finals with 244 defending the fender, they scored 1 ball, and shot 20% accurate.
If you are planning to score against the fender and you are playing us, if we think your team is a threat we will be sending a defender to sit in front of the fender and force you to take a lower percentage shot.
244’s defense in the first match was exemplary, but if one is to say that fender defense isn’t effective, that’s no excuse. I cannot at all deny what you’re saying - fender defense CAN BE very effective, even against such good teams - except to note that 548 refused to avoid the defense (when 244 was up against the fender, 548 drove right up into them instead of staying right off and shooting from there). They’re aren’t quite built for it, but they can shoot from a yard off, even pretty well. Not sure why they didn’t switch to that strategy midmatch (maybe it’s a bit too much to expect from drivers or a bit too far? If you think so, I’d be willing to defer to experience and expertise), but it looked that they considered feeding balls to 217 to be a better (higher %?) shot for the second match. Definitely one good example of great and highly effective fender defense.
I think 1629 can be added into the mix of a great fender shooter, we were a high scorer in Chesapeake, and the second highest scorer at Buckeye. We missed two shots in Autonomous, and probably only two in Hybrid the whole weekend at Buckeye. I may be bias to my team, but we have an effective robot! We have tracks, and when being defended we can drop to low gear and move other teams away from the fender as well. I think a good mix of high goal scorer and middle goal scorer is extremely effective. 1507 (high goal) and 340 (middle goal) put up some big numbers and won the Buckeye regional.
I completely agree that the 2point hoop was game changing!!! On our team, team 1099, the DiscoTechs, our robot was able to change the angle and position of its whole entire shooter, ball picker upper, electrical board, battery, and more which allowed us to shoot from the key or fender to any hoop with ease. At our second regional we discovered that if we just focus on the 2point hoop our accuracy became close to 100%!!! So we changed our autonomous to move forward and sink 2 into the 2point hoop, and during the match we almost always did fender shots into the 2point hoop unless there was defense. This strategy was great and we became a force to be feared and was chosen for the 4th alliance because we could do everything very well even though we were ranked 27/64.
To answer the original poster, watch this weekend’s matches at MAR. 1370 made it to the finals at both Rutgers and Lenape with their defense. At both previous events, fender shooters were forced by 1370 to shoot from the key, where they were less accurate, while hopper/dumper robots were harassed constantly. MAR should feature more of the same…
Good luck to everyone competing this weekend in both districts.
