Would that be considered unsportsmanlike or would it actually be a waste of time in terms of points you potentially received?
3 Likes
G211 disallows forcing an opponent to break the rules, but I’d say drawing a foul is a little different than that. There are only a few examples I can think of that would fall under “drawing a foul”, and they are hard to come by. Closest example to flopping would be if a robot bumped you and you started tipping, so then you moved something to cause you to completely tip. Doing this would be a waste of time likely as you would miss out on scoring afterwards.
4 Likes
Yes, teams sometimes draw fouls on purpose.
An exmple in this year’s game, if there’s a note on the ground infront of our alliance source and you’re in the protected zone trying to steal, you can bet if we can get to your bumper before you get out we’re taking the foul.
Now that being said, there are plenty of situations where taking the foul is not something we would do. For example if something on your robot is broken and hanging outside of your bumper zone, we would not purposefully run into you to draw a contact inside the bumper frame foul.
14 Likes
Short answer is yes. Doesn’t happen nearly as much as in the NBA because the cost of the foul is mostly more than the return.
2 Likes
There’s not many unintended rewards you get for fouling, it’s almost always to your disadvantage since fouls always either give the other teams points, potentially take away your ranking points from the match, potentially yellow card, potentially red card. So it’s not worth it. Sports teams sometimes purposefully get fouls to stop the clock usually but in FRC the clock never stops until the very end of a match. So I can’t really see any situations where you’d want to foul.
2 Likes
Drawing fouls was common in 2022; if an intake from the opposite alliance entered your frame, the foul would get called against them. This lead to intakes taking lots of hits and lots more fouls.
The intake zone will probably get used more this year, though, so it probably won’t be as bad as it was.
3 Likes
Alas, it sort of seems like over the last couple of years, the most effective defense IS to build a flopping robot (tall and with a high CG) and then just clog a chokepoint until you are inevitably tipped and the other side red carded.
6 Likes
If it counts as drawing fouls, we’ve had at least two times I can think of that we intentionally touched an opponent while they were in our protected zone. Sure we were also getting game pieces both times, but we intentionally gained the foul points while we were there.
2016: https://youtu.be/ayJGLqnjFWs?si=JgngfyPYBYmWz_FM&t=209
2023: https://youtu.be/HSHUNNPZTWo?si=wRY5wRYovhkQ3m4G&t=124
2 Likes
In 2018 we did similar veins. Pushing the bounds of a pin foul which helps us extend our control of the scale massively. Also by pushing someone purposely into the climber zone/boxing them in to draw a free climb.
i was thinking more of like acting like your robot got hit hard or like acting like ur being pinned or something.
i was thinking more in terms of like faking a foul not real doing one
As strategy director I will def be taking a look into that. Thank you.
This isn’t exactly easy to do; your robot usually works until it doesn’t. Also if you see issues on the field, people usually come by your pit to help; and then if it gets out that you faked it… no bueno
Not worth it unless it’s incidental to an action you are already doing, much like what Christopher149 mentioned. Things happen so fast on the field there is not much time to fake anything.
As far as faking a foul… Definitely not worth it. Kind of goes against the whole gracious professionalism thing also. Play to your (and your alliance’s) strengths.
2 Likes
Vlade Divac bot has entered the tournament.
Teams will sometimes design features into their robots that are intended to break, almost always for the purpose of having an easy-to-repair weak spot that saves a hard-to-repair area from damage. Sometimes, though, teams use that same approach to make an unimportant part break so that a robot that contacted them gets a damage foul. This is very uncommon and very ineffective.
3 Likes
The most common way to draw fouls is to discourage defense. Play near protected zones, bait defenders towards yourself, move into the protected zone when they try to defend you. Anything else is largely either a waste of time or violating G211.
It’s not great when matches come down to fouls, however, when playing defense, it should be a consideration in your alliance’s strategy. Does your defender understand the rules about where they can make contact? Do they know how to avoid tipping other robots? Sure, this year favors low CG designs even more than previous years, but a lot of bumpers will be higher for UTB intakes.
I think the real answer is there’s just not many opportunities in FRC matches. Many teams try to draw fouls when they can. Look at what teams do when there’s a robot in their protective zone. Drivers swerve into the opponent’s robot almost every time. There’s just not an opportunity to do this in most matches.
The line between a clean play vs a foul is more fuzzy in the NBA so there’s more opportunities to try to flop and get a call.
1 Like
Yeah… that’s not going to work too well.
