The basis of the concept is that you make a robot that sits with 2 wheels in their opponent’s courtyard, and 2 in the secret passage, close to the castle wall, with most of the mass of the robot in the SP, and a 15" extension off the back.
The extension and the side of the robot all have inputs (optional, can be closed), to take in balls from the human player station as they are fed out. Then the balls are brought through the robot and shot out the top, with another one entering as the last one leaves.
This requires you to score 4 shots to get it running so they have to start feeding balls back, so you might want alliance members to start with balls and score them asap, along with the 1 you would score from auto. If you or a alliance member can get 1 more after that they are forced to start ejecting balls and you can start an infinite loop.
My rough math shows it might be possible to do this in a 3-5 second cycle. With 5 points every 3 seconds of teleop (minus a couple of seconds for setup) you score 200 pts at least, though at the end you may want to challenge. The best autonomous in my opinion is to start in the spy zone and shoot, allowing you to get into position faster once teleop starts. Once this happens though, I see no reason to move after the loop is started. If someone could clarify and see if any rules violations would apply that would be great.
It’d work for about 30 seconds maybe. According to G21 (A ROBOT contacting carpet in the opponent’s SECRET PASSAGE may not contact opposing ROBOTS), you’re allowed to be in their secret passage, but you’re not allowed to touch opposing robots in their secret passage. Once the other alliance noticed what you’re doing, all they have to do is send one robot to touch you and you’d be at fault and get a tech foul.
G21 A ROBOT contacting carpet in the opponent’s SECRET PASSAGE may not contact opposing
ROBOTS.
Violation: TECH FOUL
All your opponent would have to do is touch you while trying to get a ball from their human player station and you would get a technical foul.
You can only have 6(ish?) boulders in the castle at a time. Once you shoot a 7th into the tower they must put one boulder back into play via the human player station or else they receive a foul.
ROBOTS are prohibited from launching BOULDERS unless they are in contact with the opponent’s TOWER or carpet in the opponent’s COURTYARD, and not in contact with any other carpet.
You can’t score while touching the secret passage carpet
You block the bottom two passages, so they have to use the Brattice.
This topic has been covered in depth is two other threads. It depends on Q&A answers.
469 from 2010 sets the precedent for what constitutes “possession” of a ball. If they dump two balls on you you need to prove you are not possessing them.
Also you can’t shoot, only roll them, as Antoine said.
The idea is to take advantage of the boulder limit. Castles may only contain 6 boulders at any given time, and start with 3. Once you’ve shot 4 in, the idea is that the other alliance would be forced to throw them out. The idea itself is brilliant, but cannot work because of G21.
Yeah. All the other alliance has to do is have the human player dump 3 balls really fast tbh. The reason is worked so well with 469 was because it was their own human player feeding and the way the trident worked, the balls couldn’t be rapid fired. The robot would literally need to score the ball as fast as the balls can come out.
In order to get around G21, you might be able to have a robot that sits in the courtyard and has an intake hovering over the outputs of the human player station. Now you would just have to find a way to get around ensuring they dont send two at you at once as Purpose mentioned.
Read again, the initial post says 2 wheels in the courtyard and 2 in the secret passage.
Actually here’s a twist that’s absolutely in allowance with G21.
Sit fully in the courtyard, and have the 15" extension reaching into the secret passage.
G21 A ROBOT contacting carpet in the opponent’s SECRET PASSAGE may not contact opposing ROBOTS.
Violation: TECH FOUL
However, if only your extension is inside the passage, you aren’t touching the carpet of the secret passage. At this point, if an opposing bot accidentally pushed you into their passage, they’d actually be fouled with a G11 for strategically trying to draw a foul (this is because they would have made you foul a G21 when it wasn’t your intent)
You’d also be allowed to shoot, because the only carpet you’re touching is the courtyard carpet.
This is genius. Pretty much another safe spot - They’d have to squeeze behind you and the guardrail in order to push you away from the secret passage.
It can be more than the 15" extension over the secret passage. As long as your robot isn’t touching the carpet there, part of the frame perimeter can overhang the passage.
The biggest issue I see now (assuming you follow along with the suggestions/updates throughout the thread) is that you would still be susceptible to defense. What stops another team from coming and bumping you while you’re shooting?
Not quite. G11 states that the opposing alliance cannot force a robot to break a rule. So if they touch you it’s not a foul on you. In fact, it’s a foul on the OTHER team.
If a human player can be fouled with G11 for depositing balls too fast because an opposing robot is forcing the human player to deposit, I’m sure this is a huge oversight by the GDC and will be in a team update or Q&A. Really the robot doesn’t even need to score to be effective. By carrying one ball and blocking all but one HP slot, the robot can prevent the human player from putting balls back into play.