Knocking Down Ringers Strategy

Competition Rules/Strategy
1

First of all I would like to know if this strategy is legal, and second of all, I would like some opinions on the idea itself.

The match would begin with my team’s robot right next to the opposing team’s ringers facing parrellel to the wall. When the match begins, a piston shoots out and the robot moves foward knocking down the enemy ringers.

My team thought that this strategy would make it harder if not impossible (depending on the opposing robots) for the other team to use the nine ringers at the opposite end of the field.

2

It is legal, but you must lose possesion of your keeper before you do that.

3

Would I have drop my keeper if I set my robot to do this during autonomous mode?

4

Game rules generally apply to both autonomous and driver-control mode.

5

The strategy has some pros and cons:

Pros:

  1. It may make it more difficult for some opposing bots to pick up the ringers.
  2. It could be used to clear your own home zone for the the end game so teams deploying ramps wouldn’t get hung up on a ringer during deployment.

Cons:

  1. Unless you can knock them down AND hang your keeper, you are throwing away the potential of an unspoilable position. (On the other hand, if you have difficulty scoring the keeper in the first place, this really isn’t an issue)

So depending on your approach to the game, this strategy has potential.

6

The only other possible con that this strategy might have is that if one of the tubes falls in front as your robot as it continues to drive, you may be contacting two or more tubes at once as you drive to knock them all down. This would most likely get called by the referees as a penalty for controlling multiple tubes.

7

You could probably get away with this once but after that you would probably be out of luck.

Also alot of teams will be designing to pick up tubes that are laying down because flat on the ground is the easiest repeatable posistion for all 18 ringers. This may not always be a good strategy.

8

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=1520

This strategy may be both helpful and harmful to your opponents (as James has already said). And your opponent may even do this for you.

9

And there was also a You Make The Call about this.

10

this wouldn’t be helping you team because the floor is a constant angle but the rings on the wall are at different angles so automated robots would need to move the rings to the floor any way so you would only be interfering with rookie teams and teams that don’t have time to program. I think that this wouldn’t be a good stratagie because you will likely be wasting your keeper.:ahh: :yikes: :ahh:

11

Knock them down and then protect like crazy. If they can’t get them for any reason, then they are limited to the 9 ringers they get from players on their side.

Chris

12

Originally Posted by artdutra04
The only other possible con that this strategy might have is that if one of the tubes falls in front as your robot as it continues to drive, you may be contacting two or more tubes at once as you drive to knock them all down. This would most likely get called by the referees as a penalty for controlling multiple tubes.

This will not neccesarily be called by the referees during the match. It is only if there is intentional herding of the tubes during the match that can be called. In the FIRST Q&A forums a question concerning multiple contacts of tubes was brought up and it was answered that if it is not intentional, then the team would not be penalized. So, if the tubes were being knocked over and not “herded” then the plan shouldn’t be penalized.

13

smart teams won’t rely on getting the tube from the wall in the position they start in.
what happens when your allinace parter stays in thier starting position in autonomous mode?

14

what happens if a fast thinking coach sends over two robots to get tubes? your robot wouldnt be able to protect the tubes from both bots

15

They are limited to 9 ringers (assuming they can’t get by you(Odds are a good team of robots could get atleast a couple from you. But you are limited to 2 robots actively playing the game.

I am all for defensive strategies but unless you can block all 18 ringers you are better off defending the rack and stopping teams from scoring than you would be defending half the ringers. it is much easier to try to block a robot from doing the much more exactl manipulation required to score than it is to stop them from picking up one of 9 rings. 26 feet across the field is alot of space to defend.