In the week 2 Autodesk Oregon regional only one alliance triple balanced and, even though they were the 8th alliance, ended up winning the regional. As the weeks tick by I suspect triple balancing will become the path to victory for many alliances.
Teams with a long orientation robot, like ours, would seem to be at a disadvantage here. They are more stable on the bridges in the qualification matches and double balance nicely but unless you are lucky enough to pick a couple of abnormally short robots for your alliance you aren’t likely to be doing much triple balancing.
I haven’t watched all the week three regionals but has a method emerged to legally slow down or stop a triple balance by an opposing alliance? Can anyone point to videos of matches where that worked out?
As a defensive player and a feeder robot, a team can just park on the wall right behind the opposing alliances bridge. Keep enough distance to eliminate a chance of a foul from transitive contact, but make it a tight squeeze so navigating to the bridge is tough. Doesn’t stop it, but it does require a lot more time to pull off even a double balance with this in place.
In reality, the alliance is playing defense on themselves. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen while watching the webcasts this week a robot tip over while trying to triple balance with their alliance. You really don’t have too many options to stop a balance because of [G25].
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[G25]
Robots may not contact or otherwise interfere with the opposing Alliance Bridge. Violation: Technical-Foul. If the act of Balancing is interfered with, also a Red Card and the Bridge will be counted as Balanced with the maximum number of Robots possible for that Match.
I suppose one could sit in front of the bridge on the opposing side of the field where you’re not in their alley, but then you could be pushed into the bridge, which may cause a foul.
You might also be able to get balls under the opposing alliance’s bridge to try and stop them from being able to get on. This should at least slow them down somewhat.
Strategies that use Basketballs to either aid or inhibit Balancing of any Bridge are not allowed.
Violation: Technical-Foul, and counting or discounting the affected Bridge as Balanced, as appropriate.
I suppose you could trap a robot in the corner. Push them into the corner opposite your alley. Essentially box them out by angling between the corner of the fender and the wall near the opponents bridge. It effectively traps a robot in the corner assuming they don’t have a drive train capable of pushing your robot out of the way sideways.
Its a 1 for 1 trade in terms of available robots on the field so your alliance would still have to out score the 2 bot balance. Ideally you could trap a good hoop scorer using the same strategy.
NOTE: I’m not positive but I believe as long as this is a 1v1 defense it would not violate [G-23]. Its still risky as you are close to the key and the bridge at times, and requires some reasonably advanced drives skill to prevent not being “juked” out enough that the opponents robot could catch a corner of your robot and spin you in place and escape.
I saw 488 defend the triple balance in week 1. what they did is get inbetween the bridge and the robots trying to get up. it worked well, and actually stopped the triple that match.
Today 2054 attempted to block 910 from reaching the bridge to finish off our triple balance since 910 was trying to play defense on the other side while 1918 and us, 85 were freely allowed to go on our bridge due to 141 and 3546 already double balancing leaving 2054 to shoot 3 pointers in. 910 however managed to break free and finish off the balance barely in time (like 1 second on the clock.)
The team in the lead has a possible advantage with not needing a triple balance to win the match so they could dedicate a robot purely to defense on the bridge timing approximately before when the other alliance will attempt. Trying to time the defense is a lot more risky but frees up a robot to do something else besides block a bridge.
I’d take a good look at the robots attempting the balance. If they haven’t done it before, or aren’t very successful/have a high CG, there’s one great trick that will always work: Leaving them alone.
Most teams who get the triple balance do so because they practice it, or have a real good mechanism. Most teams don’t get it on their first try if they don’t have a mechanism for doing so.
All you need to do is sit back and watch the carnage.
Though IMO, if you can’t mirror with a triple balance, you shouldn’t try and disrupt their balance. The risk os too heavy, and the extra bot can be doing something good for your team (like scoring).
If you know the opposing alliance will try to triple balance since they’ve done so before in earlier elimination matches then, as we learned the hard way, you need to have a plan. It’s very hard to make up that extra 20 points with baskets during teleop assuming both alliances have reasonable hybrid scoring.
My team, 3487, just compeated in the bmr here in Indiana, and I was wondering if it was leagal for another robot on the blue alliance to run into our robot on purpose? I ask this because this happened to us in the simi-finals and they pentilized us and caused an electrical blow out on our robot. ::rtm::
My team, 3487, just compeated in the bmr here in Indiana, and I was wondering if it was leagal for another robot on the blue alliance to run into our robot on purpose? I ask this because this happened to us in the simi-finals and they pentilized us and caused an electrical blow out on our robot
That’s quite off topic and there aren’t enough details in your post to respond in your case. That being said there are many places in the rules this year where one robot could cause another to get a foul by pushing them into the opposing alliance’s key, alley, or bridge.
Assuming the opposing alliance is trying to load onto the ramp on their side of the field, opposite the alley, has any team tried just parking a few feet away as was mentioned earlier? Certainly the opposing alliance may try to push you into the bridge causing you to get a technical foul. My question is have they been issuing red cards for interfering with the bridge if you just sat there after the push? It would be a question to bring up in the driver’s meeting.
Actually, being pushed into the bridge is not a foul unless you contact an opposing robot - see [G44]. I saw a robot try this in the finals of… Sacramento, I think? It helped a little bit, but the other alliance was ultimately able to double balance.
I am aware but still tring to figure this site out. What happened was our robot was on the opposite side of the field close to the top of the key, but not in it. we lost connection for maybe three seconds and we were hit during that time. when we got conection back and we imedatly knew that something was wrong because we were crawling. Then we were hit again and we were done.
Robots may not contact or otherwise interfere with the opposing Alliance Bridge.
Violation: Technical-Foul. If the act of Balancing is interfered with, also a Red Card and the Bridge will be counted as Balanced with the maximum number of Robots possible for that Match.
[G28] GAME
Robots may not touch an opponent Robot in contact with its Key, Alley, or Bridge.
Violation: Foul; Technical-Foul for purposeful, consequential contact.
This rule applied at all times, no matter who initiates the contact, see [G44].
[G44] GAME
Generally, a rule violation by an Alliance that was directly caused by actions of the opposing Alliance will not be penalized. Rule [G28] is an exception to this rule.
[G29] GAME
An Alliance may not pin an opponent Robot that is in contact with a Court border, Fender, Barrier or Bridge for more than 5 seconds. A Robot will be considered pinned until the Robots have separated by at least 6 feet. The pinning Robot(s) must then wait for at least 3 seconds before attempting to pin the same Robot again. Pinning is transitory through other objects.
Violation: Technical-Foul
If the pinned Robot chases the pinning Robot upon retreat, the pinning Robot will not be penalized per [G44], and the pin will be considered complete.
Pinning a Robot against Basketballs that are being pushed against the Court border is an example of pinning being considered transitory.
Now, this is tricky. G44 only states that [G28] is an exception to the rule, which only involves touching the robots in contact with the bridge, not the bridge itself. [G44] does not state that [G25] an exception. That means that [G44] still applies to [G25], in that if an opposing robot causes you to touch the bridge and no robots on it, you are fine. Also, this is further clarified in the bottom part of [G29]. If a opposing robot causes you to be ‘pinned’ on the bridge as well, you still wont be penalized for touching bridge.
Also, to address the question of “My question is have they been issuing red cards for interfering with the bridge if you just sat there after the push?”, That is addressed in [G29]. You must chase when the robot ceases to ‘pin’ you, so you cannot just sit there, you must actively try to move away from your contact with the bridge. Otherwise, by the rules, you will be penalized.
Now, there is another rule we have to look at
[G45] GAME
Strategies exploiting Rule [G44] are not in the spirit of the FRC and are not allowed.
Violation: Technical-Foul and Red Card
Are we really exploiting the rule? All we are doing is trying to play defense on a robot, not letting him get to the bridge. If we get pushed into the bridge, it wasnt our fault. All we were trying to do was keep them from getting to the bridge, keeping wary to not touch it by our own power.
So…Is that exploiting? I dont really know what to think!
Dale –
At Waterford District, Semifinals Match 1, defense was attempted, but ultimately was not successful. A blue alliance robot was parked near the red bridge to prevent the red alliance triple balance. However, all 3 red alliance robots crossed the bump and rode onto their alliance bridge from the blue side.
469 had to gingerly cross the blue key area, making sure not to contact the robot there. Once past, they were able to tip their bridge and begin the climb.
Granted, with 67’s Utili-arm, the time to complete a triple balance is greatly reduced.
