Good to see everyone on both right and left coasts picking up the gauntlet on this.
Our post was in reaction to the doom and gloom outlook over this at the time I made the original post. Our team was even pondering doing a variant within the 65lb hold-back but that is largely scuttled.
The fan and several other schemes can deal with this. The real trick is how to come up with a scheme that will not just simply convert a total annihilation situation into a sure defeat with two 469 partners on on 1 opposition but with less points margin for 469ers. The trick is to level this to a 2 on 2 or a 1 on 1 and have a fighting chance.
The fan scheme is deployed when 469 has engaged to the tower possibly irreversibly. Not clear that the 469 can un-deploy the mechanism in order to abandon the tower if they find themselves ineffective. That leaves a 2 on 2 scenario unless one or both of the 469 partners tries to dislodge the low geared high traction fan bot.
The fan bot is preferably a āwide driveā and parked wide side against the tower. Bid side against 469 presents less of a moment arm opportunity for 469 partners to push a distant fan bot corner corner and dislodge the fan bot. The wide drive scheme presents transverse wheel friction to minimize probability of being moved when pushed on its narrow end. Lastly, the ideal fan bot would drop high friction roughtop pads on the floor to make them really hard to move in any direction. Lastly the ideal fan bot would be able to swivel the fan turret slightly to tweak aim as the dislogers are working on pushing the fan bot around.
In qualifications however , it is probable that a lone fan bot will never meet 469 and thus never be tested against them.
Another countermeasures strategy specific to 469 is that with the correct timing of slamming into their back end, you can put significant movement on the top part of their tower exactly when the ball is seemingly stationary or near stationary for a moment. This would catapult the ball far enough towards the end zone so that the ball guides will be ineffective. Remember that they can have only 3 inches of ball penetration in their mechanism so even an inch of movement forward largely disenegages the guiding effect and 3 inches of movement has that ball in free fall without guides.
It was frustrating to watch one after the other of the one sided matches and not see 469ās opposition exploit this simple shaker scheme.
Drivers that are to face 469 could practice by watching the 469 videos while driving their bot in the pits against a dummy target. Figure out far far back you need to be with full throttle to make the hit at the exact correct time. Pick a station for the rolling ball on gantry to pass to give it full throttle.
An alternate shaker scheme just has you against the 469 bumper and punching the throttle to get the entire 469 gantry into resonance. Like trying to rock a van. Just repeatedly punch the throttle with some good eye hand coordination timing. Let it bounce you back and punch again. In 10 to 15 sec, you should master this just like you do when you rock van. .
A loop bot that grabs the tower higher up to stabilize their ramp will not be as susceptible to the shaker schemes.
Note that on many but not all balls, the ball appears stationary for a moment at the moment of catch on the 469 mechanism. Any rules on this? Videos were not closeups so not sure on this
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469 came up with a novel and legislatively risky scheme and developed it. Hats of to them. I am glad that the concept (not the execution of it) did not get legislated out by a late rule change. 469 surely had many problems to solve to make this work right. I think the game may end up one sided in some venues but the FIRST community will be better for it. It demonstrates the real world possibility that your technical endeavor or business can come up against great odds and you need to rise to the challenge of countering it. Legislation and lawyers are one way in the real world to deal with this (Car racing, sailing, in businessā¦ ) but in FIRST I hope this drives more of a technical innovation route. You can invent around seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Hmm perhaps intelligence to GDC of the existence of loop bots drove the increase of hold-back to 65 lbs. I had wondered why they did that at the late stage and perhaps this was the reasonā¦ so that teams could make countermeasures changes or do their own loop mechanism. Anyone think of a better reason for that late rule change. With 65 lbs, you can almost build a full robot.
Discussion/debate is invited.
(just kidding but read post 10 or all for some additional constructive countermeasures).