You probably remember my last thread about cheesecake. Well my team decided not to use this strategy for our next regional, because it’s just too much pressure. So here we are, making it public :yikes:
We were able to design a robot (see thumbnails) to completely block access to both low goals at the same time. We were looking at G25 -C
C. blocking GOAL(S) while in contact with its own BATTER using anything outside its FRAME PERIMETER except its BUMPERS
Both low goals now have a maximum opening of about 8". Pretty hard to force a boulder in there :rolleyes:
The chokehold, here, is to make any robot that has no high goal capacity literally unable to score. Any alliance that has no high goal shooter could not do anything else than breaching all game, and, as you should know, those points are very limited. The robot has 3 wheel kiwi drive, that allows it to go over the secret passage, and go sideways under the low bar to come back and capture.
We were able to build the robot in about half a day, using only a jigsaw and about 5 pounds of our withholding allowance for parts that required more complex machining. about 40ft of raw aluminum bars make the frame of the robot.
What do you guys think?
Edit: Bumpers as shown are not legal, we are working on iterating on CAD to make it work
So, because the frame perimeter is convex, the two “bumpers” on the trailing edge of your “flying wing” aren’t actually bumpers, and thus this is robot is not legal.
Right, guess we did not think about that convex perimeter problem. We could probably iterate on those bumpers to mount them on the actual perimeter, but then they would enter the goals, which sounds illegal. The perimeter is only at like 113 inches like we built it, so there is still some room to get wider so the bumpers become legal ::rtm::
Won’t the batter dividers get in the way of the wings? I don’t remember how tall they are offhand, but I would think they are taller than the bottom of the highest allowable bumper.
Antoine,
If your design were a true triangle and had 8" of bumper on both sides of each of the three corners, it would meet that part of the bumper rules.
How many points would this strategy most likely block? We’re seeing many games with 4-6 boulders scored into the low goal. Come championships, we will be seeing captures more frequently. So, let’s assume that we have a situation where an alliance is capable of scoring 8 boulders in the low goal (we will question the validity of this later). Each low goal is worth 2 points, so that means that you are preventing a total of 16 points. So, this robot at what could fairly be considered it’s “best case” can block 16 points. That doesn’t quite merit a “chokehold” label.
However, it is a valid strategy. Until you add a high goaler to the mix. Let’s take someone like 1241 for example, who has demonstrated the capability to shoot from just off the batter with a high level of accuracy. Let’s presume that they are their alliance’s captain, and can score 5 high goals each match. They have a 1st pick who can score the remaining goals required to receive a capture, meaning 3 low goals. Thus, in this scenario, you are denying the opposition a grand total of…6 points. Meanwhile, the alliance still scores 25 points. In the last 30 seconds (assuming that the robot leaves at 30 to get out of the courtyard before 20 seconds to avoid the risk of penalties), 1241 and their 1st pick can certainly score the remaining 3 boulders that were shut down by this proposed defender robot. You won’t even deny the opposition a capture.
Look at more long-range-high-goal-capable robots: 2013, 2056, 118…if you’re resting at the batter trying to block the low goals, they will have a complete field day scoring without a robot aggressively trying to hit them while lining up.
An important rule that nails this strategy into the grave is that you can only have one robot on defense in the courtyard at a time. It’s much more valuable to have a fast drive train with a strong driver when playing defense. If you play defense on a low goal robot very effectively with a fast drive train, you can disrupt their cycle significantly. If the opposing alliance knows that they’re up against this proposed “blocker bot”, they won’t even try low goal, saving them the time of getting shut down by a defender. However, if you put a fast drive train on defense, they’re still going to attempt to low goal, and that’s going to kill their time. Which benefits you a lot.
And this isn’t even considering the fact that, as deemed above, the current design is illegal.
Quite simply, a fast drive train with a strong driver is the most effective form of defense we will most likely be seeing played in the courtyard in FRC Stronghold.
You can’t block the low goal using anything outside the frame perimeter, which is why he was trying to make the frame perimeter itself block both goals.
Check R19 very carefully, specifically the example in the bottom right corner of Fig. 4-4. There is no such thing as a convex frame perimeter, by definition frame perimeters cannot be convex.
If you can make it work with this rule… well, that would be very interesting! As-is your robot example doesn’t appear legal.
You could probably make this work without a convex bumper. You could make the robot a triangle, with two gaps in the “front” bumper. You park on the center batter, and when a robot approaches a low goal you rotate slightly to push the gap intake that corner of the tower.
Since you have to rotate to block, two offensive robots working together could slip a ball past you on the other side, but you would still reduce the number of goals significantly.
I love this effort though. Evolving strategies and robots keeps FRC interesting over the competition season.
Face it: there is no legitimate chokehold for this game. GDC has made it very clear that they don’t want any teams breaking the basic game mechanics. From height restrictions, to no-touch zones, to defensive limitations, everything is very cut and dry.
And the one possible break, involving blocking the return passages, someone was smart enough (read: dumb enough) to ask GDC if it would be ok to break the game before they actually did so, to which GDC heavily disincentivized (G21).
