Hey everyone,
Our team is currently brainstorming stategies for all three parts of the game, and we wanted to hear everyone elses input! This is not for robot designs, just for ways to score or otherwise play the game. Any idea could end up helping our team or any other one.
Thanks in advance, Jay
Right now we are stuck between a defensive climbing robot and an offensive scoring robot. Personally I want to have a good idea of how many people are going to be building each bot so that ours isn’t one of a million defensive bots or vice-versa.
Our team has developed a few strategies:
Butterfly Bot: have extremedies that drop down and make our robot wider, while staying within the 54 inch diameter, this gives us good defense abilities. With that we are able to sit infront of the feederstation and completely cut if off from being used.
God bot: Do everything perfectly and make waffles/pancakes on the side (our team has gotten way to far into trying to do that)
Defense bot: This is my personal strategy and I find it very realistic and feasible. Have a short robot that can reliably hang a 30 and drive under the pyramid, feed alliance partners, possibly pick up off the floor, reliably score in the low goal, and play awesome defense. Would anybody think that a robot like that would be picked at competitions? I’m trying to convince my teammates that it could be successful.
There are some others but my fingers as well as my mind are tired, I’ll post later when I’m a bit more rested and have more to report on of value.
Have two robots “pretend” to climb on either side of your pyramid. The other alliance can’t get by for fear of penalties. /troll
I liked defense before, but I think getting your bot to the 30 is a lot harder than everyone is making it out to be. I think that a sturdy scoring bot would be reliable and score high enough to make it worth doing.
Plus it would look cooler at demos.
This.
Also, your teams lifting mechanism in 2010 was very interesting… it was brought up a couple of times at our meeting today.
Is there a video anyone has of this? My team has often been talking about lifting mechanisms from 2004 and 2010.
Watch towards the end (2:07 on). I believe many other teams used a similar method that year, but theirs was the first I witnessed live.
Now, imagine one of those lifters on both sides of your robot.
A few of my friends predicted that the majority of the teams would have similar realizations about climbing to the 30 and playing defense. Enough to worry them that too many teams would be doing this exact strategy.
I can’t decide what will happen: it seems that many teams would have learned the importance of the “endgame” points due to last year’s game, but I still feel that rookies and powerhouse teams will be drawn to the traditional throwing and scoring method simply because it is the “main” way to score. The difference between rookies and powerhouse teams being that powerhouse teams will of course be able to climb as well, and would probably be more accurate at throwing than rookie teams.
I just still don’t think that it will be reliable as scoring, I can see some scary points coming from a very refined shooter.
G25 ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE may not blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction.
Well fans didn’t work for defense last year, but we all know Frisbees can have their direction changed more easily by wind or air. Sit under scoring bins with fan anyone?
So far, our favorite strategy is getting 4 preloads, climbing to the third tier, then dumping all 4 disks in. Bam, 50 points.
Remember they need to be the red/blue disks (depending on what allaince you are on).
Add in some low goal capabilities and have a reliable climb and I could see it working. I’m wary of shooters because they’re easy prey for defense. But an accurate shooter with reliable autonomous will crush any climb bot for points.
I can’t find a rule against it… I think it would depend on the speed of the frisbee one is trying to manipulate with the fan, but in theory it could work. Way to think outside the box!
This is one of the strategies the team is considering. I believe that the teams that are capable of consistently scoring all 4 colored frisbees will make up many of the top teams. I do not believe you can get away with just climbing up the pyramid though.
I think many teams will consider this strategy, due to the large amount of points available there. I think almost as many teams will rule this strategy out due to the fact that their robot would be over 60" above the ground, and could not afford it falling.
Teams touching their pyramid are protected, similar to the key in RR.
The viability of this strategy very much depends upon being able to warm up the syrup, and the use of real maple syrup. If it can’t do both, then I would vote against it.
Remember you have up to 118 total white disks available, half for your alliance. It’s not infinite as scored disks are not returned to play.
…or they will design it so that it cannot fall, maybe.
Although this would work for defending against some teams, with a disc, the more spin you put on it, the better it fairs in wind. When it is windy outside, Ultimate Players put so much spin on the disc that it completely cancels out the affect of the wind. However, floaters and teams who do not have a high speed shot would be especially susceptible to a fan.
If I was to use a fan, I would not just sit under the goals. If you are able to move the disc up an inch where the goal is, it isn’t going to do too much. While if you get right up in your opponents face, a change of an inch there will be much more as the disc approaches the target.