Strategy

Strategy Overview

Introduction to Design and Competition Strategies
Expand our knowledge base // new resources, technology, and strategy.
Expand our capabilities // technology, etc.
Jumpstart our build season
Get newcomers up to speed

NUTRONS meet’s twice a week and in summers.

Pre season // training
Post season // veterans, other fun projects.

What is Success? // today’s focus is On-Field Success

Inspiration is a goal of all FIRST teams.

Can lead to:

Enhance team pride
Expand base of talent
- new students
- new mentors
- more involved parents
Building momentum // get your team exposed
- local media
- attracts potential sponsors

Setting goals

Set achievable goals and stretch goals
- Small tangible steps
- 0.0015% of FRC teams won the Championship...

Progression of Steps...

Being chosen for an elimination alliance (top %65)
Ranking in the top 8, and choosing an alliance (top %20)
making it to the finals (top ~15%)
Winning an event (top ~8%)
Winning a judged award
- Preparation and training can help your chances
- Rookies have access to specific Rookie awards (worth a lot of points and can help get into the District Championship)

An example goal for our team.

Manage our time and our goals.
- See Pneumatic attempt
Finish ping pong ball launcher
Safety

Celebrate Failure // don’t criticize, work on how to improve.

We will all fail to reach our goal at some points. Analyze these for how we can do better.
- Poor strategic decisions
- Poor execution of ideas
- Plain old bad luck
Greet this with a smile, and use this as fuel to push even harder.

Breaking Down “The Game” - Day 1:

Is a whole seminar in itself...
Game offers may elements:
- high Risk / high reward (3 pointers, climb and dump)
- Safer, more attainable options (2 pointers, 10 point climbs)
The game is built to mess you up.
- You probably can not achieve all of the game.
End game has been especially critical:
- Climbing the tower.
- Bridge balancing.
- Mini bots.

Where to Start?

Read the Manual.
How do you score points?
- List everything that has an attainable point value.
- Point study.
How do you Rank 1 in seed?
- Ranking points could be earned without winning
- Auto points are really really important.
Tiebreakers?
- What happens if a game is tied?
....Chokehold?
- What one task can I do so no-one can beat me?

Brainstorming

1-2 days is just strategy of how we want to play the game. Do not talk about what specific mechanisms will be used Putting every idea from your head onto paper. Ideas can come from everyone. Be accepting of ALL ideas.

Stay on track to get ideas on the board.

No idea is a bad idea
Smaller Groups -> Larger Groups // more likely to share ideas.
- Small groups of 5-6 ppl round table discussion.
  - 2-3 hrs.
- Small groups come together and talk about together.
Go back and forth between small and big groups a few times.
Don’t Design mechanisms - Design Ideas
- Don’t sketch out the mechanisms // what you want to do, not how you want to do it.

Narrowing Ideas // Day 2 OR 3

Be honest with your selves. Don’t expect to be able to do everything. What our are abilities?

Pros / Cons
Efficiency (Pts/Sec)
- Play a “match” with the idea
Don’t Design mechanisms - Design ideas.
Prioritize // using point values for ex.
- Rank everything
  - Need, Want, Would be Nice
  - 1, 2, 3 as numbers.
  - How do these intertwine?
    - Low-bar and Scaling the tower both can’t be 1’s.
    - How can we grow into these goal?
- Ex Nutrons 2016.
  - 1. Drive
  - 1. Go under low bar
  - 1. Etc.
- Do basic things really well, not everything okay.
  - have a plan how to get better as the competitions proceed.
Specifically what does our robot need todo.

Prototyping

Can we actually achieve the things our robot is required to do?

Group Decision Making

Volumes of work on this topic...
The NUTRONs approach:
- “VOTE” is a 4-letter word.
  - Don’t do it.
  - Causes a divide.
- Try Consensus Building
- And unjustified opinion is worthless!
  - Why is this robot better...?
- Be quantitative whenever possible
- Overall arguments are based on hundreds of smaller arguments
  - How long is each task?

Weighted Objective Tables

Also called Decision Matrices
A tool to help take the human opinion out of decision making.

Design for Simplicity

Utility Mechanisms
- One mechanism, Multiple uses
Cool Factor
- Was it worth it?
- Often not.
More times than not, the BEST robots are the simple, effective ones.

COTS // Commercial Off-The-Shelf

Items able to be commonly purchased from vendors
Like anything, there are good and bad COTS times
Focus on critical components
Spend less time constructing intermediate systems that can create weak points

Other COTS Tips

Pay attention to KOP Vouchers!
- You get Free stuff
FIRST Choice
- Every team is allocated Points for a special AndyMark Website every year- More free Stuff

Big Takeaways...

Brainstorm!!!
Understand your team’s limits
Make Design Sacrifices
- Better to be great at 1 thing than okay at 3
Learn to love COTS

At match strategy.

Why strategy is important.

Strategy is the Key to Success

Good Strategy+Mediocre Robot vs. Great robot+Mediocre Strategy

Good Strategy+Good Robot= WIN

Where to Start?

Evaluate yourself
- Know your limits
- You know yourself the best
- Be honest
Come Prepared
- Drive Practice?
- Watch other events
- Playbook, or planned ideas
Dedicated Strategy Team
- Scouting Team works with Strategy with Coach works with Drive team

Keep notes on each team in each match!

Good robots + hard to work with means don’t bother.
Create a pick list.

Pre-Match

Discuss amongst Drive Team, Strategy, and Scouting about Everyone’s course of action
- This will change every match depending on partners
Decide On a team to talk to both partners at the same time.
For the alliances. Come together as all three teams.
- As a team, Discuss TEAM strategy
  - Divy up what each team will work on.
    - Wording is important.
    - Don’t be selfish.
  - Be open to change, don’t just give in
  - Walk through all phases of the game.

During the Match

Drivers - stay calm. Do your jobs, stick to the strategy.
- Don’t freak out! This is really bad.
Coach
- You are the Driver’s eyes and ears to the other robots
- You have to maintain communication between alliance partners (and your human player)
- Time Updates - They can’t see the clock
  - Count down the last few seconds.
  - Update every 5 - 10 seconds.
- Know your “playbook”
- Be prepared to change the strategy and communicate it.
  - if an alliance team does not break the rock wall. Tell your driver, “Do the rock wall“

Post - Match

Debrief!
- If you have a match video right away, watch it!
- Focus on both good & bad
- Always look for ways to improve
Stay hydrated and healthy
Take advantage of breaks
- Albeit short ones...
Get ready to repeat.

Drive team selection

Don’t be on both robot repair and drive team if at all possible.
Teach other members

Take-aways

Set well-founded goals for your team
Be honest with yourselves
Establish a growth plan
- Rome wasn’t built in a year!
Simplify approach wherever possible
Be** really really good** at some things, not okay at everything
Use COTS items as a method to simplify and add reliability to your designs
The “Easy“ approach may require the most “Conjones”

FRC No.4334 (2012)

Could play some defense, and feed high goal for other teams.

FRC No.1114 (2008)

Very simple robot!
Best ball handler
Fastest robot

Got here from design analysis.
- Very few costume parts.
- Few things could break.
- Finished 2 weeks early in build season.
  - A simple robot can be amazing.

FRC No.610 (2013)

Average looking robot.
Extremely well driven
- 7 cycles // 30 disks in regionals.
- Very well practiced.
Added features as the season progressed.
Added a simple 10 point climber

Common Themes

Focus on core aspects:
- Simple
- Reliable
Understood the game to exceptional levels
Focused on COTS items where possible
- Used custom parts to enhance features
Well driven
- Practice! Practice! Practice!
- Robots need to be done with enough time to allow practice
Minimize the useless wasted time,
- Have homework, Good communication, and get the homework done!
- Don’t meet everyday
Have a minimalist robot for software
- A plywood drivetrain?
  - For practice on the robot + vision