The Quest for Einstein
 

Everybody has their opinions about what it takes to reach Einstein each year. Many teams make that their annual goal. Most don't make it. A few make it regularly. We often refer to those teams "elite." Each year we can't wait to see what sort of " robotic genius" teams like the Cheesy Poofs produce.

Two years ago, 948 made it to St. Louis for the first time ever - in its 11th year. We then had a very strong run through Archimedes, losing only one or two matches and earning an alliance captaincy. Of course, we met the Poofs in the quarter-finals and watch the rest of the event from the bleachers...We had a fantastic year and now realize we *can* compete at the highest levels. This year, our eyes are set on Einstein again... We are not "elite," but would like to develop our team so that we can annually compete at an elite level.

I know there are many teams out there much like ours. So, I'd like to pose the question:

What do folks think it takes to to annually compete at this level? What should clubs like mine do in order to accomplish this?

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I have never been to Einstein myself so I cannot really speak from experience but there are a few things I think it takes to compete consistently at an elite level. The first thing is good mentors that come back every year. You need mentors who understand FIRST and who are able to devote their time each year to the team. Alongside this you need the full support of your school/community. You cannot constantly be dealing with roadblocks set by your school administration concerning things like fundraising or the number of days of school a student can miss. One of the final things is having a second robot to practice driving and work bugs out with and a place to practice driving. If the first time your students are driving the robot is at a competition, you are going to have a difficult time. Alongside this is having a drive coach or strategist who has been around FIRST for a while, a good robot will only get you so far without good strategy and playcalling. Something to remember is that a good robot looks bad with a bad driver, while a bad robot looks good with a good driver.

Obviously not all of these are necessary, there are teams who consistently do well without these things and there are teams with these advantages that do not do well.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

1. money- lots of money

2. engineers- lots of engineers

3. Equipment- lots of equipment

4. populated student body with interest- lots of students.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

5. Time- looooots of time. Two hours a day won't even begin to cut it.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

good edition!

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

6. Corndogs - Lots of Corndogs

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Trust me they have that one covered, with more than 100 students last season.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

AH yes the infamous corndogs.

I cant imagine being on a team with over 100 kids that sound like chaos, my team is 9 members

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I don't necessarily agree with these. Are they extremely helpful? Yes, but I think the amount of resources (human and material) of several "elite" teams would surprise you.

Student interest, however, is absolutely necessary. If you truly inspire your kids to want to be the best, they will put in the required effort and time to bring the program to that level.

On a seperate note, I think one of the biggest differentating factors between the upper-mid tier of teams and the elite teams is drive practice. Built an identical robot, find space for a practice field, and be practicing 5-7 days a week from when you finish that practice robot until the day you leave for the championship event. Not only will your drivers be using your robot to it's absolute potential, but the many, many hours of runtime on your practice robot will let you discover failure points of your robot well before they ever occur on the competition robot. This allows you to preemptively fix these failure points before they ever occur during a competition match.

Don't be afraid to iterate mid-season, even drastically. Always be improving performance of your robot.

Meticilous attention to strategy and match prep. Look no further than 1678 last year to see exactly how this should be done.

Make friends. You'll never know when you'll need a helping hand or a piece of advice.

Seasons are often made or broken in the first week of build season. 1114 wouldn't be repeatedly giving their strategic design seminar if it wasn't that important. Recovering from misreading the game is extremely hard.

The typical solutions you see around you year-to-year aren't the only ones. Don't be afraid to break out of your location's norms. FIRST games are played quite different from region to region. Try new things during the off-season.

Don't get discouraged. Developing a consistent program takes time. If you think the elite teams have made it and are just crusing along, you're mistaken. Competing at an elite level in FRC is extremely hard; an old mentor of mine claimed that FRC was much harder than his senior automotive engineering position, due to the time requirements. Build season will force you to work harder than you thought possible. It won't always be fun, and sometimes it will be very much the opposite. Stick it through, and you might be surprised what you can accomplish.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

1640 has the fortune to fall into a bit of a logical loophole in your premise. We've been to Einstein twice, but we're definitely not elite in the Cheesy Poof sense. For those of you playing at home, we rubber matched them in Einstein finals last year.

This is answered in my experience as 1640 field coach in 2013 (Einstein semis) and 2014 (Einstein finals), both of which we made as second pick. It might be more approachable for some teams than what we think about as capital-E elite stories.

Yes to students and time; the others are less clear. We do have enough money in the bank by build season not to worry about it constantly (far, far more than we used to). But like most things, money comes after you start winning, not before. For instance, for most of our Championship appearances, we didn't have the cash to actually get to Champs until we won/qualified at MAR...two weeks before. (At which point Sikorsky stepped up. Phew, thank you.) The most important money of than getting where you need to be is the ability to build a practice bot.

Engineers: we definitely don't have a lot of them. We have one, and he's a chemical engineer. For most of those years we did have an awesome computer scientist, and a two or three folks that could only give far (far) fewer hours, although it was especially great to have the electrical engineer and the hobbyist welder at key times. Other than that, the main engineering leaders were a plumber, a machinist, a student (me). We also had some technical day-job people on the non-engineering side, and vice versa.

Equipment: We relied pretty heavily on our student CNC mill, and students welded our chassis in-house, but other than that, it's a lot of band saws and "we're gonna need a bigger hammer". (We also like to lay up our own carbon fiber, which isn't so much an equipment thing but is really great for student interest.) The biggest 'equipment' for us is SolidWorks.

Populated Student Body / School Support: student interest is key, but the phrasing here is interesting. We don't not have a school student body. In fact, we don't have students' schools' support really at all: we're a community team operating out of a district warehouse. This makes access to students both logistically and politically difficult, and we feel the pain from it.

Time: Yes. We have 24/7 access to our build space, and it's used (by at least some people) essentially every day of build season and at only a slightly lower frequency until World Champs. The last part is really the key. With a practice bot and drive space, our "build season" tempo does not end until May.

* Basically my takeaway is that time, money, equipment, and expertise are important, but they're not more important to mid-level competitive teams than they are to the levels above them. They're not the dividing hurdles.


1640's Quest: this isn't comprehensive, but it's what I thought of this morning.
0. Build dedication and an enabling level of money/equipment/access. As mentioned, you don't need to be rich. We went to Einstein in 2013 with 3476, who built in a garage. That said, there are a lot of great teams in FIRST with wonderful, dedicated students who just are not enabled to preform like this. If you're concentrating on surviving from day to day, it's very hard to thrive.

1. Believe. Sounds crazy, right? I was on 1640 since before we realized the judges actually knew we were there. (I actually remember this realization during our fifth season.) But after we won MAR in 2012, we set our sights on Einstein 2013. Which was completely crazy. And then when we made it, and lost the semis in that heart-breaker of a scoring error, our Einstein students (through their tears) said we were coming back next year, and we were gonna do it right. 366 days later, I leaned over my drivers and told them we'd just taken Cheesy Poofs and Las Guerrillas to a rubber match in Einstein finals. You have to believe this is something you can do. There's a lot of psychology in this, all the way from summer practice to unifying your division alliance. (And keeping it there; the scoring mess really pushed our alliance to the edge in 2013, and [IMO] we weren't ready for it--see #2-3.)

2. Accrue experience. This largely leverages mentors due to student turnover. Mentors and students build the team culture though, and inspiring students for these sorts of goals is largely a peer activity. You need to understand FIRST and the many, many, many pitfalls between the end of last year's Worlds and the confetti fall on Einstein. (This is the length of your "season", not that we don't give people breaks whether or not there's confetti in their hair.)

3. Radiate professionalism. This means everything it takes to achieve levels of consistency that were unimaginable to us even with three blue banners in hand. At home, it means planning, preparation and practice. At competition, it means excellent pit processes and experience, and very, very skilled decision-making. You, particularly your coach, drivers/HP, and pit crew, also need to outwardly act this way, because people need to trust you. I say this from the point of view of a second pick who needs to actually get selected from that draft position in a field of 100. However, I can also compare the relative inexperience of our entire 2013 alliance with playing with 1114 and 1678 in 2014, and their professionalism made a huge difference. Watch them work sometime; it was really the highlight of my 2014 Einstein.

4. Be consistent, again. Think for a moment about how many robot actions you need to make to get on that final stage--even to be picked/picking for division elims. You don't have to be the best bot out there (case in point), but you should do what you do better than anyone else available among ~100 of the best robots in the world. This goes all the way back to game analysis at Kickoff. Pick the most valuable part of the game that you're capable of being the best in the world at executing, and do it. Aim for it, refine it, practice, beat it up, practice, improve it, practice, improve it, refine it, practice, and practice. Our season strategy, robot, and competition strategy all aligned to lean heavily on our swerve drive and drivers, because that was our strongest point. That said, we also push our luck, particularly with the 30-point climber in 2013: which, thanks to #0-1 Dedication and Belief (and not #2 Experience), worked basically two days out of the entire season, but it was the right two days.

5. Related to #4: get really, really, really good at something. Anything. (Okay, not anything.) This goes back to consistency. The great thing about FIRST is that there actually are 3,000 ways to win. Find yours, and leverage it. By the time we drove it on Einstein, we were sitting atop our fourth generation of swerve drive, or zillionth generation of code for it, and the best drive team in our history. Your 'thing' doesn't have to be a physical thing; ours is mostly about the iterative design and driving & pit processes that came from swerve rather than the device itself.

6. Play the game. As coach, I'm sorely tempted to put this higher. It's really the goal of half the battle: understand what captains are looking for, and give it to them. From my point of view, this is full trustworthiness and utmost professionalism, absolute consistency, great cooperation, grace under pressure, and very, very smart playing. Be the best (in their eyes) left available in the draft for that, and you've got a case. It means being part of the community, including on a personal level as coach. It means earning attention on the field, and then talk to them correctly off of it. This, like everything, takes practice and experience to hone. I include branding in this category (and also under exuding professionalism); recognition is a big player even with good scouting.

7. Related, participate in the community. At Worlds especially, the thing that gets overlooked is trust. It takes a lot of trust in someone to say their name into a microphone in front of a field of 100 teams and try to go with them all the way to Einstein--especially if they're from the other side of the country/world. We lucked out on this in 2013, getting picked by our MAR buddy where we're known for being a 'second pick wonder'. We then leveraged that Worlds-level recognition in 2014. If all goes well, you and your new friends now need to win as many matches on Saturday afternoon as you played on Thursday and Friday. For reference, winning Newton the first time did feel like winning a regional. By the time you actually get to Einstein, it's nothing like one.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

1. Replace 'money' with 'focused creativity' and a team can make it to Einstein.

7. Attitude. It takes mental discipline, supporting families and willpower to do what it takes to adapt to the higher levels of competition, especially after a Regional.

8. Scouting, or Experience. The best teams in the world get wrecked without good partners or a good gameplan.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Face it, it takes some type of magic that most of us don't have quite enough of.

When you figure out what the magic is, or how it works, please let us know!

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I think the better goal here is how to move forward to become a consistent high performing robot at the Championship not just a goal of being on Einstein. Let's face it there are many, MANY amazing robots and teams each year who don't make it to Einstein because so many little elements determine where you seed, what alliance you end up on, and who you face.

Something to remember is you have to be able to make it to the Championship. You can't compete at an event you aren't qualified for which starts at your first event. Many teams who are quoted for their amazing designs that end up back up on Einstein or are consistent favorites for deep in elimination runs like 67, 148, 254, 1114, etc. have HOF or Legacy status that gives them an invitation to the Championship each year. This means they have the "net" that they can go a little more complex than you because their goal is to win the championship (in addition to every event the attend) but that goal doesn't ride on them having to qualify at a regional/district in order to get there. Many teams bite off more than they can chew because they are focused to deep in the season.

Drive practice and committed students are HUGE. Its one thing to have a practice bot. Its another to have a group of students who strive for perfection and the best performance possible. A very high majority of teams are held back because of their drivers not the mechanisms they built.

You need to iterate through the season to make your robot perform better and like it was said before you can't be afraid of drastic changes. Many robots can hit a cap on their performance which some drivers will hit during practice or have a robot that can't adapt well to the higher levels of play we see at the Championship. Sometimes its iterating your mechanisms, your programming, your strategy, or how you drive the robot but never settle for "good enough".

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

This is the part where magic is involved.

Some folks are magicians, and can consistently make this happen.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

My answer is luck.

Really put the work in to do the best you can, stay positive and hope for a little luck to be added in the mix. I think those words work for FIRST and about anything else in life.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Some things my team tries to focus on:

Pick a winning strategy - Directly after kick-off we try to pick a strategy where we think we can seed high at any level of competition. This is usually based on how many points we can score with a given strategy.

Stick with it - Once we have chosen our strategy, we do what we can to not deviate from it. You don't have time during build season to be indecisive or change your mind halfway through.

Keep it simple - Building a simple robot is extremely important. The more things you have going on with your robot is just more things to fail during a match. Try to keep it down to just a few simple mechanisms that can do a lot instead of a lot of mechanisms that do one thing. Our robot last year was about as simple as they come, but it was very effective.

Don't reinvent the wheel - If there is something out there that works great for what you need, use it. Maybe you can modify it to better suit your situation but generally you don't need to come up with something brand new to be competitive.

Keep improving - Just because build season ends doesn't mean improving your robot goes with it. In the past we have used our withholding allowance to replace entire mechanisms because they were better than the originals.

Good Scouting - At competition it is crucial that you know what every robot there is good/bad at and how they compliment your game. Even your weakest partners are useful for something, it just takes a little creativity to figure out how they can best help win a match.

Hope this helps :)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Luck. For lower-tier teams luck plays a large role. This is luck in design (stumbling upon the right design early), luck in build season (stars align and your build season goes smoothly), luck in competition (match schedules, high tier teams noticing you, etc.).

Of course luck isn't everything, but it definitely is something. The points everyone else has mentioned are all very important (maybe not the corn dogs), but to overcome the luck barrier means that you need to have a ginormous base of skills and knowledge. Even great teams fail to beat out bad luck with raw robotics expertise.

The only way to overcome luck (besides being lucky), is to eliminate places where luck may play a role. Although impossible in some places such as match schedules and certain aspects of competition a lot of the time you can replace luck with large amounts of dedication. This is dedication in literally everything: design, strategy, driver practice, scouting, learning, etc.

In example, build season has started and your ready to go, to eliminate luck in design, you need to put the effort into prototyping every mechanism you find viable, this means having a crew of people working around the clock to find the right design for your resources and skill level. Look through concepts on Chief Delphi, watch all of the Robot in 3 Days videos, study resources that teams put out (like Simbot Seminars).

To be a Einstein level team you need to eliminate the places where luck exists and replace them with a base of knowledge and skill and a base of dedication.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

We should have all the 'physical' pieces in place:
Multiple long-time mentors
A very healthy budget
Plenty of very dedicated students
A shop which we can access at any time
Support (sometimes better than others) from the school
Time

I'm also thinking in terms of the approach to the season...
For instance, I do believe that it's very important to set the bar very high when looking into design strategies. If you want to go to Einstein, you have to be willing do do more than "push a single tote into the auto-zone" for an autonomous routine. Start with stacking three on your own. Then try to do more.

"That's impossible" cannot be part of the vocabulary of your team. It needs to be replaced with "That would be challenging." Then, imagine a robot that could meet said challenge. If you can imagine it, the robot can be built.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

The best way to get to Einstein is to analyze the game, figure out which three robots would make up the ideal Einstein alliance, and then design, build, iterate, and polish the one that best matches your teams' capabilities.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Not viewing the elite teams (or regionally elite teams) as being spoiled, but realizing that they have something special... and that you can replicate it. Maybe it'll take a few years... maybe it'll take more mentors/parents/teachers... maybe it'll take more resources... but those are things you can attain with time and effort.

For example, elite teams have gotten past other teams having more/bigger/better sponsors (resources or financial), and have spent a lot of time over several years getting that level of sponsorship.

The difference between viewing an elite team as an 'out-group' and as a 'reference-group'.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Nothing's impossible, if your team can believe in that, any team can make Einstein.

Do some teams have more factors in their favor (call them "Elite" or "Powerhouse" if you'd like)? Sure but it's not just resources that build you a solid machine, train your drivers and help you at competition.

Nor does size of your team. 100 students is great, but is just having that many students give you that big of an advantage over a team of 10 - 20 committed kids?

It's the amount of resources you have, it's how you manage them.

In the end, Einstein should always be a goal, even if it's not your active one. My team's been around the block a bit (20 - 22 years depending on who you ask :D) and we've never been to Einstein but our goal is to build a robot, have fun while doing it and compete at a high level.

With that said, we can't wait to show off what we've built this season in a couple weeks and (fingers crossed) we perform well enough to earn a blue banner.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I understand the sentiment here (we all need to be careful about being shut down by limits that may not exist), but I highly disagree with the premise within the context of FRC strategic design. Recognizing when something is impossible for your team is absolutely critical to the success of any team. The teams that perform the best are the ones who recognize their own capabilities and design and build within them. Every year on 1114 we rule out certain designs because they're beyond what we can effectively create in a build season with our given level of resources. The focus is always on "how far can we push the envelope, without compromising consistency and effectiveness". I find the biggest mistake FIRST teams make is to try and do too much, and end up being mediocre or poor at the overwhelming attempt. This is definitely much more common than teams who don't push the envelope far enough and end up being over matched.

Getting to Einstein isn't impossible for any team, however building a robot to do every task in the game at an Einstein level very well may be.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Our 2011 Season.

1) fair point, total shop + robot + tool, etc... budget was around $10k

2) Zero engineers actively involved.

3) Manual mill, two manual lathes, sanders, etc... Sponsor w/ waterjet (but even paying retail price for waterjet is cheap if you wanted).

4) 11 Students.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I kept my response a little over-simplified. After visualizing a robot that could accomplish a specific task, it is imperative that the team determine whether or not the construction of that robot is within their capabilities. However, that decision cannot be made until some thought has been put into how the task could be accomplished.

It has happened on my team - and others - that a strong strategy is suggested, but that it is rejected without putting any thought into how it might be accomplished... In other words, they would never give themselves the chance to be successful.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Yes.... but, your robot also has to be capable of reaching Championship first. In certain games, there are niche designs that are incredibly important at the top levels of play, but might not be all that important at lower levels and end up failing to qualify for Championship.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Of course. A robot built for maximizing the chance of winning its Regional or District may be very different from one that is the perfect third robot on an Einstein alliance. Or not...depends on the game.

Realistically, there is usually at least one spot for a "individual contributor" robot that, while it can't do everything, can productively do some scoring objective well. Ex., a really efficient tote stacker or recycle bin capper is likely to do reasonably well at all levels of eliminations play given the right partners.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I know for us it was a mix of robot design, strategy, and good luck. Some years everything just "clicks" and you make it. Every year you should be designing and strategizing to play at the highest level. None of this, "That'll do" business.

We are definitely itching to get back there. Hence our newest t-shirt design :)

http://www.zazzle.com/no_sleep_til_e...47236812950034

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Getting to Einstein has two levels.
Being one of the top tier elite teams in each division, who then pick each other in the 1st round. Then the complementary 2nd partner to help round out the alliance.
There are other cases where the alliance captain seeded lower, picks 2 great teams (during serpentine drafts), that also build great alliances. In those instances sometimes, we've seen good teams fall to the bottom of the top 8, decline and make their own.

The problem is for teams similar to ours. We can never get over the hump, because we dont get picked early, nor do we get picked later in the 2nd round. Always stuck in the middle. Being in the middle is the worst place to be or to be selected there, IMO.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Just to be clear, you are actually talking about a few different levels.

1. There are the non-hall of fame teams that make to to the World Championship on a regular basis (this takes a specific plan and execution to qualify each year). (probably around 200 teams)

2. Once at the World championship, there is a level associated with those that play in elims/playoffs almost every year (I think it is down to only 4 teams that have played in every year of elims). Each year, there are roughly 100 making it into elims/playoffs, but around 50 seem to do this most years.

3. Then there is another teir that regularly advance (think semis-finals) in their division. This is a much smaller group of about 20 or so, and are often the FRC Top 25 type of teams.

4. Lastly, there are the regulars on Einstein. This is a very small crowd. whose member ship changes slowly over time. Although for many years 12 robots made it to Einstein, the 3rd partner of each alliance was usually a 1 year type of advancer. This says that at most the group is around 8 teams. I would probably put it closer to 3-5 depending on how you are doing your accounting.

************************
Strategy for group 1 is to execute a really good robot, and go to multiple events to maximize your chances of qualifying for World Championship. If you are a district team, these in theory match population distribution, so you need to be one of the top 600/3,000 or top 20%. Realistically this would just put you on the threshold of getting in or out, so to be consistent you would really need to be a top 10% team. (typically top 4 at a district event and/or top 4-6 at a regional depending on size).

Strategy for group 2 is a little trickier. Realistically, you need to be one of the Top 100 teams in the world and/or have good team recognition. Team/Brand recognition will boost you a bit in the picking standings, so making sure the pickers know who you are is a big deal (besides being pretty awesome). For reference top 100 of 3,000 teams is 1/30. Basically you are frequently the best at your district and either the best or 2nd best at most regionals. Historical recognition of being really good helps.

Stratgey for group 3: All of the above and then some. Historical recognition of being really good is nearly essential. This group is effectively the 1% ers. the only time this group stands a chance of not making Elims is IRI.

Lastly, the Einsteiners... I don't really know what it takes. By my math they are the top 0.3% of FRC. Some years this is a small gap in competitiveness over the previous group. Some years it is big. If you truly want to be one of those teams, you need to talk with them about what they do, and how they got there. I will say, success breeds success (in more ways than one). It tends to be easier to recruit the best when you are "the best". Other than that, these teams produce some magic that only they likely understand.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Never a truer & short, less than 2 line, single sentence statement for such a huge undertaking annually.

Amazing that most people can list 5~8 huge things, taking paragraphs to iterate, that determine what it takes to reach "The Big E" at the FIRST FRC Championships....Yet a leader on 1 of the (IF not THE), most successful teams (Elite as most describe FIRST FRC Team 254, listed the absolute right order, and all that is really necessary...The rest are just the tools you use to reach it in reality.

Our team often qualifies to go to The Championships (and yes, it has been a long time since the last time, but Team 60 has played on that wonderful "Big E Field" in the limelight - long before my time w/ the team), and rarely actually even attends the Championships anymore ~Just 1 time even attending in the last 4 years actually. (Though the plan every year, is to do so, IF we can be in our own minds competitive when there).

Unless that route outlined above by Jared is followed by our team (that can easily only be determined by US and the field of others midseason), IF our robot will be competitive, and that is our ultimate deciding factor...Not whether we can afford it, not how behind us currently the community or our multiple schools are, certainly not by the fabrication machines we have access to or the hrs. or people required to build robots, but, by how well we as a team each year.... Have "ALL Read the RULES," (sorry Jared to steal the rest from what you so eloquently posted prior)....."analyzed the game, figured out which three robots would make up the ideal Einstein alliance, and then designed, built, iterated, and polished the one that best matches our team capabilities."

Last year was the first year in a while we both had a competition robot finished early enough & a decent place to actually practice with it, then we finished building the practice bot after the other 1 was bagged.

Each yr. we have a handful of truly dedicated students building, and each yr. we lose a great many of those dedicated students to colleges nationwide. And we nearly start over again w/ a few veterans. That is a really good thing!

Each year lately, just 1 or more of those elements has been missing from our smaller but long time around community based rural two digit team.

Yes, sometimes building to WIN a Regional, can sometimes make one over build also (or go an overly simplistic route also, and not take enough risks by not attempting things we have seen or felt fail before), and not concentrate on doing just 1 thing extremely well (better than thousands of other bots), and cause one to not be a 2nd., or 3rd. pick. On that I also agree.

Striving to be third best, and in a supporting role, isn't in the cards for many great teams though when designing. Those that do take that chance also succeed at playing there too! (They just don't often receive that Elite Tag!) But, nowhere on that Pretty Blue World Champion or World Finalist Banner does the word "Elite" appear either. How many of those in your collection is important though.

This game (Recycle rush) may just stand all those thoughts right on their heads this year, I can certainly see it in my crystal ball.

It will be interesting, as so many have parsed this game to pcs.....I think tote stack building will be faster & faster as the season weeks progress. Some will be amazed that by week 3, some Alliances will actually run out of game pcs.. I know that isn't anywhere in thoughts (by the majority opinion I've seen so far), in the wisdom here on CD though. Some early previews shows it will be true though. There are at least 16 different specialty bot types so far, not just a few being built this year.

Just a prediction.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I bet someone from 973 could add quite a bit of perspective to this thread. They consistently build very good specialist type robots that are basically designed to make Einstein.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Adam already did a few posts back.

Their robots are always good at doing that. They seem to be amazing at building robots that have a specialty for taking them really far.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Glenn,

I seem to remember 359 turning down the #1 seed in 2013... along with 3 other teams... :rolleyes:

To the OP: Steal from the best, invent the rest. We are constantly looking to 254 (best team in FRC), and they're a huge reason we've gotten to where we are. Also 971 and 973. All world champions within that past 6 years.

#sunsoutgunsout #choochoo

-Mike

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Perhaps one of the most important attributes a team or team members can have is hustle. I distinctly remember the Silicon Valley Regional in 2013 and being impressed by the hustle and determination of the students on 973. Even though there weren't many of them, each student went the extra mile to make sure that 973 was a highly competitive team. It was quite inspirational. They certainly live up to the slogan that is printed on their shirts, "Outwork us".

Successful teams that I've encountered have creative, focused, and hardworking students. They have the ability to overcome obstacles. Many currently successful teams weren't always successful, and worked very hard to get to where they are today. I know that's true of my team and other multiple regional winning teams, and it's a continuous effort to keep improving and figure out ways to run our team.

All these traits are achievable in any FIRST team, regardless of their size or resources. I don't just look at great teams's robots when I go to competitions, I look at the kids working and I try to figure out what makes a team go.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Money - I am going to have to disagree on this one. Yes money does help, but doest it directly influent success? I don't think so.

Resourcefulness - I believe this is one of the most crucial things in FIRST. You may not have a lot of cash or other fancy things, but its how you use your resources to their greatest ability. I have seen some many successful robots built with a reciprocating saw and a dewalt. Now, of course it may not be the most efficient or prettiest, but it sure could get the job done.

It may be a surprise but, money does not automatically buy you a great robot in FIRST.:ahh:

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

The third (and fourth) bot is extremely important to doing well at champs. Consider the third robots of the past few years championship alliances. Getting the best alliance partners requires a great combination of an amazing robot, strong scouting, a generous schedule, and some teams to fall deep into the draft. Teams like 2848, 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, 148, 987*, who normally go deep (or win) at the most competitive regionals, were the second picks on these alliances. Even the fourth bots this year were all exceptional robots (5136 and 3467 were among my favorite machines that year, and those four backup robots won three events, a couple of district champion finals appearances).

The one catch for trying to build a good third robot is that what it contributes to the alliance can be difficult to see year to year, especially when doing initial strategic analysis. I could write in extreme detail what third bots did, but in general, the best third robots specialized in something other than the primary scoring function.



*I am not sure what the draft order was when they won champs, but it was from the 8th seed, and 177 is already on the list.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

190 picked 987 then 177 in 2007.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Unless you're in New England....

#AllAboutThatShovelLife

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

#snowblowyouaway

;)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

My goal is to make worlds atleast once by the time Im a senior. This year we have a decent robot but not a great one and I know for sure there will be much better bots in our area. Our chairmans award is good but not great also. (We need to do more community outreach)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Don't build a middle of the pack <insert highest scoring game task here> robot. Build the absolute best <insert complimentary scoring task here> robot.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

...and then pray you don't get selected by the 8th seed alliance. ;)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Hey, luck is a big part of it for all teams! Sometimes the cards fall your way, sometimes they don't.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I've witnessed 8th seed alliances make it to regional finals. Anything could happen.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Certainly. However, when following the strategy of optimize to be the very best second pick, you should be aware of what might happen should you succeed. It doesn't mean you shouldn't specialize, but you may end up shooting yourself in the foot.

Interestingly, that changes a bit this year. This year, you don't have to outscore the 1st alliance as the 8th seed to advance. I get the feeling that this will give a boost to the lower alliances.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

We're bad luck. You wouldnt have made Einstein and you wouldnt have had a great 148 that year.:p

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

An 8th seeded alliance won the world championship in 2007.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

The Maroons!

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

There are lots of great answers in this thread and I don't disagree with any of the longer ones. (We also can show counterexamples to the short numeric list.)

There is a great answer on the importance of mentors in another current thread that I'll link to. Your team doesn't need all of these, but having many of these elements is key.

I'll add two other elements that I think are key:

1) Play for the entire game, and think strategically. It's not having the best robot, the best driver, the best scouting system, or the most resources. It's coming up with an effective combination with strategic consideration. Mike Corsetto has a great presentation on this as well as Karthik. And this requires pre-thought; it doesn't start on Kickoff.

2) Constantly work on improving your robot. Look at pictures of 2013 robot at Central Valley vs at Champs. You won't recognize it. 1671 started improving their robot all through competition this year, and they were the shock pick of Champs.

3) Take advantage of the good luck you're handed. 2014 was the year we relied on the least amount of luck, but 610 having one really bad match poorly timed for 1114 made the difference for us. In 2013 we used other teams' unfamiliarity with us to our advantage to exploit a favorable schedule. This year we drew three teams that we were already very familiar with in our division and were able to put them together into an alliance.

I know that I'm not alone in making this offer as Mike, Karthik, Jared and Suri have posted here: please feel free to message me about any advice or resources we might be able to provide to make you a more successful team.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Just to clarify, Karthik has a great presentation. I've learned a lot from watching his presentation for many years, and he has graciously allowed me to reference much of his presentation during my presentations surrounding these topics.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

There are a few thought paths that could take you to Einstein from a strategy/strategic design standpoint.

1. Figure out what few tasks you need to do, then build the simplest robot that can accomplish these tasks. Every year there are some remarkably simple robots that accomplish so much. (ex. 1730 this year, 610 for 2013, 341 in 2012, ect.)

2. Don't set the goal to go to Einstein, set the goal to win all your regionals this year. The teams on Einstein are teams that dominated their regionals. This years world championship alliance won 6 regionals and was semifinalists twice.

3. Finnish the robot early. This is by far the most important thing to getting to Einstein. If you finish the robot early you will have more time to program autonomous modes, debug and get driver practice. The best robot 1714 made was our Rebound Rumble robot which was mechanically finished half way through week 4.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I disagree with number two. What it takes to win Einstein is different than what it takes to win a regional. Granted, robots that win Einstein do very well at regional and district events. For example, this year a robot without canburglars could win most regionals out there. Another example is 4334's 2012 robot. That design is not very effective at winning regionals, but it complements any powerhouse alliance/

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

To quote Jared from earlier in this thread:
This year, a team that dominated a regional would be successful at worlds. In 2012, 4334's strategy proved that this didn't have to be true. Whether to build for Einstein or to try to blow out the competition at a regional while risking success at higher levels comes down to team beliefs, strategy, and the game.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

One other suggestion: Pick a valuable task that may be sufficiently technically difficult, or another valuable task that may be overlooked, to be a focus of building your robot. I'll use our examples for the last 3 years: in 2013 we focused on ground pickup while most others used human loading. In 2014, we focused on midfield play including both ground pass and human midfield intake as well as truss shooting over goal shooting. In 2015, we focused on can grabbing. We gave up other functionalities as the trade offs. All of these fell out of strategic analysis of the game scoring opportunities.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

And I'll add one more related suggestion: work to make your alliance mates look good. Don't strive to be star of your alliance--strive to support the star. I call this the "Joe Montana" strategy. He did not have the strongest arm or fastest feet but he knew how to make Jerry Rice and Roger Craig perform at the highest level. As a result the 49ers had the greatest stretch of NFL dominance.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Now our team has never made it to Einstein and we are looking to do the same thing. I would love to make it to Einstein before I graduate. This season was by far the best year we had ranking 3rd in Archimedes. I know some of our success this year was by truly wanting to do good. We have made it to Worlds every year you had to qualify for it except for 2014. Part of that was with the whole (messed up in my opinion) regional system. Either way, it really gave us the "need" to do well this year. I feel like the want of your team has a lot to do with it. I think that our team has the resources and great mentors to be a #1 or 2 ranked team in a division. I feel like some of the members aren't into FIRST as much as I am, but there are definitely 7-10 kids on our team that want to do as much as possible to help the team. Time has a lot to do with it as well. We met last build season 2.5 hours each weeknight, 7 hours on Saturday, and 2-3 hours on Sunday. No days were "required", but we have a log and you're suppose to log a certain amount of time during the build and competition season. I personally wish we could meet for 4 hours each weeknight. Obviously, everything needs to be made around others personal lives. Most of our mentors aren't in their 20s so they have families and other things in their personal lives so we have to meet around their schedules. I'd personally like to do a simbotics like schedule. They meet 7 days a week and their mentors only come in on the weekends. I personally feel like a longer more detailed schedule is the next step for us to get better. Plus, I know some people that are involved in FIRST have been talking about maybe making a Cyber Blue class where they can meet at the shop each day during school. That would help us a lot actually. Like I said, we're in the same situation as you so I can't really tell you how to get to Einstein but above are my ideas to maybe get there.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Not that many people here will care about this line of discussion, but I think that the "Trent Dilfer" strategy might be more appropriate. Joe Montana may not have had the same gifts that Dan Marino or John Elway had, but he was still going to be a top tier quarterback wherever he played. (Take his end of career stop in Kansas City for example.) Trent Dilfer on the other hand was a very average Quarterback, but still won a Super Bowl while being an efficient "game manager" for the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, while relying upon strong running game (Jamal Lewis & Priest Holmes), and one of the greatest defenses of all time.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

In my mind, this was THE greatest defense ever.
I still recall the 5 game stretch where they scored NO offensive touchdowns. For any team that with those stats, they would most likely cellar dwellers for sure and the coaching staff fired.
The Ravens went 3-2 during that stretch.:ahh:

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I'll just throw it out there, but I don't think any kid grew up trying to play like Trent Dilfer. ;)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I mean, yes. But on that topic:

"After studying the youth camp landscape for the past decade, and now serving as the Head Coach of Nike Elite 11, former Super Bowl winning quarterback and current ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer has decided to go ALL IN on changing the way quarterbacks are developed for generations to come by establishing the first ever QBEpic"

http://www.sbnation.com/college-foot...p-nike-atlanta

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Does that take any of the shine off his Superb Owl ring?

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

To connect this analogy back to FRC, I mean to say that nobody is going to aim to be the "game manager" that stumbles onto an alliance with two historically good partners. Rather, teams are going to strive to be the "game manager" that can lead an alliance (much like 1678).

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

A Trent Dilfer analogy for FRC that could work would be teams 1241 or 180 (294 in 2010 might also work, but I wasn't around at that point), teams with historically average performances at championships managing to work well the their partners in order to win on Einstein.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Good teams make the best of scouting. Take 1741 from Indiana as an example. Their robot wasn't really that good of a robot. They could consistently make 1 stack of 5 per match. To say the least, they weren't that good with totes. One strategy they used was a really good strategy and that's why they ended up being one of the best team in Indiana. They had this giant claw that was super fast at capping stacks, and it was a very stable and robust design. They would do very "odd" things during alliance selection. They would pick people down in the 20 range as their first pick sometimes. They would take "bad" teams for their alliance. These bad teams weren't really all that bad. During quals, they could make 1-5 stack with a can. Then in elims, 1741 would say "I got the cans. Stack some totes." Those bad teams could put up 2-5 stack when they didn't need to worry about cans. So 1741 would draft really fast stackers and they'd focus on totes, and 1741 would focus on cans. It almost worked really well in week 1, and I was really surprised that they didn't go farther than they did at District Championships. So like many "Elite" teams say, Focus on making a few things really good. A few good things is better than doing everything just ok.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

As a team that focused on solely one thing this year, I can say with confidence that this is completely dependent on the game. This year was possibly the single worst year for a specialized robot (at least that I have seen). Most previous years, however, there has been a way to gain success from finding a niche and fulfilling it well.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

This year should have been great, but then every team decided to make stacks by themselves:p IMO the best alliance possible would have a super tote stacker with a separate can topping robot (such as 148's two robots), but there were so few opportunities for this since most teams found that they can just build the whole stack underneath the cans.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

This year we realized that we would have a hard time doing both tasks (cans and totes) so we decided to only focus on totes and forget about cans. We were able to get 3 4-stacks and a 2-stack in a match (we chose 4-stacks over 5 or 6 because they were easier to cap). This meant if we had alliance partners who could not or would not cap our stacks we were not very helpful to our alliance. But when we partnered with 1089 and 365 in elims who focused on capping our stacks rather than making their own stacks we scored pretty high. This strategy got us to semifinals in 2 district competitions. We were ~10 points away from beating out the #1 alliance at MARCMP which would have advanced us to semifinals and earned us a spot in St. Louis. So although specialization did not get us into Einstein, we are proof that if done correctly (which we could have done better) it can work very well.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I have some experience with this. At North Brunswick, we had the pleasure of working with 11 and 193 in playoffs.

11 could churn out 3-4 stacks of four totes from the chute door each match. 193 could cap each of these stacks with two totes from the chute door and a can, making 42 point stacks. We fetched a can or two from the Step, and contributed a couple short stacks from the landfill each match.

We made it to the finals, losing to 303, 2590, and 3340 in the finals. While 303 and 2590 were fast all-in-one stickers, our better finals score was a mere eight points shy of their worse finals score.

I think the moral here is that doing everything well is ideal but an alliance that exploits its strengths can be nearly as powerful, if not more.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

At Championships in 2010, 294 was a big reason why they Won that year. I'm not sure I would use such an analogy for a team that played stellar on Einstein.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I have got to say the use of the term "elite" for me is like dragging fingernails on a chalk board. It really gets to me. Those teams that are referred to by this term, I am sure, don't think of themselves in that sense. It does not take a lot of money, a lot of students or a lot of engineers to get to Einstein. It does take a robot that is designed to play the game and that won't fall apart during a critical match. It takes a drive team that can see the field and react as needed and can work with their partners. An alliance must act as a single team, not three separate teams.
So here are a few ideas:
Identify bad behaviors that prevent you from achieving your goal. We lost to Hammond/Beatty once because an electrical crimp fell apart during the final match. We solder everything so that will never happen again and train our electrical students to test everything they make.
Don't depend on "out of the box" designs that are too complicated to operate every time without fail. This goes double for designs that are not repairable in minutes with standard tools in the toolbox you bring to the field.
There is no substitute for practice. Triple that if you are using a complex design like crab steering or an odd pickup device. Einstein is often won by shaving fractions of second off a task.
If your design depends on sensors for software interaction, be sure to have a manual mode or some way to bypass a defective sensor. Then intentionally break it and practice the manual mode.
Don't let your drive team consume large amounts of Mountain Dew, coffee or energy drinks. Don't expect them to try to operate on little or no sleep.
Be open to the suggestions of the little freshmen in the corner who is afraid to speak up but has the best idea of all.
Play "what if" games with everything. "What if" the wheel falls off, "what if" the speed controller goes dead, "what if" our arm gets bent, "what if" our radio gets hit or "what if" the main breaker has a ball dropped on it.
Here are a few wisdoms that might help as well...
A pedestrian in New York was once asked "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The response was "Practice, Practice, Practice".
"Never give up, never surrender!"
"It ain't over till the fat lady sings." Referring to a Wagner opera that lasts several hours.
Don't stop playing until you can't play any longer or you have run out of scoring devices. This goes along with "It ain't over till it's over."
A charged battery beats a dead battery any day.
“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.“ – Thomas Jefferson
“Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.“ – Thomas Edison

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I'm not sure if this really was the worst year for specialized robots. Conveyor belt robots like 1987 works awesome with pure cappers and specialized can grabbers could make or break on Einstein. That being said, the specializations this year were much harder than in any previous years but if pulled off right could have a huge impact in competition. We decided with about 2-3 weeks before champs to switch to being a container specialist and actually had some really great results. I think if we had decided sooner to be a can specialist or if we didn't break in our second quarterfinal, our division results would have been different but even with what we had, we did incredibly well as a support robot. Just depends on what you decide to specialize in and the execution. Some specializations also work better in the regional level vs championship level and vice versa.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I'd actually go with 180's partner, 16, as the perfect Trent Dilfer analogy. Trent Dilfer's main role was to not screw up, convert a few third downs, and allow the stars on the team (defense, running game and Jermaine Lewis's special team returns) to provide the maximum impact on the game. If Dilfer didn't convert third downs or had multiple turnovers, the running game doesn't get their opportunities and the defense is put in poor field position and is forced on the field significantly more. In 2012, I'm not sure 16 scored any baskets outside of autonomous mode for their alliance, but was critical in stealing balls from the opposite side of the field to ensure 180 and 25 had enough easy scoring opportunities.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

16 made that alliance. 16 was one of the 10 best robots on Galileo, and they were the 21st robot into the elimination rounds. The fact that they were around is slightly more ridiculous than 973 in 2011 and slightly less than 1671 this year. My team back then (2337) was selected one pick earlier, and frankly I don't think 180-25-2337 even makes Einstein, let alone has a chance to win.

The "Trent Dilfer"s of FRC are mostly going to be 3rd partners, but not ridiculously good ones. Winning alliances that are basically Divisional All-Star teams (i.e. the 3rd team is too good to be a 3rd team) aren't examples of what we're talking about here. These include the winning alliances in: 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015. 148 in 2008 is a much better example. They played the defence they needed to play, they scored some points, and they stayed out of the way.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Very apt. We most definitely aim to be a game manager because we simply don't have the resources to be a true star. And other teams have great game managers, like 118's drive coach this year.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I don't mean to say that teams that specialized were doomed to be unsuccessful, simply that teams that were able to stack and cap independently reached much greater success in the "Quest for Einstein." My team was finalist and semifinalist at our regionals. Many teams that specialized were unable to gain much ground at worlds though, especially as the teams that could work interdependently made it difficult for these teams to rank highly. However, a perfect example of specialized teams working together extremely well was 1983's alliance at Chezy Champs. Specialized robots this year in order to succeed to their maximum capacity needed to work with robots that were specialized towards other gamepieces e.g. 2 tote robots and a can robot.

Past years specialized robots were much more easily able to contribute to an alliance of teams that weren't specialized. Perfect examples would be 2013 1519 as a full court shooter, or 2012 with 4334. These robots were able to find a niche that would fit with most alliances that year, however this year there was much less of a niche as teams that could score alone were unable to be assisted in an efficient manner by specialized teams. Almost every previous year the winner, finalist, or semifinalist alliance had a specialized robot with them.

TL;DR - It wasn't impossible for specialized teams to gain success this year, just much more difficult than in most past years.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Doesn't change your point, but 973 was like the 4th best robot in our division in 2011. If we had been in a scenario where 1 forced 111 to decline and picked 1114 next, we likely would have taken them 2nd overall. Them being around was far more shocking than 16.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I suspect that the GDC may have thought that building stacks would take more teamwork, and didn't anticipate the success of individual teams in solving the problem. That there was such a wide disparity in the ability to build multiple stacks may illustrate how technically difficult the problem was. The solution by the GDC might have been to give bonus capping points if a stacked was capped by a different team.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

It also depends a bit on what region you are in or how early in the season the competitions are. For instance at Palmetto there were elimination matches with only tote+can robots and tote robots. Cans were left on the floor while the teams racked up tote points but ignored the cans. There were at least 2 working can specialist robots that I remember who sat out of eliminations for whatever reason.
It seemed to us that can specialists were not highly valued, in part because there were so many tote+can robots to choose from.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Interesting point.
Even after week 1 and 2 events, I would have still doubted that by season's end, the abundance of teams that could do 2 or more 6-stack capped noodled containers.
The game would have looked a whole lot different with your suggestion, something that forced everyone to take into consideration just one year prior.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

What do you mean we weren't highly valued? It's not like we had to completely rebuild the robot from the ground up or anything.... ohh, wait... :)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I really like this idea. Had that rule been in place, we would have designed our bot differently. We didn't even try to cap stacks (we can't even lift a can above more than 2 totes), because making our own capped stacks was the most reliable way to seed high. It would have been a lot more fun to watch teams cooperate on stacks rather than doing their own thing independently (the same every match).

Assist points really focussed alliance strategy in 2014. Hopefully the GDC brings back something similar for 2016!

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

That's actually a very good point. It would alter how alliance selections happened. It would have changed our whole robot design probably. We were one of the most successful short robots this year. We could only cap a 2 stack with a can. We finished around 40th opr wise and 3rd on Archimedes but most of the top robots above us were really tall. Besides 2826, I can't think of any other very successful short robots. (I may be wrong). But if that rule was added to the game, it would have made Recycle rush more interesting to watch, more suspenseful (having another team cap your stacks would be scary), and a whole new game to scout. Needless to say, it would probably mean a bigger range between the top top teams and the good teams.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Our story this year echos a lot of what's been said in this thread. I don't know if there's a good football analogy for it though.

In between our last event and champs, we doubled down on our niche of can manipulation. We also tuned our Canburglars so they worked on-field rather than just in practice. They weren't the fastest in the world, but were definitely as fast as we could envision at the time given our robot's setup (not having seen 254's bolt-ons, that is). This played well with our claw that could up-right a can, as well as mods to ultra-grip the Can as we sped around the field to noodle it and set it exactly where it was needed. The decision was to only focus on those two things, ignoring all totes. It required re-framing our strategies to what a partner needed, rather than how we provided the most value carte-blanche. If we got an alliance which couldn't do totes - our job was to still ignore totes because we were a can specialist (though we could do a single coop tote with the claw).

We didn't even re-assemble our tote stacker at champs. For 4.5 weeks of effort, that was one of the toughest decisions our team has ever made. The strategy was simple: get 2 cans in autonomous, noodle them, place them, and stay out of the way unless something else was discussed.

As a mid-pack robot, it was easily the best decision we could have made going into a high-profile event. At the end of Friday, we had a good feeling that we were among the best in the division in something that the all-star robots could do, but would prefer to not have to waste the time on themselves. We also felt good about being one of the very few division robots which could reliably get both cans from the step each match all throughout the 2nd day (missing 1 can in 5 matches Friday, iirc). Slow (600ms touch, 2 seconds off the step) comparatively, but still effective.

The good indicators: we were repeatedly scouted by 3 of the top 8 teams towards the end of Friday, two of them with very specific questions.

This isn't the vision we had starting out on Day 0, kickoff day. For some on our team Wednesday at champs was a real struggle of anxiety. This type of thing isn't easy to envision, think through or execute. It requires new mechanisms, ways to field test them and a lot of preparation going into the event. Yet it's 100% completely worth it when it changes the champs experience for the team.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I think that comparing average robots that end up on historically good alliances to game manager quarterbacks is a bad comparison. Majority of the robots in the 2nd pick on top alliances usually do one specific thing on the field really well. I would compare this to being like Julian Edelman or Wes Welker in football or Matt Bonner in basketball. These are players who are overlooked because they don't have the obvious physical attributes but do small but very important things well like route running or shooting threes.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

This is very true. Our team is going on our 5th year, and have made it to Worlds for the past 2 years. Last year, we ended up being ranked 18th (or somewhere close to that) in Curie, and were not selected to advance into the final rounds. To me, we earned that ranking of 18th not through luck, but through a fair amount of skill (this greatly contrasts our first Worlds appearnace, where we were not blessed with a kind schedule). Many of the Top 10 selected teams with robots that they deemed 'expendable', in the sense that they had full intentions of butchering the robot to add elements useful to them, e.g. claws for cans. Sometimes it is not a concern of skill; rather, it is the fact that you are a 'tweener', like us (not Elite yet, but well on our way there).

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I point out that this year was very unusual in what mix of robots worked best on the field. The game was not well designed to use all 3 robots simultaneously in a high performing game. In fact, you could even see it in our alliance. Because we had 1671, we simply ramped back on how many stacks that our other two bots had to put up, down to 2 instead of the 3+ we had been making in the qualifying rounds. There weren't enough cans to make it worthwhile to go for more.

In previous years, the third bot could fit any number of roles. In our 2013 and 2014 alliances, our second choice could have been a first choice on lower alliances (and we were surprised that they were available at 24th pick.)

I'll point out another aspect that is key to the value of the third bot. We call it "value added"--its scoring non-teleop goals (which usually done by the first 2 bots) plus defensive ability. That's scoring in auto and the end game, plus stage points such as the assists in 2014. We always rank our 2nd picks by dropping teleop goal scoring.

The message is work to be in the top dozen and focus on performing supporting tasks that gain value to an alliance. Don't focus on trying to build for the "star attraction" of scoring the final points like goal scoring. Instead think of all of the ways to score points and think of which ways are least likely to interfere with the top alliance captains during teleop (or even auto).

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Good advice dor many, but Is that really helping the OP? They are asking what it takes to become an Einstein calibre team, and AFAIK, "Einstein calibre" teams get there reliably by building high-scoring robots, full stop. I guarantee 1678, 1114, 254, 148, 118 etc (to name a few) don't plan to fill a niche for someone else's alliance.

That said, it takes a lot of capacity building to get to the point where you're capable of consistently fielding robots that seed high. Unfortunately I can't offer any advice on how - we're not there yet :)

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I wouldn't be so sure. Just try saying that in the presence of tumbleweed, (arguably) 148s most iconic robot and the best example of a niche bot there is (that i'm aware of).

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

It's all about taking baby steps to get there. In my opinion, one of the biggest accelerators in developing on-field success is, well, on-field success. You could argue that 1678s big break was winning their division in 2013, and you can see how they've gotten much better since then.

Even if you realistically think you can compete at that level, games can still blindside you. Many, many top tier teams tried and failed to build a robot that could do everything in 2013, for example. You'd be surprised how many teams had higher hanging mechanisms that just didn't ever make it on the robot due to time or weight; it was a definite wake-up call.

On another topic, there's been a lot of talk about how, for teams that can't compete at the same level as perennial powerhouses, their best chance at going far at the championship is by building specialized support-role robots. I agree with this, but recognize that this comes with a very big assumption: the goal is to go as far as possible at the championship. Often, this robot won't be quite as successful at the regionals, depending how competitive your region is. If you were in an area where most people were only putting up a partial stack of totes, a can specialist robot wouldn't have nearly as much use as they would in California or Michigan where they would have much better robots to support.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I think we've built niche robots in each year of 2013, 2014 and this year. In 2013, we needed a FCS to be fully effective (see 148). In 2014, we needed a goal finisher (see 1114). This year we focused on cangrabbing and were not extraordinary at stacking, just very reliable. None of our robots were extraordinary compared to, to name a few, 1717, 2056 (2013 in Curie), 1114, 971, 16 or 358, 254, 469 (2014 in Newton), 118, 1114, 254, 148, 987 (2015), and I can name several other robots that were of similar quality to ours in those years. We built our robot to fit a role in an alliance--just good enough. That's achievable by several other teams just in Northern California, and certainly other teams around the world. We started in our focus in 2012 and weren't of particular note before that. We were still working out of shipping containers in 2013.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I think we are talking about two different scales here. To many teams the fact that you were "reliable" at stacking AND you focused on cangrabbing means that you were not a niche robot. To most teams a niche robot is one who does one or two non-main-scoring activities well and typically doesn't do other activities.

Even in 2014 your robot could play most any role very effectively, it is just that at your level of play there were other robots who did other tasks better than your robot could. So naturally you fall into roles. That is just a natural part of competition, that robots will fill roles that they excel at. The fact that you could fill most any role (and do so better than a large amount of teams) means that you weren't really a specialist.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

1678 was not particularly good at high goal shooting in teleop, due to the distance away from the goal needed for the shot and the vulnerability to defense. Since anybody that could shoot over the truss was technically able to shoot in the high goal, your caveat as written would eliminate any robot from being considered a "truss specialist". This specialized role was probably the best task for a mid-level team in 2014, as it was significantly easier than high goal shooting, contributed consistent points regardless of number of assists / method of finishing, and was a valuable way to pass the ball to a human player.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

1678 only stacked 5 high with a can. Their main focus was making sure they had those two extra step cans. At the beginning of the season they were working on trying to get all 4 cans from the step before they scrapped that idea.
(Please correct me if I am wrong...) 1671 was probably better at stacking which is one of the main reasons why this alliance was the world champions.

1678 is definitely good at identifying the niche they need to play at the highest levels of competition.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

You won't become 2nd seeded in a division with 'only' your focus on a cangrabber. It was a perfect robot with the fastest can grabber i've seen. (correct me if i'm wrong)
Indeed, the most deserved champions.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

I think it's worth noting that 1678 was not a perfect robot (and they'd admit this). You don't need to be perfect to be competitive and win the championships.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Not quite, it was possible to carefully lob the ball over the truss at a trajectory that wouldn't work on the high goal. In fact one of first prototypes last year did exactly that. I see your point though, that it is a hazy clarification. And while 1678 didn't have a fantastic, consistent high-goal shooter, they still played that role effectively in matches. I'm guessing they designed their robot to play a role at the high level of play, and be able to still score points at a low level of play. I think the word "niche" in the context of FRC means different things to different people. Team caliber may play into that difference.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

But what 1678 was able to do, they did perfectly. Every match.. Seriously, I'd love to see the scout data for the standard deviation of their capped stack points per match. Incredibly consistent at the regionals I saw. And Can Grabbing?? How many can battles did they lose? I know they didn't always need to use them, but did they ever not win a can battle? Maybe they did, but I never saw it happen.

Getting back to the OP... It has been said plenty of times already... Practice, Practice, Practice. Find a way to get the students time with the robot. Ever since we started emphasizing the amount of practice time with our robot (or a 2nd bot), our level of competition skyrocketed. This last year we had students practicing several times a week starting in week 4. Granted, our robots have been pretty simple, but we still can compete at a high level. At some point we will "up" our game when it comes to robot design and when we do, we should be able to get further in division elims. Someday...

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

My use of the word only wasn't meant to say that they weren't great at it, but to point out that stacking wasn't the first goal they had in mind. The first goal was can grabbing but obviously they were good at stacking as well.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

Isn't this what Karthik says at his presentations? Don't do 3 things mediocre. Focus on 1 thing you can do really really well. There were only a select handful of teams that could do everything (3 tote auto, can burglars, totes, cans, L and HP) this year. I can only think of 1114 and 2056. Many of the top teams were missing one thing like 254 (Can burglars) and 118 (no hp unless they formed a tethered ramp I didn't know about). And even one of the best teams this year was 148 and, they were missing two qualities (No L and Can Burglars). That's the biggest thing that many teams emphasize and our team has done some emphasizing doing a few things close to perfect is better than doing all things just ok.

Re: The Quest for Einstein
 

From looking at 148's robot it could probably play landfill. Robin would be dragged around for the ride, though.