Strategy Badges
 

As I was walking around this weekend trying to get the scouting information I have collected to my team and talk strategy with our alliances. I ran into great difficulty. A few things I ran into:

1. Some teams had a 3 match turnaround and came off the field and were right back in queing.
2. I could not talk to my team in que because I am not allowed on the field.

This proved to be quite difficult as sometimes in the que was the only place we could get all our alliance members together to talk strategy. After I had gotten very frustrated I came up with a solution!!! (After all that is what FIRST is about, isn't it) I came up with the idea of a strategy badge. These people would be allowed in queuing but not allowed on the field during a match. This has become an issue because usually the coach is not the head strategy/scout person so they don't have the information.

I talked to a few coaches and other lead scouters on other teams and they thought this was a good idea. I was wondering if any other teams have run into this issue and what you think about the strategy badge.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

The match schedules this year seem to like giving us only one match in between matches. There's almost no time to reset, and I thought the schedule generator was set up to avoid this problem.

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The system is supposed to have I think its like 4 matches between each teams matches but I know at districts just because of the amount of teams there are not enough teams to have 4 matches between every match.

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There were two instances today where we came off the field and went right back into queuing. I feel your pain.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

As someone who was been running strategy and not been on driveteam, I feel your pain. This is a great idea.

We've had 1 match and 2 match (multiple per event!!) before.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

That is a very good idea, especially considering how important strategy and cooperation is this year. No communication = robots crashing in autonomous.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Solid idea. Until then you can always use the football method and do awesome play cards. In all seriousness though. This could be a cool idea for teams. Imagine what cool images could stand for your auton choices!

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I don't see the issue.... Looking at the four person drive-team set-up, we simply made the "coach" our team's head of strategy. Or, better said, we made the head of strategy be the coach. Is not the coach, essentially, a strategy position? It's his job to talk with both our alliance partners - and the other alliance - each match.... He's also expected to know the schedule well-enough that he can make plans with the other alliance even when we have a very short break from one match to the next.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Not happening. The field has enough people walking around and it's crowded and chaotic enough. Take care of strategy beforehand.

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Re: Strategy Badges
 

True, but the coach can't do the proper scouting to collect match data. So there is a need to at least convey the match data of the opponents (maybe not this year but in other years) or teammates to your coach/drivers.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

We manage. It's really a matter of looking ahead on the schedule and being prepared. We do have a "head scout" whose job it is to meet with the coach between matches to convey pertinent information... Sometimes we do have to look ahead a match or two....We have strategy meetings late at night to discuss the next day's opponents and over lunch to look at the afternoon matches, etc....

Re: Strategy Badges
 

The strategy people would not be allowed on the field only in queuing.

The problem which has already been stated is that the coaches do not have the proper information to create a well informed match strategy. The coaches are usually going on what the other teams say and not what stats say.

Last year I was a senior on my very small team. I was head scout and driver and never got any down time. Although this worked to my advantage because I knew how the other teams were doing but I was constantly moving and never really got to talk to other teams other than in queuing.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Queing is in the field area.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

That's something we try to do as well. Any breaks with shorter than five matches, you need to plan ahead significantly. Still, adding a Strategy badge can't hurt, especially if they can only be with the team in during queuing.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

I'm not sure about regionals but we run into this issue a lot at districts because there's a very high probability that one of your alliance members (or opposing alliance members for coop) has a short match turn around and can only be talked to in the que. My job is made especially hard because I am the lead strategist for both 3548 and 1188 as we are almost the same team, and don't have enough people for 2 lead strategists.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

cell phone.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

I've done strategy without being on the drive team for several years now. It's tough.

The media pass helps. I also take photos and video for the team at events (really, I do), so I often have the media pass. In this case, I try to stay out of everyone's way, but I can join in on discussion during queueing. Once the robots start to move from queueing, I leave the area to get out of the way. This seems to work okay.

As a strategist not on the drive team though, the best way you can deal with this is to figure out probable strategies several matches in advance and talk to partners while your team is queueing / on the field for their previous match. Then once everyone is in the same place you can run through it quickly.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

What about going the other way...What if the coaches in each alliance were allowed to step out of the cue and go to a marked out strategy area along with 1 scout from each team...It could be off the field, and could be regulated to when the teams were not on deck...so 2 - 3 matches back depending on the depth of cueing?

Edoga

Re: Strategy Badges
 

And we still run into the problem of teams being out on the field while trying to do strategy.

You could text the drive team. I'm sure everyone has phones. Our scouts just text strategy to our drive team. Works fine. Only issue is when they venue has bad reception (NYC regional)

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Unfortunately, many events have bad reception, the Edward Jones Dome (Championship venue) in particular.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

This does not solve the issue of being able to talk to the other drive teams on your alliance.

I think regardless of a strategy badge or not it that will still be an issue.

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This isn't much of a problem because we simply work out as much strategy as possible pre-queue. At many events the queue is right next to the field boundary and you can discuss over the barrier anyway. Worst case, I'll tell our drive coach the main points and let him work it out. A coach who can't do that shouldn't be the coach.

Having someone separate from the drive coach responsible for strategy is great because it allows the drive coach to have focus other things when necessary (e.g. fixing/improving the robot). Further, these strategy talks are negotiations, and having two people who agree (can't remember the last time our coach and I disagreed) makes a stronger argument.

I don't know how much a "strategy badge" would help. I'm going to districts with the same schedule as yours, and I haven't had problems. Frankly, running our scouting operation, I don't have the time to be in queue.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Discussing strategy with your teammates is a quick way to get the media pass pulled.


Perhaps the coach can come out of line to speak with the strategy person, then return to the queue to join the rest of the drive/HP team. Three people should be enough to go through the queue checklists.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Under what rule does this fall under?

I understand if the pass is being pulled by someone exclusively using it as a "5th drive team member" badge or something, but if the person wearing the badge is actually there to take pictures and / or video, I don't understand. It's illegal for a team's media representative to talk to their team?

Re: Strategy Badges
 

Working on the robot is what get's them in trouble.

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Under what rule?

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Media Pass has never been allowed to work on the robot.

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It's not a rule in the way you're trying to ask, and for good reason: the media pass itself is not allocated within the Game or Admin Manual. The only badges that are are Drive Team and Safety Captain. The other decisions, as I understand it, are at the discretion of the event. Which makes sense, because as Koko Ed mentioned, many arenas (to include queuing) are just too crowded.

Personally, I've always considered the logistical difficulty of handling strategy at a competitions to be part of the tournament. If The Powers That Be disagree, I'd be happy to use the access in venues where there's room.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

This sounds like a position your coach should be filling while in or out of queue. Have someone else communicate relevant match data to the coach between matches. Last year as drive coach the head scout and I would meet or he would otherwise communicate information to me, and this year I text the drive coach often. I remember 118 had their scouts deliver the packets of data they had on the other 5 robots for the match to the coach at Alamo last year.

Coaches should be able to run strategy with the other coaches, provided they get digestible data to use. I've never coached at a district or a similarly sized regional so maybe I just don't comprehend how you could be having this problem, though.

Re: Strategy Badges
 

I ran scouting for my old team as the head scout/strategist in 2014 and my job was to sit in the stands and watch the other teams play. Approximately 30 min before a match I would take all of our data down to the pit and then go over it with our driver coach. I gave him my best plan and left it up to him to work out the details with the other teams. This worked really well. And on the matches were we had a short turn around I briefed our coach in advance. He already had all the data on paper for the next match so when he went back into queing he already knew the plan.

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Have you ever tried to use a cell phone during an FRC event? It's almost too loud for texting.