Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

I've been wanting to create this thread for a while to discuss the simplest things that teams can do to improve their results at competition, these can be based off of personal experience with your own team, observations of other teams, things you've read on CD, or anything else. I'll start with my 3 tips.

1) Make sure everyone on your team showers every night, and wears deoderant

This is probably the easiest of the three. Having a team member who smells bad reflects badly on you and makes you unpleasant to work with. Teams will be unlikely to want to work with you again

2) Make your bumpers slick, and clearly legible from the top of the stands

This makes you easier to scout and collect data on. Most alliance captains would rather pick a robot that they know is bad, than a robot that they don't have data on. Good looking bumpers also reflect well on the quality of your robot. If a team can't build bumpers that stay in one piece, it's hard to trust their robot to stay in one piece.

3) Stay professional and polite at all times

This one comes from a personal experience that I had at a competition in 2015. One of our alliance partners in Quals dropped a stack during a match and, instead of adapting to the situation and dealing with it, the drive team got into a shouting match. This was an isolated incident of a robot that we had been planning to pick as our second pick, however, because of this incident, we decided to pick another team, and they didn't get to play in elims. You never know who will be listening to the arguments between you and your teammates, so it's best to avoid having them.

What are everyone else's competition tips?

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

1. Read the rule book and know what you can do, when you can do it, and where you can go.

2. Be proactive about match strategy, don't try to do it all in the queuing line. See if you can get your partners in the upcoming match to discuss strategy with you beforehand so it is not rushed and you make sure you go into each match with the best chances.

3. Focus on how all three robots on your alliance in qualifications can complement each other to best win the match. If this means you are not playing the role you would like to be playing every match, so be it. Wins over ego.

4. Be honest about your capabilities and don't bite off more than you can chew. If a mechanism isn't working let your partners know. Find something you are good at and can do consistently, not only will you be more attractive to those picking alliances, you may win more qualifications because of it.

5. If you are an alliance captain for eliminations make sure you don't just pick teams based on recognizable names or personal preferences. Back it up with data and try to build the alliance that best suits your strategy for winning. Back in 2014 team 254 chose a team who was ranked 43/45 as their first pick for the first alliance and won their regional. (Central Valley-2014)

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

(emphasis mine)
++1 this. Everyone on the team, and particularly the drive team and those working in the pit, should be very familiar with rules. Robot rules, Game rules, Tournament rules. Following rules helps you win and/or be picked; penalties have the opposite effect.

My addition: be Gracious and Professional. To everyone, all the time. There are different measurements of "succeed"; GP will help with all of them.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

The best thing to do is be reasonable. Know your boundaries and build to them every year trying to push the envelope. Knowing what you can and can't do could be the difference between winning a match and not, getting picked and not. One of the things I see teams do every year is try to be something that they aren't.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Drive practice trumps robot attachments. Consistently doing one minor thing is far better than trying and failing major things, both in seeding and being picked.
The higher seed alliances (5-8) look for inconsistent potential, lower seeds look for consistent performance.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Be yourself and be honest. Good judges and teams know B.S.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

I love these tips. Here is my take on the original 3.

1) Make sure everyone on your team showers every night, and wears deoderant

I've actually spoken to several safety advisors about this at competition. Hygiene at competition is a SAFETY issue and should be managed appropriately. Your local team safety captain should be the defacto leader on this.

2) Make your bumpers slick, and clearly legible from the top of the stands

The United States Sign Council actually took a very analytical/engineering approach to this problem. See here: http://www.ussc.org/SignLegibilityLettersize.pdf

Most teams don't have enough white space around their numbers.

3) Stay professional and polite at all times

Yay GP.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

It's not THE easiest thing, but having an autonomous mode helps a lot. If you're not confident in your bot's defense crossing ability, don't even bother with the "Drive like heck and hope you cross" autonomous. A simple drive forward slow and reach a defense auton is still +2 pts vs. nothing. And there are definitely matches that could be decided by that +2 pts.

Just, you know, test it first in a practice match or field. You definitely don't want to be the robot that goes the wrong way in a quals or elim and ends up with tons of penalties.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Blue shirts are ALWAYS watching. And they have spies everywhere. Always be on your best behavior, and be polite to every volunteer at the event.

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Do your best to remain impartial to bias based on your past experiences with a team, rumors, reputation, and how high their number is. While there are a lot of teams that are powerhouses year after year, most teams go through cycles of high and low performance. Students and mentors come and go. You never know what kind of robot a team is going to field or how easy it will be to work with their drive team.

Going into a strategy meeting with preconceived notions about performance based on those factors can work against you. Don't underestimate newer teams, and don't overestimate the abilities of a veteran just because their number is a lot lower than yours.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Have fun.

"Succeed" means different things. It doesn't just mean a blue banner.

At our last regional we witnessed an awkward moment when the students from another team were being chewed out by a mentor in their pit. There was a lot of yelling and angry words. I don't know the context, or whether something had happened to justify it, but it reminds me that at the end of the day I would want my team members to be positive, pleasant, and well behaved at all times, no matter how well or poorly we were doing on the field.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Another tip I've found top be important is knowing who designed what. If a system isn't working, make sure you talk to the person or group who designed it. Sometimes an obvious solution doesn't work because of a hidden issue (known only to a select few people).

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Tip is to never ever be rude to alliance partners. We had an alliance partner (the adult coach) say to us in queue "your scouting results look unfavorable" when I gave him a surprised look because earlier in the day i heard the exact opposite he said "I'm just being real" ironically enough in the end we were the 8th alliances first pick and the team whom found our scouting results unfavorable did not even get into elims.

That team will never be on a picklist of ours so GG.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

We had a little pep talk with our drive team during one of our recent practice sessions (oh yes - add have practice sessions to the list). We talked about how teams have "do not pick" lists and that the kinds of things that get you put on that list often do not have anything to do with the performance of the actual robot. We wouldn't ever want to land on someone else's DNP list. Instead, we want to be the team that everyone enjoys working with - the team that is known to be friendly, communicates well, follows through with their promises, is honest about their ability or inability, doesn't put other teams down, etc. In other words, be GP.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Yes

Yes, Yes

Measure yourselves with your own well-conceived yardsticks. Don't let someone else's hype sweep you into a herd that is chasing a less valuable goal.

Pay the price of success in honest effort, then enjoy the result.

Blake
PS: If you name a specific goal, there is plenty of more specific advice available from CD readers.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Cheer

Sure, good teams pick on potential and great teams pick on consistency, but surprised teams pick on recognizability. So does the media. Having a colored robot, a great t-shirt design, or a cool mascot can improve your image, sure, but these things can take time, money, and/or thought. Yelling doesn't. This strategy may not get you to finals or an award, but if you consider yourself successful if you just make elims or end up on the local news, this isn't a bad way to go.
(This also extends to dancing.)

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Drivers should be driving during build season. If not a robot, any R/C vehicles would help. Even certain video games are good practice. I like The Cheesy Poofs' driver selection process, and they always seem to do well.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

I believe one of the easiest ways to succeed at competition is to scout. Even if your team don't have 6 scouts, a few dedicated students can take notes on the different teams they see compete. Those notes are often invaluable.

Scouting doesn't just have to be for creating a pick list. The data collected while scouting can help teams to know what strategies can be effective in certain matches. It's always better to go into a match strategy meeting knowing what you're talking about, and being backed with data, than just going in blind.

Good scouting and good strategy can turn an iffy, or okay robot into a #1 seed, or even the Regional/District winner.

And of course always scout your own robot. It's easy to get stuck in the mind frame of "this what we wanted to do," and not, "this is what we can do." If you scout your own team, you will get hard data that you can not argue with. You will get a sense of what your robot can actually do.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

We had that happen in our match... a robot drove across the center line and drove on our robot, and basically sat on our arm. They came to us later and told us their coach said "Just use the auto, what's the worst that could happen?" Even though the coder wasn't confident in it yet.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

To be fair that 43/45 team was 973, the team they won a championship with in 2011.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

#1 sleep

When you don't sleep, your ideas are incoherent, you're more stressed out, you're less willing to solve problems, and you're probably going to get sick. Being tired hurts EVERYTHING you do.

#2 Don't change your robot

The build season is only six weeks long, so once you unbag your robot at your first competition, there really isn't much you can change. That 15 pound intake that you wish you could remake, well you just can't do it. It's not like over the course of four competitions you could replace your top functions twice over. If you don't change your robot, it will not be surpassed by the other robots that are also not being altered.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Challenge accepted.

So, you mean making vision processing work and adding a climber between competitions is a bad idea?

But seriously, if your team has had trouble in the past with making practice matches or inspection, don't change your robot at competition! Last year, my team added a can grabber between Quals and Elims (or playoffs, or whatever they were last year) and it was definitely not worth the time and effort it took to do in time. If you're not 100% sure you can add it before practice matches, don't do it.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Would you consider removing our entire arm mechanism and taking it home mid-Saturday a significant change? I mean, we did prove nothing but a box on wheels can play this game.

In all seriousness, my contribution is to make friends. Lots of them. Being a new driver, my favorite match was the one where we got along best with our two other alliance partners. There was one scout from another team that I would see often and he would ask how we were doing. Friends are great. Friendly people are great. Make friends.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

Follow Mr Miyagi's advice and seek balance, not success.

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

I thought that was only 2012?

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

I can definitely understand minor tweaks and fixes, but I would agree that making big changes at competition is stressful for all involved. If you have to do it because your robot just isn't functioning the way it needs to, that's one thing. If your robot is working and now you're being tempted to add that one more little feature, resist the urge. This is where things start to get crazy.

We didn't have our auto modes working properly when we started quals at GTRC. Students worked on it every spare minute they could outside of our matches. There were many opportunities that we could have deployed the very latest and hoped for the best. But we all decided, as a group, that since the drive team was doing well with what they had, we were not going to risk screwing up, crashing the software, or other "oops" mistakes by deploying code without first fully testing it on the practice field. Did we lose some potential auto points because of this? Yes, definitely. But the software students, the drive team students, and the mentors were all much more relaxed and less stressed, knowing that "it'll be ready when it's ready".

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

For the drive team know the ABCD'S
A- must do Auto at least 10 points
B- must get the Breach if you do all 5 that is 50 points + 1RP
C- Must Challenge/Climb do not leave points on the field this leads to Capture.
D- learn to play some Defense.
S- Shoot be realistic. We are doing 3 low goals and hope to do 5 at DCMP this is a must if you want to be a alliance captain and prepare to do a capture.

Just some ideas

Re: Easiest ways to succeed at competition
 

TechnoKats 2006 (Aim High) did just that over the course of only three competitions.

The robot as built, and as run at the first Regional, had a very consistent but slow turreted catapult using vision targeting. It was completely outgunned by rapid-fire wheeled shooters.

During the first couple of hours at the second Regional, the catapult was replaced by a wheeled shooter, still on the turret. It was fast, but the fast-spinning wheel had enough vibration to make the aim unsteady.

During the first couple of hours at Championship, the turret was removed and a more stable wheel assembly was affixed directly to the chassis. It was harder to aim (the entire robot had to be turned) and the vision sensing was never quite retweaked to let autonomous give consistent results.

But it was continuous improvement, and it was pretty much what you said couldn't be done.

On the other hand, it will be surpassed by the teams that do alter their robots to be better. The TechnoKats Lunacy robot went undefeated at its first event. It was edged out in the finals at the second. It was merely adequate at the Championship.


So don't be afraid to redo a failed design. Just make sure you have the capability of actually redoing it.