
22-06-2016, 10:02
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Flywheel Police
AKA: Matthew Lythgoe
 FRC #2363 (Triple Helix)
Team Role: Mentor
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Rookie Year: 2009
Location: Newport News, VA
Posts: 1,713
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Re: Working with alliance partners
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
This is among the hardest things to do in FRC strategy, and to some extent the answer varies depending on the team and region. In one region, you might be a reasonable and level headed coach, when in another region, you might be considered an arrogant jerk. It's context dependent as well.
This is kind of the nuclear option, and something that you should use mainly when a partner is lying about their capabilities. Opening with this, when you don't know yet for sure if a team is going to be stubborn / arrogant, can give off the wrong impression.
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So here's my general approach to this.
Open the discussion by asking each partner to say what their robot is capable of and what they like to do in a match (including yourself). Then discuss the needs of the alliance for the match, what does the alliance in a general sense (not specific robots) need to do to win the match / achieve your objectives - "we need to not miss any balls in auton" "we need to get the breach point and I think we can get the capture". Then you kind of suggest a strategy that uses bits and pieces of what everyone said about their own capabilities ("since you guys are also good at low goals, what if you focused on that while we took the high goal?").
Sometimes you'll encounter pushback, at which point you don't have much choice but to find compromise, at least early in the day. Try to find a way that they can do their thing while also doing the thing you want. "What if you play defense for the first minute, then come back early and score a few goals at the end?" That sort of thing. If they are flat out saying they are capable of things they aren't, that's when you bust out the scouting data, and you do it in a concerned way rather than an accusatory way. If they are confident THIS is the match they will hit their auto, ask them what they have changed since the last match. Ultimately, you can't make a partner do something they don't want to, and if you push too hard they will just not do the task you asked of them anyway.
Some teams are just impossible to work with, and will only do what they want to do no matter what you ask of them. All you can really do is suck it up and put them on your DNP list for alliance selections and move on. Try not to be one of those teams, even if you're at the top tier.
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What makes this even harder is when you/a partner are trying to showcase capabilities to be picked towards the end of the event. Especially when it does not necessarily fall into the best strategy for the alliance.
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