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Unread 24-06-2002, 02:22
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Cap'n John's Strategy/Driver Forum...Post your thoughts!

Posted by JVN at 03/14/2001 11:23 PM EST


Student on team #250, Dynamos - Capital District Robotics Team, from Shenendehowa High School and General Electric and Verizon.



This post is a responce to a post originally posted in the Rumor Mill by Bill Whitley of Team 70. I felt this topic needed to be discussed more prevalently.

The more we talk about strategy now, the better we can all work together at Nationals!

I urge everyone to speak their minds on this, what is the best way to do it???


: What do you think about teams who have one person just for strategy & another to drive. Shouldnt the driver be the one to decide on the strategy so (s)he knows it inside and out? The driver knows the robot better than anyone else, shouldnt (s)he come up with the strategy? What do you think?

: Bill
: Team #70

It is important for all this to happen. A strong drive team that is well rounded and works well together is the secret to victory. A robot only does HALF the work.

I'm just gonna rant about our drive team, and it's various merits, cuz I think we finally got it together in this respect. We all worked together and brought hom the gold in LI.

We have one coach who worries about the robot, and it's general performance. He is there to help the driver's however he can, but the real strategies come from the other coach. This coach is a veteran, someone who has been part of FIRST for a long time. He is there to share his experience and help the rest of the group. It's also good if he can fix a robot on the fly.

We have another coach who's primary job is strategy. He is a senior at RPI and has studied the game in detail as part of his senior design project. He knows EVERYTHING there is to know about it. It's intricacies and peculiarities. He knows those elusive rules about when to extend a game, and when to hit those magic red buttons. Every team should try to find (or make) someone like him. He is the difference between a 300 point match, and a 30 point match.

We determined early on that the human players would have a greatly reduced role in this game. (all they do is load the "near" goal, and maybe make some miraculous game winning shots :-)
So we decided that our human player would also have to be a coach. Someone who knows the game inside and out, and has driving experience. Someone who knows a lot about the robot. As team captain and a former driver, (and being kinda tall) I was chosen to be our HP. I highly recommend this to other teams. Being an ex driver, he can help share important insights with the current drivers, maybe prevent them from making the same mistakes he originally made. We also found it worked best if the HP is the ONLY team member allowed to push the BIGRED button. He/She is responsible for it, that way no DQ's can occur. Plus toward the end of the match the HP usually doesn't have much to do anyways. The human player doesn't have to be especially skilled at throwing in balls, it is much better to have another (student) coach in the booth. And hey, if it turns out he can make a nice shot every now and again, so much the better. (gotta love the hail mary right? I know my friends on Clarkson - 229 loved it)

Amazing drivers round out the drive team. They should know all of the aspects of the game. They should be cool under pressure and smart enough to improvise plays on the fly. And they should be TRAINED... incredibly trained. Practice wins alliances. They should work well together, almost creepily well. We're talking telepathically well.

So now here comes the next big question. Now that you've got this AMAZING drive team, how do you utilize it? How can you work with the other teams and put humongous scores up?

We created a master playbook (Anton called it the Bible). As many of you have heard (maybe seen in LI) we have the mother of all playbooks. It has every combination of robots possible and all the different strategies possible therein. It was designed by a group of RPI seniors as their final project. You have to learn how to speak a whole new language to use it.
but anyways, i digress... We use this playbook as a base for strategies. Together with our binder of scouting-sheets it is the ultimate tool. When we come to a match, we quickly figure out who were working with and determine the play needed. From there it is just a matter of talking to the other drivers/coaches. Usually this entire process is done by the HP and Strategy Coach. The drivers and other coach get set up for the match. Then it is just a matter of quickly telling the drivers the play for the match.
Ex. "Cross the bridge behind team 229, then grab the far goal, come back across the bridge and balance with the goal using 263 as a shock-absorber"

We found this worked pretty well in Long Island. Although in the finals the WPI guys basically took charge (and did a darn good job of it too!).

Our drivers just learned to trust the coaches. They help come up with the plan too, but when it comes down to it. They follow it. The only problems we had came when an ally blindly followed the play, even after "obvious catastrophic failure" (isn't that the FIRST term for it?)
Woodie always talked about a 'Plan B'. Unfortunately we found there is often little time for formulating such a plan. Usually plan b entails "get to the endzone and HIT THE BUTTONS!!!"

But yeah, I just hope we become part of as great as an alliance in Nats as we had in Long Island (thanks again 190, 263, 353, 533!)

If you've read this far, I thank you, this stuff has been on my mind, and I had to rant...

~John Vielkind-Neun Team #250
"Captain, Strategy Guy, and Decent Human Player"

PS You wanna see the new improved RPI playbook, come to our pits at nats. Team 250 - Dynamos!


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Unread 24-06-2002, 02:22
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riding the same wave

Posted by colleen - T190 at 03/15/2001 6:12 PM EST


Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science and WPI.


In Reply to: Cap'n John's Strategy/Driver Forum...Post your thoughts!
Posted by JVN on 03/14/2001 11:23 PM EST:



I can honestly say I never saw 250's Bible.. but I trust it's existence.. that's what faith is, right?

There are several SIMPLE keys to doing well in the competition and strategy:

1.) Know you're own robots abilities and lack thereof and be TRUTHFUL about it to other teams. Good scouts know the real deal, good teams give it straight to you.

2.) Have one person who coaches your drivers

3.) Have one person who calls "Hit the button!!" for your team.

4.) As John said, have one person who hits it.

As for coaches/drivers...

The drivers should be concentrating on how to execute.. how the robot's been performing.. and how to not make any mistakes they may have made the match before again.. operators doing the same.. and coaches talking to them.. HP's should be talking to the other HP's seeing who is best, who's feeding, etc..

Alliance coach should be talking to 3 other people.. the 3 other "allaince coaches" from the other team.. keys to this:
1.) The should respect experience (both in this year's game and past years) because it tends to pay off..

2.) They should be willing to achieve what's 'best' for the alliance.. if that (and it sometimes does) means your robot just has to go to the endzone and clock out.. or be hanging around to 'trouble shoot' and other robots can better handle other tasks, don't be ashamed to do it (263 was our partner in the finals, and that was their only job.. and we NEEDED that.. teams got stuck, they gave them a push.. it couldn't have been done w/o them!)

3.) Spread the tasks over the robots. That is why you have four.. if you can clearly do it best, do it. But DON'T try to do everything, even if you can. It pays to spread the work out (and usually increases time multipliers)


Basically.. on your stage crew, and on your alliance, it pays to have each person with a specific job.. and if everyone executes that job properly.. things will work, and they will work WELL..

I can say enough for our alliance in the finals.. we relied A LOT on each other.. and the strategies we came up with involved everyone executing their tasks.. interdependancy probably doesn't work as well in qualifying..but it is the KEY to big points when choosing your partners.

We all did our thing.. did it well.. and helped each other out.. saw the same thing in UTC. You can see the difference. Accept help from your partners; THAT's WHY THEY ARE THERE! Admit that your robot isn't the best of the job.. or your robot can do the job more efficiently if you have help with this part.

It works.
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Unread 24-06-2002, 02:22
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Re: riding the same wave

Posted by Brian Cholerton at 03/15/2001 11:59 PM EST


Engineer on team #311, Red Jammers, from East Islip High School and KeySpan Energy, Multiline Corp., Computer Assoc..


In Reply to: riding the same wave
Posted by colleen - T190 on 03/15/2001 6:12 PM EST:



You guys have brought up some very good points. The only thing I think that needs to be added is:

In the qualifying rounds don't get greedy!! If your team feels that you REALLY must put your color big ball up top then do it.....If that's what your job is on the alliance. However, to take the extra time to put up a ball just for the sake of showing off and then while doing so you pass right by a time multiplier which would actually give the alliance a better score does not show cooperation at all.

This was something we observed at both the UTC and LI regionals.

Just my 2c for what it's worth.


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Unread 24-06-2002, 02:22
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strategy bible

Posted by Bradley Mock at 03/16/2001 8:59 AM EST


Coach on team #250, Shen, from RPI and GE/Verizon.


In Reply to: riding the same wave
Posted by colleen - T190 on 03/15/2001 6:12 PM EST:





: I can honestly say I never saw 250's Bible.. but I trust it's existence.. that's what faith is, right?

the play we did in the finals was basically in our playbook already so there was no need for me to change anything. if you remember, i was the guy suggesting slightly different plays depending on the other team's score.
it is important to pick your strategy not on what would get the most number of points, but what will get you seeded/advance your robot. i think we all learned a lot at regionals and i can't wait to show off the new and improved bible in florida.
i agree with john in that you need one person who understands the whole game and the scoring strategies so that you can all work together.
it is also important for your drivers to understand what some basic strategies are for other robots so they have an idea of what to expect.
also, when making your strategy, don't assume a robot can do even the simplest task even though it says it can. i thought queing over the bridge (2 robots go over, one backs up to allow the next robot on, and they both get off on the other side) was fairly straightforward, but we got burned on that one in round 8. oh well.
strategy just involves knowing how many points you need, and how many you can get with your alliance. don't forget that the robot is only half, the driver skill is key also. (unless of course you have an auto-balancer in which case your programmers skill is key)

brad


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