How to become elite?

[DSM33]

A major thing that separates good teams from great teams is an effective strategy. Once the game comes out, read the manual, know all the rules, find all possible ways to score (which includes preventing teams from scoring. 2002 anyone?), and then narrowing down all the brainstormed ideas into one that will make you win in (hopefully) the simplest way. 469 in 2010 was successful because they analyzed the game and found a loophole of sorts that allowed them to exploit the game and dominate the field. Same with Beatty in 2002.
If you want to talk some serious strategy, look at this PDF on 1114's website or talk to Karthik from 1114. I'm sure he'd be happy to help you!
On that topic... The FIRST Community is very helpful and you shouldn't have a problem contacting almost any team and asking for some strategic assistance.

[I LOVE ROBOTS!]

Originally Posted by DSM33

A major thing that separates good teams from great teams is an effective strategy. Once the game comes out, read the manual, know all the rules, find all possible ways to score (which includes preventing teams from scoring. 2002 anyone?), and then narrowing down all the brainstormed ideas into one that will make you win in (hopefully) the simplest way. 469 in 2010 was successful because they analyzed the game and found a loophole of sorts that allowed them to exploit the game and dominate the field. Same with Beatty in 2002.
If you want to talk some serious strategy, look at this PDF on 1114's website or talk to Karthik from 1114. I'm sure he'd be happy to help you!
On that topic... The FIRST Community is very helpful and you shouldn't have a problem contacting almost any team and asking for some strategic assistance.

I agree. At the start of the season, decide what the strategy of the winning alliances will be, and build your robot to execute that strategy.

A bad strategy can make a good robot bad, while a good strategy can make a bad robot good.

[SenorZ]

Hard work and lots of time. If you are having fun, and those around you are too, you will improve!

[Marc S.]

Mentor-ship is the biggest part of being elite. If you have mentors who know how its done and how to teach kids how to effectively and efficiently design and prototype then you can achieve almost anything.

However, if you can't control mentor-ship (because you just can't) then be the student that just takes charge of it all. Common things that my team always takes into account in competitive though is:

-First(not FIRST*), you are not trying to just win. You are trying to be professional. Think of your team as a company designing a product for high paying customers(also known as sponsors). It's supposed to work effectively while still looking like something made by a high paid professional.

-Never design a robot before deciding what it has to do.
When the game is released have all students read every rule and come up with strategies. 2010 was easy for finding strategies, front zone, middle zone, far zone, etc. By doing this you can then find what you think is the best way to play the game instead of, "Oh, but I already designed this robot..."

-Never design a robot (during season) that you don't know how to build.
This year 973 went with an arm even though we knew that an elevator would probably be more effective. Why? Because we have zero experience with elevators and to design an effective one from scratch during season is way too much pressure. This allowed us to focus on other things such as the minibot, manipulator, and drive-train.

-Have a set of design patterns that you follow with all parts you make. Some things that we always follow when designing any system include: Everything that can be deployed can be undeployed (no way to get around the minibot), hole pattern on all tubes(usually on 1" face), design all parts from the machinists point of view(you are more likely to keep sponsors when they can just make the part without having to call or do any math), use the same size bolt everywhere(its easier to repair the robot when you don't have to switch tools), etc...

-Build two robots. Not just for practicing driving, but to better understand how the comp bot will go together and what(if any) changes need to be made.

-Don't be afraid to use someone else's idea. Unless you claim it as your own, many elite teams won't care if you use their idea, even if it looks exactly the same(well, at least my team wouldn't care...).

-SCOUT. Scouting is as important if not more important than your actual robot performance. Even if your 90% sure you won't be in the top 8, good scouting helps you win.

Hope to see you at champs next year.

[Bongle]

Some habits of highly effective teams:
-Year-round meetings for training and development. You don't want the first time you build a certain design concept (scriptable autonomous, telescoping arms, forklifts, mechanums, etc) to be during the competitive build season. You should have already tried it out and noted the advantages/disadvantages

-Consistent core mentors, as said above. High schools have a maximum memory of 4 years. Mentors that are around consistently allow your team to "remember" designs that did or didn't work. They also have the advantage of greater age, education, and experience.

-Spend some time designing at the outset, but get that design built fast - by week 3 or so. Spend a few weeks running it until it breaks, then build it better/faster/stronger. Last year we managed a week or so of testing, and in that week we discovered a bunch of design components that overheated, or were too slow, or were too hard to change, and we had fixes ready for our first competition. 3 weeks of that style of upgrading and you end up with a top-end robot. As soon as a component is built, see if you can start testing it. Glue it to a wall, bolt it to the floor, just get it moving so you can find out how it's going to fail.

-Get driver practice. I'll bet that if I drove 1114's robot this year, it wouldn't matter how amazing it was - I'd be lucky to score a tube. Drivers can make an average robot great, and a great robot unstoppable. The top-end teams have their drivers training with their practice robots every night, just like a sports team.

-Don't forget programmers: Just like drivers, a control program can be a force multiplier for your robot and can make a good robot great or a great robot an uncontrollable mess. This is another advantage of getting the robot built quick or having a 2nd robot built: your programmers can iteratively improve their program, fix bugs, and develop debugging/logging tools.

-Build 2 robots. Especially with the withholding limit rules, that means your iterative-upgrading process can now last all the way until your competition as you can test your 2nd robot to failure, then upgrade it. It probably only costs 50% more than building one robot, in terms of time and money.

The truly elite teams are the ones that can do all these things (and all the other things in the thread) very well year after year. Some of them take money (double robots, year-round meetings to some extent), some of them just take time, planning and effort (mentor recruiting, year-round meetings, driver practice, building fast)

[EricH]

Originally Posted by I LOVE ROBOTS!

I agree. At the start of the season, decide what the strategy of the winning alliances will be, and build your robot to execute that strategy.

Exactly--the alliance strategy. The other trick is to figure out one twist that a lot of teams will have trouble doing, or doing well, but will be incredibly valuable to an alliance. That way, even if you aren't the first seed, you'll be picked quickly. 469 in 2010 is a prime example--they could be beaten, yes, but if they weren't picking first, they were picked first. You could also look at the half-dozen bar-blockers in 2004--very few missed eliminations entirely at events they were at.

That way, you're a really good alliance partner.