Value of Coopertition

[Justin Montois]

I usually don't like to pile on when my view has been so well covered by those who have posted before me, but I think it's important to say that if you want your team to be successful, design a robot that dominates a strategy. I'm of the view that it doesn't really matter what the strategy is. As long as you do it the best, you have a shot to win events. The "main challenge" or what FIRST may want teams to do is meaningless.

Some teams didn't even bother building the middle or low goals this past season. I think that was a mistake. If you don't even look at all of your options and get a true feel for the size of the game elements and the heights of the goals then you are doing your team a disservice.

We decided to forego 1 point per ball by scoring in the middle hoop in favor of nearly 100% accuracy. Not a lot of teams respected us for it, but if you look at the data we outscored several "good" shooters. I've overheard people in the stands saying about shooters "Wow, they are good they make 2 out of 3 in the top hoop every time" and later hearing from other people that during our matches people would say "They don't miss but they are only scoring in the middle hoop" All the while both robots just scored the same amount of points.

I believe that a team that scored in the lowest hoop but never missed would have made the elimination rounds at any regional.

TL;DR

Pick a strategy, ANY strategy, be the best at it and you will have a shot to win events.