Wanna Win More Matches? Try Using Strategy Mats!

[atucker4072]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

Glad to know someone who used mats with me understands their effectiveness. Sometimes miming the moves you'll do and trying to make an imaginary diagram of the strategy in mid air with your hands can sometimes be confusing, and looks silly

I'm sure you can vouch for this idea by saying that it was much easier to understand what was gonna happen on the field, yes?

Yes. It will be even more important this year. If you get 3 high powered offensive bots on a team, let alone 2, you are going to need some plan and it will be easier to see this year's game visually rather than talking about it. It will be nice to have set plays to run as opposed to having teams in a general area. This will allow for a more fluid match.

[Phyrxes]

To build on this, start dreaming up plays and write them down, practice the different parts it will get your driver/operator comfortable with the game specific "plays."

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by Phyrxes

To build on this, start dreaming up plays and write them down, practice the different parts it will get your driver/operator comfortable with the game specific "plays."

This is the only thing we didn't do last season, which was physically practicing plays before competition. I made our mats last year only before our third regional, and worked the whole night by myself coming up with plays the night before we flew out for the Colorado Regional, so we never got to actually practice plays, even though we had a good idea on how to do them from just simply showing my drivers.

I'll be glad to make and post my team's strategy mats for the next coming seasons when I can, by the way, so teams don't have to hassle with making their own.

Plus, if anyone ever tells you that FIRST is not a sport, then show them these mats, and ask them how it isn't. It may not be an athletic sport, but it's played just like one, and the athletes are the robots, since they're the ones on the field and really playing the game. The drive team is just there to be the brains.

[Phyrxes]

We have traditionally used a whiteboard and markers to do this but this year going the playbook route as getting robots in the right position to minimize cycle time is key.

As someone reading Chief Delphi think of how helpful it would be to hand a rookie or inexperienced team that isn't reading this forum a diagram of the field and be like I could really use your robot "here" and to do "this" so that we have the best shot of winning this match.

It might even save some heated moments in coaching.