"stratagy" angers me deeply...

[Zeinin]

okay, here is what i am sick of:

Team leader says "lets talk stratagy"

we start a stratagy debate

person sugjests that we need, say, a powerful and fast drive.

person suggjests idea for the drive system, team leader squelches this discussion cause it is not "stratagy"

ITS A WASTE OF TIME TO DO THIS


ARRRRRGH

i just cant STAND it when someone says "nope this is stratagy not systems"

YOUR STRATAGY IS DEPENDANT ON YOUR SYSTEMS.

i know what you will say, what systems you build are dependant on the strat. but like, you could say that our strat is to make a flying robot, and not have the systems for that. ugh
.

[joe_balint]

You are right that they are inter-twined. you need to know what is feasible when you discuss strategy, so you have to explore design concepts.
But, Strategy is the key! If you build your robot around a strategy you haven't put enough thought into, even if it is well made, there's a good chance you aren't going to win. You can design to specs and build robustly with ease of control and all the good design priniciples, put if you're strategy isn't sound, you'll end up with a well built, easy to control, hardy bot that won't win or get picked becasue there are a heck of alot of teams out there, with alot of smart people trying to figure out "The One" strategy (w/scenario mods) that will get them into the winner's circle one way or the other!
Your lead is trying to get you to think of all the options, so that at week 5 your not smacking your forehead going "Ohhhh, we can't score ball points without goal control" (simplified, but you get the gist.) The robot design should flow from the strategy, not the other way around.

Don't worry robot design and component design are just around the corner! Good luck. -Joe

[Caroline]

Strategy can be tedious and *gasp* even boring at times, but it really gives your team a good focus so that you can design and build your robot more efficiently and effectively. With a strategy the whole team has agreed on, different tasks you wish your robot to perform can be combined into one robot component, instead of designing one robot component for each strategy point. As Joe said before, it also helps you with choosing a robot design that will give you the most points- by going through strategy meetings and playing through senarios, you can see what tasks will be most valuble for your robot to do, and which tasks will earn you fewer wins and less points in the long run.

[JVN]

We had a day of strategy discussion before we started thinking about mechanisms... we wanted to decide WHAT our robot would do before we decided HOW it would do it... By looking at the strategy first, one can determine the best way to score the most points, and figure out a robot design to do this...

John Vielkind-Neun
Strategy Head - Team 229
Clarkson University

After last year's overly strategic game, my team created my position of Strategy Head, it's definitely keeping me busy... Strategy is Important!

[rees2001]

Hardest part is to figure what will help you most Regional & still help you stand out at Nationals. We are attending the NYC regional & I bet the competition will be a lot stiffer at Nats. Just a little problem we are facing. Gotta work with Dead-Bots & Lame-Bots.

remember:
"The skill to do comes of doing"
B. Franklin

[bigqueue]

I think that time put into thinking about Strategy is time well spent. I think it even makes sense to come up with that single "winning" strategy....so that your team can think about all the possibilities and point combinations.

BUT...you can not forget that there are a number of variables that you might be faced with....and so it is very valuable to consider as many "What-if" scenarios as you can fit in your brain and stomach.

"What if my partner is a "clone" of me...

"What if my partner is FAST and a master ball harvester...

What if my partner is dead.

What if one of my own mechanisms is dead.

"What if both of our opponents are GOAL CONTROLLERS such that they actually have a chance of controlling all 3 goals!

What if, what if, what if......and what would we do in all the above scenarios. You would be building a playbook of sorts....of plays and tactics.

I can't wait for that first match!

-Quentin

[Ken Leung]

The strategy of your robot tells you what kind of a robot you want to build. At the beginning of design process, you and your team should sit down, figure out exactly what you want your robot to accomplish during matches, and use those requirements as guide lines for how your robot/components will be built.

Obviously there are different issues you have to think about when designing the robot, such as motors limit, or weight and space consideration, how much juice you can get out of the battery... But you also have to fit your strategy around all those parameters.

Say, you want to build an extension tail that reach to the home zone. So, part of your strategy would be, "To extend something into the home zone, so the robot won't need to rush into home zone the last 5 seconds". Well, not only did that save you a lot of trouble to somehow figure out a good drive system that can rush into home zone the last 5 second, but it also tells you what kind of "tail" you need to build.

Let's see, it will have to have a good 15~20 feet extension... It won't have to be powerful, and it has to be quick to work within 5 seconds. So, from that, you figure out you can use some really light material, and a weak motor that need to be pretty fast... And whether you want to be able to point the tail at different directions or not.

See... This kind of things...

As someone suggested above, you can't score any balls if you can't get a goal into the goal zone... So, you can't really build a ball robot without something to get goals in the zone...

Or say like, when the robot is in a pushing war, it really doesn¡¦t need a whole lot of speed in that situation, so that save you the trouble from trying to add more motors for both speed and pushing force.

The strategy dictates exactly how you robot will be moving, where its components will need to be point at, and how much of everything you need. You will have to design a robot where you push your components at the most efficient and effective position, or else you will be wasting time driving the robot around dong different maneuvers.

If all you want to do is to get two goals into zone, then maybe you don't need a ball mechanism after all... Or if all you want to do is balls, and let your partner take care of the goals, then you don't necessary need a strong robot, do you?

So, I strongly recommend you take care of your strategy first. Build your strategy around what your team is capable of building, and how much time it will take to make your robot accomplish certain task within the strategy, and prioritize what's most important and what's not, so in return you have an easier schedule during build period to finish what's most important on your robot first.

[JVN]

Ken I completely agree!

[ahecht]

Wow! Your strategy meeting are more productive than ours. Our meetings consist of trying to convince people that spiking a soccer ball over the opposing alliance station wall to knock out the opposing drivers, while technically legal, is not a good idea.

[smokescreen]

There are many possibilities and many possible strategies.

If only there was a way to compile all such possibilities into a simple to understand manual that would be catagorized or divided into a simple to follow breakdown.

Some sort of a strategy guide.

-smokescreen (who believes the only valid strategy is a spectacularly impressive visual event such as smoke and fire trails).

[Matt Ryan]

Originally posted by ahecht
Wow! Your strategy meeting are more productive than ours. Our meetings consist of trying to convince people that spiking a soccer ball over the opposing alliance station wall to knock out the opposing drivers, while technically legal, is not a good idea.

Actually, throwing the balls to hit the other drivers is compromising their safety, and so would most likely end up with a major penalty or a DQ (their decisions are final...the rules aren't solid).

[JVN]

I think i remember 2 years ago seeing some HPs get yelled at for trying to knock down a robot with balls after their own robot got taken out...

[StyleMan4u]

Although your strategy and mechanisms are intertwined sometimes there are mesures where you need to think of a strategy that is outside of what your mechanisms are capable of doing..

If all my robot can do is pick up soccer balls, lets just say our strategy around designing our machine is to go pick up as many balls as we can and put the in goals. While desiging our machine (Under protest) all around that one principle, it is also key to think of other ways to use your robot at a competition..

So yes strategy is the same as mechanisms, and no it is different. Just my thought on the matter.

Josh
Team 501http://www.powerknights.com