Successful teams in FRC history

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

A couple of people have mentioned the need to accurately analyze the game before prototyping/building. I'm not sure I agree with that being an necessity for all teams. Earlier on GameSense Tom from 254 said they thought the game would be more run and gun opposed to the focus on assists (turns out the traits needed for the 3 ball auto allowed it play the assist game very well!). I believe there was a post from 33 after their first district stating they were surprised by the game play, expecting to use their well-practice solo-cycles far more often.

I think the take away should be that the high resource teams can over come a mis-step in strategy but the average or below average teams wanting to compete with those high resource teams need to nail the strategy as their margin for error is much smaller and they cannot waste precious time on functions not directly tied to winning (such as catching in 2014, climb/dump in 2013, suspension in 2010...).

True, but functionally both 33 and 254 were able to pick up the ball and score it quickly and efficiently. Their robot did not change, though their strategy might have.

I think one of the biggest things to consistently perform well is team organization. Every effort you make needs to be organized so as to minimize the chaos during Kickoff, build season, and through competition. Being open to all kinds of ideas also helps, but know your limits, both as per the robot but also the amount of manpower you can dedicate to a task.