Advice for new strategist?

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by pabeekm

Sorry if I'm nitpicking, but I respectfully disagree with this note; in my three years in FRC I've seen only teams with a lot of resources/experience pull this off well. I've far more often seen teams fail because they took on too much when building their robot, have mechanisms that turn out to be hardly used in competition, or waste lots of time on field performing the roles that they won't be most valuable for in eliminations. I'd advise spending the first few days of build season doing heavy analysis of the rules to find what strategy you will get the most out of before even thinking about the design of the robot, then, build primarily for that strategy; being able to do one thing very well will likely get you more than being able to do multiple things adequately.

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. There's a distinction between building to play multiple roles and designing a "multitool" robot. This year, for example, a relatively simple robot with a roller intake and a surgical tubing catapult was able to play a large portion of roles in the game.

There is a huge difference between a mechanically complex robot and a strategically-- most teams can't pull off a mechanically complex robot well, but the more you can do with a simple mechanism the better off you are. True flexibility is something I think is often undervalued, and even less achieved.

[BigJ]

Regarding being the "rules manager", I agree with RunawayEngineer here. Each person on the team (at least those involved with designing and building the robot) should understand the rules and the importance of following them.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. There's a distinction between building to play multiple roles and designing a "multitool" robot. This year, for example, a relatively simple robot with a roller intake and a surgical tubing catapult was able to play a large portion of roles in the game.

There is a huge difference between a mechanically complex robot and a strategically-- most teams can't pull off a mechanically complex robot well, but the more you can do with a simple mechanism the better off you are. True flexibility is something I think is often undervalued, and even less achieved.

Nah, I'll respectfully agree with both you at the same time...


pabeekm is correct that focus on building a mechanically simple robot that excels at one role is a key to success. Assuming you can properly identify a need that you can excel at. For example: this year your average 4xxx team was not going to excel at scoring compared to top teams at the event. [Cue the plethora of NUH UH TEAM 4YYY WAS THE TOP SCORING TEAM AT THEIR EVENT that I really don't care about so save me the hassle of ignoring you] but the inbounding/trussing roles were pretty open. And what's more, they both required similar systems (notably, an intake) ...

In this case (and in ones similar to it) cadandcookies is correct. Identifying key mechanisms that can enable you to play multiple roles and focusing on them being reliable and effective is important. Many games have mechanisms like that. Usually they involve active control of game pieces. Focus on minimizing driver line up and timing. Big wide rollers work wonders, forklifts suck. [Cue the plethora of NUH UH TEAM ZZZZ WAS THE TOP SCORING TEAM AT THEIR EVENT AND THEY HAD A FORKLIFT that I really don't care about so save me the hassle of ignoring you AGAIN]. I'll leave the exercise of finding these mechanisms over the years to you, but I'll give you a hint: It's almost always involved in possessing the game piece. (I also don't care about the counterexamples someone is going to try to prove me wrong with).


Want the TL;DR of it? Keep it simple, effective, and easy to use.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. There's a distinction between building to play multiple roles and designing a "multitool" robot. This year, for example, a relatively simple robot with a roller intake and a surgical tubing catapult was able to play a large portion of roles in the game.

There is a huge difference between a mechanically complex robot and a strategically-- most teams can't pull off a mechanically complex robot well, but the more you can do with a simple mechanism the better off you are. True flexibility is something I think is often undervalued, and even less achieved.

I agree with both points, but the single most important factor is choosing a set of achievable functions. Don't try as a rookie team to build 1114's 2008 mechanism! We did see a lot of effective simple catapults this year which were quite adequate during the qualification rounds. But pick a primary function appropriate for what role you think you will be playing in eliminations and make it as perfect as possible. 973's success as a goalie bot is a good illustration.

Which brings me to the second point - be prepared to give up your "favorite" function to join a successful alliance. 1640 had an excellent offensive robot, but we asked them to play inbounder and defender at which they were equally successful.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Don't try as a rookie team to build 1114's 2008 mechanism!

Actually, building the 2008 mechanism isn't the problem, the problem is when you get that nasty urge to "improve" that mechanism-- a trap my team and many others fell into.

Other than that, I should probably have mentioned in my post that oft repeated advice that you can have the best idea, but if you can't execute you're worse off than someone who executed a "poorer" idea. I like Schreiber's description: simple, effective, easy to use (and achievable!).

[Potatoes]

Thank you all so much for the help, I can tell I'm going to be checking this thread pretty much the entire year. I'll talk to my president and get someone assigned to rule compliance/inspection.

[BriteBacon]

Assuming your that your head strategist I assume you will be at meetings with drive teams to discuss strategy. When you are there you should know the limits of your robot, I found that even at champs there were teams that said they could do things that they ended up not being able to do reliably. Also when training drivers it's best to put them under pressure, if you train them in a calm environment they won't be prepared for when they get to their first event. If you are going to an off-season event you should let any student get the chance to be on drive team.