Strategy Badges

[April_robo]

As I was walking around this weekend trying to get the scouting information I have collected to my team and talk strategy with our alliances. I ran into great difficulty. A few things I ran into:

1. Some teams had a 3 match turnaround and came off the field and were right back in queing.
2. I could not talk to my team in que because I am not allowed on the field.

This proved to be quite difficult as sometimes in the que was the only place we could get all our alliance members together to talk strategy. After I had gotten very frustrated I came up with a solution!!! (After all that is what FIRST is about, isn't it) I came up with the idea of a strategy badge. These people would be allowed in queuing but not allowed on the field during a match. This has become an issue because usually the coach is not the head strategy/scout person so they don't have the information.

I talked to a few coaches and other lead scouters on other teams and they thought this was a good idea. I was wondering if any other teams have run into this issue and what you think about the strategy badge.

[Jared]

The match schedules this year seem to like giving us only one match in between matches. There's almost no time to reset, and I thought the schedule generator was set up to avoid this problem.

[April_robo]

The system is supposed to have I think its like 4 matches between each teams matches but I know at districts just because of the amount of teams there are not enough teams to have 4 matches between every match.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Jared

The match schedules this year seem to like giving us only one match in between matches. There's almost no time to reset, and I thought the schedule generator was set up to avoid this problem.

There were two instances today where we came off the field and went right back into queuing. I feel your pain.

[Gregor]

As someone who was been running strategy and not been on driveteam, I feel your pain. This is a great idea.

We've had 1 match and 2 match (multiple per event!!) before.

[Street_dreamZ]

That is a very good idea, especially considering how important strategy and cooperation is this year. No communication = robots crashing in autonomous.

[KelliV]

Solid idea. Until then you can always use the football method and do awesome play cards. In all seriousness though. This could be a cool idea for teams. Imagine what cool images could stand for your auton choices!

[MrJohnston]

I don't see the issue.... Looking at the four person drive-team set-up, we simply made the "coach" our team's head of strategy. Or, better said, we made the head of strategy be the coach. Is not the coach, essentially, a strategy position? It's his job to talk with both our alliance partners - and the other alliance - each match.... He's also expected to know the schedule well-enough that he can make plans with the other alliance even when we have a very short break from one match to the next.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

I don't see the issue.... Looking at the four person drive-team set-up, we simply made the "coach" our team's head of strategy. Or, better said, we made the head of strategy be the coach. Is not the coach, essentially, a strategy position? It's his job to talk with both our alliance partners - and the other alliance - each match.... He's also expected to know the schedule well-enough that he can make plans with the other alliance even when we have a very short break from one match to the next.

True, but the coach can't do the proper scouting to collect match data. So there is a need to at least convey the match data of the opponents (maybe not this year but in other years) or teammates to your coach/drivers.

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by TDav540

True, but the coach can't do the proper scouting to collect match data. So there is a need to at least convey the match data of the opponents (maybe not this year but in other years) or teammates to your coach/drivers.

We manage. It's really a matter of looking ahead on the schedule and being prepared. We do have a "head scout" whose job it is to meet with the coach between matches to convey pertinent information... Sometimes we do have to look ahead a match or two....We have strategy meetings late at night to discuss the next day's opponents and over lunch to look at the afternoon matches, etc....

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

We manage. It's really a matter of looking ahead on the schedule and being prepared. We do have a "head scout" whose job it is to meet with the coach between matches to convey pertinent information... Sometimes we do have to look ahead a match or two....We have strategy meetings late at night to discuss the next day's opponents and over lunch to look at the afternoon matches, etc....

That's something we try to do as well. Any breaks with shorter than five matches, you need to plan ahead significantly. Still, adding a Strategy badge can't hurt, especially if they can only be with the team in during queuing.

[April_robo]

I'm not sure about regionals but we run into this issue a lot at districts because there's a very high probability that one of your alliance members (or opposing alliance members for coop) has a short match turn around and can only be talked to in the que. My job is made especially hard because I am the lead strategist for both 3548 and 1188 as we are almost the same team, and don't have enough people for 2 lead strategists.

[rich2202]

cell phone.

[Basel A]

This isn't much of a problem because we simply work out as much strategy as possible pre-queue. At many events the queue is right next to the field boundary and you can discuss over the barrier anyway. Worst case, I'll tell our drive coach the main points and let him work it out. A coach who can't do that shouldn't be the coach.

Having someone separate from the drive coach responsible for strategy is great because it allows the drive coach to have focus other things when necessary (e.g. fixing/improving the robot). Further, these strategy talks are negotiations, and having two people who agree (can't remember the last time our coach and I disagreed) makes a stronger argument.

I don't know how much a "strategy badge" would help. I'm going to districts with the same schedule as yours, and I haven't had problems. Frankly, running our scouting operation, I don't have the time to be in queue.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by KelliV

Solid idea. Until then you can always use the football method and do awesome play cards. In all seriousness though. This could be a cool idea for teams. Imagine what cool images could stand for your auton choices!