Why Losers Lose?

[slijin]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

My personal favorite.

You make a custom drivetrain that performs worse than and/or is less reliable than the kop drivetrain.

Oh man. This was why we were destroyed in Galileo last year (finished CMP at practically the bottom, despite amazing showings at our regionals). We had gone with a dropped-center 6WD, but a few matches into CMPs, our drive started throwing chains every single match. To this day, despite numerous off-season repairs, it still constantly throws the chain (we found that one spacer had been chewed up, allowing the wheel to slide on the axle, throwing the sprockets out of alignment, but the problem persisted).

Another one is strategy, which is absolutely crucial in eliminations. It's part of the reason we lost semis in NY, since the other team had put a starvation strategy into effect (this coupled with our alliance captain losing comms).

[TofuRama]

A few things are:

-incorrect prioritizing
-not reading the rules
-not thoroughly testing your robot
-small build time screwup

This list is coming from what happened with our team this year.

When we planned our robot, we didn't prioritize picking up game pieces off the ground at all, resulting in us getting very few (no) points on the board. In addition, we didn't read the rules all the way and had to re-design our robot three times during build. Lastly, since we didn't test our robot during the season (practices were at quarter speed) we missed key driving issues such as our drive train overheating and binding. (After competition we found out that someone forgot to grease our gearbox which caused a lot of the issue, hence, small build time screw-ups ).

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

My personal favorite.

You make a custom drivetrain that performs worse than and/or is less reliable than the kop drivetrain.

And then my favorite corollary:

The only part your team CAD'ed and machined on your robot is your wheels.

I've lost track of all the robots I've seen over the years that have CNC-machined wheels from billet aluminum stock but then have a superstructure and manipulator that's either non-existent or cannot score.

[RyanCahoon]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

why isn't there a sister thread called, Why Losers Lose?

Because no one is interested in how they can change their methodology in order to have a greater chance of losing.

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Why do losers lose?

Because people are convinced winning is *actually* what Charlie Sheen does. When that's your interpretation of winning, you are destined to fail... epically.

[Matt C]

The robot is actually a potted plant.

[Peter Matteson]

Our team frequently discusses the failure that we had as rookies in 1995 that lead to a judges award called "Best Execution of an Alternative (Losing) Strategy". This was given to us because we created an overly complicated catapult to launch the ball through the uprights that formed the goal, the crowd cheered every time they saw us score and people loved the design. The problem was is was not a fast or effective way to score. The best way to score that year was to quickly swing the ball back and forth through the uprights. We had that idea but got so wrapped around the axel thinking that method was easy to defend that we spent all build making an undefendable scorer that took half the match to reset.

Focusing on the wrong part of the game will get you every time. As Karthik said above you have to know how to play the game before you design so that you know what to build and where to focus your effort.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

Our team frequently discusses the failure that we had as rookies in 1995 that lead to a judges award called "Best Execution of an Alternative (Losing) Strategy". This was given to us because we created an overly complicated catapult to launch the ball through the uprights that formed the goal, the crowd cheered every time they saw us score and people loved the design. The problem was is was not a fast or effective way to score. The best way to score that year was to quickly swing the ball back and forth through the uprights. We had that idea but got so wrapped around the axel thinking that method was easy to defend that we spent all build making an undefendable scorer that took half the match to reset.

That sounds familiar. We cheered after every hurdle... not because we scored 8 points, but because the retracting lift meant we hadn't stripped another planetary...

On a related thought, I wonder what the maximum sustainable number of "winning" FRC teams is. It is one thing to support an FRC team, we've seen that 2,000 or so and growing can be adequately supported simultaneously. It is quite another thing to sustain an FRC team competing/designing at the level of say Team IFI. In a town with one machine shop, they can't have an 8 hour turnaround for everyone...

Even if a team isn't top tier, I think there's a big difference in resources consumed for a basic rookie team with little engineering support and a consistent top 8 team. It's a much larger drain, and I wonder if that tipping point (the community can't support all of their teams at the level they could otherwise compete at) has been reached in some areas with a high density of teams.

[Mark Sheridan]

Poor build quality/tolerances

This nearly crushed us this year. Nearly every problem this year was caused by this. We had all these unexpected part deflections and part interferences. It severely delayed our build schedule because we had to fix so many parts. During competition, we were constantly mending our robot trying to be proactive on repairs. It can be extremely draining. This made it a "lost" by our count because a critical design quality we seek is durability. I find years that we meet the design objective that my students found the year much more enjoyable and rewarding because they have time to learn other things instead of constantly relearning the same failure over and over again.

On the other hand, Its nice to know that this was the root cause 90 percent of our issues this year instead of having a huge collection of problems. This aligns with building within your means. I failed to realize the demographics have been changing in our team over the years. We simply no longer have enough students willing to take woodshop or a JC machine shop class. I didn't realize designs that worked one year won't necessarily work again again because the students are different. I realize I have to recognize our build means year to year better or implement training procedures to standardize our build means.

More on the definition of losing. I was kind of shocked by our OPR rank. I thought we should have been ranked much lower. This subject has been touched on before but it seems that a large pool of teams simply can't play a single aspect of the game. Its heartbreaking to see these statistics, and more so considering how close our team felt we would be if we fell behind on our repairs and missed a match or two. I guess I would say we were not winning but we were not losing either. Perhaps as a community we are losing with so many teams not able to play the game at all.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

Perhaps as a community we are losing with so many teams not able to play the game at all.

I was hoping someone would recognize that.



Jane

[Jogo]

Here are things my team doesn't usually do that put us behind the powerhouse teams:

- Learn and use CAD
- Strategize
- Scout effectively
- Learn--from early regionals, from ChiefDelphi, and from local teams. Teams that were unaware of the "Minibot Ramp" trend missed out.
- Take on more than you can handle in 6 weeks
- Play in at least 3 events
- Practice: The year my team did best recently was Lunacy--we built a simple robot with a simple dumper, simple drivetrain--in 5 weeks. That week of practice makes a difference.

Not every team has the same culture of winning, the same number of mentor hours, and the same number of student hours. However, doing just some of the things above really helps.

[ThirteenOfTwo]

I think that any team can play the game provided a working drive train. A box on wheels can be a valuable alliance partner at the regional level if its team has the right strategy and a driver who practiced--and if your robot is a box on wheels, your driver is probably pretty practiced.

Of course, I have seen teams without working drive trains... but those are rather rare. I wouldn't say there are a large number of teams who can't play the game... the vast majority can't play the game well, but that's another story.

[eyu100]

Some people have kind of already covered this (by mentioning the "quality of the work during the season," for example):

Most people have been talking about the less obvious reasons why teams fail, such as poor time management and poor strategy. There is one obvious reason why teams lose that few people have mentioned (although I don't think many people overlooked it - maybe it just seemed too obvious to say) and that is a lack of technical expertise, money, mentors and other "resources."

Originally Posted by Karthik

- A failure to honestly and realistically evaluate one's resources (resources in this context are defined as time, experience, fabrication abilities and money), thus making you think you're capable of doing more than you can do.

A few others in this thread have a different idea of what losing is (they think only the top few teams win, and everyone else loses, while Karthik says performing at an average level isn't losing).

If not winning is considered losing, then having a good strategy, making good decisions and realistically estimating one's resources are not enough to avoid losing. You actually have to have the resources (most of the time). This is nothing groundbreaking, but no one so far has given reasons why helping teams improve their decision-making, strategy, etc. is more effective than helping them get more resources or advising them on how to do so.

...so I guess I'm actually asking a question - is it better to help teams get resources, or to help them improve in other ways? I honestly don't know.

[Akash Rastogi]

Experience.


If you lack design experience, there is less chance of success.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by eyu100

...so I guess I'm actually asking a question - is it better to help teams get resources, or to help them improve in other ways? I honestly don't know.

Perhaps "losers" "lose" in part because the "winners" aren't spending as much time with them as they could be?

I think the ultimate "loss" is a team ceasing to exist after their first year or two because their initial funding runs out, and they've done nothing (and/or no one has taken the time to show them how) to become self-sustainable over that time period.

In a majority of cases, a young team failing miserably on the field is a big giant warning sign that they could be headed for the ultimate loss: self-termination. Very few young teams "get it" in all other aspects of FIRST outside the robot without at least being able to field a somewhat-capable machine. I met a bunch of rookie teams in TN filled with very nice people; however, in the cases of the teams with the worst robots, there were at most two adults leading them, and it was obvious those adults were in over their heads, nor had they had the benefit of any veteran team guidance prior to their arrival at the competition. These teams are always appreciative of veterans at the events who help them get out on the field and compete, but I can't help but think that if the veteran teams in their own region would have spent just a bit more time with them during their first year, their experience would have been MUCH more productive, fun, and inspiring. We need more regional collaboration among teams, and anything FIRST and veteran teams can do to facilitate such collaboration would be monumentally helpful.

In other cases, you see veteran teams that have a long history of competitive failure and uninspiring robots. These are teams who continue to get funding somehow but who lack the leadership needed to grow their resources and use that funding efficiently. These are the teams who frustrate you to no end, because they are often led by stubborn types who refuse to admit they need any help, even if you offer it to them. You grit your teeth at the vast amount of money being wasted on such forcibly inefficient enterprises, and you feel bad for the kids trapped within such programs. The only solution here is to keep smacking their team leaders upside the head with common sense until they relent and accept your input.

So yes, it is MUCH better to show teams the best methods of obtaining more resources, to continue applying positive, constant pressure on them by periodically checking on their progress, and to show them how to better use the resources they already have at their disposal.

Once we understand WHY "losers lose", instead of continuing to marvel at them like they are some freak show exhibit, we must then ask ourselves, "OK - so what are we going to DO to help them become winners?" I think a concerted effort by FIRST and its experienced teams to pay more attention to young and at-risk teams, not only during the offseason, but dare I suggest, during the build season, would help alleviate many problems, providing reassurance and confidence to new mentors that they have their teams heading in the right direction. It doesn't take much.

A whole other can of worms involves hooking up veteran teams with potential rookie teams to help them determine if they should even start an FRC team in the first place. If we're asking teams to fully understand what they are capable of given their existing level of resources, then I imagine the answer they'd arrive at in many cases would be to start slow and form an FTC or VRC team instead.