We’re a few meetings into the year and our strategy sub team still has no new members, and only a few returning. I’m in charge this year, but I don’t know how to make strategy sound interesting to the team. Ours does a lot of game and match analysis, etc. Any help with how to recruit is appreciated!
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You’ll be hard-pressed to get people interested in this until they’ve experienced a full competition. And a competitive one at that.
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Why does your team require a strategy subteam? Isn’t strategy something all team members ought to prioritize and contribute?
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Athletes, specifically those who play team sports, tend to be your best bet for prospective strategy members. Present a slideshow to the entire team, and explain what strategy is, why it matters, and what strategists do; ask members to help you develop game plans during preseason competition and see who enjoys it – those people are going to be the best fit for the job.
In-season, make sure your team’s strat meetings are open to all – let people who might be interested get a taste of what strat is like so you can draw them in.
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Forcing team members who aren’t interested/don’t enjoy strategy to contribute will result in low quality and ineffective game plans – it’s a niche aspect of FRC that isn’t appealing to everyone, and bad strat can majorly harm a team’s performance.
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Hard agree+strategy groups win blue banners
Prematch plans/Defensive plans + pathings + alliance selection on its own deserves its own subgroup, not to mention fully understanding the rules and optimal scoring/understanding what you’re making your bot to do will lead to a successful robot and maybe even show some strategies teams havent discovered yet (throwing the game piece in 2023, hitting the amp button very late in 2024)
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Yesterday I talked about this in another post, but showing big stakes and showing how strategy overcomes them is very cool. (like this year’s championship in the final)
I don’t know what the level of your strategy team is, but always making it professional will help. Whether with the help of building professional scouting systems and a clear division of duties. I also suggest creating a strategy pit in competition, which also raises the level.
In addition, talking about a personal experience will be very helpful, I was in the strategy team this year and contributed and enjoyed the competition levels, if you tell about your experience you will be able to market the team in a good way.
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What I did to get some members was that we did the funniest thing, which was driving the robot. Then start going into details such as if you turn the bumpers this way, this can happen. They kinda feel like they aren’t learning strategy when in reality it all revolves around strategy. I don’t want to say it’s like tricking them but it’s somewhat like it.
To get a person more involved in X, you have to convince them it’s worth their time to get involved X.
Being involved in a competition is a great way to demonstrate the importance of good strategy to most students. It’s also the fastest way to show students where strategic thinking is lacking on the team, and give them a “carrot” to go find a way to fix it.
The key is… how do you replicate the competition experience before the competition?
Simply saying “X is important!” is a good first step. But for the people on your team… how would you show and convince them that’s the truth?
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Former student strategy captain here,
What I found to be helpful was finding an interesting, silly strategy component of the game and trying to get others hooked on finding a good solution.
To use Crescendo as an example, one fun thing our team looked at was the concept of autonomous centerline chicken: at the beginning of auton, there was a chance that two opposing robots would rush the centerline for the same note, resulting in a good old fashioned game of chicken. Our team enjoyed thinking about this high stakes possibility, as well as coming up with creative ideas to use that situation to our advantage. As we weren’t fast enough or consistent enough to score with those notes, we proposed that, if we were placed on an alliance that also did not use those notes, to race to the center and nudge them all out of place, making them unusable for our opponents as well. Thinking through these goofy situations will help people to see the fun and creativity that comes with strategy and be more willing to think through more practical strategies in the future.
I hope this (admittedly long winded) answer helps!!
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Stategy is a commitment to knowing every detail about the game and everything about the teams you will play with. This is a commitment and not many Freshmen will gravitate to that over building a cool robot.
As someone who’s worked with newer students, I’ve found that one of the best ways to get freshmen excited about FRC strategy is by drawing comparisons to esports. Many students are heavily invested in esports and ranked play in games like Call of Duty, Valorant, and League of Legends. This makes esports a natural and relatable way to explain FRC’s dynamic and evolving strategies.
While many people compare FRC strategy to traditional sports, I believe esports offers a better parallel. Here’s why:
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Constant Updates and Changes: In esports, we see frequent patches, balance changes, and updates that force players and teams to revisit their strategies. Similarly, in FRC, rules and interpretations can change week-to-week, especially as we approach Championship events. This creates a constantly evolving game that requires flexibility and adaptability—something that esports players understand well.
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Meta Shifts and Strategy Adjustments: Just like in competitive esports, where teams must adapt to shifting metas, FRC teams need to adjust their strategies based on what other teams are doing and any rule adjustments that come up. In contrast, traditional sports tend to have more fixed rules, with relatively fewer surprises, making games more predictable.
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Real-Time Strategy Development: In both esports and FRC, you have to constantly be thinking on your feet and ready to pivot your approach. Freshmen who already follow or play esports can relate to the need for quick decision-making and real-time problem-solving that’s crucial in FRC competitions.
Ultimately, by drawing these parallels to the dynamic world of esports, I’ve found it easier to get freshmen engaged and excited about FRC strategy. It makes the learning curve less intimidating and more aligned with something they’re already passionate about.
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@Bjorn I feel like this is the perfect thread for you to talk about the Strategy Factory and Data Driven Decision Making (3DM) that 4481 has been developing.
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From my experience it works best to tell the new students unfiltered stories about prior events/matches using match videos. I try to point out the major mistakes/successes and explain them why it happened back then and ask them how they would solve it if they would encounter the same thing.
In summary, try to make them part of the strategy team by sharing stories about old robots/events/matches and involve them in the stories by asking them on how they would avoid those problems or what should be improved.
I’m currently using this method to improve our 3DM (Data driven decision making) process during kickoff together with our new strategy students. When they see the flaws in old systems and I make it clear that they can fix them, it really tends to intrinsically motivate them to work on the strategy team.
Analyzing old FRC games (mock-up kick-off) also helps to replicate “competition” experience
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About recruiting strategy students:
I think it works best to present a short presentation to the entire team (including new students) about what the accomplishments were for the strategy team and what you will be working on until kick-off and during buildseason. And of course mention that you need help.
This helps new students to get familiar with the strategy team and it makes them understand the importance of the team.
This might result in some students being interested in joining the strategy team, but it is more than normal that this will only be a very small percentage of all new students.
This season our strategy department consists of:
- 2 mentors
- 4 students (of which 1 is new)
- 2-3 students that help the strategy department during kickoff, but are too busy with other departments to join strategy
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Also highly recommend to play xRC simulator with the new students to let them experience FRC matches. Although we don’t use xRC simulator a lot, it is a valuable tool during kickoff to get familiar with the game.
New students are probably down to play some xRC games especially when you setup a tournament bracket where you let them play against each other.
After the tournament they have had a great time and they got to meet your strategy team. If you ask students then if they are interested to do more like this, you might be lucky and have some new strategy students.