By Chad

 Need to be passionate about robotics  Chase Perfection Catch excellence  Canburglars

 Money, manpower, time constaints  Important and need to be taken into account but don’t buy into them  Should make reasonable assesments

 Need to have a goal and objective  Drivetrain ◦ Should be robust ◦ Be able to take a beating ◦ Personally I believe it is most important What type of drive would be best for this game

 Should you build a specialized robot  Build a robot that is geared for regionals or champs  maMFk maMFk  What if you don’t get to champs

 Take into account the Goal and Price difficulty  Do what is relatively easy and scores points  How much weight do we allocate to a design  Need to build within team limits ◦ Manpower ◦ Budget ◦ Mentor Burnout

 In years with defense is it more efficient to play defense  Score 10 points or block 10 points??

 Make priority list of designs and subsystems  Decide on drivetrain then subsystems  Good shooter or good pickup??  Are endgame points important

 Robot does need to specialize to a certain point  Must make tradeoffs  Can we use one mechanism to control another Nf85hDx4Y Nf85hDx4Y  Nothing wrong with a simple robot often they are the most successful

 Need to build accurate mechanisms  Easy to build a shooter hard to build an accurate one  Need to come up with a plan that our team can achieve in 6 weeks  With no practice robot it helps if robot done by week 6 so programming, and driving can practice

 Robot needs driver aids ◦ Help assimilate game pieces  Do we build a specialized robot ◦ If pick another specialized robot and one fails they all fail  Best teams use experience to their advantage build what you know you can make  Build season ends Saturday of Championships

 NEED TO READ THE RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Examine every way to score points and ranking system  Keep design general in the beginning then limit your design ◦ We need to score in the top basket then later say we need to shoot a ball from 10ft away in the top ◦ FRC/Team_Resources/Archived_Game_Docs/2002% 20-%20Game%20Manual.pdf FRC/Team_Resources/Archived_Game_Docs/2002% 20-%20Game%20Manual.pdf  ZCHw ZCHw

 Is there a chokehold strategy?? ◦ Can we win the game before it has started At highest level this year cans were a chokehold Does it guarantee the win

 Should we forget about certain parts of the game ◦ Co-op this year or score more points  Think about auto routines ◦ What should the robot do to score the most in auto  Regionals can be won or lost because of auto ◦ 2014 can’t make as many cycles

 It’s a way to keep track of the information we have collected  Use ipads or pen and paper ◦ At champs excel spreadsheet  Should have a team of scouts that rotate

 FIRST matches are like sports they are interesting and the strategy that goes into each match is exciting  IF you like watching sports you might like scouting

 A lot of times seen as busy work  It should be respected it is not punishment  Scouts need to realize the data they collect is what the team is using for alliance selections on Saturday

 Good scouting can create strong alliances that can overcome better alliances  Scouting doesn’t guarantee a win but doing it badly guarantees a loss

 The team uses the data you collected  However if data is incorrect the team leads and drivers have to work late in the night on Friday to reconstruct the data when everybody should be sleeping

 Scouting should be respected and fun ◦ Some teams bet on matches to make them more interesting  If you are passionate about scouting other kids will become passionate also  Scouts are extremely valuable  The data they create is used for alliance selection

 The drive team should not be making the alliance selection rather they need to talk to the scouts and strategists on who they think is good

 Keep track of penalties, auto scoring, where teams line up robot at  What do they do in auto and during a match  Are their drivers crazy or consistent  Does the team carry out a strategy or wing it

 Look for functionalities of a robot  Unique subsystems or designs???  A design that complements your design well  Maybe something you could use on your robot ◦ Don’t copy their design exactly

 Drivetrain ◦ What type and power what transmission ◦ Tank ◦ Swerve ◦ Mecanum ◦ Holonomic or Slide ◦ Kiwi ◦ Omni ◦ Grasshopper

 /drivetrain-selection /drivetrain-selection

 OPR and CCWM  Are they reliable ways to assess teams  OPR-Offensive Power Ranking  OPR is the expected points contribution of any given robot to an alliance.  It is calculated using a system of simultaneous equations

 CCWM- Calculated Contribution to Winning Margin  CCWM stands for "calculated contribution to win margin". It's similar to OPR in the sense that it's supposed to be a calculation of your teams contribution to your alliance's winning point margin in a given match (where as OPR is just a calculation of points contributed to your total score).

 List should be made Friday night and have around 28 teams on it  Discuss strategy what would be the ideal partner  Who is on the do not pick list ◦ Destroys landfill

 Should we pick a robot that is a good shooter and another good shooter then maybe one for defense  If lower seed 6-8 try and pick 3 robots that are all pretty good maybe gamble a little  IF a high seed don’t make a pick that is a risk want all consistent robots

 Should be a calm and level headed person  Should not send someone who will get angry, become worried or sad  Should we break up alliances??

 The selector has more time than you think when selecting robots  Do not be pressured by crowd or announcer  Say a team that was already picked to buy time

 Someone in stands should be keeping track of the other alliances points and strategies  That way you can develop a strategy to defeat them

 Teams and robots should not be getting in each other’s way  Where will you be cycling or building stacks  What can there robot actually do not what they say it can do  Try and develop a strategy where everyone is maximizing points