Developing a Strategy

Strategy Building for the FIRST Robotics Competition

Agenda

• Overview
• Analyzing the game
• Determine Scoring possibilities
• Create a strategy that suits your team
• Prioritize potential robot functions
• Hands On Activity (Meeting Before Kickoff)

Quote

“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.”

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-Sun Tzu, Art of War

What is a Strategy?

• Definition of Strategy
• the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.
• a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result
• How does this apply to FRC?
• When creating a strategy for FRC, you are creating a “master plan” that will guide you through both the build and competition season.
• You are creating the framework for both your robot’s design and your match strategy.

The 4 Steps in Developing a Strategy

• Analyze the game
• Determine Scoring possibilities
• Create a strategy that suits your team
• Prioritize potential robot functions

Introduction

• What is your objective/goal for this season?
• Competing at a competition with 40+ other teams is fun and exciting.
• Coming home with a gold medal is even better
• In order to produce a winning robot, you need a winning strategy to match!
• Focus primarily on your main objective. Don’t get caught up in the “cool factor” or exceed your team’s capabilities.

Goals

• As you develop your goals for the season, make sure to keep them reasonably attainable
• A team who doesn’t consistently qualify for championships shouldn’t make winning the championship their primary goal
• Many teams make this mistake, and usually fail
• Building a championship winning robot takes significant resources and years of experience
• There are many milestones along the way, including winning a regional

Analyzing the Game

• On Jan. 4^th You will be given a box of parts, a 3 minute game animation, a game manual, and the words: “good luck, we’ll see you at the competition”
• What is the first thing you should do?
• Read the Rules!
• Reading the rules will prevent future surprises.
• Max dimensions
• Weight limit
• Also pay attention to what the rules don’t say
• Kinect/webcam during auto (2014)
• Tethered Robots (2015)
• Stealing Gears off Lift Station (2017)
• Don’t make assumptions! Especially based on past years rules!

Analyzing the Game

• Know the ranking system!
• How many people know the ranking system prior to the competition season?
• The ranking system changes slightly from year to year
• coop 2012, Match Average 2015, Ranking Points (2016-19)
• Understand How the rankings are sorted and where the values are derived from.
• WLT, cumulative auto score, other fields
• Take advantage of this knowledge!
• Manipulate your strategy and priorities to maximize your chances of seeding high

Analyzing the Game

• Analyze the (original) 2010 Ranking system
• Teams will earn “seeding points” which will be totaled and sorted from high to low to determine the seeding order
• Teams on the WINNING alliance will receive a number of seeding points equal to the penalized score of the WINNING alliance
• Teams on the LOSING alliance will receive a number of seeding points equal to the un-penalized score of the WINNING alliance
• What was the most optimal method of play?

Analyzing the Game

• Answer: score for the other alliance!
• As the losing alliance, you receive the score of the winning alliance
• Losing a match 5-4 nets you 5 seeding points
• Losing a match 10-0 nets you 10 seeding points
• As any good lawyer would say, you found a loophole!
• FIRST realized the loophole after seeing Week 1 competitions and added a 5 point bonus to the winning alliance’s seeding score

Determine Scoring Possibilities

• Evaluate every possible way of scoring points
• 2017: Scoring Gears, Scoring Fuel, Climbing
• 2018: Scoring Cubes, Feeding Vault, Climbing
• 2019: Scoring Hatches/Cargo, Climbing
• Make sure you evaluate the end game. It usually has the potential to change the outcome of a match in a short period of time. (if there is one!)

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Determine Defense Possibilities

• Evaluate every possible way to stop your opponent from scoring
• 2003: knocking over stacks
• 2013: Blocker, Rookie pool noodle
• 2015: Can burglars
• 2019: Block pathways, take dropped cargo/hatches
• Don’t forget about penalties/fouls.
• Penalty points have the potential to negate the benefits of defense

Find the Most Optimal Strategy

• How long does an FRC match last?
• 2:30, 0:15 for Auto and 2:15 for Teleop
• With this limited time, you want to find the strategies that yield the most amount of points in the least amount of time
• Remember to analyze both Autonomous and Teleop, as the point values for the same action are typically different
• Analyze scoring percentages of possible functions that your team is capable of building.
• Adjust your strategy and priority list based on resources and reliability of possible machine functions
• Don’t waste time pursuing a strategy if you don’t have the available resources to implement it

Chokehold Strategies

• “A strategy which, when executed, guarantees victory, independent of any action by your opponents”
• FIRST tends to avoid including chokeholds in FRC games. Why?
• There has been only 1 known chokehold in past FRC games
• 2002, Team 71 pulling 3 180lb goals
• However, there have been several “almost” chokeholds in recent history
• Minibots (2011)
• 4 can grabber (2015)
• These types of “chokeholds” usually exist when there is a theoretical maximum score in a game
• By lowering your opponents maximum score and raising your own, you can guarantee a win by scoring 1 point higher than your opponents maximum score

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Cost to Reward Ratio

• For each task, you must evaluate the level of difficulty compared to the reward of completing that task.
• Eliminate Strategies that have a low scoring potential and/or are too resource intensive
• 2016: Hanging; Low bar?
• 2017: Teleop shooter?
• 2019: Floor hatch pickup, HAB 3 climb?
• The best tasks are the ones which are relatively easy to perform, yet provide a large amount of points

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Best Scoring Opportunities

• The autonomous and end game periods are both excellent opportunities to score points quickly and easily
• The autonomous period typically has a higher point value, and usually can’t be defended
• Matches are usually decided during the auto period, as a bad autonomous can be difficult to recover from
• End games also have the potential to sway the outcome of a match at the last minute
• Ensure that your strategy contains opportunities to score large amounts of points with minimal effort during these periods
• Simple and consistent auto/end game routines can provide a huge advantage
• Autonomous routines and end game strategies that are too complex or not worth the effort should be avoided

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The Crossroads

• In recent FRC games, there have been more than one viable game/robot strategies that existed in each game.
• This makes it very difficult to decide which strategy to pursue
• Often teams are split 50-50 on which strategy they want to pursue
• How do you choose between 2 potentially successful strategies?
• When faced with this challenge, analyze the resources/skills of your team and determine which is more likely to be implemented successfully
• Ask the question “what strategy could we build the best robot for”
• A successful execution of your strategy is just as important as the strategy itself

Finalize Your Strategy

• After analyzing potential scoring methods and eliminating tasks that are not worth the effort, you should have a small list of tasks you want your robot to complete.
• 2019: Place hatch panels, score cargo, climb HAB
• With these desired tasks, you should be able to create 1-3 different match strategies based on potential alliance partners
• Run hatch and/or cargo cycles
• At this point, you now have a concrete strategy to use when determining what functions your robot will require

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Brainstorm and Prioritize Robot Functions

• Once you have decided what the most optimal strategy is, it is time to begin brainstorming and prioritizing what functions you will build.
• Potential functions for 2019
• Hatch Collector
• Hatch Scorer
• Cargo Intake
• Cargo Scorer
• Climber
• When prioritizing your list, make sure you place the functions with the highest point/effort ratio on top
• Also factor in functions necessary for ranking points
• Remember: your priority list should reflect your strategy
• Should a blocking mechanism be on a priority list for an offensive robot?

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Trade-offs

• As you design and build your robot, you will need to evaluate the tradeoff.
• Most likely you will not be able to build every desired function/capability on your priority list
• Evaluate your teams resources. Determine how many functions you are capable of building while still allowing for testing, programming, and driver practice. Adjust as necessary to fit your build schedule
• You want to have each function operating as efficiently and effectively as possible
• Remember that not all possible capabilities or functions are needed for success
• Combine certain functions to maximize overall functionality
• 2014: Shooter and Intake in one
• 2013: Floor Pickup arm/10pt Hanger
• Power take off from drive train to power a winch

Things to Remember

• Always build within your teams limit
• Evaluate your team’s resources, skills, and capabilities accurately
• Avoid building well outside of your team’s capabilities
• Your experience will grow over time, and so will your capabilities
• Always build robot functions to their full potential
• If a team only has 30 units of available resources, It is better to have 3 functions performing at 10/10 rather than 5 functions at 6/10
• Keep these in mind when designing and building your robot:
• Simplicity – Keep your design as simple and effective as possible
• Efficiency – With limited time, efficiency is key
• Dependability – A simple robust design will be the most reliable

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Review

• Read the rules and analyze every possible method of scoring.
• Find the most optimal strategy which would yield the highest amount of points per match
• Evaluate scoring methods and eliminate strategies that are overly difficult and yield few points
• Make sure to prioritize your robot’s potential functions
• Don’t waste time and team resources. Apply those resources to improving existing functions which yield more points.
• Stick to your priority list and make efficient use of your available time and resources!
• Remember: The jack of all trades is the master of none