Several weeks ago, a few of us(Matthew S, Mentor Steve N, Vignesh and I) from our team attended a day long seminar at Northeastern, during their University day.
Presentation was done by Nutrons team members, FRC 125.
As someone new to FRC I personally felt it was very useful. I'd like to share some notes I took and some links to original content (at the bottom).
I think it might be useful, especially to new members and might even be a good rehash for the veteran members.
Some repeated themes:
- Strategy comes first, it should dictate everything else; robot design, competition, scouting etc
- Strategy is key to success; Good strategy + mediocre robot any day better than Bad strategy + good robot!
- Understand your team's limits
- Understand what your robot can and cannot do
- Make Design sacrifices: being very good at one thing better than being 'ok' at 3.
- Design your robot for simplicity and reliability.(aka: "cooler" isn't always the best option.)
(some) Ingredients of Success during competition day:
Success at competition comes down to Drive team cohesion (drivers + drive coach + pit crew) executing the 'playbook' and communicating really well.
Drivers:
- Need to practice driving with the robot well,
- Know what their robot can and cannot do,
- Be consistent: Same two people bring robot on to the field, set it up consistently, 3rd person moves cart away, 4th person sets up the Driver Station.
- Stay calm, do your job and stick to the strategy but be open to adapting to changing conditions during match
- Work with the Drive coach they are your eyes and ears on the field, while you are focused on your robot.
Post match:
- DEBRIEF! what happened? good or bad? What ways to improve?
- Record autonomous run and review with programming team.
- Recording can be from the on-robot-camera feed plus some video game recording software (bandicam etc) and/or team members with video cams
Pit Crew:
- Pit crew can make or break an event!
- Every robot breaks down, better teams know how to fix it. (know thy robot well!)
- Have a Pre-match Checklist to ensure robot functions well.
- Be organized: Plan pit layout, know where things are.
Come prepared:
- Make sure to have enough Drive Practice.
- Watch other events https://www.thebluealliance.com/events (https://www.thebluealliance.com/events)
- Make a Playbook!
First 2-3 days of build season: (aka how to breakdown a game?)
- Understand the RULEBOOK!
- Be rule experts
- Rule out strategies that are illegal, unproductive or ill conceived
- Read the rulebook, note questions and discuss as a team.
- Detailed scoring analysis:
- Understand HOW TO SCORE! (by reading the manual)
- List clearly ALL the ways you can score in google docs or spreadsheet etc.
- Outline Robot skills needed. (e.g. traverse field, pick up game piece from ground, shoot, climb, balance etc)
- Do Detailed time-based analysis.
- How many seconds does it take per robot move?
- Estimate based on previous experience (e.g. robot drives 10ft/sec top)
- Based on the estimates of time and robot moves, estimate What is the Actual point threshold we can get realistically?
- Strategize: How to use all match time most effectively?
- Try not to focus on how the robot is designed yet, focus only on capabilities needed..
- Strategize for alliance:
- What types of Robots can exist out in the field? Decide What approach your team will take.
- This step anticipates your alliance strategy and bots that might have complementary capability to yours.
- Build Spec sheet based on your capabilities
- Build a spec sheet of robot capabilities (e.g. pick up gear off ground).
- Goal here is to align to your team's abilities, what it can and cannot do
- BE AWARE Of NUDD (New, Unique, Different and Difficult) Robot features for your team.
- Don't build your Robot spec sheet full of NUDDs!!!
- Prioritize robot features based on: Must haves, Wants and Nice to haves.
- Real work begins:
- Validate Key strategic choices with time-bound prototypes if necessary. (time-bound: day/two for prototypes)
- Have basic schedule to track progress.
Nutrons downloadable presentations are here: https://www.nutrons.com/seminars/ (https://www.nutrons.com/seminars/):
Youtube archives of the stream: (pl. note recording may be of marginal quality)
Game-breaking: How to Breakdown an FRC Gamehttps://www.youtube.com/embed/tNI6Lp_gveY (https://www.youtube.com/embed/tNI6Lp_gveY)
Strategic Decisions for team successhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/rG26_1epuXU (https://www.youtube.com/embed/rG26_1epuXU)
Pneumatics 101: https://www.youtube.com/embed/TQ28shA3YzY (https://www.youtube.com/embed/TQ28shA3YzY)
The Neverending Arms Race: FRC Drivetrains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGYwdEIhcmc
FRC Sensors and Software with WPILib https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2lefxyvT9w
more at: Nutrons page in youtube
https://www.youtube.com/user/NutronsFRC125/videos?disable_polymer=1
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