The Life of a 2-Point Scorer

     Early on in the 2012 build season, our team decided our strategy would be to dominate the mid-level basket. My time in FRC has taught me that the strategy you choose is not nearly as important as it's execution. We decided this would be our strategy, and we would be the best at it. Were we the best? I'm not sure. But regardless of that, I decided to review our season from a numbers stand point and see what I could learn. The purpose of this post is merely to point out what strengths and some weaknesses that this strategy gave us. The best way to convey this is through the use of numbers. I watched closely all 44 matches that Team 340 played in. I focused on the number of baskets we scored. I didn't factor in any time dedicated to balancing or the point awarded from them. These numbers only discuss basket points.

Autonomous
In 44 matches we scored in autonomous 43 times. The one match ( Our 2nd match @ FLR) where our arm failed to go up remains a mystery. We had a perfect (10pt) auto mode 39 times. The other 4 matches we missed 1 ball. Our auto accuracy was 92%

TeleOp
In TeleOp, We scored 0 points 6 times due to various failures. Our top points output was 18 (Twice) while averaging 8 points (or 4 balls). This number was much lower then I expected, though mostly because we stressed the importance of balancing, especially the CoOp bridge. Our average accuracy in TeleOp was 95% This was almost exactly the number we said we had to achieve if this was going to be our strategy.

Alliance Contribution
After each match, I had our Auto score and our TeleOp score. Its not hard to use that information to gauge the contribution to our alliance. In our matches, Our alliances averaged 29 points. Our top contribution was 100% (4 times) and our lowest was 33%. Our average contribution was 64%.

Final Analysis
This was the first time since my involvement with Team 340 that our strategy was not the "obvious" or "ideal" strategy. Though we did not get picked at Championship, we had a successful season where we saw only 12 match losses.

If you have any questions, follow me @jmontois340 and ask away.

Build season is only 36 days away!

-Justin

Mentor Vs Student Built

2012 marks my 8th year of FRC involvement. I was only an FRC student for one year, my senior year in 2005. Back then, I was hesitant to post on Chief Delphi. I viewed it as a forum in which only the most well respected people posted in. I would see Paul Copioli, Andy Baker, JVN and Karthik posting and I would say to myself (and I still fell this way to an extent today) What else is there for me to say? Of my 740 CD posts, 500 of them have been since 2009. My hesitance to post in my early FRC days were mostly due to respect and a little bit of intimidation.

I think we can all agree that the internet has changed and CD hasn't been immune. I think most people fail to grasp the gravity of what they say on the Internet and how it may change the way people look at them. CD makes that a little bit worse because in many cases you're not representing yourself as much as your team.

While I think the student built vs mentor built argument will never go away, I can relate to both sides of it. In 2005, we built one of the worst robots our team had ever made. It was discouraging. Then you see a team like 67 in 2005 win; 2 Regionals, 1 Regional Chairman's Award, 1 Divisional Championship, a World Championship and the Championship Chairman's Award all in the same year. Part of you asks, 'How much the students do?" I was naive. I was angry that a team could have so much success when we were so bad. But I wasn't looking at it the right way. It's not anger, it's passion. It's fuel. It's drive. It's inspiration. Team 67 was my first experience witnessing a powerhouse team do what they do best. Inspire. I know now that 67 has a ton of student involvement, as much as my own team, and they remain one of the teams I look up to the most.

I honestly believe that there is not a single team in FIRST that is "Mentor Built." I think that term is a derogatory, blanket term used to put down teams that some people in FRC are too jealous and angry at to see the inspiration those teams provide. I've seen the term applied to 67,148, 217, 254, 1114 and most recently 175 . An identical list to one titled 'Teams I'm most Inspired By.'

I think that though one team (In this case 175) has to be thrown under the bus, overall these attacks are beneficial. It shows us that our job isn't over. There are still people out there that aren't getting the message. We need to continue to show them the inspiration these teams provide, the amazing students and mentors that run these teams and how much of a loss it would be if the "mentor built" term ever changed the way these inspirational teams operate.

-Justin

@jmontois340

Team 340 Update

I figured I'd make a short post about where we are with our robot.

Both drive trains are done, one will be our competition bot and one will be an identical practice bot. Last week, programmers finished their code for driving the robot with xbox360 controllers. This will be the first year since 2000 that our robot won't be driven by joysticks. Another cool feature is the arcade style drive. It takes a little getting used to but once you have it, you won't want to go back.

Our super structure and scoring mechanism are almost done and by the end of the day Saturday we *should* have 2 scoring robots. Our ball acquisition group is little behind but i'm sure good progress will be made on Saturday. I might make a post Saturday night with some pictures. Tweet @jmontois340 to remind me. I'll probably forget. Have a great weekend everyone.

-Justin

@jmontois340

Be Confident In What You Have

With just 13 days left in the build season there's no turning back now. What you have so far is the result of 4 weeks of hard work. Regardless of what is looks like now, be proud of your robot.

I think it's important to remember as more days go by and more and more robot pictures come out to not be discouraged. Remember what you've work so hard on. Continue to give it all the attention it deserves as you prepare for competition. If your robot is good at what it's supposed to do, you will be fine. More on that below.

We had a good discussion on our team surrounding the aspect of strategy. Strategy is my favorite aspect of FRC. I love developing robot strategy the first few days after kickoff, I love developing match strategies at competition and I love developing alliance strategies for selection and eliminations. However, we discussed that "Is finding that "Do it all" strategy that important or can you select almost anything? As long as you do it better than anyone else, will you be successful?

Take 2006 for example. There were two main scoring tasks; High goal(3pts) or low goal(1pt). The obvious main strategy most teams would choose to be successful is shooting in the upper goal. And you would make a compelling case. How many robots on Einstein scored in the low goal? But lets say for example you chose the low goal. And you were a beast at it. Would you be successful? You scored your ten pre-loaded balls in auto. every time and you scooted around the field and could harvest better then anyone else. Could you win regionals? Would you make Elims at Championship? I think you would. And I have some evidence to back my claim. Team 322 FIRE from Flint, MI was that team. They were a beast in the low goal. That year, we tried to shoot in the high goal. We weren't the best at our strategy, we didn't make eliminations at Championship. They did.

My main argument is this. Love your robot for what it is. Make it consistent at what it does and go out there with confidence and dominate. If your robot is a box on wheels, make it the best box on wheels anyone has ever seen. If you can't pick up any balls but you can shoot on the high goal in autonomous, then make it score those 2 every time and you'll be successful. Love your robot and be confident in what you have.

-Justin

jmontois340@gmail.com

Want more? Read an awesome blog here http://www.robogreg.com/

Maybe we can try this again...

So, last year I tried to keep a year long blog about our build and competition season and I just didn't follow through with it. Things with the Minibot got crazy and this blog eventually just stopped even crossing my mind.

2012 is a new year however and I think it's worth trying again...halfway through build season.

Since Championship last year I've been looking into what makes a team elite. It's no secret by reading some of my posts on Chief Delphi what teams I really look up too. So I spent a lot of time over the summer researching what common traits all of these teams have. These teams have been a source of inspiration to me and many others for years and it only makes sense that you would attempt to emulate them as much as possible. What better way to move from average to elite? I'm unsure how our team is perceived in the robotics community, however, I know how I feel about our team. I think we are a team that can be great, we often fail to push ourselves to be great. We know that with our standard effort, we have a shot at winning regionals (Finalists in 2007,2009 and 2011).

Therefore, our team leadership has decided to take steps to move our team from average to good. I don't think it's possible to go from average to elite. A lot of an "elite" status is based on a history of being good. Having one good year doesn't make you elite. So we're trying to be good.

So far, we have taken measures to make that move. During the off season we prototyped a west coast drive that turned out to work very well for us. So much so that we are using it this season (You can see it on my Facebook). In the past, our drives haven't been an advantage, they've been average. A common trait among good teams is a good drive base, that was the first step.

So here we are, just 2 weeks left in the 2012 build season. Over the next two weeks and into the competition season (Mike and Justin in the Morning season) I'll try to blog here and there about various robotics related things. I can't wait to see over the next few weeks all the robot pictures start come out. I can start pre-scouting and all the things that make this program so addictive.

Justin

jmontois340@gmail.com

Note: Everything below this is old, you've been warned.

28 Days until Week 1 Regionals...

4 weeks and the minibot will be making it's first climb on a real field. Not needing to ship the minibot will give us more time for iteration. Right now we're focusing on the last few variables that will influence our final design. Weight is about as low as it can be. After a few more tests we will have our wheel size and gear ratio down. The goal is 3 Seconds or less with deployment. We're almost there right now, 4 weeks from now we should be able to consistently be at that mark.

I'm really happy with the deployment mechanism. I thought we were going the direction of drawer slides or some sort of slide out mechanism but the design that one of our Senior students came up with is simple, elegant and most importantly, fast and consistent. I can't wait to see it on the field.

The final design of our "gripper" has gone into CAD and some parts have been sent out to be machined. Saturday will be a big day for us. Gripper parts should come back, the arm parts just need to be assembled, we might have a "scoring" robot on Saturday.

We put the drive train through some tests and those Supershifters are as impressive as I thought they would be. We're very happy with what they will do for us.

The Chairman's award is due in just 14 days and I just read the most recent revision. We are trying something a little different this year that I think will resonate well with the judges. Ill post the completed essay once it's submitted.

I'll try to post some videos of the robot and minibot to our team Youtube channel on Saturday.

19 Days until Ship Day!

-Justin

An update to bring you through 1/23

It's been a while since I last updated but thats not to say things haven't been going on. We have been busy.

The Minibot is really coming along. We are on our 4th revision of our original prototype. I've worked with various mechanical sub-teams over the years but I haven't seen a sub-team go through the design process as efficiently as this group has. Our best time, with our 100% legal minibot was around 3.5 seconds. There are still a lot of inefficiencies in our prototype and weight that will bring our time down once we make our final build. Also the design lends itself to a very simple and reliable deployment. We have one student who is a senior and it's his first year on the team and he came up with a great idea for deployment that I think will be quick and it will be easy on the drivers. I wish sometimes you could redshirt students. It was the first idea that really got me giddy with excitement. I love ideas that just make you smile.

Our manipulator group is coming along. They have got 2 designs that they are moving forward with. One is "active" and one isn't but both have their pro's and con's. it will be interesting to see which design finally wins out and make the competition robot.

The arm has been done in concept for a week or so, just waiting on parts and it will assembled onto our completed frame which has also been done for a little over a week. Those SuperShifters are awesome. Can't wait to see what they can do for us at competition.

I've noticed this blog has been very mechanical sided so I figured I give some insight into some other things that are going on.

Our marketing team is working hard on our 2011 Chairman's award presentation. From what I've seen it's really going to be awesome. We have some new blood in there this season and it's really showing. I don't want to say we're throwing out the old playbook completely but we are making some changes and it has the team really excited. I'll give some more details when I think it's appropriate.

I witnessed that group cutting up some Styrofoam Triangles Circles and Squares, I think you might see them in the stands this year.

I hope you all are enjoying your Logomotion build season.

-Justin