Drive Principles

This is intended to be a brief outline of some of the drive team principles that we should keep in mind when practicing and driving at competition.

General

• You are the boss: If you want a different control setup or a mechanism to work a different way, tell this to the appropriate technical sub team! It's their job to make the robot adapt to you, not the other way around.
• Work as a team: Make sure that you practice as a full drive team. Communicate and provide suggestions to each other. You're all on the same team, and you need to function like a well-oiled machine so that the robot can do the same.
• Avoid protected zones: This is important as a driver, getting fouls from protected zones is one of the easiest ways to get on a DO NOT PICK list. There are exceptions, and if there are no opposing robots nearby and it will benefit your alliance then maybe go for it, but this should be done sparingly.
• Avoid spinning too much: While spinning is cool and a useful tool for avoiding defenders, it slows you down. Don't spin if you don't need to.
• Avoid breaking the robot: Try not to break things. Given the nature of the sport it will sometimes happen on the field, but try to avoid excessive damage. The easiest way to do this is to use Turtle Mode. In many of our robots that extend outside of the frame perimeter, this mode is used to retract everything inside to avoid damage while traveling at high speed or cross-field. Note that while on the practice field it is okay to overcompensate to avoid damage, while playing make sure that you're overly cautious to the detriment of your cycle times.

Practicing

• See something, say something: If you see unexpected behavior from the robot (like the code crashing or a mechanism failing to work properly), tell the appropriate sub team! Even if it's uncommon for the failure to occur or if you found a workaround for it, it's still important to inform the technical sub team about it. If the sub team is not aware of the issue, we will never learn our design mistake and fix it. It's vital to get these problems fixed before competition so that they do not occur during a match, crippling our gameplay.
• Practice how you play: During a match, you'll experience defense from other robots, obscured visibility, robot failures, and more. Prepare for all of these during your practice.
• Practice what's difficult: Practice what you struggle with, not what you're good at. That's how you'll improve the most, and what will give you the best chance of success at competition.
• Practice on every Alliance Driver Station: You should know how to score in all possible goals from every driver station, and practice doing so before competition. Not doing so will be detrimental to your performance because you don't get to choose driver stations until playoffs.
• Prepare for the worst: You should be ready to fall back to the basics if part of your robot fails, whether that be your auto score software, a critical mechanism, pneumatic pressure, or anything else. You should know how to score manually and how to perform effective defense.
• Practice the things you need to improve: Don't just keep practicing full matches or cycles. If you recognize a portion of a cycle you need practicing on, like intaking, traversing, or scoring, you should focus your practice on that section. Making effective use of your practice time will lead to the largest improvements in your driving.
• Practice multiple paths: When practicing by yourself, it may be easy to just use the easiest path or scoring location. In real matches, you don't get that luxury. You're playing with 5 other robots using the same space, so try to vary your pathing when running cycles during practice.
• Experiment: When practicing, your current strategy may not be the best for cycles. Make sure to try different ones and measure the results. Another great way to look for strategies is to go onto YouTube or Chief Delphi and look for analysis or strategy postings.

Competition

• Keep to yourself: Do NOT interfere with your alliance partners! Stay out of their way whenever possible. Being an annoying and obstructive alliance partner is an easy way to get on a "Do Not Pick" list. Be careful when defending that you're only obstructing the opposing alliance!
• Work as an alliance: Make sure that you and your alliance partners have a strategy and have worked out a way to play to the best of all your abilities. This should help with "Keep to yourself" as well: work out pathing that is efficient and unobstructive.
• Don't give up: Keep fighting hard until the end. A strong showing can catch the eyes of potential alliance partners, even if you have a bad match. If the robot breaks, go on defense. Don't E-Stop unless doing so is necessary to maintain GP or follow the rules of the game--in general, the FTA will handle E-Stop if it's needed.

Playing With Others

• Set Your Strategy: Someone on your drive/strategy team should be talking to your alliance partners at least 10 minutes before your match. Cover Auto strategies and make sure you don't interfere. Go over Teleop pathing and define everyone's roles. Make sure to also cover Endgame: where they should be for what tasks, and when they should be there. Good strategy can be the difference between a clear victory and a shattering defeat.

Anti-defense

• Spin: When going against an opponent who’s defending against you, the main tool at your disposal spinning. Spin in the direction such that you are essentially trying to “spin around your opponent.” This reduces robot-to-robot contact and allows you to maneuver around them. Practice this before competition.
• Use Protected Zones: Use the protected zones by trying to score and stay in them. However, make sure not to sacrifice cycle time for safety: still try to score outside of them if you're not at risk of defense from an opposing robot.

Defense

• Identify Choke Points: Places where you know the robots will tend to funnel towards are your targets. These should be identified with the strategy head of your alliances before competitions.
• Get Between Them: Stay between them and their goal, trying to copy their movements.
• Spin V2: Anti-anti-defense is where you spin to counter their spinning: you spin in the opposite direction (like meshing gears) to counteract their spin. Practice this before competition.
• Avoid Protected Zones: Arguably the most important part (and the part where so many teams mess up) is to make sure not to touch or enter zones that are protected. If you do, you WILL receive the respective foul.

Other

• Visibility: When choosing which side of your alliance driver station, make sure that you have visibility of your targets. Priority is usually given to the driver, but it depends on who controls what and where.

Quotes

• StormBots: The strategic truth is that when given a choice, drivers do not e-stop their bots. With an e-stop, you forfeit any chance to regain control, even at a diminished level. You also set your bot up for significant foul points should you get nudged into foul zones. If there are any actual safety concerns, the FTAs handle them. Drive teams are focusing on strategic concerns, and that’s “do literally anything but die on the field”.

 [Titan] We agree, but with the exception that we remain GP and that the rules allow it.

• Practice like you’ve never won. Perform like you’ve never lost: When practicing, nothing should be left to chance. If you think defensive robots will be present, practice anti-defense. If there are anticipated problems with the robot, make sure you know how to work around them. But on the field, be confident: the only thing you’re doing on the field is running cycles. Don’t worry about what the crowds doing, etc. Just focus and be confident in your abilities.