FRC2023-2024: Crescendo

Lessons Learned

Drive Team

Driver: Noah Fang

DISCLAIMER

Nothing in this book is set in stone, FRC is constantly evolving and there are so many cases on the field where you can't follow this. Just use your best judgment.

General

1. 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 of course, if there are no opposing robots nearby and it can help your alliance maybe go for it, but it is a case-by-case event.
2. AVOID SPINNING TOO MUCH: While spinning is cool and helps you avoid defenders; it slows down your velocity so don't spin if you don't need to.
3. AVOID BREAKING WHAT DOESN'T NEED TO GET BROKEN: Try not to break things... It will 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, we have this to retract everything inside to avoid damage while traveling at high speed or cross-field. WHILE ON THE PRACTICE FIELD IT IS OK TO OVERCOMPENSATE TO AVOID DAMAGE BUT WHEN PLAYING MAKE SURE THIS IS NOT TOO DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR CYCLE TIMES.

Practicing

1. EVERY ALLIANCE DRIVER STATION: You should know how to score in all possible goals from every driver station, not doing so will be detrimental to your performance as you don't get to choose driver stations until playoffs.
2. PREPARE FOR THE WORST: You should be ready to fall back to the basics if your auto score fails or mechanism fails. You should know how to score manually or perform defense well.
3. 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. Practice that section. It will lead to the largest payoff during practice.
4. PRACTICE MULTIPLE PATHS: When practicing by yourself, while it may be easy to just use the easiest path or scoring location, you don't get that luxury on the field. You're playing with 5 other robots using the same space, so try to vary pathing when running cycles.
5. 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.

Playing With Others

1. DON'T INTERFERE: DO NOT, and I mean it, interfere with your alliance partners. This means blocking incoming robots or slowing them down. Sometimes this is unavoidable but try to make sure it rarely happens. This usually comes down to having a preset path that you follow.
2. 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. Vover Teleop pathing and define people's roles. And cover Endgame which means where they should be for what and when. GOOD STRATEGY CAN WIN MATCHES

Anti-defense

1. SPIN: When going against an opponent who’s defending against you, the main thing is spin. Spin in the direction where you are essentially trying to “spin around your opponent” This reduces robot-to-robot contact and allows you to maneuver around them.
2. USE PROTECTED ZONES: Use the protected zones, try to score and keep in them. But make sure not to sacrifice cycle time for safety, still try to score outside of them.

Defense

1. IDENTIFY CHOKE POINTS: Places where you know the robots will tend to funnel towards are your targets, these should be identified with the strategy person of your alliances before competitions.
2. GET BETWEEN THEM: Stay between them and their goal, try to copy movements.
3. 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.
4. AVOID PROTECTED ZONES: Arguably the most important part where I see so many teams mess up, is not to touch or enter zones that are protected since you WILL receive the respective foul.
5. DON'T DEFEND AGAINST YOUR ALLIANCE PARTNERS: This is one of the worst things I've seen, if you are playing defense don't set it up in a way that you'll impede your owner alliance partners. Doing this repeatedly is a sure-fire way to land on a DO NOT PICK list.

Other

1. VISIBILITY: This might seem very nuanced but when choosing which side of your alliance driver station, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE VISIBILITY OF YOUR TARGETS. Priority is usually given to the driver, but it depends on who controls what and where.
2. EVERYBODY WORKS FOR YOU: At the end of the day, you represent your alliance's work on the field. So, if something's off, TELL THEM. Nothing will get fixed if you don't and it may get worse. This is also the case for any weird controls you don't like, mechanical inconveniences, or anything else.

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 with the exception that we remain GP and 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.