What you decide in the very first week of Build Season determines what you do for the next 5 weeks – it’s VERY important that you use the right brainstorming strategies for that first week.
Plan out your activities ahead of time. One of the first activities that the Girls of Steel do is miming the different actions we want our robot to do by physically acting out the part. This helps us get general ideas of how the game might work. As the week progresses, we get into more and more detail. By the end of Week One, we are constructing prototypes from wood, cardboard, duct tape, and zip ties to prove that our mechanical ideas can physically work.
January 5th’s EWPC Cast has more advice for the days immediately following the Kickoff:
- Read the ENTIRE rules book.
- Analyze every possible a). way to score and b). way to stop scoring.
- Read the requirements on the ranking system. Does winning the most games rank you highest? Does getting the most points?
- Based upon the ranking requirements, develop your own goals. Temper your expectations – rookie teams often guess too high when they aim for the average number of points scored in a game. Go for consistency rather than being the highest scoring robot on the field.
- Always simulate the game. Give humans different abilities (i.e. fast drive train, taller arm) and act out how everything happens.
- Build game elements, so that your team can get a gist of the spacial relation of the field.
Whatever activities your team chooses, make sure you have a plan so that you know exactly how to use your time – every hour is crucial when you have only 45 days to build a robot!
~Girls of Steel, FIRST Team #3504
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