Coordinating with your ally

One of the worst things about competitions is that you can’t win alone. You’re gonna have an ally, whether you like it or not. This is why you need to coordinate with your ally. In most situations, an alliance with two teams who have talked strategy before the match will come out on top when they play against an alliance who just met on the spot. In fact, I’d say that planning your match is just as important as the match itself.

Steps for Planning

  1. Go scout the opposition. This may seem controversial, but in order to make a good plan, you need to know what you’re up against first. Find your opponents first, determine their strengths and weaknesses by either asking them indirectly and/or observing their robots. You might want to take notes.
  2. Find your ally. Make sure not to go alone. Bring at least one other person. This is because you might not know everything about your robot, and it is good to have your teammate backing you up if you get into a dispute
  3. Find the programmer and driver and as many other team members as you can.
  4. Make sure the drivers talk to each other.
  5. Determine strengths and weaknesses (defense or offense, fast or slow, etc) and make a plan where you cover each other’s weaknesses Demonstrate autonomous programs. Make sure your autonomous programs are compatible (They won’t cause the robots to crash into each other). If they are not compatible, choose the one that scores the most and disable the other one. Make sure to do this. We have lost so many games by allies lying/being unsure about their autonomous.
  6. Choose which starting tile each robot starts in.
  7. Make sure the right autonomous program is selected.
  8. Go back to your robot and do a pre game check (detailed in Competition → Maintenance document)

One last thing…

While you may have a plan, don’t expect everything to go according to it. People mess up, objects aren’t placed perfectly, you forget something, the opponent pulls some absolute magic, and the plan goes off the wheels. Try not to panic. Panicking is useless. Make sure to talk to your allied driver and improvise as best as you can. Do what feels right, and you should be fine.