Weekend Recap - Happy Kickoff everyone!
Our kickoff weekend has just come to an end and the week 1 meetings are now fully on their way!
Our hybrid kickoff weekend was fully focused on the analysis of the game, with the team analyzing the game from home and the strategy department starting their first day of Data-Driven Decision Making at our main partner’s headquarters!
This post shows our collected data during the start of Data-Driven Decision Making as well as our experience in managing the team, and analyzing in this hybrid form.
For quick reference, the first half will include useful data, and the second will give you a good feeling of our experience this kickoff in terms of managing COVID.
I’m excited to show you our kickoff weekend of this year! For those that haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the Rapid React 2022 game animation .
Data-Driven Decision Making (3DM)
If you didn’t read our previous post, here’s a little recap of this new method.
Data-Driven Decision Making is a new way of picking prototype priorities in the early weeks of build season. And it’s a mouth full, so from now on, we’ll call it 3DM, because D-D-D-D-D-M is hard to say 5 times in a row…
3DM is a new approach for the 2022 game, in which the strategy department will be looking at the game tasks through the eyes of historical game data and new cycle estimates. By making predictions of this game based on previous, similar, game tasks and on cycle time analysis, the strategy department will be able to give an objective and rational look at tough decisions in the first weeks. Their goal is to develop quantitative requirements for the subsystems. This way, by not allowing experience and gut feeling to drive our decisions, but instead by making data and knowledge the fuel of our flight (#FIRSTFORWARD) to a successful robot, we minimize the amount of time lost discussing and make more informed decisions. The goal of 3DM is to calculate the most optimal robot strategy before the end of week 1. The results of 3DM will influence the decisions made in choosing prototypes in week 2.
The 3DM Sunday Sessions
During the Sunday Sessions of the analysis, the 3DM group focused on estimating the cycles of the game and their achievable points and comparing this to the minimum amount of points necessary to be competitive in our events, to create a minimum and winning competitive robot concept. By making an accurate estimation of the travel, collection, and ejection of cargo times, the group was able to give insights on the strategies necessary to provide the required amount of points to win an event.
Estimations were based on the travel speed of the drivetrain, scoring and collecting speed based on previous games, and an appropriate safety factor.
The results can be found in this document
The results of the skills list and scoring analysis, generated during the weekend, and the cycle times, generated during 3DM, are combined and a minimum and competitive concept is generated.
Planning week 1
Based on experience, prototyping priorities are thought up and chosen for week 1 based on the concepts created by 3DM. These subsystems will be prototyped in week 1 until the 3DM group has found a clear direction to go towards. After a decision has been made on which prototype priority fits our strategy, the 3DM group will steer prototyping into a clear, narrow direction for the proceeding weeks.
The prototype priorities have been concluded to be directed towards the following tasks:
With these in mind, we have a clear mentality to achieve our goal of controlling our fate at regionals.
The hybrid kickoff
COVID has created an entirely new strategic field for our team to overcome. Creating an event for a large group of people has never been harder, and I personally would like to give you a fun insight into our hybrid kickoff experience.
Due to the new Omicron variant, meeting up with the whole team during kickoff weekend was not possible. That’s why we opted for a hybrid kickoff.
The strategy department, together with a small group of team members, would work on creating a plan for week 1 as well as start their new strategic plan called 3DM.
The rest of the team would work on analyzing the game for themselves from home and making sure the strategic team had not missed anything.
It’s Saturday, that means…
Happy kickoff! Around noon the physical group joins up at our main partner’s headquarters and starts setting up the stream and preparing for the analytics.
Being able to work in their large auditory allowed them to work together during this kickoff weekend. With the weekend being filled with strategy, the first thing they did was warm up with a practice analyzation of the 2007 game. Creating a game tasks analysis, skills list, and required skills set, they were getting ready for the real deal in the evening, making the best use of the waiting time created by the time difference in time zones.
At the end of the afternoon, the physical group is joined by the online group to watch the reveal of the 2022 game.
Print the manual, turn on noise-canceling, and read the rules!
Directly after the game, both the online and physical group head dive into the manual to read every rule and memorize every potential cycle. As the online group logs off, the physical group comes together to create the skills list.
Having a draft version of the skills list, the physical group goes home.
Sunday begins. The sun rises, the sky turns orange, and an engineer in a bright hoody with a cup of coffee is reading the manual exclaiming they found something.
The physical group goes over the skills list one more time to review all newly found exceptions and loopholes before splitting up into groups. The strategists start crunching numbers, the engineers look for subsystems related to this game, and management starts the call for the Online group, who start pouring into the call. The Online group is split into breakout rooms to create their own skills lists.
The online group produce a new skills list
The online group has found a ton of skills, and a bundled copy is assembled and distributed back to the online group. The skills lists created by the breakout rooms are now reviewed to create a final skills list, removing all doubles and spelling errors, and checking each other’s skills.
During their breaks, they’re sent the?#frc1678 ?rules test. Over the course of the day, members send in their answers, and with each attempt, they inch closer to understanding the game.
With the second draft skills list now created, it is sent over to the strategic team for a final comparison between the two drafts. The resulting skills list is now set in stone. Well, sheet metal I mean.
Conclusion
The team will be working on the 4 tasks above, as concluded by the strategy department this weekend. During the final meeting of the weekend, the conclusion is shared with the entire team.
With that, the kickoff weekend comes to an end. The team’s next step is discussing the role division for prototyping. We expect cool videos to come real soon.
This has been the most unique kickoff we’ve ever had. Accepting the challenge of organizing a hybrid kickoff, the excitement for this new strategy system, and the looming anxiety of COVID in the back of our minds make this season one with every potential to never forget.
We wish you all a happy kickoff?