by Shiamak
Hello everyone! Before I tell you how we finalized on a run strategy, let me just refresh everyone's memory on what a run strategy is. Basically, a run strategy is the strategic design of robot's run in the FLL tournament to achieve optimum results. A Robot run is its movement on the table until it comes back to the base or reaches its final destination. It is impossible to complete all the missions in a single robot run. So we have to divide the missions into multiple runs and sequence them in a meaningful order.
The run strategy is broken up into a number of runs. In each run, the robot does different missions before coming back to the base to be repositioned and sent to do another run. The two factors we considered for combining multiple missions into a run were - missions location on the map and type of attachment required to complete the mission.
Now, lets get to the point. First, we broke up into three teams of three. Our coach gave each team a set of small paper cutouts, each cut out having a picture representing a certain mission. Each group would make their own run strategy using the cutouts. After each team was done designing their own run strategy, we came together to find that each groups run strategy was very similar. Then, with some voting and a little bit of arguing, we managed to finalize on our run strategy.
We also focused on level of difficulty while designing the mission strategy. For example the obstacle mission was not considered as part of any run strategy and we put it aside. At the end, it also became clear that we could not possibly complete all the missions in allocated 150 seconds. So we ended up doing only those that we had reasonably consistent performance.
The run strategy is broken up into a number of runs. In each run, the robot does different missions before coming back to the base to be repositioned and sent to do another run. The two factors we considered for combining multiple missions into a run were - missions location on the map and type of attachment required to complete the mission.
Now, lets get to the point. First, we broke up into three teams of three. Our coach gave each team a set of small paper cutouts, each cut out having a picture representing a certain mission. Each group would make their own run strategy using the cutouts. After each team was done designing their own run strategy, we came together to find that each groups run strategy was very similar. Then, with some voting and a little bit of arguing, we managed to finalize on our run strategy.
We also focused on level of difficulty while designing the mission strategy. For example the obstacle mission was not considered as part of any run strategy and we put it aside. At the end, it also became clear that we could not possibly complete all the missions in allocated 150 seconds. So we ended up doing only those that we had reasonably consistent performance.