Game Strategy

After you have become familiar with the Botball Scoring, you can then start to come up with your team strategy for handling the game.  In the game, you only have two minutes (120 seconds) in order to collect as much points as possible.

One technique is to create a table that has 3 categories for: easy, medium, and hard.  Easy points require minimal effort.  Medium points are achievable but require some thought and effort.  Hard points are often worth the most, but are also the most difficult to achieve.

For each possible point combination, the team places it in the appropriate category.  After all the points are categorized, the team can decide on a preliminary strategy by identifying which points they want to go after.  The strategy typically depends upon the experience level of the team.  For beginner teams, you want to get as many "easy" points as you can on a consistent basis.  It is also important to know what you are not going after - so ignore all those "hard" points.  Then select one or more of the "medium" points as part of your stretch goal.

The selected points will also give you some constraints for your robot(s).  The botball kit comes with two controllers (brains) - so most people build two robots.  What capabilities will the robot need to achieve those points?  What size does my robot have to be to overcome obstacles in the way of scoring points?  What types of manipulator (pusher, claw, arm, etc.) does my robot require?  

To answer some of these questions, you may need to do more research.  For example: How do you build a claw?  Is it really called a claw?  If not, what is it called and how do I build it.