Goal Setting for FTC Robotics Season

Growing from Learning, to Excelling and Inspiring

Robotics, the Game and the problem solving aspects of FTC can be so much fun that most teams do not think much about setting Goals for the season. However Goal setting can be an important way for the team to measure their progress, break it down into monthly or weekly tasks and measure their progress. Often goals can be reframed or improved throughout the season as you see your team meeting or exceeding key milestones or metrics.

This becomes an important piece of the story that you want to convey to your mentors, sponsors and during judging. Showcasing your goals clearly to people who are not familiar with the team is a key way to share your vision of the team and what you want to achieve and get people aligned with that vision, sponsor and support your team.

When I meet new teams for the first time, I often ask them about their goals. Most teams will talk about achieving some elements of the game challenge or winning an award at a competition. Not a big surprise – our team was also in this space when we started, but I’d like to offer a different way to think about it.

Most of the teams that start in FTC do it for at least three to four years and they move through a journey where they grow from learning, to excelling to inspiring others. It can be helpful to reflect on where your team is in this journey and set goals to get to the next level.

Learning & Connecting

FTC has such a steep learning curve that most teams are trying to build a competitive robot in their first season and even this can be challenging. Teams are focussed on figuring out the base systems you want to use for the build (Tetrix, Servocity, Andymark), the programming environment, the control systems and phones, wiring/soldering, tools that you need, etc.

In addition you are trying to figure out what your outreach strategy. Developing your mentor and sponsor network is key. This often includes other senior teams in your community, technical mentors who can help your ramp in specific skills and sponsors who can fund your team. Connecting and finding others who are willing to help you is a key part of this process.

Coming together as a team is another important aspect. If it’s a big team, often the team members are coming together for the first time and figuring out how to work as a team. What are the individuals passionate about? Who will be the drivers, driver coaches and other defined leadership roles? It may also be helpful to set ground rules, expectations and a leadership strategy for the team.

Goals in this phase may look like:

A running robot doing X tasks by Y competition
Raising X $’s in funds for the program
Doing X number of outreach events
Team ground rules and processes established for engineering notebook, …, etc.

Excelling as a Team

By your second or third season you have figured out how to get a working robot on the field – address wiring issues or challenges like your wheel falling off in the middle of a match. You are now optimizing on more effective grabbers, having a more efficient autonomous or teleop. You now know tips and tricks that other teams use and are learning how to improve on them. In each of the areas you are looking to improve, up the ante and increase your expertise – programming, robot mechanisms, control systems, design iterations, 3D design, and others. You may also have invested in several must have tools to build out your tool shop or have figured out access to one.

The team has come together in many ways and there are clear processes in place for communication, dividing up the work and make it all come together. You start on the engineering notebook early and it’s more comprehensive at the end of the season. The business plan is more sustainable with repeat sponsorship and increased mentor network. You now have clear outreach goals and are looking to raise the bar and excel in multiple areas. You have well established connections into the local community to have a sizable portfolio of outreach events that include making FIRST loud, mentoring & training other teams and driving more impact within your community.

Goals for these teams may looks like:

Develop and Implement a well defined design process
Robot scores X in autonomous and Y points in Teleop
Test programs / Checklists in place to minimize failures during matches
Goals around driving impact from outreach
Sustained sponsorship and mentoring goals

Inspiring Others and the “Wow” factor

Teams at this level go beyond excelling to “WOW” in one or many aspects of the FTC program. You recognize these teams from the robot performance perspective at almost all major competitions. They have figured out the most efficient way to play the game and optimized their robot to it. The robot is resilient enough to take a beating during the competition and yet come out ahead during the playoffs. What is not necessarily obvious is when teams wow the judges in other areas.

Your ideal engineering notebook is a work of Art – describing your problem solving methodology and iterations through the design process. It could be a great read for other teams filled with tips & tricks, and is an enthralling read for the judges. Your outreach could have reached a level where you are inspiring new teams to form and mentoring them to success. Your business plan potentially includes opportunities where you can help other teams get started. You have figured out methods to scale your impact within and beyond your immediate community.

In interactions with others (including judges) these teams are seamless and perform as a cohesive, inclusive team. They have a strong story about their journey, their evolution and impact. During interactions it does not seem like a Q&A session. It seems like an engaging conversation where they can’t seem to hold back their passion about robotics. Often one person on the team will start the discussion, and others will build on it. At competitions, you will see judges mill around these teams because the teams have so much to share.

Goals in this phase:

I won’t even try to articulate Goals in this phase, because these teams have way more ideas than I could ever imagine

Aim High and Be Authentic

At the end, it’s very much about how the team feels where they are in the journey and crafting the goals that feel right to you. This is not to say that teams cannot inspire in their first year. If you are an FLL team, you can inspire other FLL teams in your first FTC season. Many teams continue to gain new team members as seniors graduate and probably go through this cycle every year. These teams can continue to impress others year after year. But at the end it’s your passion and hard work that shines through your story.

Aim high with your goals and continually refine your goals as you achieve them. When I look back at our team, we made considerable progress along this journey. Although we did not excel at everything, we hit our stride by our third season. Along the way, we saw some great robots, amazing engineering notebooks and inspiring teams, that continued to drive our team to do better.

Goal setting for FTC Robotics is important to set your team on the right path. Hope this helps frame your goals to Learning, Excelling and Inspiring.