FIRST LEGO League (FLL) 2020 RePLAY has arrived and it seems it will be a pretty interesting competition. Some of the missions are quite challenging, but as in previous years, we've prepared a Tips and Tricks page that could help you get started. What we could do as mentors, is to help with directions and questions based on experience and tutorials from previous years.As each year we're not releasing any "solutions" until the season ends. The page aims at providing ideas you could learn from and develop your own solutions to the missions.Meanwhile, our engineers Dimitar Staykov (DS) and Martin Grozev (MG), who are well familiar with the new field, are sharing their thoughts about the upcoming challenge.Do you wanna know which would be the most difficult mission? Or you're worried how you would prepare your team for a robotics competition during this global complex situation? Keep reading, you might find the answers you need: What do you think about the new FLL 2020 RePLAY season and the missions in it?DS: I think the new field is as challenging as any other from the previous seasons. The people behind the field and the missions have done a wonderful job once again. It's a pity that it appeared in such a complicated year.MG: The missions in the new RePLAY challenge look to really promote creativity and fun! The first thing that got my attention while looking at the launch video and the rules, was that there are two missions that require your robot to be there at the end of the game to score points. That means that not only you have to choose one of them, but also that there is more pressure for your robot to make it in time to those missions. Of course M06 "Pull-Up Bar" gives more points than M07 "Robot Dance", but it is way harder to do! The field also has two missions for flipping objects, M09 "Tire Flip" and M10 "Cell Phone", which will be very interesting to figure out. In this challenge we have to transport around little cubes, which could prove to be pretty difficult as M04 "Bench" needs quite a bit of accuracy! All the other missions are very interesting and I really like the balance in points as you can do a little of a mission and still get points, but if you want to have the most points, you still have to work hard!Which is the mission you think would be most difficult for the teams in the new competition? Why?DS:I think that would be mission 6 Pull-up Bar... or mission 8 Boccia. Mission 6 requires a small robot which could pass under the beam and then has to successfully pull up on it. Such a small robot would struggle to complete mission 5 Basketball, because it would need a bigger or complicated attachment in order to push the hoop higher and win more points. Mission 8 Boccia requires aiming and this always is complicated and somehow a matter of luck.MG: As Dimitar said, the hardest mission probably is M06 "Pull-Up Bar", because most robots are pretty heavy and have a hard time lifting themselves. Definitely a cool challenge to solve! This mission is of course exclusive with M07 "Robot Dance" and for 10 less points, you can not go through the hassle of designing your robot for one mission and make it do a cool dance, which could be a fair trade. The other missions could also prove to be quite tricky. In M03 "Slide", the slide has a very interesting shape, which might lead to some interesting solutions for pushing the people off the slide. M04 "Bench", in addition to requiring a lot of accuracy for the cubes, needs to be pushed and the back to be extracted, which are a lot of movements, but it's probably worth it for 65 points. M11 "Treadmill" and M12 "Row Machine" are also contenders for the hardest mission as both have a big risk of displacing your robot, so I expect some cool solutions for them!What is the best way to prepare for a robotics competition in this complicated worldwide situation? What is the best advice you could give to the mentors and teams? What should they do to prepare for the challenge?MG: The best way to prepare for RePLAY in the current conditions is to talk more with the members of the team, including the mentors! See what everyone can offer to do and decide the best way to proceed. As a solution to the problem, I would propose to make the project online, with regular meetings at least once a week. For the Robot Game, the best course of action is probably if the team gathers a few times for a bootcamp-like team building for a few days and just focuses on the Robot Game and teambuilding. Those few days might be over the weekend or more, as most countries' quarantine lasts for two weeks, it is probably best if you do it once over two weeks, although it is probably impossible for most teams.DS: It's different for everyone. You could prepare online and also offline with the team. If we're talking about offline preparation, I think that each member of a team should play around the field at home, if he/she has such an opportunity, instead of watching television, for example. There is no need to spend all this time struggling to figure out ways to accomplish the missions. You could just play different games on it. That is a way you can come up with great and original ideas.My advice to teams and mentors is to find a safe way to gather together for at least two hours daily and try to work for the competition. That doesn't mean that they have to concentrate on the field and robot only, but to prepare for the other challenges - the interview with the team, the presentation, etc. Teams shouldn't forget that building the field correctly is crucial for the good preparation for the competition. They should explore the field in detail and from every angle. In fact, this thought inspired us to create our live 3D animated building instructions. In our Tips & Tricks for FLL 2020 RePLAY challenge page you could explore the mission models from every angle. On the other hand, the course Solutions & Review for FLL 2019 City Shaper might be also useful for teams - learning from your own experience from previous missions is a great way to prepare for an upcoming competition. Last, but not least, some sort of team buildings could do a great job. The team could go play some outdoor games - run together in the park or play volleyball. But the most important is to have fun together. This is the goal of the competition. If they're not having fun together, there's no point to participate at all.
