During the beginning, members on the WildStang team needed to understand the rules of the game and how it is played before we can start on the design process. So the members of the WildStang strategy and concept sub teams got together and did the 2004 game analysis. As a team, we figured out the strategy to maximize our chances of winning. Our final robot design depended on what they thought was important to do during the game. We figured out what the robot and human player needed to accomplish during a match in order to score the highest amount of points and make the robot dominant on the field.

After the discussion about the rules of the game, we needed to learn the rules and limitations for the construction of the robot. It was very important that we knew and completely understood:

·  Information about the parts provided in the Kits of Parts

·  Information about additional parts that may be used to build the robot

·  Power distribution on the robot

·  Wiring examples

·  The rules governing robot design and construction

For 2004, FIRST came up with a unique and challenging game involving many design challenges. The robot built for this game had to be able to perform different tasks in order to be effective on the playing field. The concept of our design is always derived from the following elements:

·  Speed

·  Functionality

·  Agility

·  Strength

·  Traction and Control

·  Durability

With respect to our game strategy, we came up with different tasks that our robot should perform.

• To be a robot that has control of the 2X ball.
• It seemed that to have control of the 2X ball was very important because it doubled the amount of points for the scoring goal on which it was placed. So we wanted to have control of the 2X balls. This way, once we are done filling up a scoring goal, we can cap the scoring goal with a 2X ball. The control over a 2X ball might be a very big advantage during a game.
•  To be a robot which can hang on the elevated bar
• This seemed to be another important factor to our robot because it contributed another 50 points to the alliance. Doing this one action, which might take about 10 seconds, gained the alliance a substantial amount of points. Therefore this was something that needed to be performed during every round, because doing this every round guaranteed the robot at least 50 points.
• To be a very maneuverable robot.
• We need to be able to move quickly and with stability, in order to accomplish many tasks during the two minute period. This may include uncapping and moving the mobile goal, capping our alliance's stationary goal or uncapping our opponents' goal(s), and hanging on the horizontal bar.
• To be a robot that can easily move around the inner portion of the field.
• This year, the field is not completely flat; it is elevated with no ramps to get onto elevated parts. So we needed an efficient way to get onto the elevated portions of the field.
• Additional components
• We wanted our human player to be quite good at shooting balls into the scoring goals since a large portion of the points depended on it.