Two Specialty Modules for Students Who Want to Go Deeper
These are not full paths — they are focused skill sets for one or two students who want to own a specific role. Both are essential on competition day. Neither requires a full season to learn.
📷 Photography & Video Production
Match-day photography, robot-reveal video editing, and the Compass Award tribute. For the one or two students who want to own every frame the team puts out.
Every piece of visual content the team produces — the Instagram posts that recruit the next member, the match-recap reel that sponsors watch, the portfolio photos that judges study, the Compass Award video that makes a mentor cry in the best possible way — comes from this module. It is a supporting role on competition day and a leading role in how the team is remembered afterward.
The student who owns this module is not just pointing a phone at the robot and pressing record. They are the team’s visual journalist: deliberate about what they capture, disciplined about when to capture it, and skilled enough in editing to turn raw footage into something worth watching. That combination is rarer than it sounds — and far more valuable to the team than most students realize before they try it.
What This Role Produces
| Content Type | When | Goes To |
|---|---|---|
| Build session photos | Every session | Instagram, portfolio, Open Alliance updates |
| Outreach event photos | Every event | Portfolio outreach section, blog posts, Instagram |
| Robot progress shots | Each design milestone | Open Alliance, robot reveal poster, portfolio |
| Competition match footage | Every match | Match-recap reel, Instagram, archival record |
| Pit candids and team moments | Competition day | Instagram, portfolio team culture section |
| Robot reveal video | Before first competition | YouTube, Instagram, Open Alliance reveal post |
| Match-recap reel | Within one week of competition | YouTube, Instagram, sponsor update |
| Compass Award video (60 sec) | Before deadline | FIRST submission + team YouTube channel |
The Four-Step Learning Sequence
Learn the Fundamentals of Competition Photography
Competition venues are dark, fast, and chaotic. A phone camera set to auto will produce blurry, orange-tinted, unusable photos of robots moving at full speed. The Photography lead needs to understand three settings before competition day: shutter speed (fast enough to freeze robot motion — 1/500s or faster), exposure compensation (bump it up in dark venues), and burst mode (hold the shutter down through a scoring sequence and pick the best frame afterward).
Practice at build sessions first. Robots move during testing. Learn to anticipate motion, not react to it. The best competition photos are taken by students who already know what the robot is about to do because they have been watching it all season.
Learn Basic Video Editing — CapCut, DaVinci Resolve, or iMovie
The editing tools available for free have never been better. CapCut is the fastest on-ramp — it runs on a phone, exports directly to Instagram, and has built-in music sync and caption tools that work well for the match-recap reel format. DaVinci Resolve is the professional-grade option — free, desktop-based, and the same tool used in Hollywood post-production. iMovie works for Mac and iPhone users who want simplicity without the learning curve of Resolve.
Start with CapCut: edit one sixty-second video from build session footage. Trim clips, add a title card, sync cuts to music. The goal is not a polished product — it is learning to make editorial decisions under a time constraint. The first edit will be rough. Do it anyway. Every edit after the first one is faster.
Produce the Robot Reveal Video and Match-Recap Reel
The robot reveal video introduces the competition robot to the world — posted to YouTube and the Open Alliance reveal thread before the first qualifier. Keep it under ninety seconds. Open with the most visually impressive thing the robot does. Include the team name, robot name, and season on a title card. No shaky handheld footage of a robot sitting still on a table — film it moving, scoring, doing the thing it was built to do.
The match-recap reel is the most-watched content the team produces. Shot list, edit structure, and music guidance are covered in the Social Media path — the Photography lead executes it. Film every match. Review footage the same evening. Edit within the week. Post while the competition is still fresh. A match reel posted three weeks late has lost ninety percent of its audience.
Produce the Compass Award Video — 60 Seconds, One Mentor, No Wasted Frames
The Compass Award is an optional FTC award given to a team that submits a sixty-second video nominating a coach or mentor who made a significant difference in their season. It earns no advancement points — but producing the video is one of the most meaningful things the team will do all year, and submitting it is an act of Gracious Professionalism that judges notice.
Sixty seconds is harder than it sounds. Every frame must earn its place. Plan the video before filming: who speaks, what they say, what footage illustrates it, how it ends. Interview two or three team members about what the mentor did that mattered. Show the mentor in action at a build session or event. End with a title card and the team’s name. Do not use copyrighted music — YouTube Audio Library has everything you need. Submit it before the deadline published in the season’s Game Manual.
The Compass Award Video — Structure
Photography & Video Resources:
📱 Social Media & Open Alliance Path — where the photos and videos get published and why → 📋 Engineering Portfolio Path — portfolio photos are a Photography lead responsibility → 🎵 YouTube Audio Library — royalty-free music for all video content → ✂️ CapCut — free mobile and desktop video editor, best starting point for match reels → 🎬 DaVinci Resolve — free professional-grade video editor for students ready to go deeper →📊 Scouting & Alliance Strategy
Pre-event scouting sheets, match-data tracking, building an alliance pick list, and the alliance selection conversation itself. Intense, season-specific, and small — but it can decide whether the team advances.
Alliance selection in FTC is one of the highest-stakes decisions a team makes all season — and it is made in public, in front of every other team at the event, in a matter of minutes, based on data the scouting team collected throughout the day. Teams that walk into alliance selection with a prepared pick list, clear criteria, and practiced conversation skills make better decisions under pressure. Teams that wing it pick the wrong partner, get picked by the wrong alliance, or — worst of all — get left out because they did not know how to make the case for themselves.
This module is not glamorous. It involves a clipboard, a spreadsheet, and hours of watching matches while everyone else is cheering. But the student who owns it is doing something that directly affects whether the team advances — and demonstrating analytical, organizational, and interpersonal skills that stand out in every context beyond robotics.
Alliance Strategy and Coopertition® Are Not Opposites
In FTC, you compete against the same teams you will later ask to be your alliance partners — and sometimes ally with teams you just defeated. Coopertition® means pursuing your alliance interests intelligently and honestly, not cutthroat. Good scouting teams are known for being straight with other teams about what they saw, because that reputation pays forward when it is time to negotiate.
Gracious Professionalism in the alliance selection conversation means being direct and respectful simultaneously. “We would like to invite Team 12345 as our first pick” is a complete sentence. No trash talk, no manipulation, no last-minute drama. The teams that handle alliance selection with grace are remembered by judges, by other teams, and by the league — sometimes for years.
The Four-Step Learning Sequence
Design the Scouting Sheet and Pre-Event Research System
Before the event, the scouting lead researches every team on the roster: publicly available match footage from earlier events or league meets, Open Alliance build threads, team websites, and social media. The goal is a one-paragraph summary of each team — what their robot does well, what it struggles with, and what alliance value they bring.
The scouting sheet is a paper form (never a phone screen during matches — too easy to miss something) designed to capture the data that matters: autonomous performance, teleop scoring rate by zone, endgame success rate, and any reliability issues observed. Keep it to one side of one page. A scouting sheet that takes more than ninety seconds to fill out per match will not get filled out consistently, and inconsistent data is worse than no data.
Run the Match-Day Scouting Operation
At the event, the scouting lead coordinates one or two scouts — ideally Left Brain students who can read robot performance accurately — who fill out scouting sheets for every qualification match. The scouting lead is not themselves watching every match for data; they are coordinating, collecting sheets, entering data, and watching for patterns that individual scouts might miss.
After every few matches, the scouting lead updates the master data sheet — a simple spreadsheet ranking teams by the metrics that matter most for this season’s game: auto points, teleop consistency, endgame reliability. The ranking is not static. A team that looked strong in matches one and two but broke down in matches five and six should fall on the list. The data tells the story — the scouting lead’s job is to read it in real time.
Build the Alliance Pick List — Before Rankings Are Final
The pick list is not built during alliance selection. It is built before it — during the lunch break or immediately after qualification matches end, before the rankings are posted. The scouting lead convenes the team captain, the drive coach, and any key Left Brain leads for a ten-minute pick list meeting. The question is simple: if we are picking, who do we want and in what order? If we are being picked, who would we accept an invitation from and who would we decline?
Rank every viable partner by alliance value — their capabilities relative to yours, their reliability record at this event, and whether they complement or duplicate what your robot does. A team that scores the same things as you is less valuable than a team that scores the things you cannot. The pick list should have at least five names in priority order before alliance selection begins. Teams that go into selection without a list make emotional decisions under pressure and regret them.
Practice the Alliance Selection Conversation
Alliance selection is public, fast, and awkward for teams that have never done it before. Every team in the building is watching. You have seconds to make your invitation or accept or decline. Practice this conversation before the event — literally rehearse it with a mentor playing the role of another team captain.
If you are inviting: walk to the team, introduce yourself by team number and name, say clearly that you would like to invite them as your alliance partner, and wait for their answer. Do not explain your reasoning at length — selection is not a negotiation. If you are being invited by a team you do not want: “Thank you — we’re going to decline” is a complete and gracious answer. If you are being invited by a team you do want: “Yes, we accept” and shake hands. The whole interaction should take under thirty seconds. Teams that hem and haw, apologize excessively, or try to negotiate mid-selection lose credibility with every team watching.
What to Say — and What Not to Say
Do not say: “So, we were thinking — if you’re available and you don’t have a better offer — we might want to maybe invite you?” That sentence communicates no confidence and invites a counter-negotiation you do not have time for.
Do not say: “Oh wow, really? We’re honored! Yes, definitely, absolutely!” Enthusiasm is fine. Effusiveness burns time and makes the other team wonder if you are actually ready.
Do not say: “We saw your robot break down in matches 7 and 11 and we don’t think you’re reliable enough.” Never explain a decline. The reason does not matter and saying it out loud damages a relationship you will need later in the season or next year.
What a Scouting Sheet Captures
| Field | What to Record | Why It Matters for Alliance Selection |
|---|---|---|
| Team number | Exact number, no abbreviation | Data entry errors here corrupt the entire pick list |
| Auto — did it run? | Yes / No / Partial | Reliable auto is a significant alliance asset in most FTC games |
| Auto — points scored | Approximate point value | Helps rank teams by auto contribution |
| TeleOp — primary scoring action | What the robot consistently does | Identifies what this team brings to an alliance |
| TeleOp — cycle count | Estimated number of complete scoring cycles | Best single predictor of teleop point contribution |
| Endgame | Park / Low hang / High hang / None | Endgame points are often decisive in close matches |
| Reliability | Any breakdown, disconnect, or brownout? | The most important variable — a fast robot that breaks down is a liability |
| Driver skill | 1–5 subjective rating | Two equally capable robots can have very different match performance based on driving |
| Notes | Anything unusual, impressive, or concerning | Context that numbers alone cannot capture — always include at least one note per match |
Scouting & Alliance Strategy Resources:
🤝 What is Coopertition®? — the cultural foundation for how alliance selection should be handled → ⚖️ Judges, Awards & Scoring — how field performance and judged awards interact in the advancement point system → 📍 Meet the AeroCoast League — know the teams you will be scouting and selecting from → 📈 Statbotics — historical FTC team performance data useful for pre-event research →Questions About Either Module?
Both modules are owned by one or two students but supported by the whole team. If you want to take on photography, scouting, or the Compass Award video — reach out early. Both need preparation that starts before competition day.
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