Programming awards?
 

can anyone tell me why there are no awards for programming? i know our team spent hours and hours programming the Camera, which we didnt even use...

also Autonomous modes.....

many robots dont even have an autonomous mode... and those that do dont usualy work that well..

Re: Programming awards?
 

There is one, it's called the Radio Shack Innovation in Control award (though this has to do with your control system as well as the programming you employed with sensors).

And prior to this year very few teams have done anything in autonomous other than sit there. With the amount of teams completing tasks in autonomous mode this year maybe FIRST will make an award for the "best autonomous design" or something like that.

Re: Programming awards?
 

Delphi "Driving Tommorow's Technology" Award

its given for innovative programing electrical or mechanical systems

Re: Programming awards?
 

My team won the Delphi award this year :D. T'was more because of our simplistic design when it came to the shooter. We used a bicycle tired, with bicycle sprockets, basically the back-end of a standard bicycle.

Re: Programming awards?
 

Both of the above awards can be awarded for programming. Part of what makes it hard for judges to decide these awards is the difficulty non-programmers have in understanding what's unique or exceptional about a specific program. I'm not saying the judges have difficulty, I'm saying the programmers have an uphill battle explaining their innovation to team members who likely will be talking to the judges. Programmers themselves may also have difficulty recognizing what's unique about what they did or explaining it themselves.

In order to get one of these awards, much of the challenge is the description of the design. I'd like teams who do this well explain what materials or techniques they use to do this communication.