I am very nervous
 

I am very nervous about the regional in 2 days. We are leaving tomorrow and I have not been this nervous even for a football game. I have code for autonomy that has never been tested and I feel like that there is a 70% chance it will fail (that is what the practice matches are for). How do I combat this nervousness? I always want to make things efficient and concise for my code, but I just slapped this onto the code. That is what scares me.

Anyone on the same boat as me? Really nervous and scared? I think going to a 2nd regional this year just adds to it.

Re: I am very nervous
 

I would say accept the fact that you probably will need to fix your code. At Traverse City I had to change my code a number of times before I got the robot to hang an uber-tube. Even now I have to fix it to make it more consistent before the Week 3 competition. At least you got practice matches though if that will make you feel better. The pit or qualification matches was my time to test.

Re: I am very nervous
 

I know exactly what you are going through. Last year when I was driving in my first competition, I was shaking and very nervous. Every match I had some sort of sensation making me tremble down my legs and I could never overcome that feeling.

This year, I have only gotten that feeling once because I actually thought about me screwing up or making a mistake. The idea is not to think about the mistakes you are going to make but the best possible outcome. For us, that was a Regional Finalist medal around my neck.

The thing is, like in a football, you need to have poise and composure when doing things. I am sure that your autonom code will be perfectly fine and if not, so what. You go back and make sure that it is perfect. You shouldn't have any stress on your shoulders at all. Make sure that you get to the practice field before going to the real field to test your autonom code.

You'll do fine, just remember to think about the future goals.

Re: I am very nervous
 

We didn't even HAVE working autonomous for the Finger Lakes regional until the very end. I wouldn't sweat it. First and second week events are basically practice anyway.

Re: I am very nervous
 

I think you'll find most people are nervous, and that's perfectly fine. In fact I'd be worried if you weren't nervous. You know you're going to have to probably fix something and you're ready to do that, that's much better than going in assuming it's going to work perfectly and being flabbergasted when it takes off across the field and tries to destroy your player station. (Not that I've ever had code do that....)

Once you get in to atmosphere you'll be more excited than nervous.

Matt

Re: I am very nervous
 

Well memories of last year are coming back. We never even scored once in autonomy because one victor was on coast and the other on brake, so one side would speed up before the other. So one time we ended up turning around 180 degrees and running right up the tower. That was when everyone lost trust in me (well at least FELT like everyone)

I guess you can say I have the fear of failure. I felt that I failed to do my part last year. The worse thing is that I was not nervous at all last year. (I was more exited about skipping school than the competition)

Re: I am very nervous
 

You've clearly never seen an angry drive team that just got taken out by flying controls caused by the robot autonomously ramming the player station :). Another year I screwed up some really basic adjustments to the autonomous code and caused the robot to shoot all of its scoring balls at a wall. Another timer the robot deployed a piston 'wing' out it's side then mauled the field barrier, wrecking the piston.

That piston incident was in 2003, the entire team signed it and it's still hanging in 263s workshop :)

Embrace it, you're going to make some of your most memorable mistakes at events, and even though it may not seem like it at the time, you'll learn something new from each one, and you'll just keep improving. Also, you have the benefit of experience this time around.

Matt

Re: I am very nervous
 

Well there's your mistake right there man. You should be extremely excited about the competition and not about just missing school. It should be an exhilarating experience to see something do exactly what you designed it to do all along. If the outcome doesn't turn out that way, you work your butt off to fix it and not accept anything else.

Don't go to a FIRST competition just to miss school dude. You have to be excited about it because if not, then why are you doing it in the first place. What are you gaining from it?

If you haven't already, rethink about what FIRST is and you'll get a better understanding of why being excited about the competition is so important.

Re: I am very nervous
 

I think he no longer feels this way, I believe he simply meant last year he didn't 'get it' and now he does, and that is why he is so nervous.

Matt

Re: I am very nervous
 

Oh, no, it is different this year. Hence that is why I am nervous. I was a rookie last year, I didn't expect much. Now I got a taste of what it is, I want more.

Re: I am very nervous
 

Practice??? A great number of teams can only afford one event. This is it. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours all ride on a few 2 minute moments of time. No Pressure. :yikes:

Then again there is more to this program than wins and loses. There are great students inspired to change the world and gaining the skills to do it behind both winning and losing robots. Your success most likely won't affect someone elses scholarship to college. It is more fun when everything works like it was designed though.

Re: I am very nervous
 

Really? I wouldn't know....
:rolleyes:

I'm sure a lot of people are nervous, personally, I'd be kind of amused to see the kind of trouble my fellow programmers have gotten themselves in to. Is there already a thread for that? I might have to start one if there isn't...

Matt

Re: I am very nervous
 

Honestly, autonomous this year is much more difficult than last year. Plan on never capping. However, what your team need to realize, to compete this year, you need a working autonomous. Look at the finals matches from all events, they are full of robots with working autonomous. I say this, because your team needs to help you reach the goal of autonomous.

Insights I have for you from week 1. If you are running motor speed at a .1 or .2 in autonomous watch out for the batteries. The newer batteries have more power than older one's. This caused me to smash into the driver station in one match. Watch out for the coasting CIMS, if they are geared to high your autonomous will be almost impossible.

Your robot will fail epically at least once in autonomous. Try to do this on thursday, so you can learn from it.

If you have your code, feel free to send it to me mwtidd@gmail.com. I'll take a look over it, and see if there's anything you should be worried about.

If you find that the robot was poorly designed for autonomous. Just scrap the autonomous. I should have done this earlier in the comp and focused on the minibot.

Try to avoid as much blame as you can. If you get a working autonomous you will be a hero, but this is dependent on so many design factors. Its often better to let the robot sit in autonomous, and just work on getting the autonomous working on the practice field. You won't need it til saturday.

At BAE we actually organized the sharing of the practice field... we had anywhere between 2 and 4 teams sharing the space at one time. It worked really well to have 2 or 3 teams debugging their autonomous together. Its also motivating to see other working robots, and other teams having trouble. I have more fun playing in the practice area, than watching the matches :). It is the back room that the real magic happens.

Hope I helped!

Re: I am very nervous
 

This doesn't make sense to me, could you elaborate?

Matt

Re: I am very nervous
 

The drive typically get values from 1 to -1. I was running at a .15 and .25. What I found was that with the older model battery, the robot would hardly be able to move. Where as with the newer one it would cook.
The motor speeds wouldn't change but the power would. Also our cims were geared way up. So the robot didn't have the torque to move at low speeds with an older battery. It seemed the difference between the batteries was enough to give it that extra bit of torque at low speeds.

The result: you set the speeds for the older battery, and then go out with a new battery. The robot would fly into the player station.
you set the speeds for a newer battery, and go out with an older one, it wouldn't make it to target.