[riptide]

Programmers in this competition are not real programmers in its true form. I would consider them electrical engineers as they are typically responsible for developing/interfacing the software and control systems to the hardware, which is typically built by the rest of the team. They are really the most critical member of the team. Without them the hunk of metal and plastic does nothing.

Like the real world, this person (usually only one) has the least amount of time to do their job because the hardware team went way over schedule to do the build.

Some helpful hints to keep the electrical engineer happy:
1. Don't ask the electrical engineer while they are programing DID YOU GET IT WORKING yet. It gets real frustrating after you get that question every two minutes from every team member. You will know it is working when you see it working.

2. Don't ask what are you doing when it looks like we are doing nothing. More than likely we are compiling or downloading the program to the robot. Or we are in deep logical thought on the best way to program and one question might just ruin that thought.

3. Don't take the robot from us while we are programming to make a tweak say it will only take two minutes, keep it for three hours, then ask us at the end of the day why it wasn't done.

4. If you want to learn how to program don't ask for someone to teach you in week 6 of the build.

5. Don't blame the electrical engineer/programmer for all the robot's issue. Just remember when you are pointing the finger you have three more pointing back at you. From my experience that is about the correct ratio of blame. Typically we only get 20% of the time to do 80% of the work. We get blamed for 80% of the problems when only about 20% of them are the programmers fault. Good old 80/20 rule.

Kidding aside,

If you are one of the electrical engineers, find a way to program and test without the hardware. If you don't have a spare robot the best method is to do a bench setup. Find a large table, get all the electrical components, tape them down and wire them up. For this setup use the smaller motors and attach a tape flag to the shaft so you can visually see the direction they are turning. Start programing.

Good Luck.