[EbonySeraphim]

Lead Programmer on team 623 here. I haven't been a big part of the threads in this forum, but I have been watching them pretty closely. I'm not trying to sound arrogant or anything...but[there always is one] I am not seeing too many good questions being asked. I'm hearing all of this stuff about timers over and over. I know what they can be used for, but I really don't think they are a good solution to problems.

I would agree that if you get working dead reckoning code, you can get to the top of the ramp the fastest. The biggest problem is the unpredictability of the match KILLS that completely. If your robot gets hit by your alliance partner's robot on the way up, how does your robot know how much its been knocked off track? It doesn't. How does your robot know what angle it is moving at up the incline? How does the robot even know it's on the incline? How does your robot know in the beginning to turn left or right?(actually there is a simple solution to that one) Basically, I think a lot of effort is being wasted going that path, for something that could fail so easily and badly. Also, there is no garuntee that if your robot reads "this" then "that" is the case. There are many "this"s that will lead you to the same "that" case.

In Computer Science, its good to keep your code and algorithm simple. Usually, if it(the algorithm) is very basic, when you develop it, it will take care of problems that you might not even have considered while making it. If you list all of the specific cases for failure before planning what it should do, you might run yourself into a hole thinking of all of the possibilities and needs to fix it.

Also, if you're wondering why I'm even discussing this. Here in the DC Metro, we have a shipping extension because of snow, and other than that, any team can still change our program before the actual competition.

Please, feel free to argue against me on any of those points. I would love to be convinced of why timers are the most efficient way of solving the problem.