Quote:
Originally Posted by BSV
In my mind, using a fully autonomous robot should require a lot more programming finesse than "driving" a remote controlled one. At least in my field, people who have scientific expertise AND can program (code up and test) scientific ideas) are golden. From a kid's perspective, why learn how to program when you can remote control the whole thing? That's kind of opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
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VEX IQ does integrate autonomous control in the skills challenge portions of a tournament, and as part of the consideration for the overall winner. Qualifying matches are two teams working together to score the most points in a driver control match, and then separately each team gets an equal number of attempts at both a driver skills challenge (teleoperated) and a programming skills challenge (autonomous) as the sole team on the field. The first place team in each skills challenge is awarded at each event, and in my area the programming skills challenge ranking is used to fill in state championship qualifying spots created by teams double qualifying. All three of those elements, plus the project judging and engineering notebook judging are used to determine the excellence award winner at events. The autonomous is much less of a focal point than it is in FLL however.
Last note and then I'll stop thread cluttering for a bit. It occurs to me that much of my stress with FLL is probably a regional issue with time crunch issues. Public schools here aren't allowed to start until after labor day (so as not to inhibit tourism, or something) and qualifying events start the second weekend of November (because they want all FLL done before FRC starts), resulting in only about 9 weeks of meeting time to get everything done before our one and only shot at a qualifying event (each team only gets one event here). Areas that don't have that particular combination of time constraints and single event pressure probably have a much more manageable and valuable FLL option.
Edited to add: I looked it up and Minnesota's FLL State Championship takes place in February (rather than our early December), and now I am a little bit jealous.
Also edited to add: The moral of the story is that overall quality of the competition experience appears to be highly dependent upon regional differences.