[cadandcookies]

I think a lot of FTC teams associated with FRC teams act under the unspoken assumption that you build one robot for the season, and this isn't true at all in FTC. What netted the team I mentor last season a fair bit of success was starting off by identifying the simplest thing we could do for the most amount of points-- in our case, moving the tubes up the ramp, and focusing solely on that. It turned out pretty well for us in our first competition too-- we were seeded second all the way up to our last match. After our first tournament, we tore apart the robot and rebuilt something that could score in the medium goals, and did decently at State. We plan to do something similar this year, but faster and better, taking advantage of our experience from the last season.

The general trend in FTC is that the earlier the tournament, the easier the competition is-- both in awards and on the field. If you want to qualify for further events, try to build a simple, effective robot that can win an early event and then learn from what other teams do while you iterate until your state event, provided your region is on the qualifier system.

FTC is a very iteration heavy competition-- in that you're expected to iterate heavily to keep up with the competition.