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Originally Posted by roberthan
I too, think programer should have a bigger part in FRIST, I think they start by a better RC
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This year FIRST
did provide a better RC. The PICs (while not perfect) are a
huge improvement over the pbasic stamps we've used for the past 4-5 years. If not in programming simplicity (I'm fluent in basic... know peanuts about C), in capability. I'm not a C programmer, but I can certainly appreciate the power of such a language, and the hardware it's now running on for competition. It's the sort of thing that may take a year or so to pick up before one can start to truely take advantage of it, and I feel this is that year. There are teams with a number of members who went into this season with a working ability to read and write in C, and plenty of other teams with not one member who's ever seen C before.
That said, I agree with Joel. The autonomous is just right as it is now for a high school level competition. Basic functionality will get things done in the match (just moving forward while aimed at the 10 point balls), while more advanced programming can accomplish more (knock off 10 point ball, then collect balls, move goal, etc). The more advanced the objective would get, the more it would fall out of reach of more teams. However, I don't see any teams at a distinct disadvantage due to lack of programming ability: the objective was simple enough where a basic program would suffice. I'd fear that should the complexity increase.