Switches to control mulitiple programs

[nyindojin]

During last year's competitions, I was able to see that teams were able to create switches for their robot which told the robot what to do based on
their location on the field. Does anyone now how this is done or any clue about it or as to where to get information about such a thing? Is it electrical wiring or programming?

For example press a switch (or flip a switch) "A" (out of three) and the robot does only the things programmed for that switch.

Please note I posted the same question under programming. I do apologize if that was wrong.