Winning is important.
Learning is important.
Inspiring students is important.
Teaching Students is important.
Figuring out how to do all of these at the same time, in my opinion, is the meaning of FIRST. - Justin Montois [more]
The code definitely makes a huge difference. The drive code in that paper ran on 2 of the robots on the winning alliance last year. It helps make a 16 fps robot controllable and fluid.