When to make practice bots

[team222badbrad]

Practice makes perfect.

For the last two years which were our first two years building practice robots we built our practice machines before our competition machines. We also made some parts for each machine at the same time which saves time.

This year we used our practice robot (drive train portion only) to make our practice robot for this year.

If needed (assuming you made the parts within the build season per the rules) you can always take the parts off your practice machine if needed and transfer them to your competition machine if some parts don't get made in time or there are problems.

Building the practice machine first allows the programers more time. It also allows most of the bugs to be worked out (mechanical, electrical, etc.) by the time you get to the competition machine.

This year our entire competition machine was assembled in the last week of build season. It was not ideal for us, but building two machines during the build season is no easy feat with a small crew and small machine shop. It was definitely worth the effort to have a practice robot ready to use after bag and tag.