When to make practice bots

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by team222badbrad

Practice makes perfect.

Originally Posted by Dale

We use our practice robot as a way to get all the kinks worked out of our design.

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

we will have the practice bot always be one stage ahead of the competition bot, so we can correct for error if we need to

No need for me to write anything, it's all been said already.

No matter what you're building, the second one always comes out better.
Once the drive base team has finished the "first" bot, they start immediately on the second (competition) bot, because otherwise their build season is done. Same with all the teams that follow - manipulator(s), electrical, pneumatic.

We'll even go back to the prototype but and retrofit it to be identical in function (but not necessarily as pretty) so the programmers use the exact same code on both.

That's how our drive team gets in so much practice time.