What do your programmers do when programming has finished?

[vhcook]

What is this "finished" of which you speak?

There are a lot of things to do even if your robot is out of the competition (and it appears you've qualified for Championships, so there's also anything you need to tweak for that).

• If you aren't using a proper revision control system, this would be a good time to start.

• Learn how to use new sensors (ultrasonics, encoders, vision, infrared, something else).

• Develop niftier autonomous modes.

• Improve your ability with more advanced programming techniques. (Look for papers in CDMedia by Chris Hibner for some good examples.)

• Code an electronic scouting system.

• Write an app to use in outreach.

• Write an app to download information from the FMS twitter feed and do something useful (or just interesting) with it.

• Develop an electronic inventory system for your team's workshop that you can use to keep track of when you're out of a part and automate your bill of materials for next year. (Possibly a bit of a stretch.)

• Learn a little more about electrical or mechanical (as applicable). This can prove useful when you need to figure out how to control a mechanism they're making.

Use your imagination. There's an infinite amount of work available if you just look for something.