[FTC]: Getting started in FTC

[Nemo]

What area is your team in? As noted above, the best option would be to borrow some stuff from a veteran team.

It definitely gets you a nice discount to wait until our team is registered.

If you did want to get started early, you could get just a Mindstorms kit. Having two of those is nice, because it lets your programmers mess with that while the brick is tied up on the robot. FYI, after next year FTC will switch over to the new EV3 brick (though NXT will presumably remain legal), so there's a disadvantage to putting resources into an extra NXT Mindstorms kit.

[IDidAScience]

I appreciate the great suggestions, folks.

Yes, we have some NXTs, and even have the FLL bot still intact (the suggestion I made to take it apart was met with much resistance, LOL - they get very attached to the robot), so the RobotC suggestion is something we can do. I didn't realize that registration is just around the corner, so we can wait and see what happens with that, and if the grant funds will be available again this year that will help

I'll also check with an FRC team I know, and the local FTC partner, as suggested in a PM, so between those things perhaps we can build a drive train and at least practice some basics over the summer.

[CENTURION]

If you want to do a little more learning, and have the ability, maybe try not just building a drive base, but build a robot that can play last seasons game?

Your local FTC team probably still has the game elements for testing.

[Andrew Rudolph]

Another learning tool that is out there from RobotC is the Robot Virtual Worlds. They have the current FTC game in there for you to program a bot and play the game virtually.
http://www.robotc.net/download/rvw/

I also HIGHLY recommend reading this book from cover to cover (over and over):
http://www.amazon.com/FTC-Robotics-T...5469901&sr=1-1

[IDidAScience]

Originally Posted by Andrew Rudolph

Another learning tool that is out there from RobotC is the Robot Virtual Worlds. They have the current FTC game in there for you to program a bot and play the game virtually.
http://www.robotc.net/download/rvw/

I also HIGHLY recommend reading this book from cover to cover (over and over):
http://www.amazon.com/FTC-Robotics-T...5469901&sr=1-1

Thanks, great tips. I hadn't seen the robot simulator.

We may to build a robot for last years game, too, if we can get the parts.