Tips to make your team a contender?

[Brian Maher]

We've found that while a second robot would be nice, we could do without by making a timeline for build season involving finishing the robot early, and then working hard to achieve that goal. It may not always be possible, but having a working robot done early is great to debug, revise, and practice driving.

With our early-completed robot, we went to practice events during Weeks 5 and 6 of build. Bring able to practice on full and half fields for ~10 hours before bag and tag went a long way. We also taped down field positionings on our build space floor, cleared some space, and the drivers practiced basic maneuvers during the end of build and during out-of-bag time. At our events, we make it a huge priority to get inspected quickly and onto the practice field as much as possible.

You don't need a second robot to train good drivers. You just need to be smart with your Build Season and out-of-bag time. Practice really goes a long way.