NewBie transitioning from FLL: Vex or FTC

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by zaxcd

I have been running an FLL team for the last 7 yrs and looking to transition to either FTC or Vex. I have read the posting on this topic from Jul 2011. I want to find out if 2011 posting is still accurate in 2017.
I live in Illinois and plan to run this program (starting with 8th graders) unaffiliated with any school.


Your guidance is greatly appreciated.

(Full disclosure, upfront: I work for AndyMark, which supplies both FTC field components and a pretty big variety of robot parts designed expressly for FTC.)

Both programs have their pros and cons, but I'll say that a lot has changed for FTC since 2011. Of note:

1) Tetrix remains the most common choice for building systems far as I've seen, but several companies (AndyMark, Matrix, Actobotics, REV, others) have brought FTC-specific parts to market with varying degrees of compatibility to the norms Tetrix created.
2) Most of the motor options (AndyMark's NeveRest, Matrix 12V, REV Hex HD) come with integrated encoders for feedback. The former two also come terminated with PowerPole connectors as used on the legal motor controllers.
3) NXTs and Samanthas are dead. You're now using cheap Android phones as both driver station and robot controller. (This year, vision processing was added to take advantage of the robot controller phones' cameras.)
4) Starting with 2014-2015 (Cascade Effect), official FTC events use fields that are distributed through AndyMark. There's always some variation from field to field, but this removes a lot of it.

I'm sure there are others some will add, but I think there have been a lot of positive changes since 2011.