"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[KenWittlief]

actaully every single FIRST team already has a pratice robot

FIRST started GIVING them to us last year

remember?

the EDU bot?

it runs the same code - you can use victors and spikes with it

you can use the same input sensors

you can work out your auton code on it

its not a question of whether every team can afford to have a pratice bot - its only a matter of how close it is to their real one.

[Roland]

A second robot controller like the EDUrobot is a far cry from a second robot, even for autonomous programming. It may be better than nothing, but for learning how to drive a robot, you need something almost identical to the real thing. This is especially important on our team, where we let anyone who wants to drive drive the robot. The EDUrobot is better than nothing, but it's still not really a practice robot.

[KenWittlief]

I dont mean using the little toy motors and foam wheels - you can use the stock transmissions that FIRST gives you and at least make a frame with drill motor or chalupia motor drivetrain, put the EDU RC on it

it will be more or less the same size as your real bots base frame, it will run approx the same speed, have similar characteristics

and you can put gyros and IR sensors and play with auton mode - at least get it close - better that nothing

then tweak your code to match the motion characteristics of the real bot on pratice days at events.