IFI vs FTC? Both offering competitions for next year!

[Gdeaver]

Change - people hate change. There is going to be allot of change this year. I would encourage teams that are going to do a vex/FTC type competition next year to sit back and soak in the info coming from IFI and First. There is not enough info yet that has been officially released to make a decision which platform is the best fit for you team situation. The reality is it well maybe into July before a rational decision can be made. Emotional feel good decisions tend to be mistakes. To get started, one can start to look at the hardware and software platform. You can go to the Lego mine storm web site and look at the hardware specs for the NTX. The Vex hardware is well documented. You can look at the primers on the NI lab view style programing.
RobotC is available for both platforms. One could start to evaluate the differences. There is a fundamental difference between the 2 hardware platforms. NTX is more based upon the control of intelligent sensors and actuators. Vex is based upon the classical micro controller low level control of raw sensors and non intelligent actuators. The Vex platform may be a little easier to master at first but the NTX may be much more extensible. What kind of students do you have. Have they mastered vex and what something more to chew on? Then NXT may be better. Has it been a challenge just getting them up to speed on the Vex then stay with vex. Each teams resources and abilily needs to be evaluated and the choice made.