[FTC]: FVC (Vex) VS. FTC (Tetrix)

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup

So we can expect this season's FTC competitions to be smooth and relatively free of delays? The 2 hour delay at the beginning of the Chicago event, the 10+ minute match cycle, and the insistence by the FIRST staff (Ken & James) at the event that the field & controls problems were the teams' fault turned me off of FTC forever. FIRST replaced a solid product with a half-baked solution before it was ready and the teams suffered because of that decision.

To be completely fair, I experienced similar headaches with FTC (Vex) in 2008 in Atlanta. Repeated interference happened for Thursday matches (at one point, the drive team turned off the controllers and held them autonomous style, and the robot continued to drive), that was repeatedly blamed on our antenna placement, later discovered to be a field fault.

The point of the above isn't to complain about the past or anything, but "issues with the control system" is a fairly common robotics problem. It's not pleasant (and at the time, I was very, very upset, as I'd just spent a month raising the money to compete at the event), but it's sadly not unusual, in my experience. Whether or not this is something one SHOULD expect from events... probably not...