Improving the experience of programmers and the effectiveness of code

[Jon Stratis]

That's certainly a great goal... but it's difficult to see how everything can be accomplished. On one hand, a team with no programming experience (a rookie team, or a team whose programmers all graduated) is going to have a difficult time just getting things working. On the other, a team with a solid crew of returning members is going to be able to tackle much harder challenges. Any plan you put in place has to take into account your audience - In short, you need to start by defining an end point that is achievable yet challenging for the students, and that end point will be different for every team.

The only thing i can stress from my teams experiences: keep it simple, and start from the basics. Ensure you can drive your robot before you try to make driving more interesting/precise. Make sure you can operate your manipulators with the controller before you try doing it during autonomous. Make sure you have something simple that works OK for autonomous before you try implementing any complicated PID loops.

We've been around for 3 years now... And i can tell you that the rookie teams that win are the teams that keep it simple. Simple autonomous modes work just as well as complex ones, once other robots start bumping into you. Just being able to drive around can get you into a winning alliance.