Will we be able to recompile code/tweak code between rounds of the competition? (practice vs competition rounds, etc? )
Between matches, even. The only rules on work at competitions are that you have to work on-site or at a facility that all teams can use while the pit is open. No removing parts overnight. See <R27>. (There are some other rules as well, governing what type of work you can do/tools you can use–see Section 3. Last I checked, programming doesn’t violate any of those, though.)
Yes, you can. However, I would recommend against it unless absolutely necessary because our team has had some troubles in the past with code downloads at the last minute.
Be sure you test your new code on your robot before you decide to go with it in competition. I’ve seen robots do things that no one expected. Sometimes the surprises weren’t good.
I can vouch for that.
I’ve had autonomous modes that spun in circles, went backwards into the drivers wall, or ran full speed into the far drivers wall. The refs really didn’t like that last one…
Usually we don’t get a decent autonomous until post-season. And at mission mayhem our wires got crossed and we controlled pink’s roccobot. At the end of autonomous pink was at next to a rack at we hadn’t moved because something went wrong with our autonomous. So we start going forward and lifting our arm. That lifted their arm while going full speed ahead. So they get caught. When trying to release themselves they were going in reverse and so our robot was slamming against the alliance station wall. We were going forward almost flipping them. So we cut off and they got controll of their robot. Surprisingly we won that match because pink hurdled about 5 times after that.
p.s. We usually don’t get completedly programmed until the competition.