Any ideas? Our team was thinking of some entries on the flight back:
mini foam frisbees
simplistic hoarding game
shooting and catching
jumping robots
climbing robots
crane robots
FLYING ROBOTS. (only accomplished using vex, sadly.)
resurrect maize craze!
What!?! I haven’t heard about this yet… 
Do you think they’d respond harshly if many people sent “Vex Robotics Competition” to [email protected]?
I was thinking more along the lines of:
FTC Parity Representation
400 Team Championship
We are on pace to catch FRC either in 2013 or 2014 for number of teams in the program. In reality, we may already have more teams since they don’t all the teams from: Russia, China, India, Austrailia, Romania, South Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan. Not sure if they list all the teams from Mexico and the Netherlands.
If we don’t speak up now, we might get relegated to representation equal to FLL next championship. We got a 0% increase at the 2012 Championship after increasing the program by 25%! In contrast, FRC increased their program by 13% and got a 14+% increase at the Championship.
Ridiculous Endgame Futility.
Sure, one of my organization’s teams won FTC champs. Yet any game where the ingenuity of doing anything prior to endgame is totally nullified by the endgame itself is pretty disenfranchising. One of the bots at worlds deployed a friggin minibot when it had the magnet ball (an innovative answer to the hardest problem on the FTC field) – only to be trumped by a 12’ lift since it was so undervalued.
^ Yep. End game became a lot bigger deal than anticipated by the GDC. I’m glad for it, but it does leave teams that concentrated on other ways to score lacking. This also happened last year where many matches were decided based on balancing and not scoring batons like the robots were actually designed for. If it’s all based on driving like last year, it’s no fun, but if it’s all based on design like this year, rookie teams with smaller budgets are left in the dust. You’ve got to find a balance - Hot Shot had this.
p.s. The minibot team was recognized - they won the innovate award at worlds. But you’re right, the points should be weighted more evenly.
Looks like you won’t have to: Matrix robotics system
I don’t understand the connection . . .
I believe he is referring to the similarities between the newly announced Matrix platform and the Vex platform. See this thead for more details.
We were talking about trying to make a flying robot earlier this year, we started making prototypes but it seemed like the gears would make it to heavy because we would need to gear up the motors like crazy. It would be more like a helicopter, and if we used the light weight plastic gears then I think it would have better luck.
WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT THIS!?
Seriously. Is Flying robots like the “water game” FRC for FTC?
- Andrew
Why not just buy a quadcopter. Maybe this is some market research for aerial robot kits to design and sell lightweight carbon fiber componanets and drivertrains for build your own quad/hex/octo copter sets…
Yep. Sorry for the ambiguity.
Huh. I thought it was just our team. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible with both tetrix and vex. I was just making a stupid joke. 
What would you think of using bean bags as the game object? Two years ago our coach thought this was the challenge.
You guys are forgetting, or may be unaware, that we already have that.
http://collegiateaerialrobotics.org/home
Advance more teams!
128 NOT ENOUGH
FTC overtaking FRC
Encourage US Open
More autonomous please
make endgame count
reward advanced programming
simplify ranking structure
YES. To me, autonomous is very undervalued in FTC, even though the whole premise of real (professional) robotics is to create a robot that can move autonomously with sensors and complex programming.
Heck, the definition of a robot even specifies that it moves “automatically.”
Our team liked FLL because programming and sensors could actually get you points. It seems in FTC it’s all about building a reliable mechanism and being a good driver.
odd field shape
Just get their imagination to think outside the box.
Ken’s blog has a quad copter of LEGO, Tetrix, & lightweight motors and props.
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