Excited to announce that Gateway High School in Monroeville, PA will be doing FTC this season. We’ve just registered as of today!
As coach, I have four seasons of FRC experience, with our 5th on the way for 2012. I’m look for some tips, resources, and best practices for a successful rookie campaign.
The kids are excited and ready to learn! I’m ready for a new challenge!
This is our rookie year too after 3 successful years of FLL
In FTC/VRC you generally get more than one roll of the figurative dice.
If you budget your time well, you will have many opportunities (before any tournaments, and between them) to iteratively improve your robot. On the surface that is obvious, but (proper) FRC habits might cause you to underestimate just how big the difference is between the FRC and FTC/VRC timelines.
I always recommend initially building something simple that consistently does exactly what it is supposed to do; and then improving it over time using experience as your guide (instead of using hunches).
Try-before-buy, KISS, and practice/practice/practice will take you far in FTC (and VRC).
Blake
Being a founding member of my FTC team and going into my 3rd season, I wish you the best of luck! As already stated, remember to KISS, Keep it Simple Stupid/Silly (whatever you like better).
How many members are on the team?
Find a team in your area or keep in contact with a team over email. The only way to learn from mistakes is either to make them yourself or have someone else make them for you. If you talk with a team, they can help you with all the really stupid mistakes (like forgetting to power on the robot before matches) and how they fixed them.
If you don’t know a team, get this book instead from our buddies at Pope John Robotics. Actually, get it regardless.
@gblake: Thanks for the tips. We’ll do our best to use our time wisely!
@jasonbrooks: More than they recommend. We have roughly 14 right now. We’ll see if they all stick with it and can follow the rules to attend competition.
@normalmutant: I’ll have to check out the FTC website and see what teams are in our area. Thanks for the tip. I checked out the book on Amazon. Looks amazing. We’ll definitely grab a copy or two at that price.