[FTC]: What should I know? (going into FTC from FRC)

Other FIRST Tech Challenge
1

Hi!

Last year, I joined the FIRST community in a first year FRC team, and it was exactly what I was searching for. I can only wish that I had found it earlier, but I want to bring the same kind of experience to my school’s FTC team.

I have done a bunch of FRC forum creeping and I think I’m pretty familiar (for a first year at least) with it’s aspects and how it works, but I’m not so familiar with FTC. Since I (think that I) will lead our team this upcoming season, I figured it would be pretty important to get to know FTC as much as I can. I had a few specific questions, but any and all knowledge would be very much welcome!

  1. How often (and at what level of play) will teams set up concrete strategies? In FRC, it became a lot more serious during elims and larger events, but qualifications could be a bit of a tossup (and sometimes people just did whatever they wanted). Is it like that in FTC as well?

  2. Just to make sure: are there any very specific building rules like there are in FRC?

  3. How much do event registrations cost? Also, is there a list of the events on the East coast or something I could look up?

I have more questions, but I’ll post this up now before I leave.

Thanks! ~Hobo

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Strategically, a big difference between FRC and FTC is that FTC only gives you 1 alliance partner while FRC gives you 2. Besides that, things are pretty much the same; you’ll still (hopefully) be meeting with your alliance partners before a match to put a strategy together.

Part 1 of the FTC Game Manual for this season was released recently. “Robot Rules” lists a lot of things you can and can’t use. Was there anything more specific you were thinking of?

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/registration has the registration and costs for this season. And http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-on will show you your nearby events.

Hope this helps!