< opens the envelope >
Good teams will score 50-55 points in the PSC.
Winning teams will score 80.
Carnac has spoken.
(obCarnac: Carnac the Magnificent - Wikipedia)
Wow!
I am assuming (yes I know what that means), that teams will be concentrating on the 5 point medium balls to try and get to the “80” point range.
Looks by the layout, that a good line following robot should be able to complete this.
I guess we should start looking at this year’s game.
Oh yea, we don’t have a team yet, maybe in September… 
There are 9 footballs which can be scored in programming by just running past with an angled plate so…45 points relatively easily. Of course, after that, it takes a robot that can do more than drive with a plate reliably…
Sure. Give all the secrets away in May…
45 for the mediums on the wall
8 for the smalls in the slot
34 if you have time to pick up all the small on the walls and get them through the slots or over the wall.
(For programming, I’d rather ignore the mediums as they strike me as having a tendency to roll.)
I don’t think it’s a programming problem. I think it’s a speed and capacity problem. The limit is how many balls can you deliver quickly. Writing a routine that will score 87 points doesn’t seem like the issue. Getting the robot to complete that routine in the time limit seems harder.
Edit: I forgot the preloaded and postloaded balls so I think that’s:
5: preloaded medium ball.
2: preloaded small ball.
10: postloaded large ball.
And just to clarify in response to the post below me, since I’m editing, since the small balls are against the wall, I’m not as worried about them rolling away as I am about the medium ones in the center of the field.
I’d think that ignoring the smalls would be a much more effective strategy, ssuming you have some kind of a roll-proof pickup system. There’s 20 medium balls available to be played (9 on wall, 2 rows of 5, 1 preloaded) for a max of 100 points from them alone. There’s a total of 46 small balls, and at most 5 can be locked into each goal, so that’s 10 “extra” points - making 56. Plus the large ball.
I agree on the speed and capacity point though. But they don’t call it a Programming Skills Challenge for nothing.