So my team had a big discussion on weither we should go with the cheater tube method. (Were the tube is already around the goal, but not touching any feild element. And we just drive forward and it drops in the goal). Most of the people on my team think that idea is perfect and a genious idea, considering our team can’t preload now. Well one of our mentors, and a couple of students, think that the cheater tube will put our chances for the excellence award down. Basically meaning that because we are using this cheap method, the judges will not give us any awards, including the worlds excellence award. They believe that judges will hate us for this idea, and they won’t give us any awards. Also a lot of teams have been using this method at other competitions, but our mentor doesn’t want our team to look like the team, “that took the easy way out”. What do you think, do you think that the cheater tube will make our team look bad, or do you think it will help us in autonomous, and potentially help us win worlds? 
What I think that would help you win autonomous is if you can program an autonomous that scores on the other wall goal and not the one above the starting square. This makes you a solid pick because you do not need that far goal
If a judge looks down on you for using a perfectly legal, simple, innovative, and clever strategy, and that decides whether or not you will win an award, those people should not be judges.
So you think is completely fine to use this method, because if we could preload a different way we would, but our claw needs to be open and tilted back for it to fit in the 18". Basically at our last competition in Walnut, we were losing autonomous sometimes, because team would score a cheater-tube, and our autonomous would miss. We didn’t want to be left behind and lose autonomous at worlds… Our plan now is keeping the autonomous that we have, perfecting it and adding a cheater-tube, so that we could score 20 points effectently everytime.
the “cheater tube” has not reduced our excellence award chances as we have won 2 consecutively
I’ve been in youth robotics for seven years, I work for RECF, I’ve mentored some very successful teams, and I’ve done every job there is at a tournament except field reset. I think the easy-auto-tube is brilliant, and am only sorry that I didn’t think of it last year when I first saw the game. I’d go for it.
I think teams really need to stop calling this a “cheater tube”, since it’s a perfectly legal strategy. The judges will not look down upon your team for using this method of scoring.
Thanks for posting, i think this preload is the most efficent way of preloading one tube and scoring it. After getting this information, and knowing that its is perfect fine and cool to do this, I’ll tell my team when we have our next meeting. Thanks for clearifying, after thinking about it, it isn’t cheap, its just the simplist and most efficent way of solving the problem; scoring a preloaded tube. Thanks.
We call it a prescore in our area.
It is a really quick and effective way to get an extra 7 points in autonomous, and it is really similar to the ears in Clean Sweep when teams rush to the wall. However, using that and only driving forward will probably not win any autonomous modes at Worlds. The other team will probably have a prescore, and something to score on the base, or to set themselves up strategically on the field. Really, it’s pretty important to have, but it probably won’t win too many games on its own.
I think we should name it after the first team that used it. There was a posting that it was seen in a Nov 2010 event. Can anyone name the team that used it or post a prior claim to designing it?
I think by using a claw you are “taking the easy way out” i think you should make a robot that first climbs the ladder and then uses a triple jointed arm to collect tubes off of the field and feed them to a shooter that shoots the tubes Frisbee style onto the goals. 
I did it at a competition in my area and people in the stands were saying it was cheating, all of the judges and announcers thought it was a creative way of reading the rules and finding a way to ensure that you score almost every time.
~DK