I have some really nice code (jpearman did come to my aid a couple of times) for auton, and I have a lot of extra stuff in the code like limiters, drive train orientation shifters, and a “throwing” function (it doesn’t work at all but we can say it does lol). Do you think that things like that can contend for think award? What does it really take to win it? It’s a qualifying award in our state so
1 Like
To get the think award, you’ll need to convince the judges during your interview that you have developed some sort of code that is really useful and/or unique. Remembering that most Judges are not programmers, it will be up to you to show them something unique and innovative, but without going overboard and having the judges think your blowing smoke.
You’ll need to bring up the code at some point during your interview…the Judges won’t typically ask specifically.
8 Likes
Yeah, totally gonna dedicate some time to it. Luckily I know my code very well so that’s good
2 Likes
I believe Programming Skills Challenge is also important for Think Award. From what I understand, Think Award usually goes to the team with the highest programming challenge score (unless you already got another judge award and Think Award will go to the next highest prog skills)
this isn’t necessarily true. It goes to a team with a high programming skills, but has good documentation of code in their notebook and good explanation in interview.
4 Likes
Yeah, (potentially) in the judges’ eyes, who cares if you have a highly inconsistent 200 point prog skills if another team has a highly innovative and consistent 160 point routine.
2 Likes
Tou need not only good code but a good explanation in the journal and good documentTion if the code.
4 Likes
Luckily I have a pretty consistent auton. But the thing about them running down the bracket is VERY good because I have two chances then to qualify for worlds off of code.
1 Like
another thing that helps is that excellence, design, and innovate winners cannot win think
Rather than speculate, let’s look at the Judges guide (https://www.roboticseducation.org/documents/2019/08/judge-guide.pdf/) for the actual criteria of the Think Award. This is from page 17:
So the award doesn’t automatically go to the highest, or even the second highest programming skills. It is a fully judged award, based on the criteria from the Judges guide. But as I pointed out in my first post above, there’s going to need to be something special about your code that will attract the Judges’ attention…beyond just the routing autonomous code, because by the time you get to states/worlds, there’s lots of mundane autonomous code.
11 Likes
We’re not getting any of those lol. We have a very good robot but the build quality is just jank. Our entire lift is on 4 standoffs, our brain is resting on two non attached plates, and we’re just very jank
1 Like
Oh great comments, forgot about those. I have to do that now. I have a reader auton that works, which is why it’s special.
Great! Thanks for the clarification!
add lots of comments to your code… this will help the non coder judges be able to read your program and help the team walk through the program with the judges… our states winner were 3rd in the teamwork auto rankings… but they were able to explain their code very well which got them the award and a trip to worlds.
4 Likes