Ok, we have a light sensor that seems to have balanced itself out after 3 minutes after turning the robot on each time. Is it possible for teams to keep thier robot on before a match, or do the refs make you turn off your robot then turn it back on before the match
Unfortunately you cannot leave your robot on for that long before a match. The competition template will time out after 254 seconds (4 min & 14 secs). If you did, you could end up with a robot dead on the field in the middle of a match.
What issue are you having with the light sensor when you say “balanced itself out after 3 minutes”? Keep in mind that the lighting at the various competition venues can be significantly different than what you are building/programming under. Not only lighting intensity but also color.
when using the light sensor (this is with Lego by the way i havent used the vex one yet) i always read the light sensor a few times, made a variable and put the average reading in the variable, then i look for any major changes, the tiles on the FTC arena are grayish so you can make that your ‘default color’ and then from there, white is lighter than grey so if you get a lighter value then your start, then you are most likely detecting the white goals