You could use an electronic spreadsheet instead of a paper one, especially if you want different amounts of certain qualities of teams.
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Can you explain? I’m not quite following your train of thought.
Yes spreadsheets are very handy if you have a laptop (which you should given that you often need to adjust any programming at the competition. ) Also try to get to competitions early as possible that way your team can get set up early and help out the EP’s (event partner’s) with setting up the fields and whatnot. they will really appreciate the help (and gives them a good opinion of your team which can lead to judges or some of the awards if you play your cards right.)
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Should you use spreadsheets to plan out your design?
I mean I suppose you could although your primarily want to plan out your design in your notebook. Notebooks are so underrated but as long as you have the time, document everything that is important that you do or decide with your robot. Also if you are with a group of people assigning roles will help a lot. Perhaps make a google doc and put it up on the projector or write on the marker board of things for each group of people to work on.
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This was more important in TP than in TT, but I would use multipliers to find compatible alliance partners- e.g. stacking would be worth more than shooting to me, as our robot was a shooter.
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is this what the spreadsheet is going to be used for?
You would have pre made questions in the spreadsheet and go up to teams and ask them such as “how high of a stack can you score” or “can you remove and place cubes from towers”
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I do not like this practice at all - what do you do if they did not pass inspection in that configuration?
[sorry to have derailed the thread a little]
Here is tip: run through inspection checklist before going to event and get robot inspected as soon as possible. Then you can go through Skills worry free.
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It depends on the competition - Get inspected as early as you can, then run skills, or run skills, then get inspected. Show up early - whenever they say doors open, show up half an hour before and drink your coffee and eat your breakfast while you wait, that way you can be first in line to get inspected and rush skills.
I have never heard of this practice before but it seems to me that running skills before being inspected would violate the spirit (and arguably the actual wording) of <R2>, in addition to posing the potential problem you describe. At most events in my area it wouldn’t be feasible anyway - the skills refs are usually also inspectors, so skills isn’t usually open until most/all teams have been inspected.
I definitely agree that getting inspected ASAP should be the first priority for all teams at the beginning of an event.
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Might not be a problem for everyone but: Don’t change anything important on you robot or change the program too much too close to major competitions.
Also log stuff in your notebook as it is happening.
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Yes! Also don’t procrastinate with your robot and if you can allow for there to be a daily goal to hit so progress is always being made. Last season our team made the terrible mistake of procrastination before one of our competitions. We were building a dr4b and had it pretty much finished right before we left the day before our comp but come to find out the gear ratio wasn’t strong enough and the build was poor due to rushed time. So that night we got to the hotel we stayed up til 3 AM working on the robot and still wasn’t able to get it to work properly by the competition causing us to remove the lift altogether and do poor. Make your goal for finishing coding and building your robot about a month in advance or at the least 2 weeks. This gives your driver plenty of time to practice driving and the rest of the team little to worry about. You don’t want to have to worry about anything about the robot the night before the competition so you can rest have fun and be mentally prepared for the big day.
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Turning Point my team completey rebuild our robot a week before nationals.
Also to not get this thread off topic:
Keep all you parts as organized as possible. It will help you build without needing to look for stuff constantly and very important if you need to repair something between matches. Also it helps to carry some tools with you at competitions. (To tighten screws and stuff)
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For most of our events - teams are allowed to compete until 12:00 before getting inspected. I think this is because inspection can sometimes take a few hours, and some teams have to compete (be on field), before inspection can be finished, which means that they’ll play a match, and then come back and be inspected.
What happens if someone doesn’t pass inspection.
Also wouldn’t that be against the rules.
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I think most things that wouldn’t pass can easily be spotted by the refs, and the opposing team can ask the refs to go over the robot and make sure it’s in size, etc etc. Otherwise it’ll be removed from the field. I think the goal is to minimize the penalty not just to opposing alliances but also to alliance partners.
For skills, we would have to remove the skills score from the event and that could lead to some bizarre data weirdness… I just would encourage EPs not to allow teams run skills until AFTER they pass inspection. For Qualifying tournaments, the head referee can make judgement calls.
back to topic at hand:
Test your robot before the event, practice with it for a few weeks. Don;t change your robot the week of the event … it might not go well.
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