Hello! So my team just qualified for state (YAY!) and since I am captain of the developmental team at my school, that was the goal but now that it is accomplished… I don’t have the same driving force or purpose because I have made my peace that my team is not going to worlds unless something bizarre happens… Anyone else get this feeling? If so what new goals did you create or what goals would you suggest? I guess there are minor goals like get higher in skills or do well at state but they don’t have the same drive…
Make it better. Drive train programming. >20 pt auton. Velocity control. Drive practice. The thing that I’ve found with robots is that they can always be better (unless they’re not mine. I mean, seriously, @Luke323Z , you guys win. Game over. That’s all, folks.) And pray something bizarre happens. Luck is 90% skill and 10% actual luck. That’s a misquote from someone famous who I can’t remember.
Make a low lift/high lift/full courting/outfielding/whatever else you didn’t/couldn’t accomplish.
All of these are great things that I will try to put on my robot, but they just don’t have the same drive… Does that make sense? I want to stay until midnight working on the robot still but I guess I miss the urgency…
Also, if you really don’t want to continue trying to improve your robot for some reason, you can always try to teach teammates things like programming, designing, building, engineering notebook, etc. (whatever you need to work on). That’s always fun, and you can include it in your engineering notebook at State. That might just help you win an award and qualify for Worlds. Another option is looking at this year’s online challenges, and working on the skills needed for some of those. They tend to be very similar from year to year, so it will help you next year.
There’s the Barrett’s state comp in May. Not nearly as urgent, but it gives you a chance to show off your improvements, and registration is free. I assume you qualified bc you qualified for state.
I have never finished a robot before a competition (wiring at least done at comp, sometimes an entire rebuild) until the last one I went to, and I can tell you, it feels so good to have time to practice.
If you absolutely need the urgency, keep looking forward to the next comp. Build cool drive trains and lifts to practice for next year’s game, if nothing else.
When you say you’ve made peace with not going to worlds - would you go if you qualified? You might have a decent chance if you start now and target a specific qualification track (such as design award or state programming skills) that teams in your state don’t value as highly. If you work hard and seek advice from more experienced teams you have a chance.
Your probability of qualifying for worlds will probably still be low, but not low enough to give up and trying will be good experience. Your goal for next year should be higher than qualifying for states, and you should start building towards that now by making a strong attempt at this year’s states.
This is the competition I was talking about. Free registration, and still 13 spots open. It’s also right after APs, if your school has them, so it’d be a good time for your team to decompress.
I mean, you might have made your peace about going to worlds, but you could always try to show up some of the good AZ teams. Also, I haven’t been in a competition with you since I challenged you, and I’d love to see your field bot.
We have 3 teams going 
We always set a goal for how far we go in a season. As listed below.
Sack Attack: Qualify for Nationals (Reached National QFs)
Toss Up: Reach National SF (Reached National SF)
Skyrise: Reach Worlds (Reached Nationals)
NBN: Reach Worlds (Reached Worlds so far)
I believe that without a goal you can’t reach very far at all. So if we achieve a goal we set a new one. For instance we have made a knew goal this year to reach division SF at worlds.
If I were you I would set a goal to reach some part of the eliminations round at states or a certain level in a skills challenge. With a goal you can put loads of effort in.